Captains and competitors Michael in the person of the blessed Mediator and the old Dragon in the person of the devil And this last seems to get the start of the other at first on set forasmuch as by means of the womans weakness who was first in the transgression he makes a great advance towards his design supposing he had neer attained his end for he had prevailed so far as to bring Adam and Eve into the transgression and forfeiture of all the natural good they were by creation made possessours of And then further in prosecution of the same design upon this breach made between God and them he endeavours to cast in the seed of alienation and fixed enmity between them and God in order to set up his abiding Throne and seat in the fallen nature of man whereof the first Adam was the earthly head in whom the door was set open whereby sin entred into the world and death by sin Thus things were brought into a most hopeful way in the eye of the devil to disappoint and defeat the design of the Mediator as to the safe conducting the promised seed through all this disadvantage and opposition into the desired place of the true Rest Whence it is that the Mediator and Lamb slain from the beginning did hereupon think it high time to make discovery of himself and of the means for the accomplishing and bringing of his designs to pass in despite of the Serpents subtilty and in downright opposition to the very gates of hell By way of promise therefore he declares and engages himself to set up another man a second Adam Jesus the Son of Mary to be born of the seed of the woman who by being bruised in his heel and undergoing all the rage and enmity that the devil and his instruments could exercise upon him should arrive at such a neerness and intimacy of converse with God in the glory within the veil as that by the joy thereof set before him and the power thereof conveyed into him in the seed of it when he was laid hold on by the WORD in the womb of the Virgin he should be enabled to offer up himself in sacrifice to the Fathers will without spot to God through the eternal spirit enduring the Cross and despising the shame and so through his sufferings entring into the glory that was to follow he is for ever set down upon his Throne at Gods right hand expecting till his foes be made his foot-stool Hence it is that as through man came death so also by man comes the resurrection of the dead and the same man or first Adam who was of the earth earthy becomes the subject matter for both these seeds to work upon the seed of the promise and seed of the Serpent both being to be sown in this earth influenced and managed by these two grand competitors Michael and the Dragon in order to engage and fix the particular men and women of Adams posterity either in their true Rest or in an everlasting enmity thereunto and exclusion from it as they are either begotten of God and born of the spirit whereby they become children of the promise and heirs of salvation or left in the state of their natural beings voluntarily to drink in the seed of the Serpent and thereby to become hardned and prove finally children of wrath and sons of perdition as born after the flesh and as by a fair shew in the flesh they do exercise and manage the fiercest persecution against the true spiritual seed So then according to the birth which they are of they are either measured out with a line of life unto life or a line of death unto death answering the two great ends whereunto we shall find all things serve in this world and in the kingdom thereof This is that being of this world or from beneath spoken of by Christ in the Gospel which though in its rise and beginning as hath been shewed it be of God yet in its progress and end through the unlawful use thereof it comes to be of the devil who is the head and father unto that state spirit and interest which stands in direct contradiction and enmity to that of Christ and the promisedseed as they are the Jerusalem that is from above and are not of this world For in this Serpentine seed there is comprehended an irreconcileable enmity and opposition to the power and excellency of the Cross of Christ In which contrariety and opposition to the Cross all natural perfection and goodness is looked upon by God as considered only in its single seed and as the enjoyers and possessors thereof are left by God to their own natural senses capacities and powers of mind assisted with all needful helps and means proper and suitable to that state without the addition of a higher and more excellent birth reserved by God as a fruit of his bounty and free grace unto his chosen and beloved ones By what hath been said we may plainly see that although Gods own chosen vessels are determined from all eternity and fixed in such a neerness of union with God in their head that they can never be moved but are preserved by the power and influence thereof from all possibility of miscarying so as to fall short of true blessedness yet those that are in the number of the non-elect are not necessarily determined so much as in the means leading them to their destruction but have the free use of their own natural abilities to prevent the same assisted with all suitable requisite helps and means from God to keep them from it who omitteth nothing that is to be done on his part conducible hereunto which is consistent with the freedome of mans will and doth not offer violence to the principles which himself chooseth to joyn issue with God upon besides all which he that is faithful and cannot deny himself is pleased to be in the posture of one that is not yet risen up to shut the door finally upon them but leaves open a possibility of graffing them into an oneness of seed with the right heirs if at his coming he shall find them making a right and lawful use of the blood of Christ required by that first covenant renewed thereby upon them since the fall and not voluntarily rendring themselves uncapable of such favour by their needless provocations in hardning their hearts against the voice and teachings of the Cross and rejecting that counsel of God against their own souls God then is so far from looking upon the fall of man in the first Adam and the act of disobedience by him committed as the fixing of him and his posterity in an incapacity of returning unto God and of being made the true and right heirs of salvation that he is pleased through the blood of Christ to declare himself reconciled to the whole race of mankind as beholding them in a new head in the seed of the woman or second Adam a truth at
and so agreeing with the pure natural heart of man In the exercise of this second and new-covenant-life Christ was enabled to offer up himself in the flesh through the eternal spirit as a Lamb without spot and guile unto God to bring in everlasting righteousness and that subjection of heart and brokenness of spirit in man which God requires by the law of faith or tenor of the second and new-covenant answering to the law of the new-creature-being and life whose original pattern was hereby set up in Christ as the first fruits in that image of the first-born from the dead wrought out in him unto whom all the rest of the adopted children whose names are written in the Lambs book of life from the beginning of the world were predestinated to be made conformable Jesus being thus qualified in the same nature and person even as the son of man to be as well a high-Priest as a sacrifice proceeds to fulfill the will of his father that is herein given him to do even to perform that obedience that is required of him as Surety and Mediator of both Testaments standing in force by vertue of his death This obedience is the second general particular which we have propounded to treat of consisting in the right use and mannaging of those powers and senses of mind that by the WORD were formed and set up in Christ for the performance of the will of God as to all that he required from man in and by the Rule and law of the first and second covenants the righteousness of both which laws he was to fulsil even all righteousness which accordingly he did as himself declares Heb. 10. 7 9. where he saith Lo I come in the volume of the book it is written of me to do thy will O God and this by taking away what was faulty in the first covenant and establishing the good and righteousness of both in the second For he came not to destroy the Law but to fulfil it so as the very righteousness of the Law which as upon its first bottom passeth away as a morning dew and waxeth old is fulfilled in the new-covenant-obedience by those who walk not after the flesh but after the spirit and was so fulfilled to the utmost in and by the man Christ Jesus who as the second Adam did all that was needful and which God required to be done for the remission of sin and the utter abolishing and removal of it out of mans nature with an absolute incapacity of ever returning more upon the true and right heirs of salvation In respect whereof it is said Rom. 5. 19. That as by one mans disobedience many that is all were made sinners so by the obedience of one many that is all shall be made righteous Having that ransom paid and means provided in him to make them righteous so that there shall be no necessity remaining upon any to perish forasmuch as sufficient provision is made to bring all men to repentance and to the knowledge of the truth that as in Adam all died so in this sense all again in Christ are made alive that is capable of receiving life from God upon the terms of one of the two Covenants For if through the offence of one many be dead and judgement was by one to condemnation much more the grace of God and gift by grace which is by one man Jesus Christ hath abounded unto many to the justification of many offences v. 15 16. God esteeming it just that by the righteousness and obedience which is performed according to his will by one man Jesus Christ the free gift should come upon all men unto justification of life as well as that by one mans offence and disobedience death should raign over all This one righteousness and obedience performed by Christ is that which not only answers by way of satisfaction unto all that was occasioned and brought forth by the offence and disobedience of Adam but where sin hath abounded grace hath abounded much more that as sin raigned unto death grace might raign through righteousness unto eternal life by Iesus Christ the second Adam Which eternal life sin shewed it self able to hinder the first Adams attainment of upon his first principles The obedience then which Christ performed we are to consider under a twofold respect First that which is usually called his active obedience whereby he was in his own person legally righteous and perfectly holy according to the tenor of the first covenant as made under the Law and rendred in the natural powers of his mind exactly conformable thereunto This conformity in Christ to the righteousness of the Law qualified him to be the Lamb without spot or blemish which God required to be offered up and slain as a sacrifice for sin which conformity may be considered either as inherent in him qualifying him thus for sacrifice or Secondly as coming into actual exercise by the proper activity of his living soul or natural man if left alone therein or Thirdly as being brought into exercise by the Fathers indwelling presence teachings not suffering him to speak or do any thing of himself or in the single activity of his natural principles as himself saith Ioh. 14. 10. The words that I speak unto you I speak not of my self but the Father that dwelleth in me doth the works In which third and last consideration Christ was made active through the exercise of a newness of life and operation set up in him in the way of faith flowing from that second seed and union begotten in him by the WORD as we have already shewed In which activity he did not only perform the righteousness and obedience required of man by the Law or first covenant but that also which is required of him by the new second covenant Without which second branch of his active obedience there could have been no sacrifice nor shedding of blood no Lamb slain nor feast of passover as it is written 1 Cor. 5. 7. Christ is our passover who was slain for us for there would have wanted the priest or sacrificing power to offer up the same according to the will of God declared in the new and second covenant Heb. 10. 9. For though it be most true that Christ through the righteousness of the Law and this considered chiefly as inherent in him is thereby the pure and spotless Lamb of God the male of the flock without blemish which it was needful for him to be as prepared for sacrifice and to be offered up it being requisite not only to be but to continue Holy harmless and separate from sinners throughout the whole course of his life and sufferings in the flesh yea and in the grave iâ—self not to see corruption otherwise he had not answered and fulfilled the righteousness of the Law nor been in his own person legally righteous such an one as justice it self upon that account could take no exception against yet this made him not high Priest
for ever to bear their shame and their abominations though yet for a season made keepers of the charge of the Temple for all the service thereof and for all that shall be done therein Ezek. 44. 13 14. Nevertheless the true Saints by being built up one Royal Priesthood with Christ shall be admitted into the most holy place This the Apostles well understood that were the first ministers under Christ of this dispensation unto the Gentiles which considered singly as the ministry of Christs first appearance is acknowledged by them to be but the building up again of the Tabernacle of David that was fallen and brought down to the grave with Christ in his death which thus he had power to rear up again amongst the Gentiles notwithstanding its fall among the Jews Acts 15. 14. when he did visit the Gentiles to take out of them a People for his name that was now ceased or ceasing amongst the Jews In this sense Paul understands the mercy of God shewed unto the Gentiles Rom. 11. upon the rejection of the Jews confessing it to be but such an implantation of the Gentiles into Christ the good Olive tree which the Jews had before and from which state they might again be broken off as the Jews were already which can therefore be no other state but that which Christ doth communicate as he is the minister of circumcision or of the covenant of works by the means of those gifts and distributions of the Holy Ghost which he gives forth amongst them after his ascention dividing to every one under this first covenant severally and a part according to his good pleasure till thereby his whole flesh or natural body be built up also among the Gentiles and compleated With this agrees fully the exposition which Peter gives Acts 2. of that which was spoken by the Prophet Joel It shall come to pass in those daies saith God I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh and your sons and your daughters shall prophesie and your young men shall see visions and your old men shall dream dreams and it shall come to pass that whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved ver 16 17 21. From the right consideration hereof we may discern that this dispensation was no other then that of Christs first appearance wherein he was the perfection of the first covenant the giver forth of common salvation and Redemption the minister of circumcision and the setter up of the truth of God in his own flesh which was promised unto the fathers and whereof the whole ministry of Moses was but the type and figure as appears Acts 7. 37. where Moses is brought in saying a Prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren like unto me him shall ye hear Christ as thus the true Tabernacle and sanctuary in his flesh which God pitched and not man was also to suffer that so he might bring down the first standing thereof into the grave whereby to make way into the holiest of all whereinto he entered by his own blood and did build up the Tabernacle of David thus fallen in and by his death into the power of an endless life wherein he sate down at the right hand of God exalted far above all heavens having all principalities and powers made subject to him who in his fleshly man was made lower then Angels for the suffering of death We are therefore to understand the TABERNACLE OF DAVID by the means of the eternal words being made flesh to have had a twofold being and building up given unto it First in the natural and fleshly man of Christ wherein he was the perfection of the first Adam bearing that image and made in all things like unto him as he was made a living soul and enjoyed a sinless spotless nature before the fall In this natural perfection singly considered Christ as meer man was inferiour to the Angels as having that life of man in him which was lower then theirs which was the heel which the Serpent had permission to bruise the Lamb without spot and blemish the body that was prepared him to offer up in sacrifice to God as he had received commandment In this building he became Emanuel God with us according to the first covenant and was a new head unto all the sons of Adam in the first Adams image which all that are planted into are taken out of the wild and engraffed anew into the good Olive tree to partake in the fatness and goodnes thereof as it is the root and spring whence proceeds that restauration and renewal of mans first nature given to Adam by creation and corrupted by the fall which renewal as it flows from the flesh of Christ is the fruit and benefit of his death and where-ever it is wrought by Christ in any sons or daughters of Adam it makes them to become members of his body flesh of his flesh and bone of his bone baptizing them all whether Jews or Gentiles into the same living body with himself the first Sanctuary and building making them all to drink intothe same spirit and seed upon the same natural perfection and purity which flows forth from his own flesh or natural man typed out by the Manna given from heaven which is said to be Angels food and is interpreted by Christ himself to signifie his flesh which he was to give for the life of the world or for the renewing of life unto the world from himself as head of the first Adams perfection and purity This flesh of Christ is spiritual meat such as the Angels themselves feed upon in heaven as on the incorruptible food which is prepared for them by the quickning given unto Christs natural manhood through the resurrection from the dead which flesh considered as given to men in this world may be received and eaten of by them either worthily or unworthily either in the lawful use thereof for which it was ordained and given by God as the Angels in heaven feed on it and true believers here in this world or in the unlawful use of it as it is fed upon by those that discern not nor distinguish between Christs living body and his crucified body between a being made one living soul with him and a being made one quickning spirit with him in a life springing up out of the ruines of this first Tabernacle the fall whereof in this Lamb slain and the true followers of this Lamb whithersoever he goeth is in order to its being built up anew in him and in them by the resurrection from the dead This second sort of building is that which we mean by that second being which is given to the Tabernacle of David in the person of Christ in which he is exalted above the Heavens and is the Temple opened in heaven Rev. 11. where also is seen the Ark of the Testament and so is Emanuel God with us in and by the New and everlasting Covenant having
