is a Dream in thy sleep a â—delusive a defiling a melancholy Dream where false and filthy showes of Pleasures are mingled with tumultuous disquiets confusions torments fears and Horrours This Sleep is the Sleep of Death not a Natural and momentany Death which is a meer cessation of Life with a rest from all its troubles but a living Death the second Death a Hellish Death the Death of damned Spâ—rits Thus are Sleep and Death joyned here Awake thou that sleepest and stand up from the Dead This Sleep is a true Death and this Death is truely a Sleep a living Death or an unquiet Sleep full of evil Dreams 2. The second thing is the Awakening The Awakening out of this Sleep is also a Resurrection from the Dead Awake thou that sleepest and stand up from the Dead This is the Regeneration or new Birth by which the soul is raised up from the Sleep and Death of Sin into the Light of Life and Immortality 3. The third thing is the cause of this Awakening And Christ shall give thee Light And here signifies as much as For by a common Hebraism Thus you are to read it Awake thou that sleepest and stand up from the Dead for Christ shall give thee Light This will be plain if you look to that Scripture from which this is taken Isaia 60. 1. v. Arise shâ—ne for thy Light is come and the Glory of the Lord is risen upon thee St. Paul applies this to the Lord Jesus and a Sinner in the work of Conversion or Regeneration Poor Sinner thou sleepest in a dark and miry Dungeon of Sensuality Lust Passion Ignorance Unbelief Despair like Peter sleeping in Prison bound with two Souldiers on each side him so thou sleepest in the dark Prison of the flesh and this World in the midst of Devils with whom thou art chained and bound Thou liest dead in this dead Image of things as in a Grave of Corruption and Rottenness Behold the Lord Jesus full of the Beauties of Holiness full of the unsearchable Riches of Divine Love shineth upon thee with a Light of Glory He who is the Light and Glory of God of Heaven of Eternity as he shineth upon thee giveth thee Light infuseth this Light of Glory into thee by giving himself to thee by infusing himself into thee by springing up himself within thee as he shineth from without upon thee Thus he awakens thee Thus awakened stand up from the Dead For Christ giveth thee Light The work of Regeneration which is a true Resurrection from Death to Life will be more clearly understood by considering it in these four Circumstances 1. The Life which is raised again 2. The Death out of which this Life is raised 3. The Resurrection itself 4. The way of this Resurrection 1. The life which is raised again is twofold 1. One Life is that of Paradise at the beginning of Time We had an earthly head in Paradise in whom we all stood and subsisted together in the Garden of Eden or of Divine Pleasures There we were clothed with a Divine Image and enjoyed a Divine Life We were made in the similitude of God and lived a life like to that of God himself St. Paul speaks of this Life Rom. 7. 9. v. For I was alive without the Law once I know that this Scripture is generally applied to the convincing and the condemning Power of the Law So St. Paul is understood here to speak of that Life of Pleasure and satisfaction to his own deceived mind and senses which he enjoyed in sin before he felt the work of the Law upon his Heart convincing him of the Evil of Sin But whoever well considers this Scripture will very plainly see that it cannot bear this sense For 1. The scope of this place is to shew that which is expressed at the 5th Verse That the Motions of Sin are by the Law which work in our Members to bring forth fruit unto Death 2. The objection which is made at the 7th verse what shall we say then is the Law sin can have no ground in any other sense than this that Sin itself takes life from the Law 3. St. Paul expresly proceeds in his reasoning by these steps verse 8th 9th Sin taking occasion by the Commandment wrought in me all manner of concupiscence He proves that by this Argument for without the Law sin was dead The force of the connection makes it clear that the death of sin here meant is not the death in Sin with stupidity and security but a Life free from the power and pollution of Sin This is explained and illustrated by another Argument For I was alive without the Law once While all things stood in the sâ—â—plicity and unity of the Divine Image undivided the Light and the Darkness no where appearing as two but as one in one Divine Spirit in one Divine Harmony There was nothing from which sin could take life Now St. Paul lived now as he so we lived and all Mankind according to our several properties and distinct Persons in Paradise together with Adam in Adam who was the Earthly Head and collective Body of us all like Christ in Heaven 2. The other Life which is raised again in the Regeneration is the Life of Heaven in Eternity Before and above our Earthly Head we had a Head in Heaven in Eternity the Lord Jesus in whose Image and Similitude Adam was Created to be a Figure of him In this heavenly and eternal Head had we a Heavenly and Eternal Life Our Heavenly Life in Eternity is as the Light Our Earthly Life in Paradise as the Shadow to this Light O thou who art now as a Dunghil covered with and composed of the most loathsom pollutions and defilements of Sin who art withered in all thy Beauties Hopes and Comforts who art sunk deepest into despair who art now no more a Man but a Worm the worst of Worms the seed of the Serpent See from whence thou art fallen what once thou wert what Lives what Joys what Glories lie buried in thee Thou wert once a beautiful Prince like the Morning Star Thou wert once the Perfection of Beauty and Pleasantness in the Figure in Paradise in Adam Thou wert once the Perfection of Beauty in the Life itself in Heaven in Eternity in the Lord Jesus Whither are these Beauties now fled How do these Beautiful Lives now lie as in the Grave covered with the Darkness of Death The Psalmist saith to the Lord That the Saints pity the Dust of Sion and take Pleasure in the Stones thereof O all you who hear and read this In your selves in each other see pity take Pleasure in the Ruins of the Divine Life of the Divine Image of Paradise of Heaven with all their Beauties Joys and Glories See the Lord Jesus from Heaven looking upon them with an eye of pity and delight Let this be a Beam of hope to you shining from his face into the midst of the Darkness of your Guilt Defilements
fitted and filled up only with the Truth of that Type those Three ever-blessed Persons as their Seal in the noblest mettal next themselves it contains more expresly more at large and more gloriously all those Figures and Draughts of Divinity which are imprinted upon the Face of any Creature O the inestimable Treasures of Mans Natural Heart if Sin change it not from a Palace of Angels to a Prison of Devils or a Grave 2. There is a Spiritual Heart 1 Corin. 6. 16. He that is joyned to the Lord is one Spirit Mark the Absoluteness and Universality of the expression one Spirit He who is joyned to the Lord Jesus by believing is one Spirit with Christ one Spirit in Christ one Spirit as Christ is one Galat 3. 19 20. St. Paul thus distinguisheth between the Law and the Gospel The Law was ordained by Angels in the hand of a Mediator Now a Mediator is not a Mediator of one but God is one There is a Twofold Mediator one who hath his Ground in the Distance and his End to maintain the Distance between Two Parties The other is founded in an Unity and his work is to manifest and make perfect this Unity The Character of the Law is Duality and Division God and the Creature are presented each to other as two upon different Principles treating on a Covenant of works containing different Terms to be performed by each apart In the Gospel God reveals himself as he is One as he is the Ground the Object the End of all his affections and operations as he comprehends himself and the Creature in one Person and in one Spirit in our Lord Jesus as he loves the Creature with the same love with which he loves himself and beholds it in the same Glory with which he beholds himself in Christ. This is the Covenant of Grace in which the Lover and the Beloved are both One You may now ask me two Questions Q. 1. How God is One Q. 2. How a Believer is one Spirit Q. 1. How is God One An. God is one four wayes 1. He is perfect He comprehends all parts of Excellency in every kind and degree Essentially in one supream and undivided Point of Being within himself He is to himself the Eye the Light and the Object the Love the Loveliness the Joy and Fruit of both all in One. The most curious Composition of all Sweets in one Ointment or Perfume The most natural extraction of the vertues of all herbs and flowers into one Sweetness in Hony falls infinitely short of the Unity of all Perfections here and the Perfection of this Unity 2. God is Pure There is no mixture in him As they say of Gold the purest Mettal It is plenum sui full of itself so is God in the highest sense Every grain of pure Gold is Gold Every thing in God is God There is no mixture Division Allay or Bound The Divine Nature is endlesly compleat and entire within itself like a Sea of unshaded Light which hath no shore or Bottom God is Light and in him is no darkness 2 John 1. 5. 3. God is unchangeable He is the Rock unmoveable He is the Rock of ages All successions of Time like Waters of a River pass by him and behold him through all revolutions fixt in the same place and State He is the Rock of Eternity As Wheels turning round in a Cave within a great Rock So all the Times and Changes of this World are comprehended within the Unchangeableness and Eternity of his Essence 4. God is the Fountain He is not a Broken Barren but a perfect and pregnant Unity Rom. 9. 36. Of him and Through him and To Him are all things to whom be Glory for ever As all numbers are a Unity multiplied so are all things various Sparklings of this Divine Unity Emanations and Manifestations of the same God presenting himself to us at sundry times and in divers manners Love is defined to be Partus in pulchro a Birth in a Beauty This is the true nature of things that Divine Love which is the Birth of all Varieties of and in this Beautiful this Blessed Unity 2. Q. How is a Believer one Spirit 1. That One Eternal Spirit brings forth the Spirit of a Saint as his own immediate proper and Peculiar Birth as the dear Reflection of himself A Saint is the Workmanship of Jesus Christ not as a Picture is of a Painter but as a Child is of the Father one Spirit one Life one Divine Nature is in Both. 2. This one Spirit begets and brings forth the Spirit of a Saint in his own likeness Rom. 8. 29. God hath predestinated us to be conformed to the Image of his Son that is to his heavenly Image as he is the quickning Spirit 1 Cor. 15. 45 49. The Lord Jesus is our Father the Father of the new World the New Birth in us as he is the Heavenly one that Spirit which is the supream Unity the Lord and Fountain of Life and Spirits So he brings us forth in the Image of the same Heavenly Form and of the same Divine Unity Thus he prays to his Father John 17. 22. The Glory which thou gavest to me I have given to them that they may be One as we are One. Behold the Divine Birth of a Saint the Divine Likeness into which he is born and the Divine Unity the Ground and Form of the Divine Birth and Likeness 3. The Eternal Spirit unites itself to the Spirit of a Believer thus regenerated in the most Intimate Entire and Inseparable manner They mutually inhabit fully possess perfectly enjoy each other In life and death time and eternity they are undivided Thus this Heavenly Adam the Unity and Fountain of Spirits casts himself into the sleep of Humane Life and of Death that he may bring forth from his Side and his Bosom this Sister-Spirit this true Eve the Mother of all Living of all Heavenly and Spiritual Lives as he is the Father Then when he awakens in the Resurrection from the Dead he takes her to be his Spouse as she is his Sister in the Fellowship of the Divine Unity which is the glorious Ring and Circle of all Relations So she who is Spirit of his Spirit in the likeness of the same Spirit is made one Spirit with him Thus you have an Answer to these two Questions You see how God is One How he that is joyned to the Lord is one Spirit O that men knew God unvailed revealed in the Light and Grace of the Gospel as he is One O that they they did rellish the Sweetness of this Unity of the Spirit which is the height of all Relations by which God is one to a Believer in all times and things one in him one with him by which he also is one to in and with God! This sight and sense would make us to be continually in Pangs of longings to be regenerated and brought forth into this Spirit and Unity as Jesus Christ is
O glorious Victory O Saints more than Conquerours in the Resurrection of your Saviour The World is faln before you it is no more The old things of Vanity Darkness Sin Sorrow Death are passed away in His Death Thus you are conquerours But in His Resurrection the World is raised again in a Form of Eternal Love and Glory for you All things are come again and are made New All things appear again the second time Immortal Spirits shining in the Loveliness burning in the Love of the God-Head for you opening all things past present and to come in themselves as Beautiful and Sacred Mysteries of Divine Love to you which ever is Delighting it self in You sporting with you preparing Joys Glories for you Thus you are more than Conquerous through Him who hath loved You. Live then in Him Joyfully gloriously Triumphantly I have done with the first Part of my last Use the Sweeâ—ning and Sanctifying Life in this World 2. Part. To sweeten and sanctifie Death by the Knowledge of Christ in Glory I shall lay down three Principles to this End 1. Principle Every Saint standeth â—compleat in Glory in the Glorified Person of Christ above even while he is living or dying here below Ye are compleat in Him who is the Head of all Principality and Power Col. 2. 10. In the verse before the Lord Jesus was described as in Him dwelleth all the Fulness or Compleatness of the God-Head bodily v. 9. Then this is added And in Him ye are compleat or full who is the Head of all Principality and Power A Believer is compleat in his Saviour as He hath the Compleatness of the God-Head in him and the Compleatness of all the Angels beneath him His Life then and His Death as they stand in Jesus Christ are more than Angelical They are Divine I shall endeavour to set in lively Figures before your Eyes the Beauty and Sweetness in the Death of a Saint by four Scriptures 1. Script And hath raised us up together and made us sit together in Heavenly places in Christ Jesus Eph. 2. v. 6. What is to be understood by together is plain in the verse before hath quickned us together with Christ It is God who doth all this as is seen v. 4. God who is rich in mercy for his great love wherewith he hath loved us Four Positions lye clear in this Scripture 1. Pos. A Believer is risen from the Dead He dieth no more He is passed from Death to Life As Abraham is said to have received Isaac from the Dead in a Figure So the Beloved of the Lord dâ—eth onely in a Figure Death is to him a Divine Figure standing in the Resurrection from the Dead His Death is a Flower of Life and Immortality growing up in the Paradise of God which is the Glorified Person of Jesus It beareth indeed the Figure of Death but is full of a Sweetness and Beauty which can never fade or dye Let us all labour for our part in the New Birth This is a Resurrection from the Dead All things after it are Life Pure Life without any mixture of Death Perpetual Life Endless Life without any Sting of Death in the tail of it 2. Pos. A Believer is already sâ—t down in Heavenly places nay more than Heavenly The Word Heavenly is by some translated and so it properly signifieth Supercoelestial more than Heavenly places above the Heavens Here a Saint is made to sit down He is fixed and established He is at rest at home at the end of all his journeyings and changes He is set as a Bride at the Marriage-feast He is set as a Prince upon the Throne of his Kingdom Thus God giveth His Beloved Sleep Rest a Feast a Throne in Death Jesus Christ in Glory is this Sleep this Rest this Feast this Throne which endureth for ever and ever O Christian rejoyce and glory in Death for the Hope of the Joy and Glory of thy Bridegroom there Thy Death hath nothing of Dust or Darkness in it It is a Heavenly Thing nay more than Heavenly It is something Supercoelestial It is a soft Strain and ravishing Touch in the Musick of the Divine and Eternal Rest. It is a savoury Dish such as thy soul loveth at the Feast in the Kingdom of God Solomon had a throne of Gold On the Steps which were the Ascents to the Throne on each side were Lyons of pure Gold Thy Death O Saint is now no more a fierce and devouring Lyon to affright thee It is the figure of a Lyon in Gold in one Glory It is not onely an Ascent to thy Throne O Jedidiah Beloved of the Lord It is One Piece of Eternal Glory with thy Throne It is an Ornament an Embâ—â—llishment of Glory to thy Throne How good is it for those who are born of God to keep themselves pure that they may alwaies see God that they may see all things to them Divine Objects in a Divine Light sparkling Jewels of Divine Love We are ever in the midst of these things which are more than Heavenly in the midst of these Supercoelestials even in the arms of Death While we keep our selves unspotted from this world we see these Supercoelestials and Death itself in the number of them But every sin casteth a mist upon them and covereth us with a Cloud that we see them no more Now the Visions of our Joy and Glory of Light and Truth are hid from our Eyes Now fear and trembling are upon 〈◊〉 Life is full of Trouble and Death full of Terrour 3. Pos. A Saint is set down in Heavenly places together with Jesus Christ. The sweetning and the heightning of all the Joys and Glories of the Gospel is the Union with thy Beloved Bridegroom The work of Grace is a Birth a Resurrection a Marriage all in one The Death of a Saint is an Act of Spiritual Communion between Christ and the Soul a Marriage-Joy The Lord Jesus presenteth himself to the Believer in the Form of Death as in a Heavenly a Supercoelâ—stial Beauty At this sight the Saint is immediately transformed into the same Image Jesus Christ springeth up into the Believer a Believer springeth up into his Beloved in this Heavenly Form So both are made one in it Thus Death becometh a Love-play between Christ and his Spouse He by a Spiritual Kiss breatheth forth his Spirit of Divine Loves Immortality and Invisible Glories into the Spouse The Spouse ravished sorth from her self again in the same moment breatheth forth her Spirit into the Bosom of her Lord. Thus they die together they die one in another they die one into another In the first of the Canticles there is a Prophetical Song which beginneth at the Resurrection of our Saviour and the Effusion of the Spirit together with the Spiritual Union between Christ and his Church which was as their Heavenly Espousals solemnized and sealed with a Kiss with the reiterated Kisses of his Mouth Then followeth in the process of the first
Chapter and beginning of the Second the Loveliness of the Spouse and the Love between her and the Heavenly Bridegroom in her Sufferings and Death as they are acted upon the Stage in the glorious Scene of the Resurrection and Ascension of Christ in the State of Espousals and in their Union in one Spirit The dying Spouse there singeth to her Lord Behold thou art fair my Love yea thou art pleasant also our Bed is green v. 16. Jesus Christ is fair to a Saint Eye in his Divine Loveliness being risen up into the Glory of the Father He is pleasant to her in his Loves which are his Loveliness in Motion acting beautiful parts transforming itself into delightful Shapes with endless variety in all pouring forth itself into her Bosom taking her up into itself with Blessed Changes of one into another The Unity of the Spirit is the Bed of Divine Loves which is ever green that is as the word importeth ever encompassed with a Heavenly Calm and Serenity ever flourishing ever fruitful Death itself is the mutual embracing of these two Heavenly Lovers in this Bed of Spiritual Loves in the midst of a Divine calm and clearness while out of these embraces they spring up into innumerable Forms of Eternal Beauties and Joys which are the flourishing Fruits and Blessed Children of this Marriage-Union It is said that nothing was made without Christ apart from Christ that was made in the Creation John 1. 2. Remember O Christian that in the new Creature thou art thou sufferest thou doest nothing in life or in death without thy Jesus in Glory apart from thy Jesus in the Unity of his Spirit which is the Center and Circle of all Blessed Spirits with all the Train and Treasures of the Divine Nature While thou livest all the Body of Christ Heavenly Spirits Innumerable Angels live with thee thy life All these all the Lights and Loves of the Supercoelestial State die with thee thy Death 4. Pos. All this Resurrection Ascension into the Heavenly places Fellowship of a Believer with Christ is in Christ. He hath raised us together and hath made us sit together in Heavenly Places in Christ Jesus See now those places above the Heavens those more than Heavenly Things in the midst of which a Saint is set They are all in the glorified Person of Christ who is made higher than the Heavens The Learned tell us that there are three Worlds 1. This which is visible 2. The Angelical World 3. The Divine World All things of the upper and greater Worlds are in the lower as in the Seed All Things of the lower are in the Superiour as ripe Fruit. Every thing is in each according to the nature of that place Behold This is the Divine World the Person of our Lord and Love ascended up on high above all Heavens of Angels Here in him the Fulness of the God-Head dwelleth Bodily that is not shadowily or seminally in its Shadow or Seed but in its Substance and Perfection While here thou standest fast in this thy Jesus thine own proper habitation Death itself is an Angel nay more it appeareth in a Divine Form is become a Divine Glory a rich and ravishing piece of variety in the Unity of the Divine Nature In the World of Angels every thing is a distinct Angel In the Divine World all things are cloathed with the form of God As a Child lying in its Mothers lap a branch from the Mother bearing her Image with its mouth at the Breast looking upon her Face falling asleep in her Bosom yet not so sleeping but that still it sucketh as it sleepeth such is a Saint dying in Jesus Christ. He lieth in the lap of the Supream Glory encompassing him on every side and bearing him as its own Birth and Image His mouth is at the breast of this Glory His Eye is upon the Face of this Glory He sleepeth in its Bosom But it is a Divine sleep While he sleepeth he is awake and keepeth his Eye still upon the Glory and sucketh in the Glory still in Death We have this excellently represented in one place by the Prophet Esay where the Heavenly Hierusalem which is our Jesus in the Spirit is said to bear her Children on her sides and to dandle them on her Knee In another place they are said to walk in the Light of the new Hierusalem These Dandlings and Dancings in the Arms of that Glory which is our Mother our Father and our Husband our Heavenly Jesus such walks in its sweet and living Light are all the Motions and Changes of Life and Death to those that are in Christ Jesus I shall conclude my Observations from this Scripture with the difference between the Death of a Man standing in the Root of the First Adam and a Christian in Christ. Death to one is a Poyson In eating of the Forbidden Fruit he dieth out of the Earthly Paradise yet remaining in its ruines in this World into a Land of Briars and Thorns into a vast and howling Wilderness where the Light is Darkness and where there is no Order The Death of the other is a Cordial of dissolved Pearl In eating of the Tree of Life he 〈◊〉 out of a Land of Briars and Thorns into a Heavenly Paradise the Paradise of God I have done now with the first Scripture 2. Script Verily verily I say unto you except a Corn of Wheat fall into the ground and die it abideth alone but if it die it bringeth forth much Fruit John 12. 24. These are the words of our Saviour concerning himself upon a report made to him hy Philip that some Greeks desired to see him The design of Jesus is partly to raise them from a Carnal view of him on Earth to a Spiritual sight of him in a Heavenly Glory after Death partly to signify the difference between his State of humiliation in this Life where he is single and Barren in the Flesh and his State of exaltation after Death where he â—iseth up an Universal Person reconciling comprehending All in the Unity of the Spirit a Fruitful Person being a new head and root in the Love Life and Glory of the Father to all Mankind Jews and Gentiles to all Creatures Our Saviour while he lived was as a single naked grain of Wheat But when he sprung up out of the Grave he became a pleasant and flourishing Plant bearing much Fruit many grains of Wheat in one Ear many all Persons all Angels and Spirits in Glory in that one his own Person and Spirit He was in the Flesh as one Rose one Apple pull'd off the Tree He is in the Spirit as the Rose-Tree the Apple-Tree All Angels and Saints all Forms of Things are glorified in his Glory all in Heavenly and Immortal Persons are in his Heavenly Person as full-blown Roses growing upon the Rose-Tree as full-ripe Apples upon the Apple-Tree The Death of a Saint is upon this ground made most beautiful and pleasant Can. 2. 3. As the
