the worldly Life of their own Nature can never be satisfied or find any durable good for its portion Unhappy man in all possible variety of his own nature corrupt or righteous foolish or wise wholly eyes doats upon chuses delights in and hunts after perishing vanities which God calls things that are not and turns his back upon all things spiritual and eternal as Chimaerical nothings which God calls the only things that are Vers. IX The thing that hath been is that which shall be and that which is done is that which shall be done and there is no new thing under the Sun There 's no new thing to be found in the first-creation worldly spirit of nature under the mystical Sun or first-covenant spirit nothing of the new-creature spirit of everlasting righteousness no things of God or his kingdom things spiritual heavenly eternal things ever new fresh green and flourishing Man and Angels as soon as made were old that is had no life or goodness but what was subject to mystical gray hairs decayes old age and death These are the several steps by which the mortal life and best things put into or set up in Angel or man come to expire and vanish All vanity All their fading goodness when they flourish therein as a green Bay-tree Psal. 37. 35. 36 carries mortality and vanity written out in its forehead has a day of adversity set over against their utmost prosperity therein The thing that hath bin is that which shall be The sinless Innocent state of man at first is that which shall be generally experienc'd on earth under the reign of Christ again At entrance thereof he will give a restitution of all to their primitive natural purity Act. 3. 21. Some gradual restorations of the first-covenant light or also life man was created in under Law and Gospel and before either were put into written oracles have bin experienced more or less by all men from the redeemers hand the light that lighteth every man that comes into the world What all such light life wisdom righteousness or 〈◊〉 works duties and performances thereof and in amount unto has bin sufficiently experienced This spirit or state is so far at best from being any security to man for salvation that a false confidence and resting therein is his sore and remediless destruction Mic. 2. 10. Men bring forth fruit but to themselves in all this at best are empty vines to God Hos. 10. 1. They never bring forth fruit unto God but in his newness of life as born of living and walking in his spirit of grace All in nature best or worst Root and Branch the fleshly Tree of good and evil with the fruit all 's but a perishing vanity There is nothing new to be done or found therein as the innumerable multitude of mankind have experienced generation after generation For Vers. X. Is there any thing whereof it may be said see this is new it hath bin already of Old time which was before us Satan is ready to suggest and man as ready to believe there is some new thing in the but renewed old nature of man beyond what at first was in it All men are experimental witnesses of Satan's first lie to Eve that the life of nature given in the first-creation was eternal and that they should not Die at all No such thing as Death incident to it But this life renewed and confirmed by the second Adam sayes Satan and Man joynes in it is Eternal But this confirming and warranting man safe in the established life and righteousness of restored nature is Satans doctrine and Man 's accursed other Gospel Christ restores mans lost first-covenant law-life Satan asserts this to be a Gospel state and man agrees to take it so and look no farther for salvation As soon as any are renewed by Christ into some degree of the lost righteous life of nature Satan is at their Elbow with the same lying Suggestion as to Eve this is Eternal Life ye shall not Die at all Paul not without a cause was afraid and Jealous of the Serpents thus beguiling the Corinthians through his subtilty as he did Eve 2 Cor. 11. 2 3. This is his other Gospel in a perfect contrariety to every tittle of Christ's v. 4 another Jesus another spirit and state of life for salvation in direct contradiction to all Paul preached which nor Paul nor any true Gospel-preacher ought to let passe undiscovered and uncontrolled Fixing in nature at best for salvation is union with the Devil in unchangable enmity to God and his new-creature spirit in which ever any could be saved Under Satans reign nature is seldom fully restored in man from filth of flesh And filth of spirit or enmity to God and his spirit of truth is inseperable from the highest restorations of it till the Reign of Christ. Yet under all these disadvantages and shortnesses of primitive purity is it when restored asserted to be better and safer then that for Salvation This Satan most wickedly suggests and Man most foolishly believes to his own destruction as he will find at winding up Thus Satan and his Apostles transformed into the likeness of Christ and his in word and language preach up restored nature a-fresh for a currant Gospel-state of absolute salvation in which men are under an absolute impossibility