to a more safe and un-erring intuition into the whole Fabrick If the newness of many things thou meetest with offend thee consider with thy self what unsearchable riches are to be found in the WORD of God whose best wine is kept for the last when Christ shall be admired in all those that do believe amongst whom he that is feeble at that day shall be as David and the house of David shall be as God as the Angel of the Lord before them Zach. 12. 8. and this by the means of the WORD who as a mysterie has lain hid in God from the foundation of the world and is no new Commandment but that which was in and from the beginning the old Commandment appearing only new because the darkness in which it hath been a long time veiled is passing away and far spent so as the true light now shines in Iesus Christ according to the revelation of the mysterie which was kept secret since the world began but is now made manifest and by the Scriptures of the Prophets according to the Commandment of the everlasting God made known to all Nations for the obedience of Faith Rom 16. 25 26. Again if thou findest the language rough tedious and unapt to convey the discovery of such excellent glory as is shining forth in the face of this living WORD of God quarrel not with the treasure for the earthliness of the vessel through which it passes but allow something as remembring that thy self also art in the body and confined and be ready and willing in thy place to supply what is deficient my design having been more to intend the knowledge of things then the elegancy of words Lastly if in the opening of mystical and dark prophesies that which principally is aimed at and applied throughout in this Discourse be the inward and spiritual meaning of them Know that it is not to exclude thereby their literal and historical sense but to shew how well both may stand together In which case such Essays deserve to be born with considering how much of the one sort is made extant by many pens already and how little of the other Farewel I am thine in the love and service of the truth H. V. From Belleau April 20. 1655. A TABLE OF THE Chapters Chap. I. Wherein is shewed that the foundation and first Rule of all true and right knowledge of God is seated in Christ the living WORD as the blessed Trinity by their own immediate operations do make themselves personally visible therein Chap. II. Concerning the holy Scriptures their authority and use with the harmony and analogy which they hold with the living WORD Chap. III. Concerning the creation of all things by Jesus Christ who is the mystery that lay hid in God from the beginning and makes himself manifest as well by the works of creation as of redemption Chap. IV. Concerning the creation nature and ministry of Angels Chap. V. Concerning the creation of man on the sixth day Chap. VI. Concerning the fall of man the steps and degrees to it with the bitter fruits and consequents thereof Chap. VII Shewing that God on the seventh day ended the works which he had made and produced the Rest and fixed state appointed to the first creation which Christ the Medidiator as he is the minister of Gods second appearance is the Author and accomplisher of Chap. VIII Shewing the conviction and judgement that came upon men and Angels for their sin and disobedience by the shining forth of the al-searching light of Gods second appearance in the WORD before which every creature stands naked and discovered Chap. IX Concerning the WORDS being made flesh for the performance of the whole will of God in reference to mans redemption and salvation Chap. X. Concerning the benefits that do inseparably accompany Christs person where he is received either by the first or second Covenant according to the tenour of both which there is vertue in his blood to reconcile and bring men to God Chap. XI Shewing the subordinate use that the elect Angels are of unto Christ in his bearing up the pillars of the creation that else had been dissolved through the fall and the place which they have in the threefold general administration of his mediatorial Kingdome set up in the world Chap. XII Shewing wherein the three rules and formes of administration in Christs mediatorial Kingdome do differ one from another and maintaine an entire jurisdiction within themselves but in due subordination and subserviency still of the lower to the higher over the respective subjects that live under them Chap. XIII Shewing the fixed enmity and warre that is maintained and kept up by Satan against the Rule and Kingdome of the Mediator in the world in order to make of none effect unto men the inestimable price and usefulnesse of Christs blood in their fallen state Chap. XIV Shewing the continuance and progresse of the war between the subjects of Christ and Antichrist and the terms and issues upon which they joyn Chap. XV. Shewing more particularly the bounds of that Rule and Government which is set up by Christ in the natural conscience together with the answer of a good conscience thereunto in those that are under this first dispensation Chap. XVI Concerning the Rule and Dominion which by the Law Christ exerciseth in the minde of those that are made children of the first Covenant together with the answer of a good conscience thereunto in such as are subjects unto Christ under this second dispensation Chap. XVII Shewing the nature of that Kingdome and Rule of Christ in the Saints which consists not in word and in the forme of godlinesse only but in power and in the life of saving faith the first fruits whereof appear in those that are made conformable to Christ in his death Chap. XVIII Concerning the Saints conformity with Christ in his death particularly opened and cleared from those mistakes which the enemies to the Crosse of Christ are apt to brand it with Chap. XIX Giving a general view of the counterworkings of Satan to the Government of Christ in all the forementioned administrations thereof Chap. XX. Concerning death to sin and life to righteousnesse considered as well in the distinct Branches and parts thereof as in the full extent and comprehensivenesse together with the discovery thereby of that which is counterfeit hypocritical or otherwise defective Chap. XXI Shewing particularly the evil seed that is sowen in the natural conscience by Satan through which he works men off from their subjection to Christ in his first dispensation and fixes them in rebellion against him Chap. XXII Shewing in particular the workings of the mystery of iniquity in the consciences of the children of the first Covenant to the ripening of them unto perdition and finall falling away from God Chap. XXIII Concerning the common interest wherein the Devils subjects meet and correspond under both the dispensations before mentioned which yet by the wisdome and power of Christ
had followed the directions given him by God For in this natural constitution of spirit soul and body which man obtained by creation his understanding will and affections were all placed in their true rectitude and proper subordinations his rational and his sensual mind were set in right tune and harmony together disposed and fitted to the bringing forth of all manner of righteous and holy operations answerable to the image of God wherein he was created which contained as much of divine light and manifestation as man in his earthly capacity and first make could take in amounting but to a shadowy representation of Gods mind and a sight of it but in part in order to prepare him to receive more by a second and new creation on the seventh day when he should have been admitted within the veil to have beheld Gods very similitude open and bare-faced conversing with him as friend speaks with friend Now man being thus furnished with a reasonable soul and all the excellencies of its operations before described with freedom of will to choose the good and refuse the evil honoured also with a soveraignty over the creatures in this fair posture of preparation to receive more was nevertheless seduced ensnared and made a prey of by Sathan sin and death to the rendring as it were abortive all that work which was already passed upon him and to the letting in of sin and death with the deserved curse and wrath of God through him as through a door upon all his posteritie The occasion of this was twofold First the present enjoyment of good from God under the ministry of the first covenant the fruit of which to the eye of flesh and blood even at its best was so glorious and appeared so beautiful and desireable that man was easily perswaded that it was the best and highest attainment hee needed to look after and thereby through Sathans subtilty rendred secure and negligent as to the use of means given by God to carry him on pass him through and conduct him out of this his corruptible state as from glory to glory into the power of an endless life without the intervening of sin to the full and perfect securing of mans nature from all prevailing power of fins assaults for ever which was not done by creation The second occasion of mans fall was the freedom of his will wherein the judging and desiring faculties of his mind were entirely committed by God to his own free motion and operation upon the terms of the covenant he was brought into with God which was to be dealt with according unto his works to be rewarded with life or with death as he should rightly order or abuse this liberty of action with which God had invested him by way of tryal and probation That man had such a power of free-will as this First the nature and tenor of the Covenant he was taken into doth demonstrate which is conditional in reference to the works of man And God throughout deals with man under that Covenant according to his works strongly thereby asserting them to be mans own so as the very reward which comes thereby is accounted to him of debt even the thing which his own action as left alone unto himself therein hath brought upon him and entitled him unto Secondly without such a power of free-will mans first estate could not have been mutable at least could never have changed into corruption for if it had been necessary to him to have stood he could not have fallen and if it had been necessary to him to fall God had thereby made himself the Author of sin which could not be Now the power itself wherein mans free-will consisted was the free use and exercise of his judging and electing power of mind either in reference to good or evil as it should be presented to him and come before him in a way to be by him decided and determined as his deliberate act and resolution which Paul calls 1 Cor. 4. 3. mans judgement or mans day Adam had then this honour given him by creation to exercise his humane judicature or mans day not only upon all the works of Gods hands already made in the six daies and presented before him in Eden the garden of God but he had also as in prospect and contemplation what was yet behind and to come both which being the object or subject matter that Adam was to pass his judgement upon God was pleased by way of precaution and premonition to forbid him to fix his eye and his desire upon things seen which are temporal and fading there being a reserve of unseen things as an enduring substance to be imparted and communicated to him on the seventh day That which Adam was forbidden was not simply to forbear the use of his free-will but the evil and unlawful use of it as through an unwise discerning and erroneous judging between the present temporary good which he saw and the future durable excellency of the things unseen and but in hope there did spring up an inordinate coveting and desire in him after the retaining of the first to the despising and rejecting of the second preferring the vision of God in part and as under a vayl before the full and compleat view of his glory unvayled To induce man unto this the Serpent employed all his power and subtilty contributing all the influence he could from his and the fallen Angels example herein which together with the aptness in the natural desire of man to be enticed this way to serve his own belly rather then the Law and Command of God and to gratifie his natural appetite rather then shew his obedience to Gods voice did prevail with him to eat the forbidden fruit whereby the door was set open for sin and death to enter upon himself and all his posterity That which remains yet to be declared on this subject is the possibility which Adam had in the state of innocency to have made a right use of his free-will so as thereby to have done what God required him to do by the first Covenant And by the way when we speak of this Covenant in reference to the state of innocency it is to be understood for the same thing with the law of nature under which Adam was created and hath this difference in it from what it was afterward when dispensed by the name of the Law under Moses ministry and called Heb. 9. The first Testament receiving its renewal from the blood of Christ that as it is the law of nature it requires mans personal righteousness and holyness to be continued in even the preservation of mans nature in the sinless state wherein he was created as the condition of keeping up and maintaining that sort of union and communion between God and him though not therein to rest but to be ready to be carried on by God into a sure unmovable and fixed state of life from whence there is no possibility of falling Whereas the
those were that should be everlastingly saved or everlastingly perish would seem by this way of his ordering of things in the first creation to be very accessory to the sin and fall of Angels and men seeing it was in his power to have made them otherwise not at all subjected to this weakness it is very true God could have made them otherwise but when both in wisdom and justice he thought fit to make them thus who art Thou O man that repliest against God And how unseemly is it for the vessel to say to the potter why hast thou made me thus that is subject to such mutability and weakness as may end in everlasting contempt and misery seeing that God puts no influencing necessity upon thee either by his decree or otherwise but leaves thee to the free motion and choise of thy own mind and will herein and for this very reason made thee a creature indued with free will that no turning of the scale towards thy misery and ruine might proceed from him but from the moving and enticing of thy own hearts lust which state also ministred occasion to thee by the weakness and mutability thereof to have looked after that better state that was provided and was approaching even ready to be revealed whereby all the faultiness of thy first state might have been remedied and such a change attained unto as was more worth then all the hazard and loss that lay in the way of coming to the enjoyment of it amounted to The wisdom and justice then of God is very perspicuous in ordering that state of things which by creation was first brought forth as a preparatory and fore-running dispensation to the glory of the spiritual body that was to follow and succeed And the folly and weakness of Angels and men is very inexcusable that in this estate made so bad use of those gifts and communications of God so freely received from the hand of a bountiful Creator as to make him weary of giving more and repent as it were of what he had given already in that it was so shamefully abused by the receivers thereof as to reproach the maker and provoke him to exclude them for ever from the true Rest Now what this second and more excellent state is into which the creature is to be translated may partly be understood by the opposite weakness and faultiness in the other that hath been already opened forasmuch as it contains in it the full cure and remedy thereunto and in general doth procure a full redemption unto the natural body out of its first bondage of corruption and mutability in all respects which therefore the whole creature waits for Rom. 8. 19. but as for the manner and particulars of that glory wherein they shall be brought forth we are to wait till those times of refreshing that shall come from the presence of the Lord for this restitution of all things do themselves give the explanation thereof in visible characters But that which lies most properly before us in the matter we are now handling is the consideration of what that change is in reference to the inward intellectual and rational powers in Angels and men respectively who having received at the first immortal and invisible substances as hath been shewed are not in the essential parts of their first constitution to be annihilated but the Angels are still spirits and flames of fire and men do still consist of spirit soul and bodie retaining the powers and operations incident and proper thereunto after that they have passed by a considerable and irrevocable change through the resurrection from the dead into everlasting honour or everlasting contempt That the perfection of Angels and men which was communicated to them by creation was mutable and corruptible is generally confessed and experienced likewise is it as little to be doubted but that the instability and change in both by their sin and fall did proceed from that freedom of will proper motion of their own which they were enabled to exercise according to the first constitution and natural frame of their minds and spirits wherein they possessed an arbitrary independent and free exercise thereof without any interruption by God who was pleased to suffer this for his own most wise and holy ends intrusting them with what they had received to use and employ it for the glory and in the service of their Creator and not to serve their own private lusts and interests therewith In this honour and trust received from God it would well have become as well Angels as men to have found themselves not a little burthened under the straits and difficulties attending the right managing such soveraignty and arbitrariness of power which seems so much above the weakness of meer creature-beings that until God take them into such intimacy of union by the second Covenant as not to leave them alone in the exercise of this power they are every moment subject to miscarriage in the use thereof God therefore was willing to take a Rise from hence to discover to the creature the needfulness of its being taken out of this wavering state and translated into the permanent glory that was to follow whereby to secure it in the midst of all its present excellency and perfection from destroying itself by forfeiting and losing all that it had already attained and to set up in the creature a house and an abiding place for himself wherein he may rest for ever Esai 66. 1. when all things that his hands had made and are said by him to have been by virtue of the first creation came short of so glorious an end and use as left to themselves and were by him laid by as unregarded That then which God had in his eye and which his heart and regard was set upon consists in a frame of spirit and mind reserved by him to be brought upon Angels men that stood in direct opposition and cross constitution unto this eminently shining forth in the crucified spirit of Jesus the last Adam which God by the vertue and means of his death and resurrection designed to superinduce upon the natural beings of Angels and men as in the way of a new creation before which the old should vanish wear away This Isa 66. 2. is lively set forth where to those expressions all these things hath mine hand made and all these things have been the Holy Ghost subjoyns but to this will I look even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit and that trembleth at my word The like is to be found Psal 109. 16. where Judas and such enemies unto Christ are prophesied of as persecuted the poor and needy man that they might even slay the broken in heart This poverty neediness and brokenness of spirit is that which Christ cals blessed Mat. 5. 3. saying that theirs is the kingdom of heaven being ever accompanied with a purity and a purifying through faith whereby they come to see God v.