several Mansions in the same Palace So they fly into the Bosom of their proper Substances where Thou art the same Person in Truth at Liberty and awake which thou wert in Show in Captivity in a Dream here below Thou art the Unity in which all these Spirits with the unsearchable Riches of their several Varieties ever centred and dwelt together as One once shut up in darkness and in a narrow place but now displaying all their Beauties unfolding all their Joys to the full O how are the Beauties and Pleasures of thy Death O Saint far beyond all those of Marriage and of Children How doest thou in that moment meet and marry thy self in all the flourishing Glories with all the warm and fresh Loves of the Divine Nature How doest thou bring forth a Troop of Divine Spirits in thine own Form and Person to be ever before thee bred up and Living with thee rejoycing in thee the Delight of thine Eyes and the Jewels of thy Bosom the pleasure of thine Embraces day by day This is the first Representation of Death by a Dissolution 2. Death is a Deluge that Mortality might be swallowed up of Life 2. Cor. 5. v. 4. It is in Greek that the or this Mortal may be swallowed up of Life Life in the Abstract in its Purity and Perfection without any Mixture or Allay is Immortality Eternity Christ and God As God is Light in which there is no Darkness so God is Light in which there is nothing of its contrary neither in act nor in possibility no Death nor Shadow of Death The Mortal is that which is capable of Dying in a Saint with the Principles of Corruption and Power of Death adhering to it See the Glory the Might of this Glory the Extent of it in the Death of a Saint Life Itself in its own Divine Essence as a Divine Substance no more an Accident in the Purity of all Its Sweetnesses in the Perfection of all Its Powers as it reigneth upon the Throne of Eternity breaketh forth upon the Person of a Saint upon all His Powers and Parts the lowest the darkest the most Mortal As It breaketh forth It drinketh up all together with the Shadow of Death Itself encompassing them into itself Mortal Things are Shadows of Immortal that is Figures in the Dark But the Darkness also is Part of the Figure The Life of pure Nature is an Image-Life a Shadowy Life The Darkness swallowing up the Figure and defacing the Shadow is a Natural Death The Devil lurking in the Dark Part as in His Den from thence coming forth into the Figure is the Life of Sin When a Sinner dieth the Devil in the Darkness of the Shadow Divine Wrath thorow the Devil swallow up the Darkness Image and all into themselves But at the new Birth of a Saint the Eternal Life and Substance awakeneth itself in the Shadow liveth and weareth that Darkness as a Divine Vail upon Its Beauties too bright to appear nakedly on Earth It acteth that Figure as a Picture with the Life in it looking forth through and springing through it as a Flower thorow the Lattices and the Windows Then when the time of Harvest and the Singing of Birds is come this Eternal Life drinketh up All into its own unmixt unfading Light Thus a Saint dieth As sometimes the Sea sendeth forth an Island which after sometimes it again swalloweth up so is the Life and Death of a good Man in His Mortal Part. He riseth up like an Island from the unfathomable and glorious Depths of a Divine Sea the Sea of Eternal Life and Love He standeth rooted in this Sea and encompassed with It on every side So He lives Again He sinketh down into the Blessed Depths out of which He arose So He dieth Elijah laid His Sacrifice with a pile of wood upon the Altar He digged Trenches round about the Altar which he filled with Water till it ran over Then he called upon the Name of the God of Israel Immediately a Fire descended from Heaven which licked up all the Water consumed the Sacrifice with the Wood upon the Altar The Altar is our Jesus filling the Earth as well as the Heavens The Saint in his Divine Part is the Sacrifice upon the Altar in Union with Christ. The Wood is the Mortal Part of a Saint which also lyeth upon the Altar of Christ's glorified Person The low estate of a Saint in Flesh with all his Sufferings and Sorrows all the Powers of Darkness and Death make the Trenches full of Waters round about Him At length the Divine Sea from below when It hath fulfilled the Days of Its Pilgrimage and Imprisonment calleth to Its Father above Then in a moment the Lord Jesus in His Glorified Body as a Flame of Immortal Love and Life cometh down from Heaven upon this Saint drinketh up at once the Sacrifice the Wood the Waters and All into One Flame with itself Nothing remaineth but the Altar and the Trenches the Place where they had been the Double Image in which they had appeared a Light-Image Beautiful and Pleasant in the Spirits of Light a Dark-Image in Dark Spirits Both these by degrees vanish into their several Elements of Light and Darkness I have done with my first Principle in the second Part of my present use which is to sweeten and sanctify Death by the Spiritual Knowledge of our Lord Jesus The first Principle was this A Saint is compleat above in the Glorified Body of Jesus Christ while he is living or dying here below 2. Principle The Glorified Person of our Saviour with all its Divine Fulness dwelleth Spiritually in the Natural Body of each Saint on Earth Our fleshly Members are the Members of Christ in Heaven 1 Corin. 6. 15. The riches of the Glory of this Mystery among the Gentiles which is Christ in you the Hope of Glory Col. 1. 27. As the Essential Form of a Plant with all its proportions and perfections lieth inclosed in the Seed which by the breaking of the Seed displayeth itself upon it and transfigureth the Seed so is the Natural Body of each Believer a Seed so is Jesus Christ the Hope of Glory a Body of Glory to that Seed and dwelleth inclosed in it until the Spring of Death The Natural Body is called a Body of Death Rom. 7. 24. We are said to wait for the Adoption or Sonship the Redemption of the Body Rom. 8. 23. These two Bodies cannot be the same One is a Redeemed Body a Body of Adoption or Sonship This is as St. Paul speaketh before a Body brought forth into the Liberty of the Glory of a Son of God The other is a Body of Death St. Paul cryeth out against one Who shall deliver me from this Body of Death St. Paul groaneth and waiteth for the Redemption of the other as a Son of God One is the Oppressour the other is oppressed One is a Grave and Death the other is a Divine Life a Form of Glory a Son of
continually encircle thee and encamp round about thee in every place by night and by day Which way soever thou goest they bear thee in their arms They go before thee to make smooth paths for thy Feet and to prepare a resting place for thee They contend with all the Powers of Darkness in thy behalf for thy Body itself even in Death They make Peace for thee with the Beasts of the Field and a Covenant for thee with the Stones of the Earth in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Mystery of the Gospel The darkest Appearances of things have the face of Pleasure itself and put on Immortal Beauties for thee The hardest things soften into Spirits of Life and Love flow with Springs of love and delights for thee 4. The God-Head itself encompasseth thee with a Ring of unapproachable Powers and Incomprehensible Glories like the Mountains round about Hierusalem Himself becometh unto thee the Habitation of a Rock the Rock of Eternity and Glory Himself is thy King thy Kingdom thy Palace thy strong Tower thy safety thy rest and thy pleasure In this Divine strength in this Divine secret no evil can come near thee no good can ever fail thee neither the Bread of thy strength and life nor the living Waters of thy Loves Beauties and Joys This is the Love-Presence of God This is drawn in and withdraweth itself from thee in the same degrees as sin is entertained in thy Spirit and Life Evil is a Privation of Good How great an Evil then is the least sin which depriveth thee of the best and greatest good the Love-Presence of thy God Blessed are the pure in Heart saith our Saviour they shall see God Mat. 5. How cursed are the Impure Wo to the filthy and unclean They are condemned to the loss of the sight of this God and the sense of his Love which sight which sense alone enlighten alone sweeten Heaven This is the Will of God your Sanctification The Will and the Love of God are one While you stand in a holy Temper and State you stand in the Will of God you stand in the Love-visions and Love-embraces of God What a horrour should you have for every Sin which cometh to snatch these blessed visions of Love from before your Eyes and you from the midst of these embraces of love When the Lord Jesus died the Sun was entirely darkned besides the course of Nature the Rocks were rent asunder the Earth shook and trembled the Graves were opened and the Dead came forth How dreadful and dismal a thing would Sin appear if we met with so unnatural affrighting a Change as this upon the act or meditation of every Sin But the change is far more tragical and mournful if we saw it with the Eyes of our mind as indeed it is Upon the arising of each Lust in thee to gain thy Will from the Bosom of thy Will Jesus Christ is spiritually slain in thee who hath a Twin-life with thy life while thou livest in the Divine Will This is a Death far more deadly than that in his Flesh. Now that light of Glory is extinguished in thy Spirit which shineth ten thousand times brighter and sweeter than the Summer-Sun Now the Rocks the Divine Powers round about thee rend asunder and remove out of their places Hell is opened All things round about thee are Apparitions from beneath evil Spirits walking in all Forms of things The whole frame and face of Nature is full of Darkness and uncertainty Tremblings and Horrour The whole Image of things within thee and without is changed from a Love-Presence to a spectacle of Wrath and Vengeance O that Men understood and would believe the Evil of Sin of a departure from the Divine Will which is a Sea of Love to their own Will which is a dark fire of Lust burning up into an open Hell But though they neither understand nor believe it yet is it true and they feel it to be so 2. The Second Evil of Sin is an opposition to the Divine Will that is to the Divine Love But can any oppose unclean Lusts to so pure a Love Earthly Hellish Lusts to so Heavenly a Love Fleshly Lusts to a spiritual Love a Love which is the Life and Immortality of all Blessed Spirits Can any oppose raging passions to the meekness and sweet Calm of Divine Love Can any set themselves against that Love which wooeth them continually till it win them which doth all things for them Can any so cast shame upon that Love which poureth forth itself as a sweet-smelling Ointment of all Grace and Beauty upon their Heads and Persons Are any hearts to be found so hard that they will wound Eternal Love itself while it is pouring forth the Life-Blood of its own heart partly for a Divine Bathto wash us wâ—ite in partâ—y as a precâ—ous Balsom to heal those woâ—nds which Sin and Sorrow make in theâ— All this we do while by Sin we walk contrary to the Divine Will which is all Love Love framing all contrivances casting itself into all Forms in Heaven on the Earth under the Earth acting all parts of Life and Death for us to gain us and to crown us with all its Joys and Beauties O how uningenuous how unnatural a thing is Sin O take heed of trusting the comforts of your lives the life of your Souls the sweetness of your Relations to it The foundations of Heaven and Earth are not so firm as that of this Truth The greatest Evil of Suffering is to be chosen a thousand times rather than the least Evil of Sin In the midst of all other Evils thy Will may stand in a Love-Union with the Divine Will which is the only Paradise of Delights and Beauties that never fade In every Evil of Sin thy Will standeth in opposition and enmity to the Divine Will which enmity alone is the Center of Hell where all its blackness of darkâ—ess all its unquenchable fires all its innumerable furies forms of torment rise up into it Our Lord Jesus in his Agony on the Cross in all his Sufferings had a Joy set before him The Wrath of his Father with all its Tempests which shook Heaven and Earth was a spectacle of Divine Love and Joy set before him For in all this his Fathers Will was done by him His Will was tuned to his Fathers Will. So the Harmony and Musick of Divine Love plaid in the Ear of his Spirit thorow all His Will was an excellent Lute the more it was broken the more sweetly it returned all that Musick On the other side all the pleasures of Sin all the Glories of the Creature to a sinful Soul are only a scene of Heaven in Hell For the Will standeth in a Contrariety to the Divine Will which is the Supream Love and Joy What can the Contrariety to the Supream Love and Joy be but the deplorable extreams of Wrath and Torment Use 2. The Will of God declareth itself to be Love
mixture in Christ I shall give 3 Answers to this Objection 1. A Concession 2. A Distinction 3. An Application 1. Answ. A Concession It is true Contrary things are spoken of Jesus Christ in this point We read I judge no man Moses in whom you trust he judgeth you The Son of Man came not to dâ—stroy Men's Lives but to save them The Work for which Christ came is a Work of Love of Light of Life not a Work of Wrath and Death Jesus Christ came to destroy the Works of the Devil The Devil Is a Lyar and a Murtherer from the Beginning He is the Serpent the Seed of Enmity The Deceit of Sin Death Wrath are the Devil's Work Jesus cometh full of Grace and Truth like the Sun full of sweet Light and influences of Life to destroy the Deceits to scatter into Nothing the Clouds and black Shades of Sin of Death of Wrath to make all a clear and Lovely Sky over our heads a Green and Flowry Earth under out Feet O the Delightfulness of Christ's Person and of his Appearance We read again I came not to send Peace but a Sword I came to Kindle a Fire The Lord Iesus shall come in a Flame of Fire to render vengeance to all those who know not God and who have not believed our Gospel 2 Thessal v. 8. O the Dreadfulness of the Lord Jesus and of his Appearance 2. Answ. A Distinction 2 Corin. 3. 13. You have Moses brought in with a Vail upon his Face You have the Effect of this Vail There is a Blindness upon the Minds upon the Notions 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Jews The Children of Israel cannot see to the End of that which is to be done away They cannot see thorow beyond the Shadowy Glory of the Vail to be taken off to the Naked Glory of the Heavenly Face which liveth and is the same for ever v. 13. 14. There is the Interpetation of the Vail The Vail upon the Face of Moses is a Vail upon the Hearts of the Israelites v. 15. The Vail is removed by the Turning of the heart to the Person of Christ v. 16. The Person of Christ and the Removal of the Vail are Both described v. 17. Now the Lord is that Spirit and where the Spirit of the Lord is there is Liberty The Lord Jesusâ— in Glory is a Spirit the Eternal Spirit The Person of Christ was ever a Spirit the Spirit the same Yesterday to Day and for ever even in that Day when he was made Flesh in his humane Nature this Spirit carrieth Liberty along with It as the Sun doth the Light of the Day This Liberty of the Spirit answereth to that Removal of the Vail in the verse before The Vail shall be taken away It is significant Word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 shall be taken away quite all round about on every side from off the Whole Image of things from off the Whole Person of Christ from off the Whole Heart the Compleat Person of the Lord Jesus in his Supream Glory as the Supreme Spirit shall shine entirely in the whole Image of things in the whole heart in every Part in every Point of Both. The Close of all is the Blessed Effect of the Removal of the Vail of the Free and full Appearance of this Spirit the Lord Jesus A Liberty of Sight A Liberty of Growth a Liberty of Union and Divine Communion A Saint looketh forth with Opâ—n Face with an Open Eye in the Naked Glory of the Spiritual Man having cast the Vail entirely off He seeth the Glory of the Lord in the Naked Beauties of the Spirit himself compleatly unvailed He seeth this Glory in the Unity of the same Spirit as in a Looking-Glass where Face answereth Face where one is seen as the Dear Image and Reflection of the other A Saint in the same moment seeth and is changed into the Image which he seeth as by one Spirit at once working Both. The Lord the same Spirit in its Unity is the Root the Eye the Life the Light the Looking-Glass the Glorious Face in the Looking-Glass to a Saint Where this Spirit is there is Liberty in that Heart The Vail is taken off from it when the Spirit existeth and appeareth in it There the Lord Jesus and a Saint see each other grow up together in one Glory We all with open face as in a Glass beholding the Glory of the Lord are changed into the same Image from Glory to Glory even as by the Spirit of the Lord or by the Lord the Spirit By this time I believe you see the Distinction which I aim at Jesus Christ with the Vail upon his Face is Mâ—ses Mâ—ses unvailed is Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ to the Vailed heart is Moses still Moses to the Naked heart is the same Jesus from the Beginning The Appearance of Jesus Christ according to the Letter after the Flesh is Christ with a Vail upon his Face casting a Vail upon the heart The Appearance of Jesus Christ as the Spirit the Lord of Glory is Christ with his Vail cast off taking the Vail off from the Heart that Both may meet see embrace each other Nakedly Immediately at Liberty in the Open Light of their Eternal Loves and Beauties 3. Answ. Applications 1. Application Fear the Wrath of the Lamb. There is a Day in which the Kings of the Earth Great Men Captains of Thousands shall cry to the Rocks and to the Mountains to fall upon them and hide them from the Wrath of the Lamb. When the Great Day of his Wrath cometh who is able to stand Rev. 6. v. 16 17 18. Revel 5. 6. 8. You read of a Lamb who had bin slain standing in the midst of the Throne of God of the Four Living Creatures of the 24. Elders having seven Eyes and seven Horns which were the seven Spirits of God sent forth into all the Earth Behold the Lord Jesus risen from the Dead He standeth in the mâ—dst of the Throne of God of the Four Living Creatures of the four and Twenty Elders He is the Center of All Glories He filleth All He uniteth All and Compleateth All in his own Person the Uncreated Glories of the God-Head the Four-fold Fountain Glories of the Uncreated and Created Natures in Union The Manifold and Multiplyed Glories of Those Fountains in the Person of every Saint from the Beginning to the End of things having his Crown upon his Head the Universal Kingdom of all Glories in himself with which Kingdom he standeth out of the Person and in the Person of the Lord Jesus which Mysteriously and Divinely involveth and unfoldeth all in itself For this reason they cast down their Crowns at his Feâ—t This Jesus uniteth all States in himself from the highest the Sweetest Light of Life to the Darkest most Dismal Deep of Death For he standeth in the midst of these Glories as having bin slain shewing all the Bloody Baleful Forms of Death in the Triumph of Eternal Life This
and despair that by him these beautiful and blessed Lives may rise again 2. The Death out of which this Life is raised is that of Sin and of the Curse for Sin Eph. 2. 1. v. St. Paul saith we were dead in Sin Hear and read this O man with sighs and tears with trembling and terrour Thy Life it self is now a Death and a cursed Death such a Death as makes the difference between an Angel in Glory and a Devil in Hell The corruption of the best things is worst The fall of the highest and greatest things makes the greatest and most dreadful Ruine The Divine Life is dead the Divine Image is fallen in thee Thou art dead in Sin Sin lived and I died saith St. Paul in the forementioned place A Life of Darkness shame Disorder deformity enmity the Life and Image of Hell and Devils are sprung up in thee and are become a Grave of hate and horrour which hath swallowed up the Life the Image of Love Beauty and Joy of Heaven of Angels of God into a cursed Victory in thee All the stings and terrours of the first death in the separation of the Soul and Body are all the secret burnings of this Hellish fire of the Death in Sin now quite consuming the broken Relicks of the Divine Light and sweetness in the Flesh and enlarging itself into the second Death as into an eternal Flame of Wrath and torment Look up oh man see this whole World of these Heavens and this Earth as a Charnel-house or a dark Vault for the Dead See thy self in this Body as a melancholy Coffin in the midst of this Vault where thine own Divine Life and Image with ten thousand blessed Lives the Life of Christ of Paradise of Heaven lie dead and buried See this place in which now thou art the smoaky porch and gloomy entrance into Hell like a cloudy Evening to that dismal Night See thy self walking here as a wretched Ghost and Shade in the midst of the Dead in the midst of cursed Apparitions from below and thy self together with all these ready every moment to vanish into everlasting Darkness and Flames This is the Death out of which the Divine Life is raised in the first Resurrection or the Regeneration 3. The Resurrection of this Life out of this Death is to be declared in its first step which is the Regeneration or New-birth The Divine Nature which lies hid at the bottom and in the center of the Soul lives there to itself with its Heavenly and Earthly Image as in the Secret of its own twofold Paradise whereof one was never yet revealed in any Creature until Christ the other with drew itself hither from the sight of the Soul at the Fall This Divine Nature as to the Soul itself whose Root it is of whose Being it is the only Life and Truth lies slain by the Life of Sin and buried in its own Ruines beneath the Darkness and Confusion of the Corrupt the Fleshly and the Hellish Image This Divine Nature in the moment of Regeneration or Conversion is new-born in the Soul or which is the same the Soul is new-born into the Divine Nature and comes forth with a new and Divine Being into a new and Divine World This change is called a Birth because the Divine Nature as the Seed of God sown in the Soul diffuseth itself thorough the Soul changeth the Soul into one Nature and Life with itself so bringeth forth itself in the soul and the Soul together with itself in its own Divine Life and Likeness The Eternal Spirit is the Father of this Birth which sendeth forth this holy Seed This Spirit is also the Mother For in the naked Bosom of the Eternal Spirit at once the Seed of God is sown in the soul and the Soul is sown as a new Seed sent forth immediately from God wrapt up in the Seed of God The Spirit also itself is this Seed For so the Lord Jesus saith John 3. That which is born of the Spirit is Spirit This New birth is said to be from above because it is immediately from God the Birth of God as he is in the Simplicity of his Godhead uncloathed of every Vail infinitely transcending all created powers and perfections This Birth is expressed by being born again as a second Birth For man was first born unto a Divine Light and Image in Pâ—radise where he aâ—so dyed to this Life and Image unto which he is now born a second time That was a Shadow onely This the Shadow and the Substance both in Union This Birth is also called a Resurrection and is truely so upon this account That same Divine Person in his own proper and individual Existency which died in Paradise which ever since hath lien slain and buried in the corrupt sinful Person sprung up in its place as in a Grave now riseth again As it riseth it casteth off this cursed and Hellish person as a Body rising to Glory casteth off the form of a dead Carcass of Rottenness and dust recovering it s own proper place and right But there is a threefold difference between this Divine Nature in its first Life in Paradise and its first Resurrection in its Regeneration or New-birth 1. In Paradise the Divine Nature sprung up and appeared in a Earthy Image and in an Earthy Person only as in a lovely shadow of itself The Heavenly Person the Heavenly Image although it were the Root the Truth the Life the Fulness of this Shadow yet it lay concealed beneath it as a Vail or as the Fruit lies hid in the Blossom By Sin the Blossom falls to make way for this Fruit. In the new birth out of the Ruins of the Earthy Person and the Earthy Image as the rending of the Vail the Divine Nature springs up and shines forth in its own Heavenly Person and Image Thus that which was sown by the Fall a Heavenly and Divine Shadow riseth again by the new birth a Heavenly and Divine Substance which is the Shadow in its Life and Truth The Holy Scriptures declare this Glorious Mystery 1 Epist. John 5. c. where we read That there are three which bear record in Heaven the Father the Word and the Spirit A little after we read That he who believeth hath the record in himself If a Believer hath the Record within himself he hath also within himself those who bear the Record For a Record or Testimony hath all its authority and force from the Persons of the Witnesses as it is given by them and cometh forth out of their mouths Behold then here in the moment of believing God himself in the three Persons in their Heavenly Image which is the Heaven of Heavens bringing forth the Divine Nature as their own proper Birth and Child in an Heavenly Person and in their own Heavenly Image in which they themselves dwell together with him giving their Testimony to him in which he believes 2. That which was the Beauty and the beautiful