of ever finding it All the inticing and perswasive words of Satan's and Man 's serpentine and humane wisdom look and run this way Scripture interrogatories are the strongest assertions Is there anything new any newnes of life in mans restored Old nothing of it whatever can be found in this restored state has bin already of Old time before us in the unstained purity of it in Adam who yet was not fence-proof against Satans charming wiles and power T was then perfect in its kind rarely yet so since T was but a corruptible perfection of a loseable goodness And lost it was Most vain mad and unprofitable then is all Man's labour since the fall in seeking for asserting or undertaking to prove eternal spiritual life to be found in fading natural Man now in his best restored naturals is tainted with a treasonable Enmity to God and that spirit in which alone any can be saved Paul in his restored righteous law-life of nature was a fierce enemy to the spirit of grace and all the Gospel-truths or things thereof After the universal experience of man-kind and universal warnings of true wisdom to the contrary to preach up Salvation in the but restored first-covenant righteous life of nature is unexcusable madnes True Wisdome calls out to these simple stragglers and wanderers after Vanity with their backs willfully turned upon him and all his Reproofs of death upon Nature and instructions of Life in his Spirit of Grace How long re simple ones will ye love simplicity delight in scorning my counsel and hate true knowledge Prov. 1. 22. Turn from your own Understanding at my reproof and I 'le pour my
For he can deceive all Men short of the Spirit of Grace and Truth to Worship him as so above and against God himself 2 Thes. 2. 4. Vers. 2. A time to be Born and a time to Die A time to Plant and a time to pluck up that which is Planted Vers. 3. A time to Kill and a time to Heal a time to break down and a time to Build up Vers. 4. A time to Weep and a time to Laugh A time to Mourn and a time to Dance There 's an appointed time for every Man to be Born in a Fleshly Body which is his personal appearance or Manifestation The Body is an Essential Ingredient into the compleat Constitution of every Man which under all Temporary Vicissitudes Alterations and Changes by Decay's Death and Resurrection remain's for ever the distinguishing part of Man from other Created beings in Heaven and Hell Angels are compleated in their personal Constitution without any such thing as Man's Earthly Body or Life The Spirit of Man before it enters the Body or after departed out of it is not the Compleat Person of a Man For Man consists of Spirit Soul and Body as distinct Essential parts of his being which Paul distinctly Pray's may in Saints be Preserved blameless unto the comming of our Lord Jesus Christ 1 Thes. 5. 23. The whole Spirit of Man Comprehends in its make a Dormant Souly Animalish Life So has a Natural tendency of desire to a Union with its fitly Organized Body in order to bring its Latent Soul or Souly Life into actual Exercise and Operation At the death of the Body this Soul or Souly Life ceases as to exercise lies dormant again in the Spirit as before it's entrance thereinto So till the Resurrection of the whole Man the Spirits even of Just Men made perfect in Spiritual New-Creation Life Act and Converse as pure Intellectual Powers Intuitively after the manner of Angels only Now as there 's a time for the Birth of Man's Body so from the frail materials and constituting Ingredients of it is there an appointed time for its dissolution and so for the Death of the Man by a Seperation of his essential parts This is a truth universally experienc'd and known by all And the like Vicissitudes and Seasons are appointed for other parts of this greater Visible World without Man as well as lesser World the Sum and Abridgment of all within him From the Moment of his Bodily Birth may be Dated the Building Planting Laughing Dancing Rejoycing and Embracing season during the growth and Flourishing State of his Bodily Life When this is at its height Approaches God's appointed Season from the perishing Materials thereof for plucking it up breaking it down and Slaying it This Season is attended with Man's Weeping and Mourning as the Consequents thereof These litteral truths are Experienc'd by Man in the Decay's Gray Hairs Old Age and Death inevitably incident to his body In the declining state thereof is he reduced to a kind of equality with Childhood as debilitated in the exercise of his rational Powers in and by bodily Organs or Instruments Brain Animal spirits c. So if he come to 70 or 80 years his decayed strength affords him little but labour and sorrow Psal. 90. 10. as finding himself to have out-lived the brisk and vigorous exercise of that Reason by which distinguished from brute Beasts In this case 't is man's duty and wisest course to fall in and comply with God's twofold dispensation upon his fleshly body by willingly owning and submitting to the decay's thereof in God's latter demolishing work upon it for pulling it down as well as to be found rejoycing and delighting in his former planting and building up of the same 'T is man's gross folly to struggle and contend for an impossibillity even the keeping up of that which he sees by an inevitable Law of necessity must be laid down He is as sure to die as he was born yea to go strip'd and naked out of the World as he came into it Job 1. 