and immortal life but by faith in Jesus Christ who was from the beginning the right object of faith unto Angels and men to have lead translated them into the true Rest Eternal life without the coming in of sin between if he had been received and believed on when he caused his second voice and heavenly testimony to be heard on the seventh day But forasmuch as the word then preached to them did not profit them because it was not mixed with faith Christ finding this his testimony thus sleighted and resisted by Angels and men resorts to the other part of the power that is in this heavenly voice which is to judge and condemn in righteousness those that shewed themselves disobedient to it and neglecters thereof And here behold the goodness and severity of God severity to them that fell and fell wilfully as did the Serpent and the wicked Angels by plain direct disobedience and down-right opposition to their Head as also yet further by enticing and seducing man also to his sin and fall but goodness to man unto whom he made sin and the judgement declared by reason of the same to be the occasion in all likelyhood of his and Eves conversion and the reason is given why God thus distinguished his way of dealing with Angels and men For the Angels in what they had done sinned wilfully moved by their own malice in a self-hardning fixed way manifestly quitting their Head and their fellow Angels that followed him to the place whither he looked or intended to go whilest they forsook and turned off from him But for Adam and Eve they were seduced and beguiled as over-reached by the Serpent wherefore as the Apostle Paul said in the like case when in zeal he persecuted the Church The Lord was merciful unto me because I did it ignorantly so aso the Lord was merciful unto our first parents that were seduced and beguiled by the Serpent and was pleased to renew his Covenant with them in that blessed and most excellent remedy the blood of Christs sacrifice whose vertue now appeared to be as well of force to make up and restore what was lost by sin and the fall as to bring man into a better state then he had at first which might as we have shewed have been done without sins ever entering or making of this breach and so the instability of those first principles might have been removed that wavering condition might have been fixed against all the assaults of sin or Sathan whatever and secured from all danger of miscarrying through the comming of the same Jesus in the flesh and his entring within the veil by death and the resurrection from the dead without being exposed to the shameful and accursed part of the death of the cross which was properly that which was occasioned by the Fall And although it be the secret counsel of God which makes the true and general discrimination between the objects of his mercy and his severity wherein he freely hath mercy on whom he will have mercy and shews severity on whom he will shew severity yet in the revealed and declared dispensation of his will herein unto Angels or men when he comes to deal and proceed with them either in the way of his mercy and favour or severity and displeasure he alwaies observes a method of proceedings with them most exactly consonant unto his justice and consistent therewith so as he proceeds not actually to a final rejection and casting off the vessels of wrath till they have ripened themselves for the same through their own unworthiness and long abuse of his patience under full and sufficient means of light disswading and warning the contrary Nor doth he suffer those that he intends for objects of his mercy to sin the sin unto death or to arrive at that height of unworthiness as willfully to resist the light of his love but alwaies prevents this extremity of sin in them with seasonable discoveries of mercy and manifestations of his free grace which surely was the meaning of the aforesaid place of Paul when he said because I did it ignorantly I found mercy as much as if he should have said The Lord in mercy would not suffer me to come to that height of sinning for which he swears in his wrath those that do arrive thereunto shall never enter into his Rest which is to do that which all those in some sense or other are guilty of whom God hath determined for ever to exclude from partaking of that union through which only they can enter into the true Rest forasmuch as they have thereby wilfully rendred themselves unworthy and uncapable thereof We are therefore to acknowledge righteousness and truth to be the pillars that bear up the judgements and determinations of God in his most secret counsels when from all Eternity he predetermines and designs Angels and men to their use and service in his house either as vessels of honour or dishonour as objects of his love or hatred For God is true and righteous altogether and will appear and be found so when he is judged and when he comes to declare and lay open the grounds of his proceedings toward his creatures shewing himself willing to be argued with concerning the same but however the secret of these things belongs to God who is best able to give his own account of them in his own time yet what he hath already revealed and so made appertaining unto us to cast our eyes upon we may and ought to take notice of the better to settle our minds in duty and subjection unto him who is the Father of our spirits This then he gives us to understand that he hath supplied and provided against the faultiness and waveringness of the creatures standing by the first covenant in the seventh daies rich grace that was to follow so that what the Law could not do in that it was weak through the fleshâ— God by giving the promised seed in the light and power of the new and second appearance fulfilled that which the first was not able to carry through by reason of the weakness of the flesh or readiness which is in all natural beings to prefer the light and glory of Gods first appearance before his second and to refuse the hard condition which appears to flesh and blood in the observation of the duty of the true Sabbath or cessation from its lawful works when ever it is called thereunto though the penalty annexed in case of wilful refusal and disobedience be the utter exclusion of the creature from the blessed end for which it had any being given unto it at all Upon this consideration it is that God who from all eternity doth foresee all things and foreknow how universally all Angels and men will conclude themselves under sin and do as much as in them lies utterly to exclude and debar themselves from the priviledge and mercy of that manner of conversing with him and enjoying of him which is accepted
Jesus our Lord. But the justification and sanctification received upon the terms of the first covenant which are conditional and depending upon the creatures continuance are subject in a time of tryal to fail the persons concerned therein unto whom through the common relation which all mankind is taken into with Christ as he is flesh of our flesh bone of our bone like unto us in all things sin only excepted there is given as in a way of common grace and salvation first a relative holiness and righteousness in ballance to the relative unholiness and unrighteousness derived to the first Adams posterity as they stood related to him their common parent in his fallen state which is freely conferred upon them with offer and promise to bring them out of the bondage of corruption they are in by nature if they will hear and obey Secondly there is an actual exercise of long-suffering and patience put forth towards them freely on Gods part by vertue of the satisfaction he hath received on their behalf in the sacrifice of Christ by reason whereof he declares himself willing not to impute unto them sins past or present if through obeying Christs voice they shall render themselves capable of such benefit and shall not by their wilful personal sinning against the grace offered them and persisting therein so far abuse the benefit of Christs sacrifice as wholly to render themselves unworthy thereof Thirdly there is an actual imputation of Christs legal righteousness to all such as obeying his call in the first-covenant are thereby made the seed which is of the Law born after the flesh and become actual members of his natural body From what then hath been said concerning Christs active and passive obedience we may discern how far Christ therein wrought out mans redemption as he stood in the relation of a common person and parent to both seeds and as their surety undertook on their behalf to fulfill the righteousness of both Covenants in himself and this after such a manner as to be able to derive and communicate the benefit thereof unto them in a way of the Justification and Sanctification required by either of the two covenants respectively and this either singly and apart each from other or joyntly and together to the rendring those righteous in him that were helpless sinners and wretched ones in themselves Christs obedience then hitherto treated of in the two forementioned branches of his active and the first branch of his passive though it doth procure all that which is needful to make man righteous and holy according to what is required by both covenants yet it is not that properly which expiates the guilt of sin already committed nor frees from the curse of the Law in order to which Christ was made a Curse for us and did bear the punishment due to our sins which without blood could not receive remission at the hands of Gods Justice Heb. 9. There is then yet remaining a second part of Christs passive obedience to be opened wherein this did consist and in respect of which it behoved Christ to suffer as a Malefactor without the Gate a reproachful accursed bodily death with all the heightning circumstances accompanying the same from God Angels and men to the bruising of his heel in which also the Scriptures are very plain and express saying that upon him God laid the iniquity of us all Isa 53. who were as sheep gone astray and 1 Pet. 2. 24. he himself bare our sins in his own body on the tree and chap. 3. 18. it is said that he being put to death in the flesh but quickned in the spirit hath once suffered for sins the just for the unjust and 1 Tim. 2. 4 6. Who gave himself a ransom for all as willing to have all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth Christ by being made thus a curse for us redeemed us from the curse of the Law or did that in way of satisfaction to Gods Justice by reason whereof God thinks fit and finds it just to acquit and discharge sinners from the curse and wrath of God due unto them by the Law Which benefit is either renewed to us conditionally and in reference to the first Covenant-obedience by us engaged in to live and be tryed by or is given unto us absolutely and in reference to the second Covenant-obedience as living by faith and interested in the sure mercies of David that never fail Those that partake of this benefit in the first sense are spoken of Heb. 10. unto whom having been once enlightned and then sinning willfully after the knowledge of the truth to the treadding underfoot the Son of God accounting the blood of the Covenant wherewith they were sanctified an unholy thing and doing despight to the Spirit of Grace there remains no more sacrifice for sin but they fall again not only under the first curse but the second death or final ministry of Gods fiery vengeance which no sacrifice of Christ will be admitted to atone on their behalf for ever Psal 49. 8. but like sheep they are laid in the grave for death to feed on they go to the Generation of their Fathers and never see light But those that partake of this benefit of Christs sacrifice in the latter sense have at once a perfect and absolute remission of all sins vouchsafed to them never to be recalled more as it is written Their sins and their iniquities I will remember no more This being laid down we shall now proceed to shew first the particulars wherein Christ did undergo Gods wrath and was made a curse on our behalf by way of satisfaction and ransome for the sins of all mankind which properly was our due to have undergone in our own persons and secondly to open the nature of that wrath from God which Christ was capable of undergoing and that was thought meet and required by God to be executed upon him and undergone by him in the work of our Redemption For the particulars wherein Christ underwent the wrath of God and did bear the punishment which was due only unto sinners the Scriptures declare them to be these First Christ was exposed as a mark which was aimed and shot at all the daies of his flesh by the rage and malice of wicked Angels and men and as a spectacle of open scorn and reproach to be trampled upon by his insulting adversaries as if he had been a worm and no man unto all which God was thus far contributing as to suffer it and sit silent as a Spectator yea by his providences and outward dispensations rather furthering then hindring it and this in persuance of his declared mind herein even unto the Serpent himself Gen. 3. 15. when he told him speaking of Christ the seed of the woman he shall bruise thy head and thou shalt bruise his heel For the exercise of all this rage of Devils and men against him did bring to pass no other thing but
what his hand and counsel had before determined to be done For they that dwelt at Jerusalem and their rulers because they knew him not nor yet the voices of the Prophets they have fullfilled them in condemning him Acts 13. 27 29. And when they had fullfilled all that was written of him to be done by them upon him as instruments of vengeance they took him down from the tree In all which proceedings of God Angels and men Christ the just suffered for the unjust the innocent and righteous had the due reward of the guilty transgressor so that he being thus made the punishment for our sins it seemed good unto God to make us righteousness in him and to become capable of the reward contained in the promises due unto the same upon the terms of the first or second covenant Secondly whilest thus the wrath and rage of man in all the circumstances thereof was as it were armed by God to shew it self in open violences and injuries against him God was also in a more immediate way exercising him inwardly with all manner of desertions and withdrawings of his presence with the fruits and comforts thereof from his natural man denying and with-holding the reward due to him as a righteous and holy man according to the Law and instead thereof recompencing unto him the punishment due unto the worst Malefactor appearing to the eye of flesh and blood in him and to the judgement and perswasion of him as he was a natural man in the posture and with the face of an enemy lively declared to be so apprehended by him in those dying words of his My God my God why hast thou forsaken me which is also most affectionatly and prophetically expressed Lam. 3. 1 c. not only in the person of Christ but also of his suffering Saints who drinking of the same cup of spiritual desertions and sufferings with him are those that in a sense also do bear the indignation of the Lord Micha 7. 9. not by way of satisfying Gods Justice and atoning his wrath which is peculiar only to Christ in his own personal sufferings but as such sufferings are requisite to the bruising of their heel subduing their natural man to a conformity with Christ in his death and to the filling up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in their flesh The Prophet in the place mentioned on this account Lam. 3. 1 c. complains after this manner I am the man saith he that have seen affliction by the rod of his wrath He hath led and brought me into darkness but not into light Surely against me he is turned he turneth his hand against me all the day My flesh and my skin hath he made old he hath broken my bones He hath set me in dark places as they that be dead of old He hath hedged me about that I cannot get out he hath made my chain heavy Also when I cry and shout he shutteth out my prayer He was unto me as a Bear lying in wait and as a Lyon in secret places He hath turned aside my waies and pulled me in pieces he hath made me desolate He hath bent his bow and set me as a mark for the arrow He hath caused the arrows of his quiver to enter into my reins I was a derision to all my peeple and their song all the day He hath filled me with bitterness he hath made me drunken with wormwood He hath also broken my teeth with gravel stones he hath covered me with ashes And thou hast removed my soul far off from peace I forgat prosperity And I said my strength and my hope is perished from the Lord remembring mine affliction and my misery the wormwood and the gall My soul hath them still in remembrance and is humbled bowed or bruised in me The remembrance which Christ had under all this dispensation of wrath from God to the sense and discerning of his natural man of what was due unto sinners and what they had done to whom he was given for a Head Surety and Redeemer added as it were the sting to all these his sufferings setting before him the very form and ministry of that wrath from God which man fell under by reason of sin contained in that threatning In the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely dye Thus we are come to the second thing which is to open the nature of that wrath from God which Christ was capable of undergoing or that was needful to be poured out upon him in reference to the work of redemption Wrath properly is not to be found in the nature of God simply considered for God is love who therefore saith Fury is not in me but wrath as God is capable of exercising it consists in that posture of an enemy and face of displeasure wherewith he cloths and arms himself in Christ the Mediator in his intercourse with the creature Angels or men as the contrary form visage and appearance to that wherein he comes forth towards them as he is their God and husband upon the terms of either covenant first or second The ministry of which wrath is exercised therefore by God in a suitableness to the nature of the covenant it accompanies and is annexed unto and accordingly admits of a differing consideration For the ministry of Gods wrath contained in the threats of the first covenant is but temporary and conditional admitting of atonement remission and reconciliation by sacrifice ransome and intercession which being provided the benefit thereof obtained and applied redeems the sinner from under this curse and displeasure of God which is therefore called Gal. 3. 13. our redeeming from the curse of the law through Christs being made a curse for us Secondly then there is a higher and more fiery ministry of Gods wrath contained in the threats of the new and everlasting covenant which is eternal final and irrevocable never to be drawn in again when once gone forth because it never comes forth till the sinner hath been tryed and proved to the utmost and having abused all Gods patience and long-suffering treasuring up unto himself wrath against this day of wrath fixes at length in that remediless posture of defiance and enmity against God as is exclusive to all sacrifice or intercession of the Mediator as to any benefit thereby to him for ever Psal 49. 8. called Rev. 20. the second death which is everlasting for there remains no more sacrifice for his sins nothing now but fiery indignation reserved for implacable adversaries and wilful obstinate sinners Heb. 10. This ministry of wrath is mentioned also 2 Thess 1. 8. as that flaming fire wherein vengeance is taken on them that know not God and that obey not the Gospel or new Testament of our Lord Jesus Christ Gods wrath in this second sense the damned and reprobate Angels and men are the objects of This is the lake of fire and brimstone they shall be cast into which shall never be quenched and therefore