with him so shall it be with thee A supernatural Power a mighty Angel from Heaven shall bind up thy Tempters thy Spiritual Enemies in chains of Darkness as in a deep sleep shall remove the great Stone the most powerful Lusts and Temptations from the mouth of thy Grave God himself in his Power in the greatness of his Power as it excelleth and transcendeth all Powers all things all thoughts of men or Angels God himself in his Almightiness in the infiniteness of his Power and God-head God himself in the immediate naked most potent most high most Glorious Appearances and Operations of his God-head shall come down upon thee shall arise and shine in thee and as he riseth raise thee together with himself into the Light of Life Whil'st thou lyest in Sin thy true Person or Life lie together dead in thee as to thee But beneath thy Soul at the bottom of it they lie hid in God who is the ground of every natural being and the Treasury of all Spiritual Beings At the season of the new birth God discocovers himself in thy Soul as a glorious ground out of which thy Life and thy Jesus spring up together by degrees like Twin-lillies Roses from the same stalk or root which is Christ. Thus shalt thou rise from the Dead with a shout of Heavenly Joys 5. Christ is the Companion in the Resurrection St. Paul tells the Galatians he travels in birth again with them till Christ be formed in them We read 1 Corin. 6. He that is joyned to the Lord is one Spirit A saint and Christ are one Spirit by a Spiritual Marriage which makes two Spirits perfectly one yet so that they remain perfectly and distinctly two in one When thou risest from the dead in Regeneration thy Jesus riseth together with thee out of that Grave in thy Heart into which thou hast cast him by thy Sin at the Fall when thou in thy true Life and Paradise in thee fell into the same Grave together with him Jesus Christ and the Soul spring up together in the first Creation as Twins For St. John saith in his first Chapter of his Gospel that without him that is in a single state disjoyned from Christ was nothing made that was made Christ and the Soul like two Twin-lillies flourished together in Paradise Together they died by the Fall Many times since thy birth into this world have Jesus Christ and with him that Beautiful and Blessed Life which thou enjoyed'st in Paradise been rising again into thy Heart into a more excelling Paradise that in the Spirit and in Heaven which is Eternal But alass thou hast still thrown them back again into the same Grave in thy flesh by the new wounds which thy renewed Lusts and Unbelief have given them Notwithstanding all this when the set time is come nothing can withstand the rising in thee Jesus Christ and thy Soul are together born anew in thee from the womb of Eternal Love where they lay hid and wrapt up together in the Grave itself They now come up together in one Spirit into one Spiritual Life and Heavenly Image in which Paradise also comes up new and fresh together with them By the same immediate and glorious operation of the God-head they break irresistibly forth thorow the darknesses of the night and scatters them and breaks them up as it shines thorow them How blessed is this Union and Fellowship Christ and the Soul ever undivided grow up now together in the mutual sight in the mutual embraces of each other thorow every state and degree of the Regeneration or Resurrection Light or Darkness Solaces or Sufferings Life or Death In all by the Heavenly Union they are mutually a Crown of rejoycing one to another 6. Christ is the Life of this Resurrection So himself testiâ—ieth in the 11 of St. John I am the Resurrection and the Life How sure how sweet is thy Life O Believer who art risen from the Death of Sin and born again to thine Heavenly Father Thy Life is sure It is Christ himself the Power God eternal Life itself who is thy Life the Life of thy Graceâ— here the Living Hope of Glory in Heaven the Life of God in thee which never dies in the midst of Death Thy Life is sweet O Believer How unexpressible is this pleasure to feel Jesus Christ himself the only delight of the Father in Eternity the only Delight of all the Holy Angels and Glorified Saints in Heaven springing up in thy Heart flowing thorow thy whole Soul and Person working in all acting all as Life in thee Thus I have finished this fourth Head the way of the Resurrection in its first step the Regeneration or New-birth and the discourse itself upon this subject FINIS ERRATA'S PAge 15. line 22. for word r. world p. 19. l. 25. for and thou r. O thou p. 55. l. 1. for spirit r. letter p. 66. l. 15. for three r. four p. 115. l. 38. dele by p. 126. l. 2. dele the first have p. 139. l. 2. for ni r. in l. 14. for an r. any p. 151. l. 1. for no r. not l. 7. for diviness r. divineness p. 158. l 22. for thee r. the p. 175. l. uâ—â— for their r. there p. 189. l. 16. for because r. and 3dly because p. 194. l. 14. for word r. words p. 205. l. 11. dele the first 1 p. 206. l. 32. for beautiful r. beauty p. 208. l. 39. dele at the word below p. 210. l. 17. for of spirit r. of the spirit p. 211. l. 20. for creature r. creatures p. 228. l. 35. for forms r. form p. 236. l. 24. for each in r. each creature in p. 249. l. 20. for form r. forms p. 252. l. 33. for though be it r. though it be p. 279. l. 9. for Vse 3 d r. Vse 4 th p. 294. l. 35. for pants r. plants p. 297. l. 5. for the glory r. with glory p. 299. l. 27. for 4 r. 1. p. 300. l. 32. for so God is light r. so God is life p. 301. l. 31. for the Divine Sea r. the Divine Saint p. 311. l. 3. for 3 steps r. 4 steps p. 314. l. 11. for is vizor r. is a vizor p. 315. l. 28. for thine nature r. thy nature l. 39. for fields r. field p. 319. l. 39 for is it r. it is p. 321. l. 16. for thy will r. thy God p. 325. l. 22. for four r. two p. 329. l. 17. for nature of this thing r. nature of things p. 332. l. 33. for which the will r. which is the will p. 335. l. 35. for are r. have p. 341. l. 4. for flesh r. fleshly p. 342. l. 19. for beware r. 2 dly beware p. 349 l. 41. for it conquest r. its conquest p. 350. l. 39. dele the Light p. 352. l. 14. for to the end r. to the end are removed p. 380 l. 25. for thus r. thou l. 41. for o passionate r. of passionate p. 392. l. 36. for poureâ—h r. poured p. 423. l. 9. for are r. ere p. 433. l. 7. for tof r. of p. 448. l. 27. for it it r. it p. 450. l. 17. for so r. see p. 451. l. 21. for same r. next for 1 Cor. r. 2 Cor. p. 472. l. 32. for resteth r. rested p. 480 l. 7. r. form p. 512. l. 3. r. Look to thy Root
bears Whatever you meet with like a Devil any where that 's a Sin Wherever you see the Cloven Foot of Division or the Horned head of Darkness fly and cry an Apparition from Hell Take then Two Rules which measure out every Sin Rule 1. Every choice of an Act or Object that draws you down out of the Light of God is Sin In the Light of God we worship and love the Supream Beauty we possess the most perfect and purest Pleasures we grow up into the Divine Image which continually appears to us we have all our Faculties fill'd enlarg'd to a Freedom an Infiniteness When we leave this Light we fall down before Idols empty Shows of Beauty so we become Idolaters and Adulterers we mingle our selves with mixt Pleasures Dark Delights so we pollute our selves we are transform'd into every base inferiour Image with which we converse Our Souls are imprison'd in low and narrow Objects where they beat themselves against the walls of their Prison into perpetual vexations Such are the Loves Lusts Ambitions Entertainments of this World The Love of the World is Enmity with the Father Ja. 4. 4. He that casts his eye down upon the Earth must necessarily take it off from Heaven He that sets his Face as if he would go into the Embraces of Vanity must have his back upon the Eternal Glory Rule 2. The Divided enjoyment of any particular Image apart from the Image of God is Sin God is one The Image of God is that in which all things are United He that takes any Piece out of this Image he breaks the Unity he makes a Wound to let in Death and Ruine This makes Fleshly Lusts Sins Man and woman are each to other the Image of God which is One. When therefore they rest not in the bosom of One Another they commit the Sin of the Devil in a Type St. Jude makes the Lustful Sin of Sodom an exemplar Copy of the Sin of Angels Jude 6. 7. The Angels kept not their first state but left their own habitation c. Even as Sodom and Gomorrah in like manner giving themselves over to Fornication and going after strange divers 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Flesh c. The Sin of Devils was a Spiritual Whoredom in which they dissolv'd the Unity of the Divine Image and fell into a Diversity of divided Images as into a deep Pit Both are join'd together in Solomon At once he multiplyed Wives and Idols A Converse with the Creatures in Diverse Principles and Images is as the Familiarity of a Man with many Women Fleshly Lust is the proper Image and Fruitfulness of the Devil by which he brings forth himself into this Visible World most Naturally and therefore most Potently most Plentifully Obj. But you will say may we not enjoy the delights of the Creature which is an Inferiour Image Ans. Yes as a Man may have a Conversation with many Women so that he break not the Marriage-Union Thy Fâ—untain must be thine own All delights abroad must be as Streams of this Fountain not divided Springs All other Images must be onely Reflections of this One concentred in it Please thy self to the full with every Content Only let it be no Cloud to cut off but a Christal to take in the Divine Glory that this may shine and flame in them Use 2. Consolation Wretched Man What wilt thou do Hell is sown in thy Nature This is the Paradise which is planted in thee all manner of loathsom bitter venemous deadly Plants The Sap of these is the Life of thy Spirit the Fruit of these the Food of thy Life What shall deliver thee Shall Time No As Nature puts forth itself in thee so these Trees of baleful Woe grow up What shall reskue thee from them Shall Death No When thou puttest off this Natural Image thou must then be transform'd into these Invisible Plants to be everlastingly inclos'd in them to have one Root one Stock one Sap one Fruit for ever with them that is with Devils Is there then no Help There is behold God descends to be thy Saviour He comes by a Two-fold Step and brings Salvation into thy Bosom 1. Step. God comes into our Nature as the Root of each single Person Here he becomes our Jesus making himself a New Seed Out of this Seed he brings forth a New Image of Divinity by which he breaks thorow the Image of the Devil and Nature brings forth Man out of them brings them into subjection to this growing Beauty As the Fuel is dissolv'd into Smoak and the Smoak again breaks up into Flame So the Image of the Devil riseth up out of the Image of Nature shaking that to Dust as it riseth The Image of God again sprouts forth in the midst of the Devils Image First spoiling then Triumphing over and in both 2. Step. God thorow Nature as the Root grows up into single Persons as the Branches Then as the shades of Night flie away before the Ascending Day so as this Divine Seed our Jesus sends forth itself in an Image of Beauty thorow our Souls the Image of Darkness and Death sinks down into its own Place and Principle Love this Jesus then You will love Him when He shall do this And He that shall do it will do it He is the Root and Branch He is a Root which holds every other Root of Pollution and Perplexity c. He will grow up thorow them the Last of All. He is the Branch that is imprison'd in every other Branch of Death and Hell which will at last spread forth itself over All if thou wait for it As the Head of the Devil is Enmity and Despair so the Lord Jesus is an Eternal Root of Hope and Love 2. State That to which the Change is made in our Conversion This is Three-fold 1. The Inward State in Nature 2. The Spiritual State in Christ 3. The Divine State in God 1. The Inward State in Nature The Change is for the most part at first a Conversion or Introversion into this State This needs a Three-fold Explication 1. Explication The Inward State in Nature as it is in itself Man is naturally the Off-spring of God Act. 17. 28. We are all his Off-spring God hath an Inward Glory and Outward Cloathing The Scripture speaks of both these Hebr. 1. It saith of One v. 8. Thy Throne O God is for ever and ever It saith of the Other v. 10. Thou hast laid the Foundations of the Earth the Heavens are the Work of thine hands v. 12. Thou foldest them up as a Garment and they are changed God over-spread his Outward Cloathing with his Inward Glory he possesseth both his Person and his Vesture in One Fountain of Life So both become to him One Life and Beauty Man is in Nature the Off-Spring and Resemblance of God So Man also in his Natural State is composed of a Twofold Image the one Inward the other Outward the one the Image of God in Man the
other of the Creature While man stood in Innocency he abode in the Inward Image as his Center in that he Comprehended and Commanded the Image of the Creature The Image of God was Eden the Fountain of pleasures within from thence a River went forth watering the Image of the Creature and making that a Paradise All things were Trees in this Paradise good for food and pleasant to the Eye Trees of perpetual Youth Beauty Pleasure to Man Man was seated in this Inward Image as on his Throne from which he commanded and changed all the Creatures into divers Shapes of Delight at pleasure This is the First Explication 2. Explication The Departure of Man out of this Inward State When Man fell he went forth from his Inward Glory into the Outward Image this is signified Gen. 3. by the Woman yielding her self over to the Will of the Serpent and the Man giving himself up to the Will of the Woman So it was true of Man what is said of the Devils Jude 6. He left his First Estate and his Proper Habitation Now he lived wholly in the Out-forms of things which he broke off from the Inward Image and so made them all an Image of Vanity Darkness and Death keeping the Image of God imprisoned in this Outward Image which suffered it not to put forth itself or appear St. Paul expresseth this Departure as the Root of all Sin Rom. 1. 18. All wickedness is there sum'd up in this Detaining the Truth of God in Unrighteousness That is keeping down the Image of God and True Glory in a corrupt and false Image 3. Explication The return of Man into this Image Man hunting and hunted thorow the exteriour face of things finds neither his desired Prey nor Rest Poor Man oppressed with cares and sorrows he sinks down by a sad Retirement to the bottom of his own Spirit There he happily falls into the bosom of the Divine Image which lay buried under the Ruines of his Soul Here he catcheth some Glimpses of Immortal beauty some Tasts of a high delight some sense of a true Rest. Now he loaths the Empty Tedious Tormenting Follies of this Outer World David experimented this in himself Psal. 16. 7. My Reins instruct me in the Night-season When a Night of nature or melancholy takes away these sensual forms of things from us or makes them a Torture to us then this Hidden Image from the retired Principles of Nature from the secret of our souls puts up itself before us draws us down into itself makes its own Impressions upon us Impressions which have another manner of Light Strength Sweetness in them Now the Soul cries out in the language of Cain to a sweeter purpose How have I been a Fugitive and a Vagabond upon the Earth while I have been driven out from thy Face and Presence and thou beautiful Image of things Come lock me up in thine Embraces that I may never go forth more into that Outward Court of things which is troden down by the Feet of Lusts and Confusions Or if I must go forth again O that I might carry thee forth with me as my Brother that suckt the breasts of my Mother-Nature I would kiss thee and I should not be despised I would enjoy perpetual pleasures in thee and no shame but strength and glory should rest upon me This is the First Change into the Inward State in Nature 2. The Spiritual State in Christ. The Change to this State we are to consider in Three Parts 1. The Preparation in Man 2. The Spiritual State 3. The Passage of Man into it 1. Part. The Preparation in Man to this Spiritual State Man pursued by Griefs from without retired into the Inward Image the Recess of Nature as David into his Cave meeteth with a fresh unexpected view of Beauties here Now he is refresh't now he comes to himself Now he begins to raise himself and say as Samuel did when the eldest Son of Jesse was presented to him Behold the Annointed of God is before me Surely this is no other than the Gate of Heaven But after a little Tryal Man finds this to be but a Natural Image of God an Earthly Paradise only which so soon as it puts forth is ready so soon to dis-appear again He finds it too weak to raise itself clearly from the bottom of those Waters of Vanity Sin and Trouble which have over-flown and over-whelm'd it He perceives it too slight to satisfie him 'T is an Intimation of true joys rather than the Joys themselves 'T is a fair Invitation no full Entertainment Mans joys and hopes here prove to him like the Seed sown in Rocky Ground which springs up suddenly but suddenly withers when once the Sun the Tempting Glories or Scorching Furies of this World beat upon it Now the Soul is as Mary Magdalen at the Grave of her Saviour She looks into her Heart for this Image but finds that gone and her heart as an empty Grave Then she cries O my God who hath taken these Comforts away I thought that these should have delivered me and dwelt for ever with me But wipe away thy Tears distressed Soul As Jesus carryed away his Natural body from Mary to bring it again a Spiritual body So thy God hath withdrawn this Natural Image of divine joyes in thy Spirit but he will restore and bring it into thy soul again a Spiritual Image St. Paul gives thee this Consolation Rom. 8. 3 4. What the Law could not do being weak thorow the flesh c. That the Righteousness of the Law might be fulfill'd in us who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit The weakness of Natures Inward Image prepares the Spirit of Man for the Spiritual State of things 2. Part The Spiritual State itself The Prophet represents this in a Promise Joel 2. 28. I will pour forth my Spirit upon all Flesh. Three things are here to be explained 1. The Spirit 2. Flesh. 3. Effusion or Pouring forth of Spirit upon Flesh. 1. The Spirit is the Unity of things Ephes. 4. 3. The Unity of the Spirit Unity is appropriated to the Spirit This Spirit is the most High God For he is the First Supream only Unity Gal. 3. 20. God is One. God eminently and exclusively is One. This Spirit the Unity is the Fountain and Life of Things All sorts of Life all Beauty every where are Images of this Self-comprehending Aâ—-comprehending Unity This is the Spirit 2. Flesh Flesh and Spirit differ as Unity and Division or which is the same as Life and Death Rom. 8. 6. To be Carnally-minded is Death to be Spiritually-minded is Life and Peace Life is the Unity of Things in which they Contain themselves Death is the Division of Things from themselves Flesh is all Divided Forms of things in the Creature according to the language of the Scripture The Scripture in this sense reckons Angels and Souls of Men as Fleshly things Though Angels are the most United Things the
Order 1. Love 2. Hatred 1. Order of Passions in our Change 1. Passion Grief John 12. 32 33. And I if I be lifted up will draw up all men after me This he spake signifying by what Death he should die The Explication of the Exaltation the lifting up the drawing up is Death The Lord Iâ—sus was lifted up to Glory by Death He draws up all men to himself and Immortality by Death Grief is the Souls Death God by this for the most part begins to draw us up out of Sin and Flesh to himself and eternal joys Grief naturally is the Sense of some Great and Present Evil oppressing the Soul Grief Spiritually is the Sense of some Great and Present Evil oppressing the Soul and pressing it thorow itself into the lap of the Godhead Psal. 119. 67. David communicates his Experience Before I was afflicted I went astray but now I keep thy Commandments The word afflicted signifies to be brought low or down When the Soul gone forth into the midst of the Creatures is arrived at the utmost point of one Contrary then it begins to return towards the other as the Sun first turns itself towards us again at Midnight The utmost Point of a worldly life in Sin and Vanity is Grief or Torment taking away all our Rest. The Soul hurried hither by the Torrent of her lusts here begins to look and move towards God So the Grave of our joys our Grief becomes a Womb bringing us forth to a Spiritual life Psal. 40. 2. David speaks of God and himself He hath drawn me up out of the Horrible Pit and Dirty Clay This world hath a Root of Darkness which bears for a Flower the Images of Light When the Spirit of Man lives upon and makes itself One with these Imaginary Pleasures they quickly fade So both together sink down into their Root where they are swallowed up in a melancholy darkness Here the Vanities which before were Light now grow heavy weighing down the Soul Here all her former Contents meet her again as Parts and Powers of this Darkness That which was before beautiful Clay soft Clay easie to any Impression of Desire is now stiff and dirty Clay holding the feet of the Soul fast in the bottom of this Horrible Pit Now God takes hold of us thus low thus lost and draws us upward So our Change begins in Grief 2. Passion Shame Es. 6. 11 12 13. Shame ariseth from a Mixt sense of Light and Darkness Good and Evil Beauty and Deformity It is a mixt Passion of Grief Anger Fear As when the Light and Day first sink into Night and Darkness in the Evening or first ascend out of these in the Morning the Sky looks red So the Soul blusheth in the midst of her Sins and is ashamed when God first dawnes upon her and begins to draw near to her Ezek. 43. 10. Son of man shew them the House that they may be ashamed of all their Iniquities and let them measure the Pattern Shame is a Reflection of foul and hateful Deformities made upon our Spirits by the Light of Beauty Goodness God shining forth upon them Shame is the Divine Glory glowing thorow our Darkness and Filth before yet it is broken forth into a clear Flame to scatter and consume them God saith to Iesus Christ of man Son go and shew thy self to him as the Image in which he was made in which he should have lived So let him be ashamed of that dark narrow vile brutish Image in which he walks Let him take measure by Thee as his Original and Pattern 3. Passion Fear As Grief awakens Shame so Shame rowseth Fear out of its Den. Psal. 119. 120. David cries out My Flesh trembleth because of Thee I am afraid of thy Iudgments Fear is the Commotion of the Soul upon the sense of some approaching Evil. As the Sea trembles before a Storm So at the sign of God's breaking forth upon the Soul the fleshly part trembles and shakes before its fall The Man himself is afraid of the Judgments of God the ways of God with the Creature The Devils at the Presence of Christ feared two Things 1. A Banishment from off the Face of the Earth 2. A Confinement to the Lower-most parts of the Earth Such now is the Fear of a Man lest he should be call'd off from his Carnal Contents and cast down into the Straitness and Horrour of his Carnal Principles He discourseth with himself thus Must not I who have lived in Flesh now be separated from all the delights of Flesh and be shut up in the Darkness of it Must I not abide there till I have pass'd thorow the Fire and endur'd the Consumption of all that which is Corruptible in me The longer I live in the Flesh will not the Fire be the stronger Thus Fear becomes a Spur in the side of the Spirit to increase her speed out of the World to God This is the First Order of Passions Grief Shame Fear 2. Order of Passions 1. Passion Hope Lament 3. 21 22. This I call to mind therefore have I hope It is the mercies of the Lord that we are not consumed Hope is the Springing of the Soul towards good or God first dawning upon it and dispensing Himself to it Jeremy was all before wrapt up in Sorrows Despairs Death Now one single Beam of Hope and that a small one glimmers in his Soul It is the mercies of the Lord that we are not consumed Yet this lights him into fresh Fields of Contemplations and Consolations in God There is Mercy with thee that thou mayst be feared saith the Scripture to God When Fear affrights the fainting Soul from God Hope invites it to entertain that Fear Fear saith The Presence of God will take away thy Natural Strength and Ioy. Hope answers I shall find a better Strength and Ioy in God Fear goes on The Glory of God will be as a Fire in thee Hope replies This Fire will be a Glory to me Fear still urgeth Canst thou ly down with Everlasting Burnings Hope concludes I shall have everlasting Arms beneath me So the Soul casts her self into these Arms to be carried whithersoever they will bear her 2. Passion Desire 2. Sam. 7. 27. David thus conveys his Desires to God Because thou O lord hast revealed it to thy Servant concerning his House therefore hath he found in his heart to pray this prayer Hope is the Conception of Blessedness Desire is the Teeming the Breeding Bearing and Growing big with it till it be brought forth The Vestal Virgins first kindled their Spark by a Beam then they from that Spark kept a continual Flame upon their Altar So the Revelation of God in Man is the Foundation of Hope Hope the Fountain of Desires which grow into great Streams and so pour forth themselves into their Sea into God again The Desires of a New Convert when once they are kindled increase suddenly to a mâ—ghty Flame For they are proportion'd by Two