21. God has determined the time for both Death comes as an armed man on man's Body and on all that sort of understanding that 's exercised in and by it There 's no discharg in this War The decay's of it all along from the turning declining point preach the death of it and of that organical Understanding exercised in and by it Come we now to the Mystery of all this All the methods of God's wisdom in his dealings with man's body or bodily life the outward part of his natural man are typical to the like methods and dispensations to his immortal spirit considered in the but mortal first-covenant natural righteous Life thereof planted in it by the first creation A birth life death and buriall are incident to this also as God's appointments to it At the birth of the Body the Spirit or inner natural man is dead as to the mortal first-covenant life of the Law of Works it was at first created in But a fresh birth of or quickning up into this shadowy Life and Image of the Earthy wherein the first Adam was created is offered to all and may be actually received and experienced by all as the common or general salvation if they will The far greater part of mankind refuse to part with the corrupt life of their nature for the righteous And many that receive the righteous as the common salvation Jude 3. from the general Saviour of all men 1 Tim. 4. 10. refuse the special or eternal Salvation receivable only by and in a spiritual Faith This cannot be received without the obedient surrender and death of all received twice from Christ's own hand by his first-creation and general-redemption-workmanship Such death according to the declared methods of God's wisdom must undispensably be yielded to and we become as fools and little Children as to all the restored wisdom life and glory of our own Nature as the undispensable way to our receiving the Life Wisdom and Righteousness of God in his Gospel-spirit of Grace and Image of the Heavenly which alone is Eternal The former is but Reformation-Life in restor'd enliven'd naturals This latter a true Regeneration into spirituals by the Birth of such a new Life in us springing up from the quickned incorruptible seed thereof as plants us together in the likeness of Christ's resurrection on our obedient likness to his death Rom. 6. 5. Nor Angel nor Man had any thing of this Life in the Innocency of both by creation but only as objctivetly presented to their understanding in the Mediator As God at first gave Man that that 's natural and call'd his own offering him that which is spiritual God's own So he first restores something of the first-covenant-Light or also Life that 's natural and after that that 's spiritual Paul when eminent in restored naturals holy flesh by knowledg of or conformity to Christ in the flesh or righteous life of the Law quitted such
invisible creature-womb of himself the parent of Spirits in pursuance of the free thought and purpose of the divine mind The actual quickning up this Seed or giving them eternal Life is what Christ purchas'd for them by the obedient death and sacrifice of his own assumed perfect spotless but changeable first-creation state and is the builder of them up in So in all things hath 〈◊〉 an everlasting pre-eminence over them In reference to both these Creations or Worlds first and second natural and spiritual Heb. 1. 2. Solomon says remember Christ as both thy natural and spiritual Creatour bringing thee forth according to the methods of God's Wisdom first in a natural state by a first-creation and afterwards in a spiritual by a second 1 Cor. 15. 46. This twofold Creation David acknowledg'd too wonderful and oversetting to his understanding as to the taking any right measures thereof or putting any meet value upon When he consider'd the thoughts of God in reference to the single first-creation of all and then his twofold-creation of Saints he concludes the sum of them to be too great to take or give a distinct and full account of They are moe in number then the sand Psal. 139. 14 -18. Man's due remembring his Creatour that has done such wonderful things for him imports an obedient submitting to his dispensations for the accomplishing his designs and rendring him truly blessed in a state of unchangeable union with him and wel-pleasing obedience to him Since the fall has Christ as Redeemer laid a yet farther and greater Weight of obligation upon Men to remember him as their Creatour so as to yield a ready universal obedience to his spiritual Law which always was the undispensable duty of Angel and Man before the fall as well as since By that Law is the life of Nature at best or in whatever condition to be given up in sacrifice to God by his priestly hand that has from all the said rights and obligations a title thereunto Since our fall we receive our lost righteous natural Life or State afresh by his Redemption-Work as a first benefit of his death So are we bound to use our whole beings bodies and spirits in such restor'd Life and then death and loss of it for a better in obedience to his command and conformity to his example We must not live in or do our own will but his that died for us by the death of ours 1 Cor. 6. 