an union between the Word and Christs manhood as we have already shewed in the precedent Chapter that in a threefold respect according to one of w th his manhood is found in the form of God and as the son of man he accounts it not robbery to be acknowledged equal with God the man that is his fellow Thirdly there is a union between the manhood of Christ who in the sense before declared is made Gods equal and fellow and the whole spiritual seed in general and each of them in particular who are as the Bride and wife to this Lamb and so in a sense are his fellows and consorts heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ where the Spirit and the Bride say come living together in this unity as Bride and Bridegroom and so intimated Eph. 5. 32. where the natural marriage is made a type of it and the Apostle saith this is a great mysterie But I speak concerning Christ and the Church And now what is more evident then that the Saints by this union with Christ are not deifyed nor Christed but have the place only of his Bride and spouse as the Queen who is all glorious within and who is one the only of her mother To be therefore a member of this Heavenly City a living stone in this divine building is that which we are to understand by this second sort of calling wherein our Election is made sure to us and a new name given us that none can read but those that have it Secondly through this unity of the faith of the Son of God whereby those that are called are placed in the relation of members to Christ as he is the Head of the Church and the first-born from the dead they are for ever justified receiving this further benefit as they stand related to Christ in this his second Headship beyond those that are singly related to his first and obtain thereby but the common and conditional justification For this everlasting justification extends to sins past present and to come absolutely and at once discharging from all sin that their iniquities may be remembred no more and presents them faultless and without guile before the Throne of God as the objects of his eternal love and favour unto which they are entitled in right of their being made his first-born from the dead whose names are written in heaven adopted into his own line family and descent by this their marriage-union with Christ who according to his heavenly manhood is the immediate off-spring of the WORD and eternal Son of God without Father without mother without descent other then that of the very Son of God into which he is adopted and taken by marriage-union which dignity and grace he freely bestows and conveys in a secondary way upon his whole spiritual seed and in this neer union keeps them from ever departing from him Thirdly these unto whom Christ is thus made their righteousness and justification he is made also their sanctification to the purifying of their hearts through believing and cleansing them from all evil conscience as well that which consists in the filthiness of the flesh as that which lies in the filthiness of spirit renewing them in their minds through the putting on of the new man to the exercising as well their spiritual senses in likeness and conformity to Christs actings and life in that unity wherein he and his Father are one whereby he crucified and kept under his natural man as to the exercising of their natural powers and faculties in likeness and conformity to the actings of Christs natural man making them herein subject to the Father of spirits and to live acceptably and work holiness in his sight as renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created them or according to the pattern of the new man in the holy and righteous actings thereof set up in the person of Christ where Christ is all and in all which good works the Saints are fore-ordained of God to walk in as their true Evangelical and new-covenant obedience Fourthly and lastly those unto whom Christ is thus made sanctification he is made also redemption or glorification to the changing them throughout in spirit soul and body into a likeness with his spirit soul and body as he is declared the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead at such time as our vile bodies shall be made like unto his most glorious bodie by that mighty power of his whereby he is able to subdue all things unto himself which is to be brought to light in his times when he shall be admired in all them that believe and answer the expectation of the creature in delivering it from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the sons of God at their manifestation and the compleating of their adoption by this redemption of their bodies These are the benefits in short and in general that inseparably accompany the guift of Christs person to the soul as he ministers himself in the two Covenants respectively and are the fruits of his presence there Which will serve as a key to open many things in the following discourse when we come to speak of the practical conscientious part that is begotten in and exercised by the subjects of Christ as they live under his Rule and dominion in the world and are therein contesting and warfaring with the adversary the devil and his instruments CHAP. XI Shewing the subordinate use that the elect Angels are of unto Christ in his bearing up the pillars of the creation that else had been dissolved through the fall and the place which they have in the threefold general administration of his mediatoriall kingdom set up in the world THough sin entred upon all men and death by sin through the act of one mans disobedience and judgement came upon all men because in one man all had sinned yet by the obedience of one and his righteousness the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life Rom. 5. and where sin abounded grace did abound much more by reason whereof the whole first creation in all the parts of it is made Christs by the price of his blood which was made Sathans and sins by the fall that as the soul of the Father is Christs so also is the soul of the Son and he only that personally transgresses shall die Ezek. 18. 4. God having been pleased to find a ransom in Christ for atonement and propitiation to the forbearance of sins that are past and to the admitting of man to a new treaty of reconciliation and trial by vertue of the first covenant renewed in and through the blood of Christ whereunto the ministry of the good Angels serves and is made use of by Christ the KING OF RIGHTEOUSNESS who employs these his ministers of justice as the higher powers over the world committed by him to their charge to mannage order and govern in all the affairs thereof under him
the gates of hell to prevail against the very elect themselves that are built on the Rock and are out of his reach to annoy in reference to the certainty of their salvation finding therefore little hopes or likelihood to frustrate them in that he makes it his business to render them of all men most miserable as to any hopes or enjoyments in this life wherein he finds latitude given him in the power allowed to him to bruise their heel Secondly he useth all the means-that lie in his power by subtilty or force so far as Gods permission gives way to him to assault the will and judgement of man how highly enlightned and how far quickned soever upon his single natural root in order to entice and draw him away from his subjection unto God in the natural service and worship that is due from him never leaving till he hath prevailed with and over him to provoke God so highly notwithstanding all his goodness patience and long-suffering to him extended through the blood of Christ as thereby to render himself unworthy of any further love or favour and to move God to swear in his wrath that he shall never enter into his REST. Under these two general heads we shall find as in a constant track throughout the whole Scripture the workings and counter-workings that are kept on foot and maintained between the MAN CHRIST JESUS who would have all men to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth and the MAN OF SIN and grand deceiver Satan who would have no man to be saved but all to be made children unto him who is the father of lyes The means used by Christ to produce renew and maintain the workings and operations of light and life from him in the hearts and consciences of fallen mankind is by setting on foot as hath been already shewed the threefold law and government given and erected by him at the beginning over all the sons of Adam upon the fall through the power and exercise whereof First he doth that to and in the hearts and consciences of the very heathen which fits and qualifies them to live answerable if the fault be not in themselves to the law and government they are under according to the measures of attainment which the meer natural man may have The like he doth unto the children of the first Covenant unto whom he is much more bountiful sutably to the state he farther leads them into And thirdly he exceeds what he doth to both these in the communications of himself unto the spiritual seed whom he suffers not to destroy themselves but takes a course to cross their own wils and desires when they are hearkning to the temptation of their own lust or Satan to draw them away This threefold conscience and spirit of man in the proper principles and operations of each of them whether they are to be found single or all of them together as in sweet harmony thus set up in the spiritual seed our purpose is to treat of and that as particularly and distinctly as we can to fall in with the experiences of all that may be therein concerned looking upon this as the best method we can take for the clear opening and stating the several dispensations of Christs three-fold government and Kingdom already entred upon And therefore we shall consider the principles and operations of each of these consciences either First as they are Christs own workmanship in and upon the heart and spirit of man as the beginning and foundation of those holy and righteous actings by him required under the dispensation whereinto each of them is brought by God or Secondly as they are the lawfull and righteous workings of the spirit of man enabled hereunto by free gift from Christ and in dependance upon him yet as the fruit and travel of his own proper judgement and will rectified in the use of those means prepared and laid before him by Christ to bring him to the right end of all motion which is the true REST whilst as yet he is under works and not under grace or Thirdly as they are the unlawfull and forbidden fruit of mans spirit qualified and enabled from Christ as before expressed when through his own lust he is enticed and through the subtilty of Satan he is ensnared so as lust when it hath thus conceived is the root of all evil operation bringing forth fruit unto death even death eternal in the end if the Lord upon the grounds of his new and everlasting Covenant do not pluck such souls out of this danger and lead them to such a state as contains in it a perfect security and freedom from the re-entry of sin with its prevailing power over them Through the right and distinct consideration of these principles and operations of conscience in the sons and daughters of men we may come to find our selves where we are and whose subjects whether Christs or the Devils and to what Kingdom or dispensation we belong in reference to the one or the other to the Kingdom of Christs marvellous light or to the power of Satans accursed darkness and upon what terms we stand in the one or the other whether in a wavering state consisting in a capacity and possibility of removal out of the one into the other or in a fixed determined state upon which it is impossible for any change to be brought either in a good sense or in a bad in which men are reserved and kept fast either in the bonds of perfect love light and freedom that casteth out fear as the elect or in chains of darkness and captivity unto the judgement of the great day as the non-elect who will be destroyed by the brightness of Christs coming when he shall appear the second time without sin to the salvation of his People And this we shall do if God permit as a service to these present times wherein like little children most are tossed to and fro with every wind of doctrine by the slight of men and cunning craftiness whereby men and devils lie in wait to deceive and lead on the ignorant to the Chambers of death CHAP. XV. Shewing more particularly the bounds of that Rule and Government which is set up by Christ in the natural conscience together with the answer of a good conscience thereunto in those that are under this first dispensation IT is most evident by the Scriptures that amongst the nations who are said to be without law as distinguished from the Jews that were under the law there were found doers of the law by nature who shewed the work of the law written in their hearts their consciences bearing them witness and their thoughts mean while accusing or excusing one another Rom. 2. 14 15. Of such Peter speaketh Acts 10. 34 35. where he saith Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons but in every nation he that feareth him and worketh righteousness is accepted with him according as David