thy life so many times over is thy God thy Father Gen. 2. 7. God breathed into Man the Breath of life and he became a Living Soul The issuing forth of our Life and Being from God is compared to Breathing 'T is as perpetual Can God cast off all affection and care for me in the same moment in which He brings me forth Or can I in that very moment in which I receive my Being from Him rob Him of it pollute it turn it against Him This I do every moment in which I sin For but now came I forth from God that Appearance which fill'd the last minute being vanisht and giving way to this A Mother forgets her Sorrows so soon as a Man-child is born into the World Sure then God cannot forget his Delights in me his Loves to me so soon as He hath brought me out from Himself into this world and this he doth freshly each minute of Time 3. Consider God is my Father a sweeter and nearer way than by Nature by Grace too The relation of a Father is the Top of all Sweetness and Nearness in Nature But as much as Heaven is above the Earth Time above Eternity God above the Creature so much is a Father by Grace sweeter and nearer than a Father by Nature If a Natural Father plant his Image and place his Affection his Care upon his Son shall not thy Heavenly Father much more love thee make thee like Himself make all Provisions of life and joy for thee It is the rule of God He that provides not for his Family in Nature hath denyed the Faith and is worse than an Infidel Can Himself then ever deny Himself so far as to prove unfaithful or unnatural towards hâ—s Family of Grace his own Children that way He will certainly take all care of them with all tenderness He that blasphemed or disobeyed his Parents under the Law was to die What deaths then is he worthy of who doth not think sweetly speak sweetly of obey chearfully this Father of his Spirit Use. 3. Direction If you would attain to the State of Sons and know God as your Father feed well upon this Four-fold Meditation 1. Medita I lay Eternally in the Fulness of the God-Head as in the Loyns of my Father Ephes. 1. 5. Having predestinated us to the Adoption of Children by Iesus Christ to Himself according to the Pleasure of His Will When God had his First and most retired thoughts before the World then was I in his thoughts as a Son of Delights all lovely without a spot When no other thing yet was when no Creature was yet made when God lived alone in the highest and purest Joys of his own Nature then in the midst of all those Joys was I in the Fulness of the Divine Nature presented to him as an Image of Himself springing up in him to be sent forth into this world again to grow up out of this world into that Eternal Image of His Pleasure and Will Thus was I Predestinated a Son 2. Medita God hath made me his Son a second time by Purehase He hath given his Son his Beloved his Only Son for me that I might be his Son 2 Cor. 5. 21. He was made Sin for us that we might be made the Righteousness of God in Him God hath given the Body of his Son to reproaches and pains his Soul to Guilt and Horrours His Person in both parts to Death his Name to Infamy Thus he waâ— made Sin for us And all this that we might be made the Righteousness of God Images of his â—ull Beauty Sons of his highest Glory in Him as He is who is the Substantial Image the Essential Son As the Seed is by Nature placed lowest in the Earth at the bottom of the Plant that by the Dissolution of itself it may bring forth its kind So was the Son of God laid below at the bottom of the Creature in the depth of Darkness that by his Dissolution he might resolve himself into us and as by an Exchange bring forth his Son-ship in our Persons 3. Medita God hath made me his Son yet once more by Design He hath joyned me in Affinity with his only-begotten Son Marriage on Earth is a Type of that True Marriage between my Saviour and my Spirit Ephes. 5. 30. He hath joyned me with Him in Consanguinity Heb. 2. 12. He that Sanctifies which is Jesus and they that are Sanctified are both of One. He hath made me One wâ—th his Eternal Son Mystically The Mystical Union is a Mysterious one hidden Divine the highest Union such as is among Divine things not to be resembled by any thing among the Creatures not to be comprehended by any mere Creature I in them and they in me that all may be made perfect in One John 17. 21. 23. 4. Medita God hath made me his Son finally by Generation 1 Pet. 1. 3. He hath begotten us again to a lively hope by the Resurrection from the dead As the Eternal Spirit lay like a Seed in the dead body of our Lord Jesus which putting forth itself brought forth Eternal Life and Glory in it So God the Father sends forth the same Spirit into our Spirits by which the Divine Life and Image of His Glorified Son spring up in us making us also Sons to Him in the same manner Thus if you would lead Son-like lives with God consider him as your Father There is no Earthly Relation or Form which more sets out the Spiritual Evangelical Eternal Union between God and Man than this of a Father Trace it apply it from the beginning to the end and it will lead you into all the Mysteries of Eternity Only remember these two Cautions 1. Take away all the Imperfection which this Relation hath in the Creature 2. Add to it all Perfection that it is capable of or can be imagined So apply it to God and a Saint For the Brightest Beauty in Nature is but a Shadow of Spiritual Glories I have finish't the Second Part of my Text which is the Race to the Kingdom 3. Part. The Royalty or Kingly State itself Enter into the Kingdom of God Doct. 3. The Third Doctrine from this Third Part is this The Third and last State in Christianity is a State of Royalty or a Kingly State This Kingly State is described by St. Paul Rom. 14. 17. The Kingdom of God is Righteousness Peace and Ioy in the Holy Ghost The Kingly State or Royalty of a Saint hath Four Properties 1. Righteousness 2. Peace 3. Ioy. 4. The Holy Ghost 1. Property Righteousness This is the Conformity of a Saint to God as to his Rule Genes 17. 1. Walk thou before me and be perfect Saith God to Abraham To be Perfect and to be Righteous are the same thing Set thy God the Supream Glory continually in thine Eye as thy Pattern and thine Aim So shalt thou be perfectly Righteous I will endeavour further to unfold the Nature of this Righteousness
with so sweet a Majesty that he pierc'd the Hearts of His Enemies with Arrows of Love Such a King is every Spirit which is Brother to this Jesus Righteousness sits upon him and shines from him as a Garment of Light Truth and Wisdom it shews as wrought into a Harmony of Courage Justice Temperance it sparkles with Tempers of Goodness Gentleness Meekness Humility These things like Arrows wound the stubbornest Hearts with a Liking and a Love that a man's bitterest Enemies bow to him 3. The Scepter Psal. 45. 6. It is said to our Saviour The Scepter of thy Kingdom is a Righteous Scepter Righteousness is the Scepter of Strength in the Kingdom of Christ by which all things are swayed and governed Psal. 16. 7. If a mans ways please the Lord his Enemies shall be at peace with him Holiness or Righteousness is such a Harmony such a Musick between God and Man as all things hear and obey They that make use of hellish Charms make the Picture of a Person in Wax and as they work the Wax by the Fire so they work upon the Person Goodness hath a Heavenly Charm in it For a Righteous man hath in himself the Heavenly Image of God which is the First and radical Image of all things By this Image he hath a power upon all things Thus Righteousness is the Crown Robe Scepter in the Kingdom of God 1. Use. Learn to hate Sin by the Rule of Contraries For if Righteousness cloath you with the highest Honour Worth Strength of Kings if it crown you with the Glory of God if it carry you up to the Life of God then what doth Sin Sin by the Rule of Contraries puts upon you the Baseness Badness Weakness of Slaves Sin wraps you up in the Shape sows in you the Seeds of Devils Let us then look on Sin in this Five-fold View As it puts on us 1. Weakness 2. Badness 3. Baseness of Slaves 4. Shapes of Devils 5. As it plants in us Seeds of Devils 1. Sin puts upon us the Weakness of Slaves Gen. 49. 3. 4. Reuben thou art my First born the Beginning of my Strength Excellency of power O Man O my Soul consider what thou wert in thy Beginning A Divine Flame shot forth from an Angels Bosom into this lump of Clay not to abide imprisoned in it but to feed upon it as fuel so to return and make its way upward making all things that resist its prey and nourishment What is it that hath thus enfeebled and cool'd thee and chang'd thee from Fire into Water Sin hath done this Now thou lyest spread upon the Earth swayed by every weak Breath or Spirit that blows upon thee unable to contain thy self casting thy self into the Figure and Shape of every Object on which thou touchest Thy Swordâ— hath thus weakned thee Man was the Reuben of God the First-born in the first Creation the Excellency of Dignity and Power the Head of Strength He was the Chieâ— Image of the Divine Nature made to be the Spouse and Queen of the God-Head the Onely One of her Mother The Rest of the Creatures were to be as Concubines only particular inferiour Images of God The Soul foolishly forsakes the Bosom of her God to throw herself into the Embraces of these Concubines so she defileth herself and them so she dishonoureth her King and Husband in both so pours forth her self loosely upon the Ground as spilt Water 2. Sin puts a Badness into men It puts into us a Three-fold Badness of Folly Filth Fury 1. Sin fills us with folly Sin so far befools thee O vain Man as to despise deny Blessedness Beauty Eternity there where they are in God the First the Fountain the Substance of all Beings and to seek them there where they are not in Fleshly shadowy fleeting Trifles This is that Folly the Head-Spring of all Sin which St. Paul complains of Rom. 1. 21. They became vain in their Imaginations their foolish Heart being darkned This was the Folly The Eternal Substance and Fulness was darkned and disappeared in their Spirits which brought forth instead thereof empty Images So St. Paul explains it at the 23. v. Changing the glory of the Incorruptible God into an Image made like to Corruptible Man and Birds c. What degree of Folly is this to refuse to acknowledge or own the true God who is Eternal Life and to make each painted perishing Vanity a God to us while we make it the Object and Spring of our Hopes and Happiness But thus it is most just that they to whom the true God is but as an Idol an empty name to them each Idol each empty Appearance should be their God This is the First Badness in Sin Folly 2. Sin fills a Man with Filth Carnality and Corruption signify both the same thing in Scripture To be Spiritual is to be Holy to be Fleshly Sinful To be Carnally minded that is to be Fleshly-minded is Death but to be Spiritually minded is Life and Peace Rom. 8. 6. Is there any thing more foul than this for a Soul which was made as a Spirit for Spiritual Joys and Glories so to mingle itself with Flesh as to see receive rellish nothing but by Senses of Flesh so to drown itself in Flesh as to be uncapable of conversing with taking conteâ—t in any but Fleshly objects This is the State of a Sinful Soul Thus is she over-spread with Flesh as one great Spot The Interpreters of the Proverbs teach us that the Young Man there is the Soul which is naturally Immortal ever young ever flourishing the Matron the chast Spouse that woes this Young Man Divine Wisdom the Heavenly Image of the Divine Nature The Strumpet this Worldly Image of things O say now when thou Sinnest Alass How do I dishonour and defile my self I who should who might live chastly constantly sweetly with the Eternal Image of Glory my God my Spouse mine own I pour forth my self into the lap of Strangers of Unconstant Whorish Flattering Fading Beauties in Flesh. O Filth O Shame That Spirit that should tread upon the Stars ride upon the Angels rejoyce with God everlastingly that Soul labours and sweats in Dust and Death as a Slave rowls in the Mire of Flesh like a Beast rakes in the unsavory sinks of all various Lusts as an unclean Spirit 3. Sin fills a man with Fury Solomon in his Proverbs tells us of One that throws about Fire-brands and Swords and saith Am I not in jest Prov. 26. 18. 19. This is Solomon's Foâ—l which is a Sinner Can it be that any should make Ruines and Reproaches their Delight nay their Devotion too Jonah said once He did well to be angry even unto Death Can it be that any should cherish a Rage to the Death Destruction of Men Kingdoms and Souls and then think such a Rage Religion such a Fury Zeal and that these things they ought to do Can it be that any should draw Tears and blood from others from
But man hath a Head above this Head The Head of Man is Christ as the Head of Christ is God 1 Cor. 11. 3. Man hath a Spirit above this Spirit Whom I with my Spirit serve in the Gospel of his Son Saith St. Paul Rom. 1. 9. The Heavenly Principle is this Head and Spirit Thou hast an Eternal Life in this Head and Spirit of thine In this Life thou art more than an Angel in the midst of the Throne thou art Light in the Lord thou art in the Light of the Lord as He Himself is in that Light This is the First Life 2. Life The Life of the Earthly Principle as it is Comprehended in the Heavenly The Earthly Principle in the Heavenly is as the Heavenly Behold saith Jesus Christ I make all Things new 2 Corin. 5. 17. As the Sun riseth upon the Earth so doth the New Man upon the Old making that also to have a New Face of Immortality as it is comprehended in the Beams of the New Man The Glory of God taking up Elijah was as a Chariot of Fire because as it catcheth up it changeth and conforms to itself that which it catcheth up into itself Such is the Heavenly Principle taking up the Earthly into it When St. Paul was caught up into the Third Heaven and Paradise then he was another man I knew a Man saith he Then he was that Man of Paradise If he was caught up in the Body then was his Earthly Body a Paradisical Body comprehended in the Body of Paradise When he was let down again he was an Earthly Man in an Earthly Body 2 Cor. 12. The Graecian Poet tells us of an Herb which had one Name among the Gods and another Name among Men. All the Things of this world have one sort of Names and Natures as they are in their own Principle But as they are Comprehended and Converst with by a Heavenly Principle they have quite other Names and Natures which are Heavenly As Adam so each Principle gives Names to all Things according to itself and by those Names they are called in that Principle The Sickness and Death of the Earthly Principle have other Names Names of Life in the Heavenly Principle This is the Second Life 3. Life The Life of the Heavenly Principle in the Earthly This is as the Life of Christ in the Flesh. It is the Life of the Son of God in Flesh. This is the Firmament which divides between the Waters of Life above and the Waters of Grief and Death below It reacheth to both and drinks of both It hath in its own Principle all the Springs of Peace and Joy But as it is in one Person and Principle with the Fleshly Man it takes the Infirmities of that upon itself and bears all its Diseases And besides all it hath one Disease of its own which the Earthly Man bears no part in and that is the Imprisonment Restraint and Contradiction of Sins and Sinners which it suffers in the Earthly Principle The Heavenly Principle in the Earthly is both the Primary Inflicter of all Sufferings and the Principle afflicted by those Sufferings 4. Life The Life of the Earthly Principle as it is Subordinate to the Heavenly This is that Flesh of Christ of which St. Paul speaks in the Mystery as of the Spouse of Christ Ephes. 5. 31 32. This is that Spouse which though it have still a Head a Principle of its own yet it vails this Head and subordinates this Principle to the Heavenly Principle as to its Husband till it be taken up into it that so there may be no more Male and Female but one Man in Christ no more Flesh and Spirit but all according to the New Adam a Quickning Spirit This Flesh is indeed washt with pure water that it cannot sin But it is Baptized unto Christ as the Jews were unto Moses 1 Cor. 10 2. in the Cloud and in the Sea It is the Immediate and Proper Subject of all Sufferings This is the Man that saith Lamen 3. 1. I am the Man that hath seen affliction by the Rod of his Wrath. This is a Beast for Slaughter But it is the Lamb among the Beasts It is a Lamb without Spot which is slain all the day long But it is slain as a Sacrifice not as an Abomination 5. Life The Life of the Earthly Principle in itself This is the Wild Ass that runs and snuffs up the Wind. This is the Seat of Sorrows and the Pit of Pollutions St. Paul Colos. 2. 11. calls this the Body of the Sins of the Flesh. The Flesh as it is in its own Principle is the Womb and Mother of all Evil. The Devil sows all his several Seeds in this Womb. So the Body that springs forth from the Flesh is the Devils Body in which all the Members are the several puttings forth of those various Seeds and Divers Principles of Evil cast by the Devil into the Flesh. These Principles are in truth so many particular Devils in him who is their Prince and Head The Body of the Sins of the Flesh is then a Cluster of Devils Incarnated in which each Member in particular is a particular Devil in Flesh Rom. 6. 19. As ye have yielded your Members Servants in a verse before St. Paul called them Instruments unto Uncleanness and Iniquity that is to the Principle of Uncleanness and Iniquity which is the Devil to Iniquity that is to make themselves one with that Principle and the various Images or manifestations of the various Powers in that Principle so yield your Members Servants to Righteousness that is Jesus Christ the Righteousness of God unto Holiness to the pure unmixt unclouded holding forth of the several vertues of Christ thorow your several Members You see the Life of the Earthly Principle in itself that it is the Center or Spring thorow which the Prince of Darkness and Devils thrusts forth all his Evil Powers and Spirits into a Body By this means it is made the Beast that bears the Whore it is made an Ass which bows down its back to all the Burthens of every Devil and Evil. Thus much for the Distinctions which concern the manner of our grieving Now follow the Rules which are drawn from these Distinctions to direct us in the Spiritual manner of Mourning 1. Rule Know the Ground of your Mourning to be the Subordinate only and not the Supream Appearance of God Psal. 30. 5. His anger endureth but a moment in his favour is Life Weeping may endure for a Night but Joy comes in the Morning When thou grievest and lamentest most bitterly then remember that this Discovery of God which covers thee with so much Horrour is but a momentary and dark one it is the Night the Back-part of God The Morning-appearance the Face of thy God is Bright and Shining with Joy The Living True Eternal Discovery which is above all other Discoveries is favourable and kind When thou lookest upon God and takest the Rise of thy
Mourning at the highest then say my Soul there is yet a Sight of God higher than this into which if thou couldst raise thy self thou shouldst find all their Love and Delight It is a Rule among Divines that there is no Supream Evil. Evil hath its Root in the Subordinate Manifestations of God in his Clothings and Disguises Travel on to the Naked Person to the open Face of God and thou Travellest beyond all the Fountains and Heads of Grief or Evil. 2. Rule Understand well that the Object of all Sorrow is the State of Things in flesh not in the Spirit The Law is the Ministry of Death and Condemnation 2 Cor. 3. 7. Sin comes in by Occasion of the Law Rom. 7. 8. The Law is the Occasion of Sin and the ministry of Death by reason of the Flesh Rom. 8. 3. What the Law could not do that is to make us Holy or Happy thorow the weakness of the Flesh. The weakness of the Flesh is the Ground on which all wickedness and woe is wrought The Flesh is the Shadow the Vail Hebr. 10. 20. Whatever evil is the Object of thy Grief so grieve as knowing it to be in the Shadowy part in the Out-side of Things only 'T is but a Leprosie in the Skin Job calls the Fleshly State of Things in themselves and not in the Spirit but Skin Job 19. 26. So doth the Devil in the Proverb Skin for Skin The Inside the Substance the Spiritual and Life-part of those Things over which thou so sadly breakest thy heart is Peace The Altar for Sacrifices was without the vail all thy Evils are without the vail let thy griefs then abid without the vail like the Servants of Abraham at the Foot of the Mount But let thy Spirit enter within the vail and let Isaac only go thither with thee the Child of Mirth and Laughter The Sea and Storms are without the Vail only in the Shadow The Anchor and the Rock Rest is within the Vail in the Spirit and Truth of Things 3. Rule Grieve so as having thy Head still above the Clouds of Grief in a clear Light of Peace and Joy Thy Head is Christ thy Head is thy Heavenly Principle thy Life hid with Christ in God Colos. 3. 3. This is your Head hiding itself in a Divine Light and Glory above all Storms and Changes Divide your self then in your Sorrows Let your grief be upon your Inferiour parts but let your Head be in Joys And as your Inferiour Parts are subordinate to your Head So let the Joys of that be as the head of your Griefs They that are washt need to have their Feet only washt said our Saviour Let your Feet only be washt with Tears And then remember that the Anointing of Glory and the Oyl of gladness is upon your Heads So mourn as that you may be like the Description of Christ Revel 1. 14. 15. that your Face may shine like the Sun in its Strength while your Feet are in the Furnace Feel your God stroaking your Head with his right hand while his left hand is striking your Feet with an Iron Rod of Affliction See how Job in a Tempest of Miseries yet Glories in his Head lift up above the Storm Job 16. 18 19. O Earth cover not thou my Blood and let my Cry have no place Also now behold My Witnes is in Heaven and my Record is on High When thy Tears and Blood run down upon the ground when thy Cries fill the Earth then raise thy self like Job and say even now behold My Head is in Heaven now I have a Life in my Heavenly Principle which is an Eternal Record of my Glory and Blessedness This testifies of a Beauty and Joy to me in these very Sorrows 4. Rule Let the Heavenly Principle as it lives in the Earthly be the Spring of your Sorrows Let not thy Griefs be an Oppression to the Spiritual Man in thee but an Oblation from it Thy Griefs will be an oppression to it if they proceed not from itself Originally For then its Joys in the Flesh are taken away from it by another by the Fleshly Principle Thy Griefs are an Oblation by the Spirit when they flow Primarily from the Spirit For then itself layeth down its Joys as Christ speaketh of his Life The Blood which our Saviour shed is called in Scripture the Blood of God Though the Blood ran thorow the Humane Nature Yet the Person or Principle that bled in that Nature was God Our Divinity ordinarily teacheth us this that Christ was Man that he might Suffer God that he might Merit His Blood had been of no value with God if it had not been the Blood of God In like manner your Tears cannot be Heavenly and Divine if they be not the Tears of the Heavenly and Divine Principle in you Though the Earthly Principle be as the Earth in which these bitter Waters bubble up and run along yet the Heavenly Principle must be the Spring in this Earth out of which they arise Otherwise they will be of no use to you nor value with God 5. Rule Let the Mourning of your Earthly Principle be a Subordination and Submission to your Heavenly Principle This makes your Sorrow a Sacrifice when without this your Mourning is but Murmuring Heb. 10. 5 6 7. Jesus Christ is brought in speaking to God his Father Sacrifice and Burnt-Offering thou wouldst not but a Body hast thou prepared mâ— Then said I lo I come to do thy Will O God Thus the Heavenly Principle speaks the same Language in every St. Thou wilt have no more Sacrifices of Beasts The Time is past in which thou hast taken pleasure to have the Inferiour Earthly Principle to be Sacrificed to and by the Superiour Heavenly Principle while thine Image was present only in the Type and Shadow But now thou hast prepared a Body for me thou hast brought me into the Earthly Principle that I should make a Burnt-Offering of my self to thee as of my own Body They were to bring no Strange Fire to the Sacrifice but to wait till Fire from Heaven fall down upon it and consume it In like manner is the Earthly man to lay itself on the Altar by the Power of the Heavenly Man and to wait till that bring forth a Flame of Sorrow upon it The Earthly man should say alwaies to the Heavenly I mourn that I may do thy Will and not mine own Est quaedam flere Libido There may be a Lust in weeping and so there is when the Outward Man fulfils his own will in weeping and not the Will of the Inward Man which is one with the Will of Christ and God 6. Rule Let the Earthly Principle as it is in itself be only a Slave to you in your Griefs If the Flesh have a Power of its own to make you Grieve to qualifie or measure your Griefs it will bring the Curse of the Serpent upon you it will make you to go upon your Belly