19 20. 2 Cor. 5. 14 15. Christ now is to be remembred as Redeemer as well as Creatour 2 Tim. 2. 8. By the death of nature in himself he has purchas'd the lost righteous life of it for us Hereby are we a-new put on the trial for obedient surrender thereof for his spiritual Resurrection-life as the full benefit and principal design of his death Man then is so to remember his Creatour and Redeemer as to make the right use of his restor'd natural State by yeilding up his old for Christ's newness of Life This is the only way of putting away all evil from his flesh or rooting out all enmity to God's Spirit that 's now inseparable from the life of nature at best t. While the evil day's come not c. That is before God in Wrath blast the most fruitful youthful vigorous joyful state of thy natural spirit bringing mystical decays gray hairs and old age upon it so as to make thee find or take no longer any pleasure therein All the beauty and desirableness thereof shall fade away and be consumed as all the goodliness or desirableness of the body in the literal grave See both as one is the figure of the other Psal. 49. 14. And then also as fix'd in enmity will men find themselves not only strip'd and depriv'd of all good or comfort but under the positive inflictions of unchangeable wrath Of this most sad condition and God's most 〈◊〉 proceedings towards them therein have we a full account in the following-words Vers. 2. While the Sun or the Light or the Moon or the Stars be not darkned nor the Clouds return after the Rain Ver. 3. In the day when the Keepers of the House shall tremble and the strong Men shall bow themselves and the Grinders cease because they are few and those that look out of the windows be darkned Ver. 4. And the Doors shall be shut in the Streets when the sound of the grinding is low and he shall rise up at the voice of the Bird and all the Daughters of ' Musick shall be brought low These expressions do represent the weak decay'd state of Man in old age which brings sorrow and darkness upon him and at length a period to his bodily life and all sensual delights And this figuratively points at the like mystical decay gray hairs old age and death brought as God's displeasure on the most righteous fruitful life of Man's spirit under the Cross. But all these marks of God's displeasure on our natural body and spirit as found in enmity to him are the effects of his everlasting kindness to obedient Saints as the very means and way of translating them into his everlasting righteous spiritual creature life For a season Saints rejoyce in their enlighten'd nature as Law-servants finding delight in the literal and mystical Sun Moon and Stars of this World But they are made obedient to God's dispensation of turning the light of this mystical Sun Moon and Stars as well as literal into darkness to their spirits as well as bodies in both which there 's a time appointed for all Men once to die Heb. 9. 27. The mystical death of the spirit and all decays of a tendency thereunto does Solomon figure out here by the decays of the body in the declining age thereof The keepers of the House that will tremble and the strong Men that shall bow themselves outward limbs and parts of the Body sigure out the inward Senses and intellectual Powers of the natural spirit as operating by the Organs of the Body The decays of bodily life in all the parts and powers thereof are felt and experienc'd also by the inward faculties and powers of the Spirit that are exercis'd by them Hence old Men grow weak feeble and imperfect in the operations thereof and so are brought back again into the condition of Children Inward and outward Powers and Senses of body and spirit tremble and bow themselves in the literal and mystical old age of both The Grinders will cease and those that look out of the Windows be darkn'd The outward and inward senses and instruments by which man has taken in the supplies of Light and Comfort from the sutable objects of both in the visible and invible parts of this World will fail and become altogether unfit for such use and service Then the Doors shall be shut in the Streets c. ver 4. And all the Daughters of Musick shall be brought low All the joy and delight of Man's youthful flourish in mind and body