cutting them again off from his living body as unprofitable branches fit to be cast into the fire Joh. 15. 6. These are they considered in the exercise of this kind of life and holy operations that are as the fruitful married wife unto Christ under the first Covenant and over whom the Law hath dominion while they are in this life short of and unacquainted with an implantation into Christs dead body not having the similitude and conformity unto his death so much as in the seed of it brought forth in them The answer which these have of a good conscience towards God under the Law is particularly stated Rom. 7. where they are in Pauls own person represented as having that workmanship set up in their hearts and minds which stands in an exact conformity to the Law or image of Christs natural righteousness and perfection which is holy righteous spiritual and good and so having that heart-work in them whereby they adhere to and approve the Law and the goodness and righteousness thereof in opposition to the contrary body of sin and death which is still in being and exercise in them and with them ready upon all occasions to return with prevalency whilst they are but upon this tenure of the Covenant of works and in the wavering unconstant principles thereof by reason of which they find by experience no good thing dwelling in their flesh that is abiding and of a continuing residence with them but such as comes to them as a stranger or a sojourner for a night or short duration and is ready upon their miscarriage to be gone and leave them again estating them but in such a wavering condition as whilst with their mind they serve the Law of God they are ready with their flesh to serve the law of sin and the good that they would do that they do not and the evil which they would not do that they do By all which uncertainty and slipperiness of this their state Christ would teach them to see the need of following the Lamb whither soever he goes and to experience themselves to be most miserable if they advance no further but abide here thinking themselves rich and encreased with goods and wanting nothing whilst they are ignorant that they are miserable and poor and blind and naked as wanting that top-stone which must compleat the whole building And therefore the right frame of spirit in the faithful subjects of Christ under this dispensation is to find no Rest here but to see that this Earthly Jerusalem is no abiding City and to cry out miserable man that I am who shall deliver me from the body of this death wherein is not only comprehended the corrupted but the corruptible state of mans nature after that he hath been renewed in this life of COMMON SALVATION by vertue of the blood of Christ From this experimental sense God would teach us patiently to lie down under the power of the cross of Christ whose saying then we shall acknowledge to be most faithful and true that if we die with him we shall also live with him and if we suffer with him we shall also reign with him our fellowship with him in his death being the only means by him appointed to translate us out of all death into life eternal and to bring us under that Law of the spirit of life Rom. 8. 2. which hath power absolutely to free us from the law of sin and of death in all the branches of it This is the spirit and conscience and these the principles of the children of the first covenant under the Dominion of the law in which while they continue using of it lawfully they are knit unto Christ by his taking unto him his two staves BEAUTY and BANDS Zach. 11. 7. signifying the fruits of his presence with them and amongst them as he is their husband by this covenant until by slighting his greater glory and selling him for thirty pieces of silver they come to discover themselves to be the flock of slaughter and such as he at last departs from and leaves to draw back unto perdition whilst he carries on the poor of the flock that bear him company in his sufferings unto the saving of their souls keeping them through the power of faith unto his Heavenly Kingdom This generation of men are witnessed unto by the Scriptures under a twofold consideration First as they were under the Law as the Law was the figure and shadaw of the good things to come consisting in meats and drinks and divers washings and fleshly rites ceremonies and divine Ordinances under Moses his ministry imposed until the time of reformation or to the coming of Christ in the flesh who in that sense was the end of the Law and of the observance of it as considered in that fleshly commandment and Mosaical administration that pointed at the very image itself that was to be manifested in the flesh of Christ where the same Law was to begin again and become the holy commandment spoken and delivered unto men by the son himself requiring a conformity in and from all men unto the natural righteousness and perfection of man shining forth in his flesh who was made like unto us in all things sin only excepted In this second sense as the Law is now given by Christ the true MINISTER OF CIRCUMCISION Rom. 15. 8. Issued forth by his first appearance immediately written in the fleshly tables of the heart by his spirit whereby the children of it are taken into marriage-union and made one flesh with himself branches of this vine Joh. 15 are we to understand the subjects of this kingdom of Christ that live under this dispensation in the times of the Gospel since his coming in the flesh and putting down the Temple-worship and Service Acts 7. that was in force before his incarnation introducing in the room thereof a spiritual Temple-worship and Service in the conformity which he takes them into with himself in his flesh and living body making them his own Temple house and habitation the first Tabernacle or worldly Sanctuary built up together with him in his natural righteousness and perfection Such principles and such a birth as this of holy and righteous operations and actings are required in him and of him that is made by Christ under the law or a child of the first covenant which Deut. 32. Jer. 3. 21. compared with Chap. 11. 15. and Isa 5. and Ezek. 16. do in express terms testifie shewing how perfect they are as they come out of his hands to whom he is a Father and Redeemer in this covenant planting them wholly a right seed and that together with the choisest vine causing them to grow together for a while in himself the true vine John 15. and thereby renewing in them and upon them a state of holy flesh natural righteousness and holiness and as thus qualified taking them into his own house as his beloved spouse and married wife who yet after all this
integrity of Jobs spirit herein the Devil hath leave granted from God to bruise Jobs heele or to be the executioner of Gods wrath upon Job in all manner of appearances and evidences thereof as could render it real and credible to flesh and blood either in Job himself or in the minds and apprehensions of his three friends having for this purpose a permissive Commssion from God to spolle and deprive Job of all gainfull things to him as to this world his life onely excepted Secondly this being obtained and also put into execution he doth his utmost to disquiet Jobs spirit outwardly from the sense of this hard usage and dealing thus received from the Lord to see if he could move him to an impatient murmuring mutining heart against God as a severe Master at best to a faithful servant or else as an unjust dealer according to Covenant who promiseth good dayes to them that do eschew evil and do good which Job having been most diligent and sincere in is neverthelesse thus rewarded as to be numbred amongst the vilest transgressors and malefactors in Gods outward dispensation towards him and yet put upon it to bear it patiently as becoming a broken contrite spirit before the Lord who as he gives freely the good things he bestowes so may also take them away againe without giving account why Thirdly when this takes not he incenses his nearest relations against him imputing the cause of all this wrath to his sincere walking and stedfast cleaving unto God in a singular way from all the rest of the world representing the sad and suffering state hereby brought upon himself and them which he might remedy by letting go his integrity and falling into a fawning compliance with the corrupt interest of the times helived in Fourthly as a backing and seconding of this he moves his three friends against him that probably were all the comfortable society he had in the middest of a heathenish and wicked world round about him and they being professors of the fear and worship of the true and living God and exceeding strict and exact in their walkings as appears by all their arguments and endeavours to perswade Job against the faithful witnesse of his own conscience within that all this is befallen him as a just reward from God of some secret hypocrisie of heart that is in him and unfaithfulnesse to God in his walkings which God hath now found out and punished and which they urge him to acknowledge and give glory to God by repenting and returning from it that so the rod may be removed hereby discovering their great ignorance of Gods designe in this manner of chastening and afflicting his Saints which is done by God for a farre other and higher end then they were aware of that is to say to traine them up unto the obedience of faith consisting in that which God accounts thankworthy in servants to their masters when a man for conscience towards God endures grief suffering wrongfully or without giving cause for it For what glory is it if when ye be buffeted for your faults ye take it patiently but if when ye do well and suffer for it ye take it patiently this is acceptable with God for even hereunto were ye called because Christ also thus suffered for us leaving us an example that we should follow his steps who did no sinne neither was guile found in his month who when he was reviled reviled not againe when he suffered he threatened not but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously This kind of obedience was God intending to teach Job who in and with all his former wel-doings is taught by God not only to want the reward of them for the present but to have the contrary reward executed upon him as the bruising of his heele for the triall of his patience under it and for the practising another kind of obedience and sort of good works then any worldly professour or bastard that is not the true son would ever bear or endure Heb. 12. and which all that are sons must be trained up in as the singular thing which is to be done by them in obeying Gods will in a way of patience which shall not be found in any that are enemies to the Crosse of Christ Fifthly and lastly Satan improves the result of all these appearances of wrath from God perswasions and mistakes of friends and relations together with the inward sense which by all this is ministred to the workings of unsubdued flesh and blood in him to make Job faile and despond in his minde towards God and to conclude himself amongst those that are free amongst the dead to whom the Lord hath forgotten to be gracious ready to cry out My God my God why hast thou for saken me This is the second maine particular of the fulfilling in us a conformity to Christ in his death by Satans bruising of the heele in this manner represented in the example of Job The third is in respect of the workings of unsubdued flesh and blood abiding and remaining in a Saint as the body of sin and death he carries about with him whether from the corrupt or pure old Adam set up in him both which are equally to feele the weight of the crosse of Christ unto which they are to be nailed to the causing of all enmity and sin to cease out of them and be for ever abolished and taken away For which purpose that is to be taken from them and offered up in sacrifice without spot unto God which the natural man in whatever capacity he is whether at his best or at his worst hath no minde to part with upon any termes and therefore doth resist and oppose as long as his ability serves or until a perfect disability and weaknesse be brought upon him rendering it impossible for him to hold out or keep any longer the selfish power to do his own will to speak his own words to think his own thoughts to finde his own desire or exercise his own lust either unto good or evil as living upon his natural root which exercise of free will is essential unto mans natural constitution or first make as hath been shewed in an arbitrary and independant course of motion and action conferred upon him by his participation of Gods first image or the Ministery to him of Gods first appearance single And which so long as that Ministery lasts as its husband or object of converse is kept up in man as a principle of acting by his own free choice and disposal of himself in the use of fit means allowed him by God to induce and perswade him to the good God requires of him This power in the natural man thus to act and live is his joy and delight the desire and lust of his soul and this is revived and strengthened by the Law or the Ministery of Christ in the perfection of the first Covenant which man makes use of to the emboldening and hardening of himself in a
way of natural good works and well-doing pretending to keep up his natural lust and desire in the life exercise and power thereof as Saul did the best of the goods of the Amalekites and their King for Sacrifice to God And therefore the natural man in the Saint in all the powers and faculties thereof stands it out long against the workings of faith in him and fights hard upon this principle of self-preservation deriding with the brothers of Joseph that dreamer which the New-Covenant-Faith in the life language and obedience thereof appears to be to the judgement of flesh and blood when it perswades us to become weak with Christ to suffer our selves to be disarmed and despoyled of this first power and the free exercise thereof upon its single natural root as keeping up a covetousnesse in us that is Idolatry and the root of all evill and does assure us that Gods strength shall be made perfect in us through this weaknesse so as we may rejoyce and glory in such infirmities through which the strength of Christ shall come to be ever resting on us whereby at last we shall be made to take pleasure in these infirmities reproaches necessities persecutions and distresses for Christs sake which at first are grievous but in conclusion we find by experience that when we in our selves are thus most weak then are we in the Spirit of Christ made most strong In this weaknesse then which is brought upon the naturall man of the Saint in which he is made to bear about in his body the marks of the dying of the Lord Jesus consisting in infirmities reproaches necessities persecutions and distresses inward and outward doth the death of Christ work in the flesh of every Saint untill it be fully crucified brought downe into the grave and formed into one dead body with Christs natural man for ever disenabled and weakened from acting this selfish power or exercising this natural lust or desire though in a way of natural or legal good workings singly considered but to have them brought to their lawful rest in the grave of Christ as a Sabbath-keeping there their reasonable service and sacrifice acceptable unto God by Jesus Christ Whence it comes to passe that we no longer live but Christ lives in us and in and through this weaknesse brought upon us by the Crosse quickens us to a more excellent way of working with God and for God then ever we were acquainted with before to the fulfilling and establishing the righteousnesse required by the Law to the highest so that against these weakened Saints and poor broken-spirited children of God there is no Law but the death of Christ that thus works in them doth condemne sinne in the flesh and never leave till it quite abolish it there and bring in the everlasting righteousnesse of God in the roome of that righteousnesse of man which was but as a morning dew Thus we come to bear about in our body the dying of the Lord Jesus that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal or crucified flesh which work of mortification is unto the old Adam most bitter and grievous it being that which bruises him and puts him to grief beyond all that can be imagined and which therefore he fights against and resists to the last drop of blood till he can no longer stand upon his feet but doth fall down amongst the slaine in the blood of Christ whose rest is blessed thus dying with or in the Lord and his works follow him This is the third particular wherein our conformity to Christs death doth consist The fourth and last does respect the workings of faith as they maintaine the good part of this fight in the Saints and gaine the victory over the world and the fleshly seed and principles in them In the managing of which faith doth at first whilest the spiritual senses are not come into use nor strength undergo many a sore brunt and is hard put to it by the workings of unsubdued flesh and blood in them as in the renewed principles thereof they abide in their vigour and flourishing of youth under the first Covenant having through the power of the Law and life of Christs fleshly perfection brought forth in them overcome the wicked one and by the knowledge of Jesus Christ after the flesh cleane escaped the pollutions of the world respecting the filth of the flesh in the confidence and strength whereof these young ones in the experiences of the Gospel think nothing too hard for them to break through and get the mastery of and therefore despise the workings of faith and seed of the promise as a barren desolate widowhood in comparison of their flourishing youth and would be putting in for the inheritance as obteined by the perfection of the Law and Christs first appearance esteeming that to be the Kingdome that is to abide and continue the holy City whose Tabernacle must never be taken down But against all these fierce encounters from pure flesh and blood in the Saint armed with conquests over the wicked one and many fruitful evidences of Christs presence and communion as a Bridegroome and Husband according to the flesh faith armes the soul putting on it the whole armour of light and evidencing to it things unseene the hidden Manna the new name the Jerusalem that is above that which neither eye hath seene nor eare heard nor hath entred into the natural mans heart and conception with which it puts forward and advances bringing in that which is enduring substance an inheritance undefiled and which fades not away in opposition to a failing decaying corruptible Crowne and Rest which flesh and blood glories in And in this more excellent way of worshipping and serving God it comes forth and gains ground in the heart to the stopping the high careere that flesh and blood was in before to the utter silencing it at last and casting down its lofty imaginations and every high thing that exalts it self against the knowledge of God bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ Through this powerful operation of faith the youth of flesh and blood in the Saint is weakened and grey heirs now begin to appear here and there upon him in this his captivity to the obedience of faith which state is very honourable and is the qualification that renders Saints the true Elders in the Church of God who being old men in Christian experiences ought to be in great esteeme for the use and advantage they are of and the great benefit they may bring to true Church-fellowship and Christian Societie how despicable soever this frame of spirit be in the eyes of the worldly Church and of the youthful visible Churches of Saints flourishing with their fair shewes in the flesh whereby they are puffed up and have life working in them whilest death works in Paul the aged and such Elders in spiritual growth that walk as he walked yea these are full and rich and would