to sink altogether into your sensual and Corruptible Part. It will make you feed upon Dust seek a merit in and a Nourishment from your Sorrows When the Flesh hath Liberty to interpose it self in our mourning it makes our mourning Brutish or Devilish It makes our mourning Brutish by deriving it from outward and Temporal Things by terminating it on these So our Lamentations are as the howl of Dogs and cry of Bears It makes our mourning Devilish by mingling it with discontent and despair So the Roarings of our Spirits are like the yellings of Devils to Christ Art thou come to Torment us The Flesh is to be kept as a Hewer of Wood Drawer of Water We are to make use of the ways and weaknesses of it to help to break our Hearts and bring forth Tears at the direction of the Spirit in us The work of our Grief upon our Natural Part as it is in itself must be to keep it under to beat it as a Slave to destroy it as an Enemy This is the Ass which is not for Sacrifice but to have its neck broke except it be redeemed by its Subordination to the Spiritual Part. I have done speaking of the manner of Spiritual Mourning I come now to the Third Particular in the opening of the Nature of this Grief which is the Measure The Measure of Spiritual Grief hath Three Limits 1. Limit The casting out of Filth 2. Limit The casting down of Flesh. 3. Limit The clearing up of the Face of God towards us 1. Limit The casting out of Filth St. Paul 1 Corin. 5. 3. in the case of the incestuous Person blames the Church that they had not mourned that he who had done this Thing might be cast out from among them The Case is the same in our own Persons We are to mourn that every Evil Thing may be cast out of us We are to keep our Hearts in a melting temper till our Lusts be quite melted down till the Gold and the Dross be separated one from another We are to weep till we have washed our selves clean in our Tears Obj. But you may here ask What Power is there in our Tears or Sorrows to cleanse us from our Filth shall we say with the Papist that our mourning merits Grace if not of Desert yet for desire out of Congruity Or shall we say with the Arminian that our griefs are a moral way of working upon our will to mortifie that and make it weary of the Pleasures of Sin for the Pennance of Sorrow Ans. I answer to this that there is neither any merit in the Tears of any Creature to move God For if thou be Righteous it is to thy self And the Heavens with all their Hosts are Folly and Filth before Him Neither is there any Efficacy in the woes of man to purge the will of man For who can bring a clean Thing out of an unclean Can any one redeem his Brother from Death Can one Passion or affection in Man by a Death in Sorrow redeem his Brother another Passion or affection from the Death of Sin They must let this alone for ever But the Spiritual Griefs of a Saint are the Buddings of Aaron's Rod of the the Cross of the Lord Jesus in him And from hence they have their value with God and their Vertue on us 1. First my Sorrows have a value with God as they are the Sufferings of my Saviour in me St. Paul saith of himself 1 Colos. 24. I rejoyce in my Sufferings while I fill up that which is behind of the Afflictions of Christ in my Flesh for his Bodies sake All the Sufferings of Believers are the Sufferings of Christ propagating themselves thorow his mystical Members We are one Spirit with our Lord Jesus in our Tribulations as well as in our Consolations Our Groans as much as our Gloryings are the Breathings of that Spirit As the Soul is all in all the Parts of the Body making every Member a part of the Humane Nature putting upon it the Beauty of that Nature So is Jesus Christ in every Thing of the actings or Sufferings of Christ any where giving a Divine Beauty and worth to it by vertue of the Union 2 Corin. 4. 10. Always bearing about in my Body the Dying of the Lord Jesus that the Life of the Lord Jesus may be made manifest in my Body This St. Paul saith of himself The Tears from our eyes are the Blood from the Heart of the Lord Jesus Though not as our Tears yet as his Blood they have Power with God to bring forth his life in us Jesus Christ dies over again in thy griefs that so he may act his Resurrection over again in thy Graces The Father makes a Promise to the Lord Jesus Es. 53. 10. When he shall make his Soul an offering for Sin he shall he see his Seed This is an Everlasting Covenant between the Father and the Son that when he hath descended to the lowermost parts of the Earth he should then begin to ascend When the Image of the Invisible God hath put itself off into the Strange Forms of Darkness and Death then is it to spring up again out of these and again to behold itself in its own proper shape and power which is its Seed Thy Saviour and Husband makes his Soul an Offering for Sin in all the Sufferings of thy Soul Therefore mayest thou now challenge it of the Father in the name of Jesus Christ that he may see in thee his Seed which is the Power of an endless Life Thou mayest say behold O my God! by him whose the Signet and the Staff is the Glory and Power of thy God-Head by him am I in these Pangs and Sorrows Let then a Man-child be born in my Heart which may be called after his name that I may rejoyce in it and remember my Sorrow no more Thy Benjamin is come before thee into the Land of Aegypt as thy servant in my servitude Thy Darling hath brought himself into my guilt and griefs he stands before thee in them The Lamb of God a slain in my sufferings O then let it be a Passover that the evil Angel of Lust and Misery may pass from the house of my Spirit when he sees the blood of this Lamb in my Tears sprinkled upon the Posts of the Door 2. Secondly Our Sorrows have a vertue on us as they are the Sufferings of Iesus Christ in us Galat. 6. 14. God forbid saith Paul that I should glory in any thing save in the Cross of our Lord Iesus by which the world is crucified to me and I to the World As the Person of Christ is the Seed of God which springs up into many Sons to God so is the Cross of the Lord Jesus a Seed that remains not alone but brings forth much Fruit. It grows up into a multitude of Crosses a Cross in each good Heart a Cross in every Creature of this world This Cross of Christ is the wisdom and
Power of God making themselves first the Tree of the Curse on which all the Principles and Spirits of this world must hang Then the Tree of Life bringing forth the Fruits of Paradise and the Third Heaven Every care or cross in a Saint is this Cross of his Saviour sprouting in his Person The Lord Jesus lies hid in each Tear in each sigh of a Holy Spirit He is there as the Seed falling into the Earth and Dying By this Death he delivers himself from Death in thy Heart and breaks out on every side into Discoveries of his Grace and Glory Say of thy Trouble why art thou cast down O my Soul This is that Death of my Saviour in me by which he destroys the power of Death in my Spirit Sin and the Devil This is the way in which thou shalt praise him and see him swallowing up the Principle of Darkness in Darkness that he may bring forth himself in the Light of his Countenance to be the Light of thy Countenance I have been the larger in this Objection that so I may be the more clearly understood both in this and in the following Particulars Whatever mention is made of any Beauty or Grace in a Saint is not to be imputed to the Saint but to the Grace and Face of Jesus Christ in him so is the Excellency or Efficacy of our mourning the Discovery of our dying Saviour in it No Persons no Sorrows are Spiritual if they be not one Spirit with Jesus Christ. But thus much for the First limit in the measure of our Sorrows the casting out of Filth 2. Limit The casting down of the Flesh 1 Cor. 9. 27. I saith the Apostle keep under my body and bring it into Subjection The words are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I beat it black and blew and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I make it to serve The end and so the bound of Humiliation is First to bring down the Principle of the Natural Man into a Principle of Darkness that it may no more put forth itself in its own Light and Life Secondly it is to subdue that Principle to the Heavenly Principle that it may be quite slain in itself and revived in the Spiritual Man a Spiritual Principle Rom. 7. 24. St. Paul calls the Natural Man this body of Death or the body of this Death It is a body of Death in a Two-fold sense First Thy Outward Man is the shadow of Death cast upon thy Spirit It is the Valley of the Shadow of Death thorow which thou walkest here below Thou art in the Body sunk down to the borders of Death being already come within the shadow of it The whole face of things upon thy Person and round about thee is a dead Image and the Image of Death For he who hath the Power of Death hath entred into it with his Principality and taken away the true Life of it setting it up now as an Appearance in and of himself Secondly Thy Outward Man is a Body of Death because it is appointed to Death The Body by one Death hath brought it self out of the Divine Life into the Power of Darkness into a Hellish Root Now by another Death it must be broken off from this Root and brought back again into an Eternal Stock Our mourning then must last while we are in the Body of this Death till this be no more this Body but perish in Death The Devil cast us out of our Innocency and from the face of God he set up himself by setting up the Natural Man in it self We were turn'd out of Paradise when we came into this Body which is now the Beast's skin Again By the Ruine of the Natural Man we must raise the Building of God and cast down the Devil By putting off the Beast's skin by the dissolution of the Tabernacle of Beasts skins in Death we return into Paradise We are therefore to go mourning to our Graves 3. Limit The clearing of the face of God towards us Matth. 9. 15. Our Saviour tells the Jews That his Disciples could not fast while the Bridegroom was with them But the Bridegroom should be taken away And then they should fast in those days The Face of God in Jesus Christ is the Soul's Bridegroom Who that is the Bride of this Bridegroom can take joy in any thing when this Face is withdrawn and hid from him Shall not our Souls fast from the Freedom and Fulness of Natural Delights when our Spirits are made to fast from the Beauties and Delicacies of Jesus Christ This is the season of Mournning It is now beautiful to see a holy Soul Widow-like with a Vail upon the face of all her Glory and Content when her God is gone a great Journey from her What can she do but mourn when he is absent who was the Light of her Eyes the Anointing of her Face and Head What can set an end to her mournings till he return and wipe away all Tears from her Eyes by setting himself in the Eye of her Spirit Psal. 30. 7. Thou didst hide thy face and I was troubled saith David Will it not be Winter when your Sun is gone Can you expect a Spring till he turns toward your Earth again Is it not the Presence of the Lord Jesus that makes all things fresh and full of Beauty round about thee When he is withdrawn who was the Image of God in them do not all things droop and languish in thine Eyes Canst thou then chuse but languish with them If the Lord Jesus be the Root of thy Spirit and his Spirit the Sap of thy Comforts thou wilt grieve in his absence without arguments to persuade thee to it as naturally as Flowers nipt with Frosts hang the head Nay no arguments will be able to raise thee to any degree of chearfulness except he come and make himself the argument When thy Corruptions like Fogs from the Earth have gathered into Clouds which hide the Heaven of thy Lords Face from thee weep then till these Clouds be again dissolv'd by the Showers of thy Tears and so thy Jesus again discover himself over thee as a clear sky I have done with the Third particular in the Nature of Spiritual mourning which was the measure of it 4. The Mystery The Mystery of every thing is in God Ephes. 3. 9. the Mystery hid in God who created all Things by Jesus Christ. This is the Mystery of Things their ground their beginning and end in the Person of God and Christ. Neither can we be Spiritual in any thing any further than we see the Mystery of it and stand in the Mystery The Mystery of a holy Grief is Threefold 1. Mystery Conformity to Iesus Christ. 2. Mystery Complyance with the Will of God 3. Mystery The Compleating of our Persons 1. Mystery Conformity to Jesus Christ. We read Ephes. 1. 4 5. that we were chosen in Christ before the Foundation of the world We were predestinated to the Adoption of Children by
all the Natures of Love and Wrath the two Contrary heads of all distinct Natures are Originally in God according to their Eternal Ideas or First Forms If Jesus Christ had not come forth into all these Forms and taken upon himself these several Natures in their utmost varieties and contrarieties he had wanted some parts belonging to his Person and been imperfect in his Relation as a Son a Saviour in his Office as a Representer a Reconciler Therefore as St. Paul witnesseth He descended first to the lowermost Parts of the Earth then He ascended above all Heavens and that for this reason that He might fill All Ephâ—s 4. 10. Thus he was made perfect by Sufferings The descent of Christ was the drawing of the Picture of the God-Head upon him in its lowest and outermost Mysteries or wonders of Glory in its Back-parts or Feet The Ascent was the Uniting of the lowest to the highest the bringing of the outermost into the bosom of the Innermost the drawing up of the Feet into the Bed into the rest and Glory of the head The Scripture holds forth the accomplishment of the same Mystery in our Persons after the same manner Jesus Christ went thorow these Sufferings as our Captain that he might lead us the same way to the same end that he might bring us as Sons to inherit the same Glory to fulfil all Righteousness all the goings forth of the God-Head in our selves thorow Christ Heb. 2. 10. St. James c. 1. v. 2 4. exhorts the Saints to account it all Joy when they fall into all manner of Temptations and to let Patience have her perfect work which would make them Perfect entire wanting nothing We were brought forth upon the uppermost parts the Face of the Earth in Paradise Let us now with Jesus Christ go down into the Deep to the lowermost parts of the Earth by Sufferings and Sorrows Let us patiently endure till we are carried thorow all the Chambers of Death and the innermost corners of that Cave of Darkness till we be carried out of all up into Heaven So we shall be clothed with all the Wonders of God and have his manifold Wisdom his Fulness displaid in our Persons as his Sons also together with our Saviour Willingly then Travel thorow the valley of Baca of Mourning and Lamentation as the way of Perfection the Accomplishment of the Mystery of God in you Now I have performed the first part of my promise which was to speak of the Nature of Spiritual Mourning There remains behind the Second part of my promise which is to speak of the Mixture of Spiritual Mirth and Spiritual Mourning I will direct you to this Mixture by Five Rules 1. Rule So grieve as giving Glory to God in your Griefs 1 Cor. 10. 31. Whether ye eat or drink or whatsoever ye do do all to the Glory of God whether ye Mourn or be merry let both be to the Glory of God Mourn not as questioning the Sweetness in the Will of God the Wisdom in the Counsels of God the Strength in the Power of God the Beauty in the Face of God the Pleasures in the Person of God the Infiniteness in all Grieve not to the Clouding but the clearing of the Appearances of God in your Spirit Let not your Sorrows be as a troubled Sea but as a Sea of Christal thorow which you may see the glorious face of God As the Beams of the Sun shining thorow red Glass so will the glory of God be appearing thorow your Sorrows It will beget a Pleasantness in your bloodiest Pangs 2. Rule Let your Mourning raise not ruine the Life of the Spiritual Man in you Though the Outward Man perishes the Inward Man is renewed day by day 2 Cor. 4. 16. Let your Sorrows weigh down the Natural Man only as one of the Buckets that the Spiritual Man as the other of the Buckets may be lifted up If that Life which is Light in the Lord be lifted up by your Griefs It will draw up your Person and your Griefs themselves into the Pleasantness of its own Light 3. Rule Mourn in the Name of Christ Colos. 3. 17. Whatsoever ye do in Word or Deed do all in the Name of the Lord Iesus The Name of the Lord Iesus wraps up Four Things in it which I shall express by Four Rules in this present case 1. Mourn in the Power of Christ The Power of Christ is the Power of Eternal Life which carries an unexpressible sweetness along with it even then when it goes forth into the saddest operations Thy Tears will be a Spiritual Wine if they be the Fruit of this Vine 2. Mourn in the Image of Christ. Every thing is delightful to us which brings our well-beloved into our Thoughts though it be but as a Picture or Shadow of him Love delights in likeness especially to be itself made like that which it loves This will make thy Sorrows Comfortable to thy Heart and Glorious in thine Eye if thou Transferrest them upon thy self as in a Figure of Jesus Christ. 3. Meurn for Christ. Make him the end of thy Sorrows Christ is the end of the Law for Righteousness sake Rom. 10. 4. Let Jesus Christ be the end of thy Griefs for thy Joys sake The End puts a Loveliness and Pleasantness upon the means and way to it If thy Sorrows be for Self and from Self-love they will be like Brine they will have a Gnawing Burning Saltness in them But if they be for thy Saviour and from his Love they will be Fresh and Sweet on thy Spirit as the Dew of Heaven on the tender Grass 4. Mourn as in Union with the Person of Christ. A Saiâ—t is a Name of Anointing which signifies Two in one the Ointment or Oyl and the Anointed the Sanctifier and the Sanctified He that Sanctifies and they that are Sanctified are of one Heb. 2. 11. They must also be in One. Our Griefs are never Saintlike or Holy if they be not in Consort and Fellowship with Iesus Christ. Rom. 8. 17. Joint-heirs with Christ if so be we suffer with him Our Sufferings are a Murther not a Sacrifice they are to Death not to Life if they be not in Union with Jesus Christ. If they be in Union with Christ that Union unites a Sweetness and Joy to them These are the Branches of the Third Rule 4. Rule Let your Grief be a Grace If your Grief be from Nature only it is carnal not spiritual it is such a Death as is a Sowing to the Flesh which will bring forth Corruption and Death Whatever is not of Faith is Sin Rom. 14. 23. If your Mourning be not a Grace in you one of the Daughters of Faith which is the mother of all Grace it is Sin and to be resisted by you as the Devil But if your Mourning be Gracious then it is a Sowing to the Spirit of which you shall reap Immortality Such Tears are Precious Seed Spiritual Seed which have the Sweet Rellish
a Sight of that Heaven which is the Principle of the Lord Jesus in Glory This lyeth clear before us that the Heaven understood in this place cannot be any Visible or Common Heaven no not any of the Created Heavens This is an Heaven above All. For He who cometh forth from it is Lord of All. He is made Higher than All Heavens by ascending into this Heaven which is of another Make different from all things of the First Creation and hath a New Name above every Name that is named in this World or that which is to come the World of Sense or the World of Angels Heb. 7. 26. Eph. 4. v. 10. The Earth then of which we speak cannot be the Common Earth It must be as large as that mentioned Gen. 1. v. 2. out of which the Heavens themselves were made The Earth intended here by the Holy Ghost taketh in all things below the Heaven mentioned and meant by Him Angels with all the Invisible Glories of the First Creation are Gods arising up out of this Earth and comprehended within the Compass of it I will set up Three Lights before you by which I shall endeavour to give you a Prospect of this Earth and of the First Man arising out of it so as to be a Shadow and a Figure of the Heaven we aim at with our Bridegroom coming down out of it coming down in it as His Mother of Eternal Love His Garment and Crown of Divine Beauty His Chariot of Life and Light of Power and Pleasure 1. Light God as He is the Head of the First Creation cometh not forth Naked but in a Shadowy Image of Himself which He casteth as a Vail over the true and proper Beauties of His own Person which the Eye of no Creature ever saw or can see Psal. 104. The Psalmist singeth the praises and wonders of God in the Creation After the preface he beginneth thus Who coverest thy self with Light as with a Garment and stretchest out the Heavens as a Curtain v. 2. You have a manifest allusion here to the Works of the First and Second Day Gen 1. The Jews say from this Scripture in the books of their wise and learned men that God to make this World appeared not in His naked Beauties but cum Indumentis suis with a Garment for a Covering upon Him The Light in which God shineth forth at the Beginning to form a Mass of Darknes into a beautiful Creation was onely a Shadow of the Eternal Light of His own Nature and Substance and a Vail upon it The Glory itself the Divine Presence and Appearance at the Head of this Creation which was spread over the whole Compass of it as an Heaven was a Curtain drawn before the true Heaven the true Glory which stood behind this Curtain like the Oracle in the most Holy place while the First Tabernacle was not yet removed This is the First Light 2. Light God in this Shadowy Image of himself is that Earth the Divine Earth out of which the first Man is made with a Divinity resting upon him Gen. 1. 26. God said let us make man in our Image after our Likenâ—ss The word Image in Hebrew Tselem seemeth to be a contract of two words Tsd Maveth the Shadow of Death It is used Psal. 39. 6. Man walketh in a vain show they are disquieted in vain or in vanity That other word used Gen 1. 26. Our Likeness signisieth similitude silence an imagination a cutting off Both import thus much that the Divine Image the Mother of the first Adam in whose Womb he was formed out of whose Womb he sprung forth upon whose breasts he hung was a shadow a silent vanishing Shadow of the Eternal word in which that slept as in its Night or Death As Dreams are Imaginations in the Fancy which act their parts while the Man sleepeth such was this Image after which Man with the whole World was made This was the Mother-Earth which broughâ— him forth which beareth him which nurseth him in her Bosom and dandleth him on her Knees We read Gen. 2. 7. God formed Man of the dust of the ground The word Ground is the same with Adam It signifieth in its root a sparkling Lustre and Ruddiness like that of the best Rubies to express which it is also used A sweet and glorious Light shining thorow a dark shade like a rosie morning or the Sun setting red in a lovely evening because being low he shineth with his bright Beams thorow the rising mists and vapours of the Earth is properly intended by this word The Light of the God-Head sparkling in a Shadow of himself glowing under a Cloud like a living Ruby from the Rock of Eternity this was Adamah the Ground the Mother of Adam God formed Adam of the dust of this ground The learned Jews paraphrase after this manner upon the dust here As the skilful Apothecary beateth his Spices to a small and â—ine powder that by a more curious and exact mixture of them he may make them into a rich ointment or cordial so God in the smallest and least parts perfectly mingleth and uniteth all the Principles Powers Forms and Vertues of the several Creatures as they lay together in their first and fairest Image in their First-born state in himself Of these thus tempered he sormeth Man the Second Image of the whole Creation next to that in his own Person Thus Man is as a living Crystal in which the entire Form of all the world visible and invisible is seen transparently in the whole Glass and in every point of the Glass by a ravishing concurrence of all parts in each the mâ—nutest part with a most beautiful and divine Harmony arising from the accurate Mixture of that Precious Dust. Thus Man is an Universal musick where the well-measured Motions and sweet Sounds of all the Strings meet in every skilful Touch of every String as a New Circle of Heavenly Melody and Delights spread from a New Center of Life and Love Thus I pass from the Second to the Third Light 3. Light The First Adam was the Golden Head of the First Creation next to God in Jesus Christ. St. John in the 1. chapter of his Gospel describeth the order and manner in which the unfaln World came forth from God The Word which was Jesus Christ as He is God the Essential and Eternal Image of the God-Head was made by His own Almighty Power according to the Unsearchable Counsel of His own All-Gracious and All-Glorious Will a Shadowy Image of Himself As upon the Vail of the most Holy Place were wrought in pleasant Colours the Figures of those Cherubims which stood within the Vail shining in a rich Substance of Massy Gold So was it in the most Holy Person of our Saviour the true and living Temple of the Divine Nature The Glories of the Essential Image figured themselves upon this Mystical Vail of the Shadowy Image So the Beloved Apostle saith to us while he openeth the Mysteries