Sand on the Sea-shore 1 Kings 4. 29. The mystical inward riches of his restored adorned nature rendred him as much above others therein as in outward worldly greatness and visible pompe And he resolved to make the best of all these advantages offered him try what they all amounted to not without a secret hopeful-thought of finding absolute blessedness therein Vers. XVII And I gave my heart to know Wisdom and to know Madness and Folly I perceived that this also is vexation of spirit Here 's that he find's all to amount unto Wisdom Righteousness Wickedness Madness Folly all within the compass of Man's natural state corrupt or righteous vanity and if finally trusted in for blessedness will leave Man to his sore and amazing disappointment in eternal darkness and death unutterable torment and everlasting vexation of spirit as his due portion the meet recompence of his errour from God Solomon found the search after all Earthly vanities all things under Heaven or below what is heavenly a sore travel vers 13. a grievous labour man little the better when he has found them For setting himself to experience what the utmost pleasures to be had in all amounted to as gratifying to all variety of life and desire in him sensuall or intellectual he found all such knowledg and folly in corrupt or righteous nature and all such practice and experience vanity and vexation of spirit He was qualified and furnished to take the largest and deepest draughts as to all delights of the Sons of Men and take them he did and this he found all to be Though he found wisdom acquired or infused nature cultivated advanced and adorned by humane learning in Heathens or made wise strong and honourable in Christ by his restoring the lost righteous first-covenant life thereof better then the folly of dark ignorant uncultivated and unrenewed nature yet he found that all these varieties in nature fall under the same general title vanity and vexation of spirit This is the conclusion he arrives at in the preaching all-searching spirit of infallible truth All Wisdom Folly Light Darkness Righteousness Wickedness in man's natural state which he had taken the liberty to experience as well as know all is vanity This is King Solomon's Proclamation and warning to his fellow-mortals and the true King Solomon's faithfull and timely warning to all man-kind in all generations Prov. 1. 20 c. 8. 1 c. Final disappointment torment and vexation will befall all that finally fall short of true substantial divine and spiritual things in which alone true blessedness can ever befound Vers. XVIII For in much wisdom is much grief and he that encreaseth knowledg increaseth sorrow All increasings with the encreases of man in the fading Life Wisdom Riches Righteousness and Glory of his own nature not of God in the everlasting Life Wisdom Glory and righteousnes things of God are but additions to and multiplications of his sorrow in getting keeping and then loosing all again For all must go first or last by the dispensation of the Cross in love or final wrath upon every Man and Angel Men cannot but have misgiving thoughts from the self-evidencing nature of the perishableness of all they can be there possess'd of that all will be gone again So are all their life time therein subject to bondage in the highest glory and flourish thereof through a fear by death of losing all Heb. 2. 15. Job declares that as safe as he was apt to 〈◊〉 himself to be in the highest righteousness wisdom and glory of his own nature in afirst-covenant-life he had a secret bottom-fear all would fail him The thing I greatly fear'd is come upon me Job 3. 25 26. I find I had nothing of that true safety rest or quiet in the utmost wisdom and glory of my own restored nature that I fondly flatter'd my self into the false perswasion of He found all death-struck by the Cross the very righteous life and mystical riches of his spirit as well as outward concerns of his body His secret fear was the truest thought and faithful 〈◊〉 of him as to what he was to expect at winding up Man's encrease in the wisdom and knowledg of his own nature amounts but to the cleerer sight of the miseries and defects of himself and others therein and all such wisdom shews it self insufficient to correct his own or others errours Young sciolists are apt presently to think they know all but when they have travelled farther in their inquiries come with Socrates to see and confess they know only this that they know nothing with certainty infallibly and so find no rest or satisfaction in all they find Yea and are still more and more vexed and press'd thereby with the foresight of future evils incident to them The wisest man will more and more find himself in the exercise of his own wisdom as to things past present or to come but in a self-tormenting labyrinth and 〈◊〉 maze of vaine self-bewildring imaginations All knowledg and thoughts depending on the temper and fitness of bodily Organs are enfeebled in the old age and at length quite extinguished at the death of the body Then that all that sort of thoughts perish all see Again the higher man's light and knowledg if uncompliant therewith in practice the heavier he knows will the wrath of God be upon him for ever Thus the sad and inevitable result af all Man's encrease in his own wisdom and knowledg is the encrease and aggravation of his sin and sorrow at every turn Lastly the higher man is advanc'd in the life riches wisdom and righteousness of his own spirit the more apt with Paul to be a fierce zelot for that law-life and forwardest opposer of the everlasting Gospel-life of Christ and all the words thereof The Cross seemes a harder dispensation to the righteous Scribe and Phaisee that have much to lose then to Publicans Harlots in the corrupt life of nature who therefore as more easily induced to submit to and own the doctrine thereof enter into the Kingdom of God before them The mysticall rich young man went away very sorrowful when he heard of parting with all he had for eternal life Zaccheus and Mary-Magdalen did not so Final trusting in the corruptible life riches wisdom and righteousness of man render's entering into the kingdom of God absolutely impossible Mar. 10. 