be reigning as Kings in a fleshly visibility and worldly glory without the true crucified Saint that in the meane time is made a spectacle to men and Angels and judged as the filth of the world and as the off-scouring of all things unto whom neverthelesse Christ speaks after this manner Esay 26. 19. Thy dead men shall live with my dead body shall they arise awake and sing ye that dwell in dust This is the last particular of our conformity to Christs death And now by what hath beene said in these four particulars as the result rising out of them all our eye may receive enlightning if God please in this great and glorious mystery of Christs death and the effect it hath upon us when it conformes us unto its own likenesse and similitude For we see it doth not annihilate the first Adam or natural man in us but it spoils and disrobes him of the power in effect to sin against God which he upon specious pretences would faine keep for sacrifice in bodily exercise though of little value a power to do his own will and to be at his owne disposal in the strength of grace received bearing oile in his Lamp but not in his vessel In the exercise of which power man is perfectly weakened and disabled by the Crosse First through Christs withdrawing the food and nourishment of it in him Secondly through Satans bruising and breaking down his stout-heartednesse as an executioner of Gods wrath upon him in bereaving him of worldly comforts which God sanctifies to a laying low of mans spirit under this rod of God though applied by Satan and his instruments Thirdly through the victory and conquest of faith which never leaves till it captivate all the powers and faculties of the natural man and bring them into obedience and subjection unto Christ to live unto him that is risen from the dead and so to bring forth fruit unto God in newnesse of spirit and of life made at last to take faith in the principles and operations of it for its Lord and best friend and therein to observe the Law of God given on that behalf that the elder should serve the younger that the first Adam should serve the last Adam Esau should serve Jacob or the naturall powers and faculties of the Saints mind should serve the heavenly birth and spiritual senses thereof that the righteousnesse of the Law may be performed in the Spirit of faith by being made one spirit with Christ in the glory of his resurrection from the dead the life whereof doth not yet fully appear but shall do when he shall be seene in that admirable glory and bring his Saints with him in the same likenesse that they may see him as he is as his associates and coheirs of the same incorruptible inheritance having hereby the use of heavenly faculties and powers given unto them whereby Christ will be admired in all those that do beleeve and they are admitted to enter within the veile and are made capable to converse with God in his own similitude apparently face to face as friend converses with friend which no man as a natural man in his best capacity did ever see nor can see and so the true Saints are made such excellent seers and contemplators of God thus influenced and over-ruled in all the powers and faculties of their subdued natural man as fashions them to do the will of God in earth or their earthly natural man thus taught obedience as they see it done and as they are the doers of it in heaven or in their spiritual and heavenly part and have oile in their vessels as well as in their lamps In which heavenly frame of spirit they are beheld by the Prophet Isaiah in the 54 chapter before mentioned when he saith All thy children shall be taught of the Lord and great shall their peace be In righteousnesse shalt thou be established thou shalt be farre from oppression for thou shalt not fear and from terrour it shall not come near thee when thou art made thus to dwell on high and art seated upon this munition of rocks behold they that shall gather together against thee shall not do it by me but whoever shall gather together against thee shall fall for thy sake no weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper and every tongue that shall rise in judgement against thee thou shalt condemne this is the heritage of the servants of the Lord and their righteousnesse is of me saith the Lord. And let me say thus much upon this occasion in one word to the youthful visible and flourishing Saints of these our dayes who with great earnestnesse and zeale are trimming their Lamps with oile to go out to meet the Bridegroome in expectation of the fleshly glory of Christs Kingdome to the keeping up of Absalon against the true David in Spirit of my Lord Esau against the true Jacob or of Isaac in the flesh against Isaac crucified and offered up in sacrifice to God to be received againe in spirit in the life from the dead They are not yet under those promises before mentioned by reason whereof those that gather together against them may prevaile over them and the weapons formed against them may prosper till the power of the holy people be scattered and none shut up or left Whereas if the Lord take down and bruise the youthful spirit that is in them and cause them with David when they have tried the armour of man to put it off againe to go forth in this armour of God which makes the Saint strongest when he is weakest our Goliah shall be slaine that defies the Hosts of the living God and great salvation shall be wrought for Gods people when they shall be little more then standers by the Lord of the whole earth and lookers on By this time we come to see wherein our conformity to Christ in his death consists the place whereof is found under the third administration of the Kingdome of Christ which in the three branches thereof we have endeavoured to describe in the preceding chapters The first of which may be compared to the Moone that rules the night as the weaker and fainter light of Christs first appearance the representation whereof is given by the single Ministery of Angels as the supreme Lords and Rulers under Christ of the natural and first world by the first Covenant considered meerly as the Law of nature receiving its renewal in the blood of Christ The second is likened by the Scripture unto the Sunne which shadowes forth the vigorous light and glory of Christs first appearance as it is ministred singly in and by the first Covenant considered as the Law and perfection of his flesh in the principles and life whereof the sonnes and servants are not differenced one from another but both walk to the house of God as friends the sonnes of God as well as the sonnes of perdition those that are borne after the flesh as well
imputed as it is written Where there is no Law there is no transgression hence is it that in his temptations and assaults with which he approaches men that are subjects unto Christ under his first dispensation or the birth of natural ight by him renewed and wrought out in their consciences he does endeavour either to make them reject scorne and withstand that work of the Law in their hearts so as in their operations to preferre and adhere to the unrighteousnesse and uncleannesse of the flesh before that righteousnesse and holinesse that Christ requires of them or else so to over-value trust and rest in their personal fleshly purity and holinesse unto which they may and do oft attaine under that first administration of Christ as to become fixed opposers and resisters of the higher discoveries of Christ that are yet behind and were to have beene made knowne unto them if through this insobriety and impatience of spirit they had not justly deprived and rendered themselves unworthy thereof Now this sort of sinners and corrupted consciences when thus againe returned into a voluntary subjection unto Satans Kingdome and Rule being such who have sinn'd against and denied the Lord that bought them are treasuring up wrath against the day of wrath and the revelation of the righteous judgement of God who though they shall not be judged for what they had not and knew not as to the righteousnesse which they themselves were to have found in Christs person for their justification in the sight of God as shall those that are under the second dispensation unto whom Christ in this sense is revealed yet they do justly fall under the sin of unbelief as well as the other bringing down the guilt of Christs blood upon their souls through the unlawful use they make of their present attainments and personal righteousnesse in which they harden themselves to the opposing and keeping off the manifestation of Christs own righteousnesse unto them so much as in the knowledge of him according to the flesh The second sort of Christs subjects which the Devil applies himself to and attempts the gaining over unto his use and service for the encrease of his Dominion in opposition to Christs are those of the Circumcision children of the first Covenant who are the subjects wherein Christ sets up and maintaines his Rule and Dominion by the Law the holy Commandment delivered to them in the knowledge of him according to the flesh into whose hearts he comes as that stronger man to the dispossessing of Satan and casting of him out as an uncleane spirit who till then had beene prevailing over their minds to runne into all excesse of riot in the grosse uncleannesses of the flesh whom now Christ restrains by binding him up and in the roome thereof bringing forth the fruits of his own indwelling presence in them to the cleansing sweeping and adorning of his house and Temple wherein he comes to live with them under the first Covenant Satan perceiving how desperate his game is like to prove by this work of Christ if he should in down-right termes attempt to bring such as these back againe into the bondage of corruption is willing for a while very much to decline that way chusing rather to endeavour a returne into these cleansed enlightened hearts in the forme and appearance of an Angel of light that he may work death in them by that which is good seducing and beguiling them with subtilty as he did Eve by making their very conformity to the Law and the upholding thereof in power and credit in the conscience to be not only the means of his re-entry with seven spirits worse then before but to serve as a strong-hold to resist and beat off Christ in his approaches unto the soul in the glory of his second appearance by fixing it in a hardnesse and implacable resistance against the dawnings of that day and brightnesse of his coming In this posture is the Devil able to seat himself in the very Temple of God as God shewing himself to be God whose coming into the heart is with power with signes lying wonders and all deceivablenesse of unrighteousnesse in all that perish and take pleasure in this kind of unrighteousnesse and hatred of the truth By this means sin comes forth in the mysterious workings thereof which lies dead amongst those under the first dispensation as it is written without the Law sinne is dead taking its revival as to this kind of its operation by occasion of the coming of the Commandment in power and prevalency in respect whereof it is said The strength of sinne is the Law which strength being wanting in those that are without Law is the reason that sinne thus considered remains in them as dead without motion or activity For untill the soul by the ruling power of the Law be brought into a kind of security in its own apprehension from all prevailing danger of fleshly impurity and uncleannesse this kind of sinning springs not up in its force and vigour working death by that which is undeniably good through which it becomes exceeding sinful In this security the heart of man is the more easily nourished up from the experience it hath of converse with Christ in his own immediate personal appearance as those Luke 13 25 26. who upon this ground maintaine their confidence for acceptance with Christ saying Lord Lord open unto us for we have eate and drunk in thy presence and thou hast taught in our streets finding themselves planted into him as branches in the Vine or good Olive-tree and so rendered righteous in the righteousnesse of their head and root which knowledge and experience those under the first dispensation are strangers unto being aliens from this Common-wealth of Israel Of this number are they who after much enlightning fall away and draw back unto perdition Heb. 6. and chap. 10. with Demas Hymeneus and Philetus making shipwrack both of faith and a good conscience In these kind of Seducements the Devil hath beene long versed who began this practice upon Adam in his natural righteousnesse and purity experiencing in his case all that resistance that man in honour or at his best estate standing but upon the root of his natural perfection does signifie or amount unto for the keeping out of sin or the hindering it a second time from re-entry and revival to the making of men sin over the same sin againe after the similitude of Adams transgression Thus the old Serpent through this deceit is able to slay man againe and work death in him as fast as natural righteousnesse and holinesse renewed and revived does give him matter to work upon this way This mystery of iniquity is undiscernable at first in the consciences of those where it works who judge it to be their duty and obedience to the Law which they are performing whilst in their very righteous and holy operation they are made to serve a contrary interest unto Christs by going about to establish
their own righteousnesse not submitting to the righteousnesse of God and so prove deceived and seduced through an unskilfulnesse of discerning in that which is good to the despising and refusal of that which is a more excellent and enduring substance for the fading glory of flesh and the morning dew of natural righteousnesse wanting that wisdome which teaches to distinguish betweene the lawful and unlawful use that is to be made of the Law and the eating and drinking of the body and blood of Christ worthily or unworthly Behold then the evil desire and lust that may and doth spring up in mans pure holy and righteous nature as by being under the dominion of the Law and living in subjection and conformity thereunto he is striving to separate them whom God has joyned together in Christs second appearance and to uphold competition and opposition betweene those that should dwell together as brethren in unity in the communion of the holy Ghost which counsel of God carries much contrariety in it to mans natural desire and lust which would faine get away with Gods first word the word of the beginning Heb. 6. 1. wherewith God at first visits man refusing to stay to the end and to hear and obey the second word which God is pleased to have with him whereby he finishes and compleats his first operations in him declaring to him his whole counsel whereunto the first dispensation is appointed only as a fore-runner and therefore must needs be short as to that which is the work of the second being no otherwise intended from the beginning but as a messenger or preparer of the way Hence we may see what it is Paul means Rom. 7. and ch 8. when he acknowledges that the Law through the weaknesse of the flesh though it have nothing in it which causes or is the author of sin yet it hath that in it which sinne takes occasion by to set up it self anew and blossome forth againe in mans nature when renewed and restored to a conformity with the Law which is spiritual holy righteous and good for lust is capable to conceive in Adams posterity thus renewed and set up afresh as well as it did in himself at first and lust when it hath thus conceived brings forth sinne or an envying and contesting against the glory of Christs second appearance which sin being perfected or come to its fixing of the mind in an unchangeable and implacable enmity thereunto brings forth death even that death which is spiritual and eternal so Rom. 8. such a carnal mind as this is called death as it stands in such an enmity to the spiritual mind that it is neither subject to that Law of God which is the Law of the Crosse and Spirit of life nor indeed can be Thus saith the Apostle by the coming of the Commandment sin revived and 1 died and what was ordeined for life I found unto me to be unto death sin getting into its vigour and strength thereby assuring the soul that it is here out of all danger being begotten againe into Gods own likenesse wherein man was at first created and having the visible characters thereof shining forth in it written not with inke and on tables of stone but with the Spirit of the living God and on the fleshly tables of the heart shewing it self a right change and a real heart-work above and beyond all that is accounted civility and morality and above all notion and spirituality that is but head-work and fancy What is now to be done sayes the Tempter to this sort of men but to perswade them torest here and praise and blesse Gods Word that by this first visit and beginning hath made so beautiful glorious a change in their hearts nature as this is wherof the experiences are so lively and refreshing especially when reflection is made upon what they are changed from when brought to this and the way and means of attaining it which hath also the approbation and praise of visible Churches and Saints and of the best men so judged by mans day which makes them say Let us tabernacle here with Moses and Elias especially if we be upon the Mount and brought thither by Christ himself transfiguring himself there before us In this earthly building of the renewed natural man let us fix and resist all dawnings and approachings of any higher or better state Let this our Ishmael live was once the voice of Abraham himself that afterwards was perswaded to offer up his Isaac that was but according to the flesh If we be prevailed with to fix here and live after the flesh we shall die Rom. 8. 13. or enter and abide in those wayes of death which make us enemies to the Crosse of Christ and cause him in the end to swear we shall never enter into his Rest As man therefore in the purity and holinesse of his natural will may be using the Law of God lawfully as we have shewed so also he may exercise himself in his own holy and righteous operations of mind and nature in such manner as may be quite contrary to the mind of God and the true end of such conformity wrought in him unto the Law experiencing by this means the evil that is incident unto a pure and uncorrupt state of being and that lust that is to be known only by the coming of the Law Which evil desire or lust of man in this state is a covetousnesse which sets up idolatry in the highest streine endeavouring to oppose Christ in the Spirit by Christ in the flesh by exalting the glory of his first appearance above that of the second Sin in this sense hath for the Mother and Nurse of it mans natural righteousnesse wherein he is apt to glory and be puffed up without cause contrary to the true meaning of the Law which requires him indeed to cherish and maintaine the natural righteousnesse and holinesse therein and thereby ministred whether considered as it shines forth in the flesh of Christ or in their own hearts and consciences in opposition to that which is the filth of the flesh or to the resting in our own personal morality and vertue before the Law came to us but authorizes him not or warrants him to oppose herewith the Crosse of Christ and the excellency of the knowledge of him crucified or to resist upon pretence of keeping that up the coming in of the better and more excellent glory When once therefore such a frame of spirit as a root of gall and bitternesse is springing up in men and that wilfully against manifest conviction and long contestation and patience on Gods part to bring them to another mind at last they are brought by sad experience to find that in their flesh dwells no good thing but such as will be leaking out of this fleshly building of the first Adam at its best if rested in and subject to corrupt So that whilst with the mind they serve the Law of God with the flesh