and Births of the Divine Love v. 2. All things were made by Him by his Lord and his Love our Lord and our Love our Jesus As He was the Essential Image and the Pattern upon the Mount of Eternity All things were made by Him They were Copies taken of Him Shadows cast from Him by the Abunance of an Overflowing Life and vertue in Him Without Him was nothing made v. 2. That expression Without Him properly signfieth apart in separation or disunion from Him in a Self Subsistency All the Creatures in their Flower in their Virgin-purities and perfections stood and flourished together with their united Beauties and Sweetnesses in the Person of our Bridegroom as He made Himself a Shadowy Image After this manner was our Jesus The Beginning of the Creation of God and the First-born of every Creature St John addeth v. 3. In Him was Life Some Interpreters joyn the latter end of the second verse with the beginning of the third and read That which was made was Life in Him The sense is the same All the Creatures in the Person of Christ did flourish and shine together in the unstain'd Lustre and Harmony of One Divine Beauty They did rejoyce and sing together in the Fellowship of One Divine Life and Love Here they see the Beauties they smell the sweetnesses they tast the pleasant vertues they feast upon the precious Substances they drink in the pure Lives and Spirits of each other continually This Life was the Light of Man v. 3. From this Life-Image of the Creation in Christ propagating itself Immediately and entirely springeth forth the Essence and Form of Man Man is now a Light of Glory shining freshly and fully from the First Created Light which subsisted in the Person of the Eternal Word In this Light of Glory stood Paradise with all the Creatures in their Priâ—tâ—ve Pure and First-born State next to their First-born State in our Lord Jesus From the Fountain arising here and going forth from this Eden all the Creatures sprung up fresh and new every moment in their several Beings and Beauties as they grew upon their proper and distinct roots By this you may understand the sense in which Adam is said to be set in the Garden to dress it and to keep it Gen. 2. To dress it signifieth to serve it or minister to it The Lord Jesus by his Resurreâ—tion from the dead is set in the Heavenly Paradise to dress and keep that So he saith of himself I go to prepare a place for you John 14. The Paradise above is set in the glorified Person of the Lord Jesus From the Father the Fountain of the God-Head opening himself in his Bosom he riseth up with an Eternal Form of Divine Glory into every particular Saint as into a Spiritual Plant of the Heavenly Paradise which comprehendeth all Paradise with its Root Body and Branches in itself Jesus Christ is the Tree of Life in the midst the Center of the Eternal Paradise on which all the Fruits of this Garden grow Each Fruit each Plant in like manner is a Tree of Life compleat in itself bearing all the other Love-Plants as its own proper Branches and Fruits Thus this Paradise in the third Heavens standeth in the Person of Christ and standeth out of the Person of Christ. After the same similitude the Paradise below standeth first standeth entire in the Angelical Person of the first Adam The Lord Jesus in his Shadowy Image riseth up first here here first he formeth the fairest and fullest figure of himself Every Angel every Star every Flower hath here its first its freshest Life Beauty and Sweetness All fall in and stand here as parts of the Musick in the full Harmony As all the parts of Musick flow forth from the Universal Harmony and are measured by it so doth the first Man from the Fountain rising up into the universal Form of the whole Creation in himself go forth every moment freshly and newly into the temporary Forms of each particular Creature each Angel each Star each Flower ministring to them the number of their parts the measure of their proportions the weight of their vertâ—â—s I have been the larger in this place that we may enjoy the sweetness of the Light of that Scripture more fully by seeing it more clearly Rom. 5. 14. The first Man was a Figure of him who is to come This is the Earth of which we speak God in a Shadowy Image the Mâ—on which Pythagoras called an Heavenly Earth or an Earthly Heaven Thus is the first man of this Earth Earthy I believe you run before me in your thoughts and by this time have some prospect into that Heaven from which the second Man the Lord of Glory 〈◊〉 I am now to proceed to this which is our Rest and the end of our 〈…〉 he unprofitable nor unpleasant to stay here a while and reâ—â—◠〈…〉 beautiful Earth this blessed Mâ—n rising up out of it It will afford us two Lessons of much use and comfort 1. Lesson Fear tremble be confounded at the sight of Sin and fly from it with all your might O Man What a glorious Angel wast thou How wert thou in the similitude of God the Crownof the whole Creation Every precious stone was there How is this goodly Creature faln Thou art become by Sin a Worm and no Man a Serpent creeping upon thy belly and feeding upon the dust of the Earth All the Creatures grew and flourished together as a Nose-gay in thy Bosom being in their Paradise there and living upon their Root How art thou made a filthy noisom sink in which all the Creatures â—e covered with dirt withered and dead O the Curse that goeth along with every Sin I have heard of an Holy Divine strong in Faith who haunted by an Apparition of the Devil in the form of an Hog thus reproached him Fie Satan once a beautiful and blessed Angel dost thou now appear in the shape of a vile filthy Heg The Devil was so stung with this reproof that he went presently away out of countenance and vanished cut of that good Mans sight When we are tempted to any Sin of Lust Covetousness or Wrath let us in like manner say to our selves Fie my Soul once in the Likeness of God once a Quire of Angels a Paradise in thine own Person wilt thou now make thy self a Hag a Dâ—g a Toad 2. Lesson Set a high value upon Jesus Christ set your hearts upon him believe in him love him run into his arms cleave to him That Paradise that Purity that Innocency that light of Life and Beauty which you have lost are found again in his bosom changed from the Shadow to the Substance He that was the Figure in the first Adam and vanished out of your sight leaving you alone naked and desolate the same is come again to you in the second Adam in the Truth and life to abide for ever with you Augustus Caesar gloried that he found the Buildings
of Rome Bricks but left them Marble Our Paradise was at first Earthly and fading Our Jesus hath prepared for us in himself an Heavenly unfading eternal Paradise When Caesar found Cato his Enemy slain by his own hand that he might not come into the power of the Conqueror Caesar spake these words over the dead body I envy thee Cato the glory of thy Death seeing thou didst envy me the glory of thy Life Poor man faln from the first Beauty and Blessedness lost in Death and Wrath come to Jesus Christ do not thorow unbelief deny to him the glory of restoring thy Beauty and Blessedness to thee better than at the first by restoring thee to the naked Bosom of Eternal Love and the Substantial Joys of eternal Life But now it is time to pass on to our second Discovery unto which all this hath been a preparation only We have seen the flourishing Earth of the first Man which is only as a sight in a Cross-bow or Gun to direct our Eye to the mark which is the Heaven answering to this Earth Blessed shall our Eyes be if they see this Heaven opening itself and the Lord coming down out of it with all its glories under his Feet and round about him 2. Heaven God in the brightness of his own Substance uncloathed of every garment appearing in the naked Beauties and Loves of his Divine Nature and Person this is the Heaven into which the Body of our Saviour ascendeth out of which it cometh as a Bride from the bosom of her Bridegroom as the Heavenly Eve from the side of her Heavenly Adam Beauty of his Beauty Love of his Love joyned to him inseparably in one Spirit and one eternal Glory This is the Heaven over the head of the shadowy Image the essential and eternal Image of the Father This is the Resurrection of our Jesus from the Dead this is the sweet and sacred Mystery of our Saviours death the opening of the shadow as a Grave in which the true Glory slept that this might come forth and as it riseth overspread the shadow as it overspreadeth it gather it up into itself which is the swallowing up of Death into the Victory and Triumph of Eternal Life the darkness of the shadow into the everblessed light of the beloved substance Our Love is never awakened or stirred up till himself please When the Beautiful and Acceptable time is come the true Glory which lieth buried in the shadow awakeneth by a mysterious touch upon the shadow rendeth it as a Vail then it looketh forth and springeth like the morning like the fair Moon like the pure Sun the Figure and the Life all shining together with one Glory in the Calm and clear day of Eternity I shall endeavour to explain and confirm this to you by one Scripture John 17. 5. Father glorify me with thy self with that Glory which I had with thee before the world was Our dying Saviour prayeth for his humane Nature and for his divine Nature only as it was united to and sympathised with his Manhood The God-Head in its own single state and simplicity is ever above all passion and so all prayer Jesus Christ prayeth to be glorified with the Father in that Soul and Body in which he was presently to be cruciâ—ied with Thieves that in these he may be there where the Father is that is in the high and holy place of Eternity to this end that in these he may partake of the glory of the Father there in Eternity Eternity is defined to be The possession of all good together and at once without any bound terminating it before or after or in any kind This is the high place of Eternity above all Time Change Succession or Division For this reason is our Lord said to be Higâ—er than the Heavens All Created Heavens are below Eternity They have Mâ—â—sures and Limits set to the Forms of their Beings and to their Durations which they caâ— not pass They are continually rouling thorow successive Changes As the Sealyeth all in Waves so do the Essences of the most great and glorious Creature consist of manifold and various Changes Jesus alone in His Manhood is ascended to the Height of Eternity above all Changes and in this Height of Glory He cometh the second time into the World when it is said to him Thou changest the Heavens as a Garment and they are changed But thy throne O God endureth for ever and ever Heb. 1. 8. 12. So the Lord Jesus expoundeth Himself in that prayer of His Father glorifie me with thy self with that Glory which I had with thee before the World was The Glory which Christ prayeth for in behalf of His Humanity is a Glory above the Creation For it was before the Creation The Glory of Christ's Humane Nature in the Resurrection from the Dead is a Glory in Fellowship with the Father with Him who was from the Beginning an Eternal Glory a Glory which is when yet the World is not a Glory which is the same while the World standeth before which the World is not a Glory which is when the World is no more Eternity hath neither Beginning nor End neither Succession nor Change We may now understand how Jesus Christ was with the Father before the World was 1. His Divinity was there For in that He and the Father are One 2 His Humanity was with the Father before the World Personally in its propeâ—â—â—rson For the Divinity is the Person in the Humanity 3. The Soul and Body of Christ were there in their Root in their Original in the Will of the Father which is Eternal Love in its unconfined Absoluteness in the Wisdom of the Father which is Eternal Beauty in its unlimited Greatness and Universal Comprehension They were also with the Father before the World in their glorified State For their Glory which is Themselves in Truth and Perfection is Eternal was before the World was Thus our Saviour in His Glorified Humanity is that Melâ—hisedech mentioned in the Hebrews c. 7. v. 3. without Beginning of Life or End of Dayes whose name is always I am Joh. 8. 58. which met Abraham with Bread and Wine when he came from the slaughter of the four Kings Blessed art thou when thy Jesus thus appeareth to thee in the Form and Glory of Melchisdech when He is known to thee by this His new and His old Name of Melchisedech the King and Priest of the most high God which liveth for ever livâ—th in Eternity above all Times past present or to come Thou who thus seest and embracest Him to thee He cometh with the Bread not of Angels but of God with the new Marriage-Wine of the Kingdom of God Upon these the Father your Beloved and you sup and Feast together while every One in Him is both the Guest and the Feast Blessed is he who in like manner thorowout the whole Mystical Body of our Saviour seeth that high and sweet piece of Divinity to be true which
the Evil and Ugliness of Sin in the Light and Glass of their own Heavenly purity 2. Ans. Hatred is an intellectual contrariety The Unity and Love of the Divine Nature in the King of Saints and all his Holy Ones is essentially and formally in itself an irreconcilable opposition an active contrariety to Enmity and Sin as Light Day and Immortality are to Darkness Night and Death 3. Ans. God seeth Sin in order to his Wrath. God seeth his Wrath in ordeâ— to his Glory his Glory as the full object of his Love order is the Chain and Band of Unity Thus God beholdeth all at once as they lie comprehended in the Unity of Eternal Light and Love by their several Subordinations God beholdeth Sin as it is swallowed up into a flame of wrath the flame of wrath as it is heightned to a Light of Glory the Light of Glory as it shineth and liveth in the Eye of his Love the Fountain of all Lights Life and Joys Love is the Eternal and rich Root of all Glory is the Tree that springeth up out of this Root the perfect and full Image of Love in which it liveth diffuseth and delighteth itself within itself This Tree of Glory spreadeth itself into many flourishing Branches among which are Holiness Justice Wrath against Sin Wrath by the force of the contrariety raiseth up Sin as a mark to shoot its burning Arrows and cast his fiery Darts at Love thorow these Attributes letteth in Sin by the Law that it may display itself more fully in its War with its Enemy in it Conquest and Triumph over it that it may break forth and rise up thorow it more powerfully purely and sweetly like a flame going up to Heaven from a great pile of Wood perfectly subdued to it The Unity of God is now the Glass of Love in which alone God seeth alâ— Things and the Diamond which he seeth set and shining in every Ring of Operative or Permissive Providences Sin appeareth to him in the Glass of his Wrath and Justice These sheweth themselves to him by their reflections and Images in the Glass of hiâ— Glory His Glory shineth forth from the Arms and Bosom of his Love which is the inmost Center and outmost Circle of the Divine Unity Here all things lie here all things present themselves to God as Mysteries of Divinity and Love in the Unity of the Divine Nature God beholdeth with a fulness of Joy his Love the reflection of himself his own Fountain the Fountain of his blessed Unity in which he lyeth Eternally bathing himself in pure floods of Incomprehensible Pleasures this Love this Unity this Fountain he beholdeth in all his Glory His Glory is the Object of his Eye in the Severity of his Justice and Wrath. He contemplateth his Justice and Wrath alone in Sin Thus God seeth every where the Mystery of his Divine Unity as the great and bright deep of Eternity He seeth every where the Seal the express Image of his Divine Unity where all the riches of his Glory and Sweetnesses of his Love unfold themselves and sport together Thus O Saint learn to look upon every Sin See it in this Glass of Truth the mystery of the Divine Unity See this secret and invisible Jewel the mystery of the Divine Unity sealed upon it sealed up in it Thus shalt thou see Sin so as to preserve thy Purity and thy Love both in one Thou shalâ— see Sin so as to be at once a flame of Wrath to it and a Light of Glory a flame of Love in that flame of Wrath comprehending both Wrath and Sin in the Wrath. So shalt thou see Sin hate and dwell for ever with God who is the Beauty of Holiness and Love 4. Ans. God looketh upon a Sinner as upon a Prison and a Grave where the Truth the Divine Seed the Light and Life of the Divine Image lyeth detained captivated slain by a Lie the Prince of Life and Light by the Powers of Darkness His Wrath and Hatred against the Sinner is a zeal of Love He cometh forth with Thunders Lightnings Tempests and Earthquakes in his Wrath to break down the Prison walls to break open the Grave that the Prince of Glory may come forth into the Light of Life and the liberty of the Glory of a Son of God God as a Sun breaketh forth with power and in his Strength to dissolve by the force of his Beams the Inchantment and Light that the Sons of Light and the Truth may be set free Thus God hateth Sinners thus do thou hate them with a perfect Hatred Let thy fire be no bitter zeal but a zeal of Love Let thy woundings be Divine Anointings I have hitherto passed thorow only one half of my discourse upon the description of Spiritual Love by the supream Unity in the Divine Nature I shall take my ground for the other half Galat. 3. 20. This shall be my Center for a time from which my Motions shall arise and whither they shall return to end thee The words are these Now a Mediatour is not of one but God is one This Scripture hath a sweet and clear depth of Love in it but unfathomable This depth is the Unity of God St. Paul stateth here the most essential difference between the Law the Ministery of Wrath and the Gospel the Ministery of Love One is established in the hands of a Mediatour in the other God is one The Love-union in the Gospel is too near too sure too sweet to need or admit a Mediator The Fountain of all Evangelical Grace and Love is the Unity of God The Unity of the Spirit is the Band of Peace between the Uncreated and all Created Spirits Ephes. 4. 6. But we shall more clearly see the Riches Treasured up in this Scripture if we look upon it by the light of another Scripture in the same Chapter v. 16. Now the Promise was made to Abraham and his Seed he saith not to Seeds as to many but as to one And to thy Seed which is Christ. The Holy Apostle in this Chapter maketh it his work to prove that Righteousness is not by the works of the Law but by Faith in Jesus Christ according to the Gospel God descending into Christ and taking up Christ into himself Jesus Christ in this fulness and Glory of the God-Head entring into the Soul and taking the Soul into himself by the free Revelation and immediate Union of Faith This is the Righteousness of God and of his Saints in the Gospel One Argument by which St. Paul maintaineth Righteousness to be of Grace and not by Works is laid down v. 15. the Covenant of Grace was long before the Law He confirmeth that here v. 16. The Promises were made to Abraham and to his Seed c. The Holy Ghost in this verse established the Heavenly Building of the Gospel upon three beautiful and firm Pillars 1. Pillar The Gospel is a meer simple pure Promise That which was called in the verse
of Nature to this Truth the Unity of the Divine Seed in Nature God is One not in Regeneration only but in the Creation also We also are his Off-spring Thou who art hitherto Earthly and Natural an outcast of Nature cast down to the nethermost parts of the Earth in Lusts Unbelief Blindness of Mind Hardness of Heart Profaneness Enmity seek thou also after God feel after him Thou also mayest see him and feel and find him in every motion in every act and part of thy Life in every point of thy whole Being Every Motion Act and Part of thy Life every Point in thy whole Being is that Field in which is hid the Treasure of the Divine Being Beauty and Blessedness Thou livest and movest and hast thy Being in him He liveth and moveth and hath his Being in thee He is thy Seed in thee For thou also art his Off-spring Believe the Love of God open all the parts of thy Being and Powers of thy Soul to take in this Love Thou hast in thee the band of the Love-union the Divine Love-spring the Unity of the Divine Seed For thou also art his Off-spring Blessed is he who believes and seeks for this Pearl more than Silve and diggeth for it more than for hidden Treasures Blessed is he who findeth it and goeth and selleth all that he hath to purchase it Thou hast this Pearl in thine own Field the Divine Seed in thine own Soul and Being Let this be the only Seed in thy Soul Then hast thou sold all for it Then will it spring up into a living Palace of one Immortal Pearl in thee which God himself and all Glorious Spirits will inhabit together with thee filling it with the sweet Lights of their Divine Beauty with the Eternal Flames of their Divine Loves and Joys Obj. But you may say if this be so why are not all saved If all be of one Seed which is Christ why doth not one Life of Grace and Glory spring up in all from that one Seed Ans. My Answer to this Objection shall be a threefold use a Reproof to Sinners a Root of Comfort a Reason for Holiness Use. 1. A Reproof to Sinners The Sin of the Devil was the first and Fountain Sin In that therefore the evil Nature of Sin in the whole Kind and in every individual Act is most manifest St. Jude painteth it out in its black and bloody colours after a most lively manner Jude 6. The Angels not keeping their first Principle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and forsaking their proper Habitation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 O Man Thy God is thy first Principle Thou didst stand in him as in thy Root Thou wert filled with Sap from him Thou didst partake of the Fatness and Sweetness of the Divine Nature Thou wert a flourishing and fruitful Tree All the Birds of Heaven the Holy Spirit the Blessed Angels delighted to sit and Sing in thy Branches All visible things rested under thy Shadow How art thou fallen to the ground How dost thou lie withered and dead upon the face of the Earth No good thing cometh near thee Sin hath done this Thou hast not kept thy first Principle O Man The Divine Image was thy proper Habitation This Image in thy Person was a Sun of Beauty shining in every part of it and a Shield of Power defending it on every side In this Image all Blessed things were united to make a Paradise for thee which thou didst carry about in thine own Person as thy proper Form thine inseparable Habitation like to God who carryeth his own Heaven into every place with him Alas Thou art now naked in the Eye of God and all the Creatures Thou art exposed to shame to every storm of Rage Malice and Wrath from all Sin hath done this By Sin thou hast forsaken thine own thy proper Habitation Beware O Men Of the Evil of Sin You cast out anew the Divine Seed out of your Garden by every new act of Sin You cut off anew the Divine Form Flower and Fruit from every Plant in your Garden by every new Act of Sin As oft as you Sin so oft you make a fresh wound upon the Divine Unity you make it to bleed afresh and dye in your Persons But besides this there is yet a greater Evil in Sin The Seed of God is one the Divine Unity the Love-spring of Eternity The Seed of the Serpent the Devil is Enmity the Hellish Spring of Hate and Death Every Sin is this Seed of the Serpent in thee Enmity to the Heavenly Seed the Unity of God In the Law the Jews were forbidden to seethe a Kid in his Mothers Milk for the Cruelty and Unnaturalness O the cruelty of every Sinner in every act of Sin O the unnaturalness Thou makest a Fire of the Kid that thou mayst burn its Mother in it Thou changest the natural Image the natural Life in thee into a fire of Wrath and Lust to burn up and consume in it the Heavenly Seed out of which it springeth Solomon in his Proverbs telleth us that he who curseth his Father and despiseth his Mother the Ravens of the Valleys and the young Eagles shall pick out his Eyes This hath its highest truth here go on in Sin But know that now in each Act of Lust of Wrath of Profaneness of Unbelief thou offerest despight to thou cursest thou killest the Seed of God in thy self the Divine Unity the purest and perfectest Love thy Father which hath begotten thee and thy Mother which bare thee which brought thee forth What will thine End be The Ravens of the Vallies and the young Eagles Unclean and devouring Spirits from Hell below Spirits of blood of death of horrour and slaughter shall eat thy Flesh consume all the Light of Life and Beauty in thee shall swallow up thy Spirit into the Bottomless Pits of Darkness Dread and Death within themselves Use. 2. The Root of Comforts in Believing the Root of Faith that we may believe and have Comfort is the Divine Unity The Unity of God is thy Seed in thee The Seed is one and that one Christ. The Unity of God is the highest and purest Love The Unity of God Divine Love is the Seed of all Things thy Seed Believe this Love believe in this Unity that is in Christ who is this one Seed of Love Let these Arguments persuade thee to believe 1. Argu. The Unity of God is the Fountain of Love The Unity is the Simplicity the Purity of the Divine Nature God in the nakedness and simplicity of his Divine Essence is Love Lean stay thy self upon this Rock of Eternity the Divine Unity Simplicity Purity of Love 2. Argu. The Unity of God is Love How strong is this Love All the Attributes Powers Excellencies Vertues of the God-Head are united and centred in Love How great is the force of Divine Love What is its Vertue its Excellency its Sweetness O Almighty O Supream O Soveraign Love All Things Good Great and Divine