24 25. The very Disciples acquainted yet only with first-covenant riches were astonished out of measure at this word saying among themselves who then can be saved vers 26. Encrease in outward riches also and in that wisdom and subtlety by which gotten and for a season kept all such riches pomp and glory therein as figures and shadows of inward are usually found to be but the amusing snares of Satan by which he keep 's men in a total mindlesness of truelife with all the words thereof and leads them blindfold to the chambers of Death in Mirth and Jollity Job 21. 7-13 Thus are
about him long after his Gospel-Conversion and true Spiritual Saint-ship Ro. 7. 15-23 On this he Cries out O Wretched Man that I am who shall deliver me from this body of death v. 24. This Enemy within the Saint till fully run down into Death exposes him to frequent Slipps and sore Miscarriages as in David Solomon and other Saints has bin evident But that that 's Born of God in them and never Sin 's recovers their falling Miscarrying natural Man or Spirit by a gradual and at length total death-work thereof upon it into Harmony with it self Christ and God most high in a newness of Life for evermore This War of Spirit against Flesh Gal. 5. 17. is not finish'd but by the total death of the fleshly Mind Flesh will not leave fighting till dead and therefore ought not Spirit or the Spiritual Man in the Saint leave off Fighting while any thing of Life is left in it The continually sinning natural Spirit till fully Crucified will in the course of its own will need dayly forgiveness as well as an offending Brother even to Seventy-times seven Mat. 18. 21 22. Through the Propitiatory covering-Mercy-Seat which Spiritual Life brings the Saint under God so looks on his Obedient Spiritual Man as not to Impute to him the daily Sins of his natural Ro. 4. 7 8. Thus is the Spiritual Man also under Christ as a covering Shadow to the natural in the same person and qualified to help up or recover it out of all its failings and Back-sliding-Steps The Spiritual Man under the Holy Anointing is to the Decay'd Old Gray-headed Crucified natural the fresh Oyl David Pray'd for Psal. 71. 9. 18. that gives a new Verdure and fresh Lustre to the whole person of the Saint a Glory that excells and remains for ever Thus on all accounts to wit the Sins of the guilty natural Spirit or the Mystical Gray Hairs decay's Old Age and Death brought upon it by the demolishing Crucifying-work of Christ and the Spiritual as its only cure the spiritual is ready at hand to help it up out of all falls in his life-time and out of that grave or death that extinguishes all power of sinning or falling in him Christ and the spiritual man fetch him up into an everlasting harmony with them in their newness of Life T. But wo to him that is alone when he falleth for he hath not another to help him up Here 's the deplorable condition of all fixed in the life of nature and so in unchangable enmity to the spirit of grace that 's the only meet helper and lifter up of the natural spirit out of all its falls Submitting to the death of the natural Man is the only way by which the Saint receives that spiritual Life that can help it at all dead lifts out of its falls and out of that death that 's the only Cure of all evil in it into its never-sinning Life When Man chooses his fading creature-life before God's and God in judgement on him gives him his choice or chuses his delusions Isa. 66. 4. Who can help him up If God be against him who can be for him Himself he cannot help He is gone then on all hands All that finally refuse the terms of receiving the spirit of Grace reject it And all that wilfully reject it God will reject with all their false confidences in their own He will swear in wrath they shall never enter into his rest What then can they say or do or any other for them who will or can help them up when fallen under the final wrath of God Vers. XI Again if two lie together then they have heat but how can one be warm alone The natural man of the Saint receives light and warmth from the spiritual as fast as baptiz'd transform'd and rais'd into a marriage-union with it in its Life and so made an equal yoke-fellow to it under Christ's most easy and delightful yoke or government over both As fast as the natural and spiritual man of the Saint come to a right conjugal union as of twain made one new man the whole Saint and Christ do lye in the intimate imbraces of conjugal love with mutual delight and satisfaction in one another for ever A most comfortable spiritual warmth and cherishing influence from Christ does the Saint find in this mystical marriage-union with him figured by the litteral Eph. 5. 