they serve the Law of sin finding sin so farre from being perfectly overcome and subdued as once they supposed that by degrees it returnes upon them with greater force then ever making them miserable men as abandoned and left to its inroad and violence without any possibility of being delivered from this death and wrath that comes upon such wilful sinning in which case there remains to them no more sacrifice for sinne but an expectation of fiery wrath Howbeit to repair this losse unto them whilst they have their abode in this world the Devil lets them have as their reward the praise of one another and enables them to carry the world clear before them to the oppressing and trampling down the righteous and spiritual seed wringing out waters of a full cup to them These are they who prosper in the world and encrease in riches who have no bands in their death but their strength is firme who are in no trouble nor are plagned like other men but have their eyes standing out with fatnesse enjoying more then their hearts can wish They set their mouths against the heavens and their tongue walks through all the earth under the universal Dominion and Rule which Satan as God of the world hath from one end of the earth unto the other This great City or universal worldly spirit and rule under Satan sits as Queene alone and knows no sorrow but with her fornications and sorceries bewitches the world and the inhabitants thereof exercising her universal Rule and Dominion over them under various formes and administrations of government till he come whose right it is and cast downe these Thrones before him receiving to himself Dominion Glory and a Kingdome that all people Nations and Languages should serve him in a Kingdome that is never to be destroyed The principal means which God uses to bring in his Kingdome and oppose these Counter-workings of Satan is his setting up in the person of Christ a bruised broken crucified man that humbled himself to the death of the Crosse suffering without the gates of Jerusalem as the mighty power of God by which to destroy the power of the Devil and bring to nought the wisdome of the wise and the understanding of the prudent as those foolish and weak things of God in mans eye which he hath chosen to confound the great and mighty things of the world and as those base and despised things that are not which he hath chosen to confound the things that are fairest in shew and appearance Which weapons of Christs warfare though mighty through God yet being despicable and weak in the eye of Satan and to the discerning and judgement of men they are thereby the more harden'd and encouraged to contest it out with Christ till at last they come to be trampled under his feet like mire in the streets CHAP. XX. Concerning death to sinne and life to righteousnesse considered as well in the distinct Branches and Parts thereof as in its full extent and comprehensivenesse together with the discovery thereby of that which is counterfeit hypocritical or otherwise defective THe summe of what we have beene Treating of in the preceding Chapters that concerne the Work and Rule of Christ whether in the Natural Legal or savingly beleeving Conscience as also the Saints conformity with Christ in his death the discovery wherof this chapter had immediately and more orderly succeeded but that I was unexpectedly prevented in it by the Presse may very well be reduced unto the two general termes of Mortification and Vivification or of our dying unto sin and living unto righteousnesse Rom. 6. and this according to the kind and measure of Grace received whether common or special temporary or everlasting For in what ever conscience Christ works and gains so farre reception as to be hearkened unto and obeyed in the Voice or Ministery he holds forth himself by whether upon the termes of the first or second Covenant the necessary consequent thereof is a departing from sin and an eschewing of evil as saith the Scripture Rom. 6. 16. Know ye not that to whom ye yeeld your selves servants to obey his servants ye are to whom ye obey whether of sinne unto death or of obedience unto righteousnesse so as the service and obedience ye yeeld unto the one frees and delivers you from the subjection ye were held in unto the other For those that are servants of sinne are free from righteousnesse or dead to it as on the contrary those that are servants unto righteousnesse obeying from the heart the teachings of Christ in any of his Three-fold dispensations before mentioned are free from sinne and become dead unto it according to the Law they are under or the manner of the working thereof in several measures and degrees experienced in any such conscience Now that which we are to understand by righteousnesse whose servants we ought to be and whereunto we are to yeeld our subjection is the Image of God formed and set up in the second Adam or Person of the Mediator propounding it self to be received and entertained by man since the Fall upon the foundation of a new entercourse and converse betweene God and Men which he hath obtained freely through his owne blood shed as a ransome for all whereby also the natural conscience is purged from dead works and fitted againe for the service of theliving God This Image of God consisting in righteousnesse and true holinesse hath power as it lives and dwells in Christ to dispence and give the communication of it self in part or in whole according to the nature of the Ministery and the manner of administration by which it is conveighed into the heart and conscience So as if this Image of God be but as the Word and Voice of God in the mouth only of servants whether Angels or Men unaccompanied with the personal presence of the Sonne himself it hath one kind of operation and effect intimated Esay 40. 3 4 5. by that Voice of the Lord or Word of God in the mouth of servants only Crying in the Wildernesse-condition of mans corrupt nature and degenerate state as he is dead in trespasses and sinnes Prepare ye the way of the Lord make streight in the desert a high way for our God and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together declaring herein this preparatory dispensation which tends and leads unto Christ in his first appearance as he is God manifested in flesh in which respect it is that all flesh can see him together for as to his second appearance he dwells in that light and immortality which no flesh can approach unto which no man hath seen or can see as he is a meer natural man This forerunning Ministery unto Christ we may also take notice of Luke 10. 1. After these things the Lord appointed other seventy and sent them two by two before his face into every City and place whither he himself would come saying unto
pieces of silver stumbling at that stumbling stone and going about in the meane time to establish and keep up their owne righteousnesse in its credit and authority not only against the filthinesse of the flesh which lawfully they may but in opposition also unto the righteousnesse of faith which is highly displeasing to the Father who calls for this Isaac to be offered up and warns that this earthly Canaan is only to be sojourned in and that therefore a more heavenly Countrey should be in our eye and desire even a City that hath foundations and immutability in it whose builder and maker is God From this legal or first-Covenant frame of spirit as exalting it self in opposition to the life of faith do arise and spring forth the sinnes of unbelief to the resisting of the Ministery of Faith or the new Covenant endeavouring either to keep out the life and light of the Righteousnesse of Faith or if the dawnings thereof break in upon them whether they will or no to crucifie and trample it under foot as an unholy thing and to oppose to the utmost the life and power of Christs second coming though by so much as is witnessed in the first they may discerne as in a Type and Figure that glory that excels and is to follow and that this second dispensation or first appearance of Christ in its proper use and tendency is ordained as a preparatory and forerunning help and furtherance thereunto This sort of sins are properly sins of unbelief or against the life of Faith called the hidden works of darknesse 1 Cor. 4. 5. that may lie undiscovered and unsuspected under the purest forms of godlinesse and a very fair shew in the flesh of a Practical blamelesse Righteousnesse according to the Law By the very good works and consolations such consciences experience under the Law sinne works death in them more easily even a fixed enmity against the righteousnesse of Faith becoming thereby exceeding sinful Of this sort are the sins that revive and get strength by the coming of the Commandment and die not till we become dead to the Law by being crucified with Christ which till the Law come are unknown as to any experimental discerning of them by those that remaine under the first Ministery who in the utmost of their transgressings do sinne only against the Sonne of man or Christ in his first appearance but these sinne against the Holy Ghost or Christ in his second appearance and by such sinning forfeit the benefit of all their enjoyments The third and last Ministery then in and by which everlasting righteousnesse is conveighed and the Image of God set up in the heart in an immutable and incorruptible state is that wherein is exhibited to us the glory that follows that is to be beheld with open face the seed of Promise borne of the free-woman which is the younger and comes after both the former dispensations as the end for which they were given and are kept on foot This Ministery is exercised by the mouth of the Sonne himself speaking from heaven to the shaking and removing of the former heavens and earth as of things that are made that this Kingdome that cannot be shaken may remaine into which Christ is ascended as received up into glory made higher then the Heavens and set downe on the right hand of the Majesty on high in that light and immortality which no man hath seene or can see but those only who are admitted to enter within the veile through their conformity with him in his death Those that are under this Ministery do stand possessed of farre higher and richer benefits and priviledges then any do arrive unto under the first Covenant having also all that they have under that Ministery being joyned so near unto the Lord that they two are but one spirit 1 Cor. 6. 17. or heavenly manhood the one in the Relation of the Husband the other of the Bride the Lambs wife who hath made her garments the sine linnen which is the righteousnesse of the Saints white in the blood of the Lamb which Robes are neither given unto nor put on by any but the hundred fourty four thousand Rev. 14. that are the true Virgins and followers of the Lamb whither soever he goes leading the true immaculate unchangeable life of righteousnesse which is peculiar unto them from all the world besides The benefit of these Robes they have in a twofold consideration first as they are worne by Christ in his owne person made white by himself in his owne blood when he offered up himself without spot unto God by the eternal Spirit which is imputed to them for justification irrevocable and never to be blotted out over and besides the benefit of his legal righteousnesse for their justification upon the tenour of the first Covenant and secondly as they are worne by themselves for their owne personal inherent righteousnesse and sanctification as washed againe in the blood of Christ by a sprinkling thereof upon every one of their hearts to purge them from all evil conscience as they become planted into a likenesse with him in his death over and beyond the washing of their bodies with pure water from the filthinesse of the flesh which is the first-Covenant-sanctification purging them only from the evil conscience opposite to that Ministery This then is the Righteousnesse of Faith or of the second and New Govenant consisting as we have shewed in that newnesse of life and operation which never leaves untill it hath brought downe mans first activity or way of acting by himself alone into the very grave of Christ And we are farther to consider that this Righteousnesse of Faith may have a hidden and relative Being only in the heart of the Elect separating them unto God from the womb and not yet bring them into reall and actuall union with Christ in his spiritual headship nor appear for a long while in its own proper manifestation or be so much as an operative seed of life taking the soul in any active way into co-operation with it self but at most is only comprehending and preserving it from the evil of falling into the GREAT TRANSGEESSION or sinning the sin unto death So then whilst this holy seed thus lies at the bottome as it were the person in whom it is may be carried forth in the life of other Principles to the exercise of all good conscience from first to last under all the three Ministeries as it was with Paul whether considered as in those Principles wherein he was alive before the Law came or those wherein he lived under the Law in a conformity to it or those wherein he lived by Faith in newnesse of life and operation after he became dead to the Law counting all things lesse and drosse and dung Phil. 3. which he had till then experienced how great and glorious soever his receivings and attainments had beene as fit to be left behind that he might presse forward through a