round about you Then shall Worldly Christians Hypocrites Temporary Believers all who have lived in the Lusts of the Flesh or the Letter onely of the Gospel take hold of climb up upon the outside of the Ark the outward Fleshly Form and Appearances of the Eternal Word the Lord Jesus Then shall they too late cry to be taken into the Spirit which alone is Truth which alone hath Immortality But they shall be rejected They shall lose their hold drop off into the flames and perish there I will conclude all with that Scripture John 14. v. 30. 31. When Jesus Christ perceived that the hour and Power of Darkness were now come upon him he saith The Prince of this World cometh Arise let us go hence Thus saith the same Jesus now in the Hearts of his Beloved Ones to his Spouse The Prince of Darkness The hour and Power of Darkness of dread of Destruction of the Devouring Fire cometh Arise let us go hence out of the visible things of the Flesh into the Invisibility of the Spirit The Ark of Pure Gold Paved with Loves 3 Property Plenty This is the Third Property in the Effusion of Divine Love upon the Glorified Person of Christ. It is poured forth plentifully I will divide this Head by Streams flowing from it 1. The Fulness of all Love is poured forth in Iesus Christ. 2. The Person of Christ is all Full of Love 1. The Fulness of all Love is poured forth in Jesus Christ. We read Colos. 1. 19. It pleased the Father that all Fulness should dwell in him that is in Jesus Christ. All Fulness and so the Fulness of All Love had its Seat its Bed in the Bosom of our Saviour But the Pleasure the Will of the Father which is the Highest Pleasure Pleasure in one Substantial most Perfect Eternal Act is the Well Spring which sendeth forth this Plenitude of Divine Love into Christ. The Words lye so in Greek that they may be properly rendred according to the rules of Grammar after this manner All Fulness was well pleased to dwell in him God is the Fulness which filleth all in all He alone is in any Place in any Spirit in any Creature Repletive so as to fill it God is Love God then is the Fulness of all Love Nothing attracteth and draweth so powerfully as Pleasure doth God who is that Love which is all Fulness the Fulness of all God who is the Fulness of all Love poureth forth himself to the Full to the last drop if we may so speak of that Love which hath neither First nor last Beginning nor End in the Lord Jesus For in Christ he poureth forth himself with Pleasure which is the highest of all Pleasures The Effusion of Love is itself a Pleasure Then the Beautiful and Blessed Person of the Lord Jesus is the most pleasant Channel the most pleasant Seat and Palace of Divine Love This Fulness of Divine Love in Christ shooteth forth itself into Three Branches 1. Love in all States 2. Love of all Kinds 3. Love in all Degrees 1. There is in Jesus Christ flowing forth from the Father a Fulness of Love in all States There are Three States of Divine Love in our Blessed Saviour There is 1. Preventing Love 2. Assisting Love 3. Finishing Love Divine Love in Jesus Christ hath these Three States and a glorious transcendent triumphant Fulness in every State 1. There is in the Lord Jesus poured forth from the Father A Fulness of all Preventing Love 2. Tim. 1. 9. St. Paul teacheth us that God hath saved us not according to works which we have done but according to his own Purpose and Grace given us in Christ before the World was Before thou hadst any thoughts of Love to Jesus Christ before thou hadst any Being in This World before the World was there was a Love from the Father in Jesus Christ to Thee to Thee whoever thou art that liftest up the Eye of thy Spirit the Eye of Faith to see thy true Self thine own Person in this Dwelling-Place this Palace of Divine Love where thou hast bin hid where thou hast had thine abode thorow all generations from Eternity Christ in the Glory of the Father the heart of the Father in Christ. This Preventing Love well understood removeth Two Objections out of the way of many hearts to the Bosom of their Jesus Object 1. Broken-hearted Sinners distressed Souls frequently plead thus against themselves We cannot think that Jesus Christ hath any Love for us because we cannot believe his Love Answ. Hear O broken-hearted Sinners O Distressed Souls Hear and believe Jesus Christ hath in himself from his Father the Fulness of all Preventing Love He beginneth to you in Love He beginneth with you He giveth you Faith to believe his Love To you it is given to believe The Son of Man cometh and giveth you an understanding to know the True God by his Proper Name of Love 1. John 5. 20. The Preventing Love of God in the Bosom of Christ cometh to Thee poureth forth itself in thy Bosom giveth Thee a new Eye to see the Divine Beauty a new Ear to hear the heavenly Melody a new heart to take in rellish and understand the Spiritual Sweetnesses Fulnesses Joys of this First Love Love in its Fountain in the Fountain of Eternity This New Wine of the Everlasting Kingdom giveth itself to Thee with a New Bottle a New Spirit which will take in and hold this precious Liquour Not one drop of it shall ever fall besides this Bottle or be spilt out of it Object 2. But still thou poor troubled trembling Soul thinkest the glad Tydings of the Gospel of Pure Preventing Love too good to be true Thus thou arguest against thy self If I were but moderately evil or morally good if I could in any degree comply or close with Jesus Christ when he offereth his Love and himself to me then might I have some hope that I had some place in his heart But if the Lord Jesus himself should shine forth with the Sweetest Vision of Preventing Love in the midst of my Fleshlinesses Filthinesses hardnesses Enmities and should say to me as the Angel to Mary hail thou that are greatly Beloved Hail thou that are freely Beloved I should not onely wonder at this Salutation but believe it all to be a vain Dream of my deluded Fancy Answ. Let me tell Thee a Story A beautiful Aegyptian Youth when his Friends desired to take his Picture desired them to take him up seven daies after his death and then to take his Picture Thou the most defiled the most deformed Sinner wert once beautiful once in the freshness and flower of thy Youth in Paradise It is true thou art now dead dead of the most loathsom disease dead by the most killing and corrupting Death dead in sin Yet now after that thou hast bin many years dead Jesus Christ in his Glorified Person cometh like a Bridegroom from heaven not onely to take thy Picture but
surrounding us far from our Father's house from the Bosom of our Jesus in the wide solitary naked field of this Fleshly Image We lie upon the Cold Ground of our own Natural Earthly Comfortless Spirits Under our head is the hard Stone of unbelief Distrust Care and Fear Where is now Finishing Love Finishing Love is now nearer to you than you are aware This is the Season for Finishing Love this is the Time in which the Work of Finishing 〈◊〉 is most Beautiful What it now doth will be for Ever for an Eternal Joy and Glory a Work of Eternity It will be now Pure Love Perfect Love It will now work with All Freedom with all Fulness in your Weaknesses Ere you are aware Finishing Love will open itself as the Heaven of Heavens round about you You shall see the Lord Jesus as a Mystical Ladder 〈◊〉 Divine Loves reaching from Heaven to Earth filling with the Fulness 〈◊〉 Divine Loves poured forth in his Glorified Person all the Space betweeâ— Heaven and Earth while One End of this Ladder toucheth the Heart of Goâ— in the Glories of Heaven and Eternity the other End toucheth thine 〈◊〉 thou liest covered with darkness below on the Desolate Earth Divine Love in all Angelical forms stand upon every Round of this Ladder every Degreâ— and State oâ— Things between heaven and Earth in great Troops These â— once descend and ascend bring down the Heart of the Father into thy Bosomâ— and carry up thy Heart into the Bosom of the Father Now thou saiest This Open Field was the House of God of Divine Loâ—â— This Darkness was the Gate of Heaven the Gate of Finishing Love and was not aware By this Gate Divine Love cometh forth from Its Spiritual Pâ—â—lace unto me By this Gate Divine Love bringeth me into its Palace Itâ— enough I have received the Spirit of Promise I am Sealed by it with 〈◊〉 Eternal Image of Divine Loves and Glories with the Heart of my Jesus mâ— God set upon my Heart O my Jesus it is true it is True This was the Sea son of thy Finishing Love and I was not aware Thy Finishing Love maketh Perfect its Strength Light Sweeetness in Weakness Darkness Enmity Thus comfort your selves against the Difficulties of Life in the Freedom the Fulness of the Finishing Love of God treasured up in the Glorified Person of Christ for you 2 Comfort Against the Darkness of Death Gladly therefore will I rejoyce in mine Infirmities For when I am weak the Power of Christ resteth upon me saith St Paul 2 Corin. 12. 10. in the place cited before It is the Power of Finishing Love in Christ which is here intended For that was the Subject of the former part of the verse My Grace is sufficient for Thee Behold Free Grace Pure Love For my Strength is made perfect in Weakness The Strength of Grace of Love is made Perfect in Weakness Behold Finishing Love This maketh the Infirmities not of old Age onely but of our dying hour Pleasant to us that when we are weakest the Power of Divine Love resteth upon us in its Finishing Sweetnesses and Glories When the Lord Jesus hung upon the Cross he cried out My God my God why hast thou forsaken me A Darkness covereth the face of the whole Earth round about Him The next words which we hear from him just as he giveth up the Ghost are these It is Finished A Declaration of Victory A Triumph The Mystery of my Sufferings of Divine Wrath are finished in my Person The Glory of the God Head of Heaven of Eternity All Beauty all Joyes The Mystery of Divine Love are finished and compleated in my Person Both these Mysteries are now finished Both Compleated in One Glory in this One Moment of my Death This is the Pattern of a Saint and of Finishing Love in the Pangs of Death You have a Saint sick on his Death-bed a sense of Sin of Wrath Doubt Despair spreading their black Wings over his Spirit pains faintings deadly pangs seizing upon his Body In a Moment in the midst of these Weaknesses the Lord Jesus in a Chariot of Angels and Invisible Glories with the full Power of all Finishing Loves resteth upon him from without raiseth himself and shineth from within Now in this Moment is the Whole Scenâ— changed The black and baleful Image of Things is changed into a Heaven The fainting dying Person into a Glorified Spirit triumphing in his Chariot of Angels and ascending with the Lord Jesus into the Heighths of Eternity He crieth one moment The Joys of Life the Light of the Sun the Delights of mine Eyes My Dearest Relations and sweetest Friends Life itself forsake me My hope my Faith my Spiritual Comforts my God my God why do ye why doest thou forsake me The Next moment with a Shout of Angels with the Sound of the Silver Trumpets in Heaven he crieth out It is finished The Sufferings of Christ are finished in me Divine Love hath finished upon me all its Mysteries and made the Joys of Eternity full in me A modest Person was sick and in want A Friend sensible of his want and modesty conveyed a Bag of money under his head and pillow while he slept He waketh findeth it smileth and saith This is the Stealth of my Friend Our Jesus frequently casteth a deep Darkness the Shadow of Death over us then when he purposeth under the covert of this Darkness to convey some finished Piece of Glory some Compleat Work of Finishing Love Heaven itself into our Bosom our Persons into a Heaven of Immortalities and Glories unsought unexpected unperceived by us until we are possessed of them until we are in the midst of Them These are the Stealths of our Beloved These are the Stealths of Finishing Love The Power of Christ with all the Fulness of Finishing Loves resting upon a Saint in his Death is excellently described 2 Corin. 5. v. 1 2 3 4. Observe there Four things 1. A Glorious Building 2. The Groans of Burthened Saints 3. The Workmanship of God 4. The Earnest of the Spirit 1. A Glorious Building This is A building of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 out of God The Materials as well as the Builder and the Form are all of a Divine Nature It is a Pallace hewn out of the Rock and standing in the Rock of Eternity Gold precious Stones Pearls the Body of the Sun Angelical Substances are as Dung to the Materials of which this Building consisteth It is Eternal above Time and so without Beginning or End above Succession and change It is in the Heavens in the Highest Heavens the Heavens of Eternity the Heavens of Heavens in the Eternal and Supream Spirit It is situate in the most Divine Heighths in the midst of the most Divine Lights Loves Purities Powers and Pleasures in the midst of the most Divine Lives and Immortalities 2. The Groans of burthened Saints We groan being burthened The Burthen is the Earthy Tabernacle This Life The Weight of vanity and
Dust their bones scattered and cast up and down Church-yards The blessed Body of our Lord Jesus was taken off from the Cross a bloody liveless mangled Corps a sad and ruthful spectacle So he was laid in the Grave the same Body which after three days rose again and was taken up into Glory The Scripture plainly testisieth that in Death as the Spirit returns to God who gave it so the dust returns to the Earth as it was God passeth this sentence of death upon Adam for his transgression Dust thou art and to dust thou shalt return Do not we by faith grounded upon the clear letter of the Scripture expect the Resurrection of our Bodies at the sound of the last Trumpet Ans. I answer to these objections first in general I fully assent to all these testimonies of sense of the letter of the Scriptures of the common faith of all the Saints concerning the Resurrection of the Body Yet is it true that I mean this I believe this in this meaning and belief my Soul and Body rejoice and triumph together that not the Soul alone but also the Body of a Saint in the very first moment of Death meeteth with no dissolution but a restitution and most delightful return to liberty peace and perfection This is that sweet and comfortable sense of Death which the holy Spirit seemeth to have sealed upon my Soul from all principles of reason of Faith and from the letter of the Scriptures In this sense I wish that all were as I am to behold with the same spiritual Eye in the same light of the Spirit the beauty and loveliness of Death in the Body of a Saint the beauty loveliness and pleasant life of the Body of a Saint in Death I come now to give a more particular answer fitted to the several objections by four distinctions The four distinctions are these 1. Of a two-fold body in a Saint 2. Of a two fold Dust. 3. Of a two-fold Sense 4. Of a two-fold Resurrection 1 Dist. There is a twofold Body which the Scripture in its language attributes to a Saint There is a Body from which a Saint is to be delivered You read of this Rom. 7. l. Wretched Man that I am who shall deliver me from the Body of this Death There is a body in a Saint which is to be delivered St. Paul speaks of this in the name of all the Saints Rom. 8. We also who have the first-fruits of the Spirit wait for the adoption the redemption of the Body There is a Body which is the seat of Death a Body of Death as in the forementioned place who shall deliver me from the Body of this Death In all the members of this Body sin reigneth as a King establishing his Law For so in the same place a little before it is written With my Members I serve the Law of Sin This is the Body of Flesh in which there dwelleth no good as St. Paul speaks in the same Chapter There is again in a Saint a holy living immortal Body the seat of a holy heavenly and immortal Life in as much as it is the Temple of the Holy Ghost For so St. Paul testifieth as to an unquestionable and known truth granted of all the Saints in the primitive times 1 Corin. 6. 19. What know you not that your Body is the Temple of the Holy Ghost Again a Saint carryeth about with him thorow his life a Body which is a partition-wall between him and his Beloved which divides between Christ and him which he must break forth from and cast off before he can be taken into the Bosom of Jesus Christ and be with him 1 Corin. 5 6. 8. St. Paul complains that while he is present in the Body he is absent from the Lord and breaths forth passionate longings to be absent from the Body that he may be present with the Lord. But a Saint hath a Body which is so far from dividing him and Jesus Christ that these two divine lovers are entirely united and both one in it It is Christs own Body as well as a Saints All the Members of it are the Members of Christ as they are of a Saint 1 Corin 6. 15. Know ye not that your Bodies are the Members of Christ shall I then take the Members of Christ and make them the Members of a Harlet God forbid Yea he carryeth this union so high that he maketh the Lord Jesus and a Saint in this Body of his of which alone he speaketh to be one Spirit and makes that the principal ground upon which he builds his arguments against Fornication v. 16. 17 18. What know ye not that he which is joyned to a Harlâ—t is one body for two saith he shall be one flesh but he that is joyned unto the Lord is one Spirit Flee Fornication he that committeth Fornication sinneth against his own Body How manifestly here are a fleshly Body and a spiritual Body distinguished one from another A Body in which Fornâ—cation makes the Man one flesh with the Harlot a Body in which a Saint is one Spirit with Jesus Christ These two are one Body which standeth in two mixed Principles and Images The Body of a Saint while this life lasteth standeth partly in a carnal or fleshly principle and Image This is the Body of Death in which no good dwels which is subject to the Law of Sin While a Saint is present in this Body he is absent from Christ. This is that from which a Saint groaneth to be delivered The Body of a Saint standeth in part and imperfectly while we live here in a Spiritual Principle and Image Thus the Body of a Saint is the Temple of the Holy Ghost the Body and Member of Christ one Spirit with Christ by which one Spirit it is Baptized into his Spiritual and heavenly body This is that body of a Saint which groaneth to be redeemed and delivered from the Body of Death as from its Captivity Prison and Grave The Death of a Saint finisheth this Captivity breaketh open the Prison and the Grave and setteth free the Body of a Saint into the liberty of its Adoption or Sonship that is into its Spiritual and divine form of a Son of God As fire is said to separate things of different kind and to gather into one things of the same nature so is the Death of a Saint the flame of God the fire of Divine Love Jesus Christ coming in the invisible flame of this Heavenly fire to separate the fleshly Principle and Image from the spiritual Principle and Image both in the Soul and Body of a Believer The fleshly Principle and Image which is in the Body of a Saint as a foreign and strange thing as rust upon Gold is entirely cast off to the Spirit and Image of this world and of the Devil to which it belongeth The Body of the Saints in its Spiritual Principle and Image which are truly and properly its own in which it is
effect of that union Jesus Christ put a life a divine life into every Creature by his union with it St. Paul seemeth to relate to this Scripture and to confirm this living beautiful and Divine State of all the Creatures as they came forth from God Colos. 1. 16. All things were made in him all things were made thorow him unto him and into him v. 18. All things stood together in him Well then the Dust the Ground the Earth the Darkness in the pure state of the Creation were made in Christ were life in him were made in union with Christ. They were made thorow Christ as their mould and channel They were made by Christ as their Original pattern as the immediate power putting forth itself in them They stood together with the rest of the Creatures in the Divine Unity in Christ. Thus had this Dust of which we speak a Divine life in it a Divine Beauty upon it a Divine Seed in it this life was the life of Christ and so comprehended according to its kind all the lives and vertues of all the Creatures and of Paradise It s beauty was the beauty of Christ in which after the like manner all created beauties centred and met in one Christ himself was the Seed in this Dust and so not only the excellencies and virtues of the whole Creation but all the uncreated Treasures of Life and Glory lay together shaded and vailed within this Dust. But their vail and their shade was a living beautiful and pleasant Picture of themselves all filled with the sweet Odour of those hidden Ointments I have one thing more to say to describe this Dust. Man who was the last days work the comprehension and perfection of the whole Creation was made in a shadowy Image of God For so the word Image in the first of Genesis signifieth and the Scriptures in their whole course testify In the beginning all things came forth from God in an universal Darkness before the Light of the first day This Darknâ—ss is remarkable in several eminent circumstances 1. It was cast forth immediately from the Divine Nature and from the glorious Person of Christ to be a vail round about upon the Eternal Glory itself and to be a ground of the whole Creation 2. It stood in an â—immediate union with the Divine Nature and the glorious Person of Christ springing forth immediately from it and depending immediately upon it 3. The unsearchable riches of the God-Head and of Christ with all the various Excellencies of the creatures as they were in their eternal patterns and principles lay hid together within this shade 4. Out of this ground did God make to spring all the creatures in their primitive paradisical purity and pleasantness being wrapt up here as in their first matter and having their proper seeds sown here Thus was this Darkness a shade indeed but pure indued with a Divine Life cloathed with a Divine beauty and lustre bearing a Divine figure breathing forth a Divine sweetness spread forth every moment fresh with a new lustre and sweetness from the Divine Nature vailing within itself all the Joys and Glories of God Christ Heaven and Paradise and as it hides all these in its Bosom lying itself in the Bosom of Christ. Such is the Ground such is the Dust of the Ground and the Earth out of which the Body of Man was first taken and into which the Body of a dying Saint returns Such is the Darkness of Death that overshadows a Saints body like the Nights in Paradise But there is this advantage now that this pure primitive Dust and Darkness are heightened have a new and greater beauty and sweetness by the Resurrection of Christ from the Dead This is the first Dust the Dust before the Fall 2. The second Dust is that after the Fall understood in that sentence Dust thou art and to Dust thou shalt return This is the Dust of that Death which sin brings forth a cursed Dust the Dust of the cursed Earth which bringeth forth Bryars and Thorns That former beautiful and blessed Dust lies captivated in this as in a Prison or Grave of contrariety and enmity This Dust is composed of three things 1. A Separation Dissolution and Desolation from the â—orce and power of Enmity 2. A Blackness of Darkness from a cloud and storm of wrath 3. The seeds of shame pain anguish horrour and torment hidden in it This Dust is that which the Body of a Saint casts off in Death upon this worldly Image and Spirit together with the Spirit and Image of this world This is that which suffereth dissolution which representeth deformity and striketh the horrour in Death All which are now of the Image of this world and to the Image of this World in the Spirit of this World and to the Spirit of this World within the Kingdom of the Devil having no more relation to a Saint in Death than the filthy raggs of a Prince in a Dangeon to the Prince at Liberty and in his Pallace Death rubbing off the Rust of this cursed Dust from the Body of a Saint leaves it all a shining rich incorruptible Dust of pure Gold His Body is now entirely with Christ a precious pleasant and living Dust in the Garden-Beds the Beds of Spices or perfumed Flowers in Paradise This is the second Distinction of the two Dusts 3 Dist. The third distinction is of a twofold sense Rom. 8. 6. St. Paul teacheth us That to be carnally minded is Death but to be spiritually minded is Life and Peace The Greek runs thus the mind of the flesh and the mind of the spirit The word mind is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifieth a practical understanding and comprehendeth a twofold act one of the understanding to disâ—â—rn and judge another of the will to tast and rellish So the mind is here a sense and a favour both in one Thus you have here a twofold sense Spiritual and Carnal or Fleshly 1. The Spiritual sense is set forth three ways 1. By the Principle 2. By two effects of this Principle 3. By two companions of these effects 1. The Principle of a Spiritual sense is the Spirit this holy and blessed Spirit is the only and proper Principle of a Saint and Saintship of a Son of God and a Sâ—â—ship to God Art thou indeed a Saint then thou art in the Spirit of Glory and of God as in thy Root and Element as a Tree of Life in the Root of Eternal Life and Love as Fishes in the water of Life as Birds in the pure air of Divine Love as Angels in Heaven Rom. 8. 9. You are not saith St. Paul to the Saints in thâ— Flesh but in the Spirit Art thou indeed a Son of God Then is this Spirit of Grace and Immortality in thee as thy natural Principle as the power of Nature according to the new and Divine Nature which acteth thee Rom. 8. 16. As many as are led by the Spirit of God are
he that hath suffered in the Flesh hath ceased from Sin The Holy Ghost clearly relates to the death of the Lord Jesus and of a Saint He speaks of the time perfectly past he that hath suffered in the Flesh that is he that by dying hath compleated and finished his sufferings in the flesh he hath ceased from sin He that dyeth in union with Christ in the vertue of his death and in a conformity to it in the first moment of death ceaseth from all the Evils of Sin the Guilt the Power the Pollution the Punishment and so from Death itself See the inseparable connexion between the Flesh Sufferings Sin and Death All these continue together and cease together O you that hear or read understand these things and lay them to heart This Flesh which is so dear to us which we are so loath and unwilling to part with which we tender as our nearest and dearest self is our only division from our self a bed of Snakes and Enmity It is the root the seat the food the fewel the fruit of Sin and suffering and death This Fleshly Principle and Sense this worldly Light and Image which we account Life and the Sweetness of Life in which we think all the dear Treasures and Joys of Life are comprehended is no other than a deep dark and miery Dungeon where we lie in the midst of the hissings stings and poysons of innumerable Toads and Serpents This Sin which so easily besetteth us and winds itself into our bosoms is that weight which presseth us and sinketh us down that chain of Darkness which tyeth us down and fastneth us here below in the horrible Pit and Dungeon of this Fleshly Principle and Sense this Fleshly this worldly Spirit and Image This Death which seemeth so dreadful to us which we so tremble at and fly from is that dearest Friend come down from Heaven from the bosom of God that beautiful hand put forth from the secret of Eternal Life Love and Glory which taketh off this weight which knocketh off this chain of Darkness and restoreth to us our silver Wings and golden Feathers by which in a moment we fly forth from this Cage of unclean Spirits this Dungeon of the Fleshly Principle and Sense never to return into them any more O Believers fear not fly not from Sufferings Be willing to sacrifice and offer up this Flesh as a whole Burnt-Offering in the Flame of Sufferings unto Death Kiss Death as a lovely Bride as those perfumed Flowers those Beds of Spices the Cheeks of the Heavenly Bride-groom mentioned in the Canticles For the Flesh the fleshly Principle and Sense the Spirit and Image of this Flesh of this World together with the Sufferings Sin and Death end all at once in the Death of a Saint in the very first moment of his Death A Holy Divine when he was dying lay upon his Death-Bed singing this often over Now I shall sin no more We read Isaiah 59. 2. That our Iniquities separate between us and our God our Sins hide his face from us Death is indeed a separation but it is not the separation of the Soul from the Body The separation of the Soul or the Body from God this is Death indeed this alone is Death This world this worldly Spirit and Image is the Curtain or Vail the Partition wall between us and the Face or Bosom of our Heavenly Bridegroom our Lord Jesus So saith St. Paul Our Gospel is hid to those whose Eyes the God of this world hath blinded that they should not behold the Light of the Knowledge of the Glory of God in the Face or Person of Christ. The Fleshly Principle or Sense is the unpassable gulf between us and the unsearchable Treasures of the Divine Nature of the Blessed Persons in the Divine Nature the Father the Eternal Word the Holy Spirit Sin digs up and keeps open this Gulf sin builds up this Partition wall Sin draws this Curtain between us and the Divine Beauties the Divine Blessedness O dying Saints break forth into singings O all ye Saints rejoice and triumph at every thought at every approach of Death Abraham saw the day of Christ and rejoyced to see it saith our Lord Jesus in the Gospel The word rejoyce in Greek is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is he danced a Galliard When the Virgin Mary with Christ in her Womb came to the Mother of John the Baptist the Babe within her sprung for joy Thus O Believers let your hearts spring for joy within you at the approach and presence of Death So Death coming to you as a beautiful and a heavenly Virgin with Jesus Christ in its Womb not after the Flesh but in the Glory of the Spirit to be delivered of him immediately into your Bosoms as a Bridegroom that at once in the same moment appears to you in Glory makes you worthy of himself by being like himself and one Glory with himself makes all things Life Immortality Glory round about you Behold the day of your Death both afar off near at hand as the day of Christ as a day which the Lord Jesus makes rising himself as the true Sun upon you so iurning this Sun into Darkness before the brightness of his own appearance enlightning all within you and without you with another Light infinitely greater infinitely sweeter At the sight of this day as Abraham did so let your hearts spring with a pleasant lightness and dance Galliards in your Bosom Now sing of Death and say in your songs every one of you as you lie upon your Death-beds I shall sin no more I shall be in Flesh no more no more for ever in this Fleshly Principle and sense which hath so long bewitched me and held me by their â—orceries in the House of Whoredoms and of Death I shall be in this world so loathsome and so hateful to me I shall see this world and this Image of things which hath been so long so tempting and tormenting to me no more for ever Farewel for ever all distances all divisions between me and my Jesus my God Henceforth shall I with open face in my Soul and my Body behold the open and unvailed Face of God Henceforth shall I with my naked Soul and Body lie for ever in the naked Bosom of my Glorified Saviour my King and Husband giving him of my Loves drinking in abundantly his Loves and bringing forth continually by him all the Spiritual and Heavenly fruits of Life and Immortality The morning is called Rosy-fingred because the morning Beams as Rosy-fingers seem to open the Curtains of the night and let in day upon us Death is to a Saint of a truth this Rosy fingered morning which by sweet beams breaking forth from on high draws aside the Curtains of this night of Flesh and lets in upon us the Eternal day which at once in a moment overspreads our Souls and Bodies and fills all things to us with its blessed Light making us and
Rest. In this confidence doth the Flesh of the Lord Jesus rest in Death It hath no more for ever any Conflicts or Allarms It is overspread with a sweet and clear Heaven It breaths in a gentle and delicious air where there is no storm no rain nor cloud It is in a State of immutable joys where there is no Death no Shadow of Death no trouble no fear no shadow of fear or any such thing All things sing an eternal requiem and rest to it As the Flesh of the Lord Jesus resteth in Confidence so it resteth also in Hope Hope is good in prospect or in progress At our first conversion the Eternal day breaketh upon us While we live on Earth in a State of Grace we have sweet and clear streaks of the Light of Life appearing thorow our Spirits which still grow clearer and brighter unto a perfect day But all this while there are dark and black shades of the Night Sins and Sufferings every where mingled with the pure Light of this blessed Day At Death it is perfect Day The shadows of the Night are perfectly drunk up into the rising Light that now they appear no more in dark Forms but are seen only as by a lovely temperature with the Light they make beautiful and pleasant colours of Saffron and of Roses In the Resurrection the body of the Sun the Eternal Sun the Lord Jesus in the Glory of his God-Head ariseth upon Soul and Body both and is nakedly seen nakedly enjoyed without the Vail of any dark and nightly shade or any Floury Spicy or morning shade From the Resurrection to the utmost point of the ascention this Divine Sun is rising higher and higher in Glory upon us till he comes to that Noon-sted of Eternity and of the God-Head where there is no more any ascent or descent where the Unity is entire where god is one and that one God is all in all In the Confidence and full assurance of this Hope doth the Flesh of our dying Saviour and of every dying Saint rest Object But you may say we have formerly seemed to affirm according to the Language of the Scripture that the days of Christ on Earth before his Death were alone the days of his Flesh that the Flesh of Christ was a Vail upon his Body which was rent in Death that it was not the substance of his Body nor its true proper and natural Form but a darkning and dividing Form in which the Body of Christ appeared and with which it was cloathed in the State of fallen Nature in the State of his Humiliation in his Earthly State This State ended this Form was put off in Death How then had the Flesh of Christ a part in his Triumph How did the Flesh of Christ rest in Hope Ans. In a Garden of Flowers by night the Flowers are seen in dusky and dark Forms while the shades of the night lie upon them as Vails upon their Beauties When the bright day riseth upon this Garden the Flowers appear in their naked and shining Beauties in their proper and lovely Figures their dark appearances together with their darkning vails the shades of the night are drunk up and transformed into the brightness of the Rosy morning The Body of the Lord Jesus and of all his holy Ones are the immortal Flowers Flowers of the Heavenly Paradise Their Fleshly Form is the shadow of the night upon them their dim and dusky appearance thorow this Shadow Death is the lovely and rosy Morning of the Eternal Day rising upon them The Spirit of Glory and of God is the brightness of this Day The Flesh is now changed into Spirit the dusky appearance thorow the Vail of Flesh into a Spiritual and Heavenly brightness In this brightness these bodies of which we spake shine forth in their naked native shapes and Beauties from all parts they shed a Divine Lustre they breath a pure sweetness of Divine Joys like the Flowers of the Spring in a fair morning Thus the Flesh of Christ resteth in Death 3. The ground of this Triumph is the inseparable union between the God-Head and the whole Humanity of Christ living or dying These are the words of the Lord Jesus by his Spirit in the mouth of David Thou wilt not leave my Soul in Hell Expositors agree that the word Hell signifieth not a place of torments according to the common acception but the State of Soul and Body in Death The Greek word by which it is rendered in the New Testament is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which by its notation signifieth the State of things Invisible or the Invisible State of things It is also well known that the Soul in the language of the Old Testament is not used to express only one part of a Man but the whole Person It is a Maxim in Divinity laid down by all learned and holy Men that when the Natural Union between the Soul and Body of our Lord Jesus ceased in Death the Supernatural and Hypostatical or Personal Union between the Divine or Humane Nature in both parts of it remained inviolable and entire Thus it is frequently said that although the Soul of Christ was separated from his Body in the Grave yet the God-Head was never separated from either O sweet and sure truth A Spring of Holy Heavenly and Immortal Joys in Life and in Death This Truth rightly understood is a blessed Light which discovereth to us a Divinity in our Life here Immortality in Death and Heaven in the Grave This Divine Truth is the rich ground of our dear Saviours Glorious Triumph over Death in Death There was a twofold band of Union between the Soul and Body of Christ while he lived in Flesh one Natural the other Supernatural 1. The Natural Union was that composition of soul and Body by which he became a Natural Man and had the true Forms Substance and Essence of a Man sprung from the first Adam This band of union was broken in Death by which means the Natural Man now was no more for ever according to its Natural State and Principle but vanished like a shadow breaking up into the Light of a Spiritual Glory 2. The Supernatural Union is that of the second Person in the Trinity which is the Eternal God who at the Incarnation of Christ made himself Flesh that is a compleat Man himself subsisting as the single and undivided Person in this Man in both parts of this Man in Soul and in Body giving in like manner a personal subsistence to them in himself that the Divinity and the Humanity in its Soul and in its Body both were all one simple individual indivisible Person This is that which Divines call the Hypostatical or Personal Union in Christ which remained firm and altogether unimpaired in Death itself See now the beautiful and delightful consequences of this Union The Soul and Body of Christ continued immediately intimately sweetly triumphantly united upon the Cross in the Grave were both one Immortal
undivided Circle of Eternity always at once in every moment and cast of his eye he saw possest and enjoyed all pleasantnesses In this Face of his Father which is the Light of Eternity he saw his own Face as he passed thorow all changes Even then when he cried out that he was forsaken by his Father he beheld this forsaking of him himself thus forsaken in this Glass the face of his Father in the midst of all Pleasantnesses one of the Pleasantnesses one with all the Pleasantnesses there The Aâ—gels that take care of Children here below in the midst of this their work on Earth ever behold the Face of the Father in Heaven How much more is it true of that Person who is the Face of the Father who is one Essence and Substance with the Father who unites the Humane Nature to the Divine Nature in the Unity of this Person Shall not he much more see the face of his Father in Heaven while he is on Earth or in the Grave serving the little Children of his Father his younger Brethren as their good Angel This Face in which all Pleasantnesses are at their fulness at their heighth was that Joy set before Jesus Christ upon the Cross for which he enâ—ured the Cross and despised the shame I shall now conclude this discourse of our dying and dead Saviour of his sacred Body living and immortal in Death with those four thiâ—gs which were too wonderful for Solomon the way of a Ship upon the Sea of an Eâ—gle in the Air of a Serpent upon a stoâ—e or a rock of a man with a maid or as it is in Hebrew in a maid The most learned Jews teach us to understand this as the Mystâ—ry of the Messiah The most learned of the Christian Divines give us such a Gloss as this upon it while they make this place from the authority oâ— the Jews themselves to prove against them that the Messiah was to be born of a Virgin 1. The Man in the Maid is the Heavenly Man in Womb of the Virgin 2. The Ship upon the Sea is the Humane Nature in its Union with the Divine Nature Sailing along in its course of time and life here below upon the Sea of Eternity 3. The serpent upon the Sâ—oâ—e or the Rock is the deep and Glorious wonder of Death in the Person of Christ who is the Rock oâ— Eternal Life and God himself who lives for ever 4. The Eagle in the Air is the Humane Nature risen and ascending in the Spirit to the right hand of the father above all Heaven to the utmost heighths of all Joys and Glories of the Divine Nature and Eternity Before I leave this Subject I will point out one Use and Application of it When a Voice came with Thunder to the Lord Jesus declaring Love and Glory from on high upon him Jesus Christ saith to his Disciples Tâ—is Voice came not for my sake but for yours In like manner these glorious things are spoken of Christ in his life and in his death not for himself only but for all his Saints Christ and all the Saints are one seed To that one seed to all the Saints in Christ to Christ in himself and in all his Saints are all the Promises made All those pleasant things which we have spoken of Jesus Christ and of his holy Body in Death are true of him as his Humane Nature is joyned to the Divine Nature in one Divine and Eternal Person which is the most High God The same things are true in us also who believe in him by that Mystical Union which joyneth us to the Lord Jesus in one mystical Person and in the Unity of that Spirit which is also the most high God one with the Father and the Son While we live as Saints by the Faith of the Lord Jesus we live not but Christ liveth in us we live and we are Spiritual only as we are Spirits the Birth of the Eternal Spirit and one Spirit with the Lord Jesus in his Resurrection from the Dead All things in Heaven and on Earth of Soul and of Body of Life and of Death are Spirit and Life to us It is true that while we live on Earth a fleshly Spirit a fleshly Image in which Satan hath his Throne have a part in us not as our true selves but as our disguises our diseases our enemy as evil Dreams in our sleep These ofâ—â—n prevail over the Spiritual Man in us and captivate us to many sinful Lusts fears and Griefs But still the Spiritual man in itself which is our true self puts them under its feet and makes them Captives to the Light Love and Immortality of the Spirit The Spirit in us is like the Sua which when we think it under a Cloud or eclipsed by the Moon is so only to our Earthly Light but in truth and to itself it is upon its own Throne of Light triumphantly above the Clouds and the Moon comprehending them in the brightness of its own Glory But besides this in the moment of Death this fleshly Spirit and Image is for ever cast out of all power and rule in a Saint and is entirely subdued to that pure and Heavenly Spirit which is the true Saint which now withâ—â—t any interposing vail or interrupting interval perpetually sees the glorious Face of Jesus Christ in it self which is one Spirit with him and the Glorious Face of the Father in Jesus Christ. Yea one advantage of unexpressible Joy and Glory hath the death of a 〈…〉 of Christ. The Death of Christ had all the stings of 〈…〉 crâ—â—ture â—ver felt or can feel the guilt of Sin 〈…〉 Wrath of the Father all the Powers of Hell in 〈…〉 these stings are taken out of the death of a Saint Christ is risen all the Powers of evil subdued captivated and changed into mysteries of eternal Light and Love in the Glorified Person of Christ by the Virtue of his Resurrection A Believer living and dying stands in the Resurrection of Christ is risen with him in him A Believer is married to Christ as he is risen from the Dead His Life his Death thoroughout all things of them both are Divine Fruits of this marriage-bed brought forth in the Bosom of God to God Break forth then O ye Saints into singing both living and dying tune your last breath to this song of the Lamb and say like him I have set my glorified Jesus my Heavenly Bridegroom and the Father in him before me My glorified Jesus my Heavenly Bridegroom and the Father in him is at my right hand therefore shall I not be greatly moved Therefore doth my Soul rejoyce in Death my Body also sweetly rests in the Grave as in a Marriage-bed in the midst of all Divine delights as Flowers of Paradise strewed upon it It rests in the Bosom of my glorified Jesus my hope This sweet and sure hope is he that will never leave my Soul in the state of Death nor suffer his Holy One
which thou cryest Abba Father Although thou understandest it no more than the Lamb understandeth how or why it is carryed to its Dam and drawn by its bleatings Go thy way then and be no more troubled give thy self up to the instinct and leadings of this holy Spirit within thee Thou shalt certainly see the time when the obscure smoak of the Spiritual Instinct in thee will break up into a clear Light and flame of a Joy unspeakable and Glorious both in the Testimony of the Spirit heard within thee and the Seal of the Spirit seen upon thee either in this Life or in Eternity We read in the 2 of Chron. That Solomons Throne had a Foot-stool of Gold and six steps up to the Throne On each side of these steps were two Lyons that supported every step Thou who hast the Throne of the Divine Nature in the midst of the Spiritual Paradise and Heaven set up within thee in its obscurest and lowest state rest in peace and joy on the Foot-stool itself and upon the lowest step of this Throne For the Foot-stool itself the lowest state is of Gold of an incorruptible and Divine Nature which will certainly in its proper time lift thee up to the full height and Glory of the Throne itself The lowest step here even at the highest hath for its support and guard two Lyons The Lord Jesus the true Lyon of the Tribe of Judah in all the Varieties and Riches of his Spiritual Glories multiplies his Presence and Appearance round about thee to sustain defend and cherish thee in these first beginnings of Grace in thee in the midst of thy darkness and weakness after the same manner in the same Heavenly Person of his in the same fulness of Love Power and Glory as he is with the highest Saints When we began to speak of this first step of the Resurrection or new Birth we propounded four Heads to treat upon 1. The Life which is risen 2. The Death out of which it riseth 3. The Resurrection itself 4. The way of this Resurrection We have finished our discourse upon three of these We are now to speak briefly of the last 4. The way of the Resurrection in the new birth is Jesus Christ. He saith of himself in the Gospel of St. John I am the Way Jesus Christ is the way of this Resurrection in six Steps 1. He is the Price 2. The Head 3. The Root 4. The Pattern 5. The Companion 6. The Life of this Resurrection 1. The Blood of Christ is the Price of this Resurrection Jesus Christ by his Blood hath doubly redeemed us from Death 1. By Purchase giving his Life a Ransom for us to the Divine Justice 2. By Conquest having by the effusion of his Blood and loss of his Life gained a perfect Victory over all the Powers of Darkness 2. The Lord Jesus above in Heaven is the Head of the Resurrection from the Dead In the latter part of the first of Eph. we have Jesus Christ gloriously presented unto us in his Resurrection from the nethermost part of the Earth and in his Ascent above all Heavens Then the Apostle concludes that discourse and Chapter with this Blessed Consolation that God had given him in this Glory of the Resurrection from the Dead to be the Head over all things to his Church Thou who mouâ—nest over thy sins as the worst of Deaths who doubtest who despairest of Life raise thy self to a lively Hope Look up and see thy self already risen in his Resurrection already set down in Heavenly Places together with Christ as a Glorious Spirit in that first Spirit the Head and Fountain of them all from which they are as Inseparable as the Beams in their upper ends are from the Sun Thus St. Paul speaks in the former part of the 2d Chap. of the Eph. upon that Divine Ground which he had laid in the end of the first Chapter That Christ in his Resurrection from the Dead is the Head over all to his Church 3. The Lord Jesus as he is risen from the Dead by his Spiritual Presence in our Hearts is the root of the Resurrection or new Birth in us 1 Corin. 15. Jesus Christ as he is the second Adam is said to be a quickning Spirit and the living corner Stone precious and tryed in his Death and precious in his Resurrection out of which we grow up to be a Temple to God that is both a Spiritual Heaven and a Spiritual Paradise Eph. 3. He is said to dwell in our Hearts by Faith The Lord Jesus is that Spirit which is the Root of all Spirits natural or supernatural the Root of all Life Natural and Spiritual Earthly or Heavenly Humane Angelical or Divine Dost thou feel the weight of Death heavy upon thee hast thou no sense of any spark of true Life in thee to sweeten either Death or Life to thee Look up to thy Root at the bottom of thy Spirit thy Jesus Abide in this Root wait for this Root Here are all the Treasures of Spiritual Life laid up At the set time in the proper season this Root shall spring and bud and blossom and bring forth it 's heavenly Fruits replenished with the Light and sweetness of the Divine Life and spreading themselves thorow thy whole Soul Thus shall that Life of God which thou hast lost which in thy death retired itself hither into its Root rise again in thee and thou be new-born into this Life Thus shall Jesus Christ as an Heavenly Root in thy Heart bring forth himself unto the Life of Faith which is his own Heavenly Image in thee within the Vail the Cloud of Flesh. Thus doth he make thine heart from this Root of Eternity to be an Heavenly Habitation and dwelling place for himself raised up new and Eternal out of the Ruines of Death 4. Our blessed Saviour is the Pattern of the Resurrection to us In the 8th of the Rom. we are said to be predestinated to be conformed to his Image Eph. 1. God is spoken of as working Faith and so bringing forth the Spiritual Life in us according to that exceeding greatness of his Power by which he raised Christ from the Dead We read in the Gospel that a mighty Angel came down from Heaven and rolled away the Stone from the mouth of the Grave while the Watchmen about the Grave were cast into a deep sleep to make way for the rising of Christ. How frequently doth the Soul which feels the horrour of the Spiritual Death think its Resurrection to a Divine Life to the Heavenly Graces and sweet Peaces of that Life impossible Alass the Flesh is as a Grave in which it is shut up Its Lusts and Temptations are as a mighty Stone rolled upon the mouth of this Grave Tempters visible and invisible are as Watchmen round about the Grave to keep thee there But be not discouraged at any of these things O thou disconsolate Soul Look to thy Pattern the Lord Jesus as it was