formes through counterfeit resemblances unto TRUTH to beguile and mislead unstable souls and is daily detected and discovered under all professions or visible formes of Saintship whether more or lesse refined whether earthly and sensual or heavenly and Angelical Hereof there are in these dayes of ours but too many living instances who as Lots wife are turned into Monuments of Gods righteous judgment declared upon them for the admonition of others And that we may not leave this subject without endeavouring to contribute some assistance towards the resolving of that great Question how the true Spirit may with certainty and infallibility be known and distinguished from the false I shall briefly recommend to consideration as conducible to the discovery hereof these following particulars The Spirit of TRUTH is evidently and infallibly distinguished from the spirit of lies and falshood three several wayes by which we may make a trial and judgement of the spirits whether they be of God or no. First by the evidence and witnesse which is given of it by the three that bear witnesse in heaven where the Spirit of TRUTH shines forth in its supreme original light and self-evidence as we have at large shewed in the first and second Chapters Secondly by the Record and witnesse that the Sonne or Christ the true Spirit gives of himself in his flesh or humane nature causing the truth to shine forth in the face of Jesus opening what he is and what he did by coming in the flesh suffering and rising againe according to the Scriptures which 1 John 5. 6. is rendred thus This is he that came by water and blood even Jesus Christ not by water only but by water and blood and it is the Spirit that heareth witnesse because the Spirit is truth even the witnesse shining forth in his Spirit and person who whether considered as being and subsisting in the WORD OF LIFE before his being made flesh or considered as after his coming in the flesh living dying and rising againe hath a witnesse born of him in heaven by the FATHER WORD and SPIRIT which Three are one and also in earth by the SPIRIT WATER BLOOD declaring themselves in and upon him as he was found in the fashion and habit of a man which agree in one Thus in the same person we have the greater witnesse which is the witnesse of God or of Christ as he is God and the lesser witnesse which is the witnesse of man or of Christ as he is the Son of man and in both these considered also as testified unto by the Scriptures we have the compleat witnesse which God hath testified of his Son By reason hereof 't is said 1 Joh. 2. 12. Who is a liar but he that denies Jesus is the Christ He is Antichrist that denieth the Father and the Son Whosoever denies the Son the same hath not the Father Whosoever sees not nor acknowledges the TRUTH as witnessed and shining forth in the face of Jesus the Son of man with those that are rightly admitted to serve in the first Sanctuary among the many that are called can much lesse behold it as witnessed and held forth in the brightnesse of Gods face or of the blessed Trinity with those who are culled out of the former and rightly admitted into the holiest of all among the few that are chosen By both these witnesses and records in harmony with the outward Word we do come to know him that is true as the right and whole object whereon through faith we are to fix our eye in the proper forme character and distinction which he gives of himself from all idols or counterfeit appearances of him whatsoever The third or last witnesse which is given us of the true Spirit is that which immediately and necessarily flows from his indwelling presence in our hearts growing up there more and more unto a perfect day by working out in the conscience and spirit of the beleever a confōrmity unto Christ in his death and resurrection causing a dying to sinne and a living unto righteousnesse in the full extent of both as we have opened For if any man have not the Spirit of Christ he is none of his and if Christ be in you the body is dead because of sinne but the Spirit is life because of righteousnesse Examine therefore your selves whether ye be in the Faith know ye not your owne selves how that Jesus Christ is in you except ye be Reprobate And If the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead awell in you he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortall bodies by his Spirit that dwellesh in you and so the Spirit it-selfe comes evidently and infallibly to witnesse with our spirits that we are the children of God as having this Spirit of Adoption poured into our hearts for if we be adopted children then we know we are heires heires of God and joynt heires with Christ if so be we suffer with him that we may also be glorified with him And though we are now Sonnes so as it doth not yet appeare what we shall be when we come to the stature of perfect men in Christ Jesus at the full manifestation of the sonnes of God yet now we know that we shall then be like him and that we shall then see him as he is yea by faith we now see him who is invisible Heb. 11. 27. and by this knowledge we have of him in the mean time we come to see and experience him that is true and that we are in him that is true even the true God and eternal life having the witnesse in our selves through that holy anointing which is TRUTH and no lie teaching us of all things and abiding in us as a seed to preserve us from the evil and snare of all false and seducing spirits Abide therefore in him that when he shall appear we may have confidence and not be ashamed before him at his coming These things I have written unto you concerning them that seduce you CHAP. XXI Shewing particularly the evil seed that is sowen in the natural conscience by Satan through which he works men off from their subjection to Christ in his first dispensation and fixes them in rebellion against him HAving already in general laid open the methods of Satan the weapons of his warfare together with the diligent and skilful prosecution of his designes upon mankind to seduce them work them off and forever deteine them from their duty and faithfulnesse unto Christ their true Husband and Lord we shall come now in a more particular manner to shew how closse an attendant he is upon the foregoing works of Christ in the hearts and consciences of men considered under the former dispensations walking about like a roaring Lion seeking whom he may devoure watching what he can find in such hearts that in the BEGINNING are Gods and Christs owne workmanship as hath beene shewed and trying whom he may corrupt from their first
these meere heathenish subjects even out of the world it self as restored in several measures and degrees to some purity and rectitude of natural principles by the coming of Christ in the flesh and by the preaching of the Gospel to every creature under heaven he therefore winds about and changes his course by transforming himself into an Angel of light and declaring himself a friend unto Christ considered in his first appearance and as he is the restorer and renewer unto man of his first purity natural perfection knowing that by this his dissimulation and feigned complyance with Christ as vile and false a spirit as he is he can come in by flatteries into those souls and consciences whence he hath beene cast out and kept out by force and can returne as unsuspected and take up his place and state in the very Temple of God shewing himself that he is God by all the signes wonders and evidences that flesh and blood can expect from him to approve himself by to the deceiving of the very elect themselves if it were possible and using all deceivablenesse of unrighteousnesse he knowes how to greaten and enlarge his Dominion and Rule by this second branch of it in the use he makes of enlightned restored men the children of the first Covenant that are under the Dominion of the Law married to Christ by that Covenant and who will admit no Rule nor Government over them but such as is consistent with the righteous and holy operations and actings that are required by the Law in those that work as debtors unto it whereof we have at large spoken in opening the mysterious workings of sinne and Satan that are taken by the occasion of the Commandment working death by that which is good so that the Devil makes a surer game for himself this way then the other for out of this grave there is no redemption but it must be let alone for ever There remaines no more sacrifice for sin nor place for repentance when after such enlightnings there is a drawing back and falling away through a root of bitternesse springing up against the dawning and approaching glory of Christ in his second and heavenly appearance Such backslidings and declinings of heart are fatal as having mingled in them that seed and nature of sinning for which God swears in his wrath whoever becomes wilfully guilty shall never enter into his rest but be delivered up to beleeve a lie that they all that are such might be damned and perish everlastingly because they received not the love of the truth that they might be saved but after they had received the knowledge of it became bitter haters and opposers thereof When once this Decree of Gods wrath comes in its execution upon any soul denying unto it the benefit of the sacrifice of Christs death let men have beene never so farre enlightned to the escaping of the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of Iesus Christ to the attaining of excellent spiritual gifts having all knowledge all faith that can be had without the love of the truth shining forth in the Crosse and Resurrection of Christ all this and all the righteousnesse they have done shall be no more remembred but in the iniquity they herein commit they shall surely die and their old sins from which they had beene washed and purged returne with vigor and power againe upon them making their latter end worse then their beginning So then the Devil is no loser at last by temporizing for a while and giving as it were leave unto his subjects these sonnes of perdition to conforme to the Lawes of his enemy and walk with the Saints as friends and fellow subjects in Christs Kingdome for when they break and part these drawing back to perdition whilst the true heirs go on to the saving of the soul the Devil finds his reckoning in the winding up and serves himself of this his deceitful compliance by himself and his instruments with Christ and the true spiritual seed to paythem home at last with inveterate rage and malice signified Rev. 12. by that flood of water which he poures out after them if it were possible to drowne and destroy them utterly as is most apparent also in the action and carriage of the He-goat in Daniel that pretended a long while to be for Christ the Prince of the heavenly Host and to engage on his and their behalf against the RAM till hereby he had strengthened the Kingdome to himself and then Christ and the true Saints have the slip given them and none more enraged against them at last then the HE-GOAT none that speaks greater words against them or more ready to piece up in association with the RAM which he before had beaten downe and got the perfect mastery over This will be found by experience a most certaine truth that Hypocrites and Apostates when once they come to wilfull sinning and with Saul to discerne that God hath left them and is departed from them as to what divine presence and fruits of it they had before beene made sensible of none will be more ready to joyne avowedly with the Devil and the worst of his instruments to accomplish their rage against the suffering Saints of Christ who by this meanes have all the power of the world not only withdrawn from being their protection but declaring it self in visible opposition to them and have little other defence left them then in faith and patience to possesse their souls as the poore destitute and needy ones of the flock of Christ Which dark dispensation and season is hastening apace being as it were the midnight-state wherein the Bridegroome shall come the second time without sinne unto salvation and unto which all things must work as the last times draw to their end when the falling away will be greater then ever and the rage of all the Churches enemies most enflamed and implacable and when all visible protection and defence shall be as good as taken away from the true spiritual seed and suffering Saints to the making of such a time of trouble as never was since there was a Nation Yet the Scriptures do declare that although the ordinary visible protection shall be taken away and withdrawn from the holy people and their power of the arme of flesh broken God will however be a little Sanctuary unto that residue and remnant which he shall preserve faithful unto himself under all the trials and shakings that shall be brought upon the world For Zach. 14. 3. It is said Then shall the Lord go forth against those Nations as when he fought in the day of battell which ver 13. interprets to be in the case of Gideon when a great tumult from the Lord was sent amongst his peoples enemies so as they did lay hold every one on the hand of his neighbour and rose up one against another until they all fell together like Abners and Ioabs men at the poole of Gibeon and became a prey
bodies shall be found in the streets of the holy City spiritually called Sodome and Egypt kept for three dayes and an half unburied signifying that they must in all things submit to the bruising of their outward man in conformity unto Christ and be slaine as their brethren have beene from the beginning of the world which is to be their lot in the latter end This prophetical and powerful spirit of Eliah shall be poured forth in those dayes upon the witnesses of Christ that keep the WORD OF HIS PATIENCE and endure the fiery triall of those times not thinking it a strange thing that thereby happens unto them and shall fill them with exceeding joy under all the reproaches which they beare for the Name of Christ as the Spirit of glory and of God that is resting upon them and fitting them for such a season that as John Baptist by his Ministery ushered in Christs coming in the flesh or in his first appearance so this same prophetical spirit of Eliah shall be the fore-running dispensation given forth by the witnesses of Christ in those dayes unto Christs second appearance or coming from heaven as hath beene foretold by all the Prophets since the world began for the restitution of all things as the fruit of his personal presence in the world exercising Rule and Dominion there for a thousand years with his Saints and then carrying them up with him to his Father and their Father into the same Kingdome as continued in glory in heaven for evermore What this prophetical spirit of Eliah is that shall be thus poured out upon the Witnesses of Christ in those dayes is to be understood by what it was in Eliah's person who was but the type and therefore certainly had this spirit in a much inferiour degree to what it shall be in them The spirit of glory and power therefore which he had they shall have and much more as indeed is expressed when it is said if any man will hurt them he must in this manner be killed fire proceedeth out of their mouth and devours their enemies These have power by the same way Eliah had which was by the prayer of faith to shut heaven that it raine not in the dayes of their prophecie yea they have power also over waters to turne them into blood and to smite the earth with all plagues as often as they will Yet under all this power and glory they shall remaine exposed in their persons upon the finishing of their TESTIMONY to the rage and power of their enemies who shall then make warre against them overcome them and kill them But notwithstanding on the third day they have power given them to rise from the dead and to ascend up into heaven Rev. 11. 11 12. after a more glorious manner then Eliah did and this in the sight of their very enemies to their terrifying and amazement Thus we see the spirit and power of Eliah what it is that then shall be poured forth and that in a more mystical and spiritual consideration Something we shall also speak to the opening of the state and qualification of the persons that are called the TWO WITNESSES and why they are so called For their state and qualification this is to be known by their names and their apparel They are called the two Olive-trees and the two Candlesticks standing before the God of the whole earth By what hath beene already opened on this subject we are not far to seek what these signifie For the two Olive-trees and two Candlesticks that stand by the Lord of the whole earth must either be Christ in his owne person as he is head to his body the Church and Mediatour betweene God and man shining forth in his first and second appearance as both these perfections of the natural and spiritual man are built up and wrought into a perfect consistency and harmony in him or else these two Olive-trees do signifie the conformity which from him as the head is wrought out in and derived upon his spiritual and heavenly members by his first and second appearance in both those perfections of the first and second Adam as the elder is made to serve the younger and the first is built up into a consistency and harmony with the second by the power of the Crosse making them conformable to him in his death Which conformity is signified by their prophesying in sackcloth testifying the marks which they bear about with them in their mortal bodies of the dying of the Lord Jesus And in this crucified mortal flesh of theirs they are owned by Christ as having the Spirit of God and of glory thus made to rest upon them in a like dispensation unto that of Eliah's prophecy So that when once it shall please God to raise up a seed and generation of Saints in whom these marks of the dying of the Lord Jesus shall be eminent to the slaying and bringing to rest all operating powers and faculties of their natural man as standing in opposition to the Lord of life and glory and subjecting every high imagination in them by the Crosse to the laying of it and all the glory of flesh in a very great measure under the feet of Christ whereby that which lets his glory from appearing unveiled and hath all this time let is taken away then will it be knowne what the TWO WITNESSES are and that they have not hitherto so much as begun their prophecy in the power of Eliah before mentioned so farre are they from being slaine CHAP. XXVI Treating of the time of the manifestation of the sonnes of God their sitting with Christ on his Throne ruling and influencing all things on earth during the space of a thousand years HAving finished what relates to the Saints being made one dead or crucified body with Christ and shewed the opposition which is exercised by the Devil thereunto that which remains to be considered is the gathering also of the Saints together into one glorified body with Christ at his second coming when it shall appear what those shall be that now though they are sons are undistinguished from those that are not who have beene planted into a conformity with Christ in his death and who considered as his dead body having beene exposed to the bruising of their heele by Satan before his being bound up shall be declared the proper subjects and inheritours of this first resurrection in the exercise of the power and glory thereof as KINGS and PRIESTS reigning with Christ a thousand years This time of the manifestation of the sonnes of God is said to be that which is the earnest expectation of the very creature it self Rom. 8. 19. as the season also wherein the whole creation is to be restored to its Primitive purity and to be delivered out of the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the sonnes of God as the benefit which it shall then receive by vertue of the price of Christs blood paid for all for