22-32 Christ and the Saint are one spirit as man and wife one flesh 1 Cor. 6. 16 17. Christ is head to all saints and every saint They members of his mystical body slesh and 〈◊〉 So is Christ's spiritual state of life and headship and saints relation to him therein expressed in the very words of the figurative litteral headship and relation of the man to the woman The marriage-union of the saint with Christ and their mutual love therein is indissoluble and everlasting because founded in a spirit of everlasting righteousness and love Saints are everlastingly subject and most delightfully obedient to him and he most delightfully kind to them beyond all words for ever God having from Everlasting set up his Creature-Son the Spiritual or second Adam Creator of the first the natural state was first in Creatures Angels and Men afterward that which is spiritual in the Life of the Creator he judg'd meet he should have a Wife as is figured in what he saw meet for the first Adam who had a litteral Woman taken and form'd out of his own Body Gen. 2. 20 -- 24. This Wife taken out of Christ Spirit of his Spirit is from the borrowed Language of the Litteral said to be Bone of his bone and slesh of his slesh The insinite divine King that set up his Creature-Son from Everlasting did from the said everlasting appoint a Marriage for him and a Wedding-feast to which all Men and Angels have been invited But abundance of both refuse to come For through their willful folly are they found unchangable haters of the Bridegroom Bride and Feast all the diet the never perishing meats at the heavenly Table and Marriage Supper of the Lamb in the Kingdom of his Father All the proud huffing self-exalting party of Angels and Men drive another Trade are at their worldly Farming and Merchandise labouring for feeding on and wholly delighting themselvs in a Life a Belly and Meats desires and desirables that will all perish and be destroy'd in God's final wrath upon such wicked wilfull abusers of all given them in the first-creation against God and all his things in the second But all such Men and Angels as submit to the death of the first for the Life of God in the second will be admitted in their true Wedding Garment the everclean Linnen the everlasting Righteousness of true Saint-ship to the Marriage-Supper Rev. 19. 7-9 Those Men that gladly answer the Lord 's Heavenly Call of them to the said marriage Supper out of the Life of their own nature the Mystical Land of their Nativity and
everlasting righteous spiritual Life set up in them to wit the death of their natural state Christ could do nothing of himself or in his fleshly Law-life and state Joh. 5. 30. nothing that his Father sent him about His errand and business was to put it to death Passive obedience to his own Gospel-cross Spiritual-sword or Circumcision-knife was the high duty of his natural spirit and whole Man There 's no other way of coming to do all things well in God's sight which can only be in his Gospel-spirit or principle of everlasting righteousness and active obedience but by the passive obedience and death of our Law-spirit or natural state in which we can do nothing well before God nor ever enter into his Kingdom Christ in his Gospel-spirit the true principle of active obedience to God for ever did and said alwayes what was well-pleasing to to his Father Joh. 8. 29. as found in exact harmony with the very mind and will of his infinite divine spirit He despised the shame and contempt of those that despised his Crucified natural man Heb. 12. 2. And those that do not so he will despise disown reject and be ashamed of when he comes in the Glory of his Father with the holy Angels Mark 8. 38. Christ's Doctrine was not his own but his that sent him Whoever does receive or despise and reject the words of his Gospel-spirit in himself or saints receives or despises the Father that sent him and him that sends them The four Gospels abound with words to this purpose especially John's First and second Covenant-Saints poor wise children in the second and Old doting foolish Kings in the first are in a perfectly cross constitution and thought about salvation absolute sools to one another The Cross on Man's wisdom is reckon'd the starkest arrantest folly and madness imaginable by natural Man and Angel But one broken contrite-spirited crucified Saint is of more esteem with God than millions of unbroken uncrucified Men and Angels in all the excellencies glories wisdom and righteousness of their first-creation humane and angelical natures Isai. 66. 1 2. Man's day or light and Judgment in first-covenant wisdom and God's day of Judgment in the second will be found in flat contradiction to each other in this grand concern of men about Salvation Whose Judgment whose word will stand His or theirs Think well on 't before too late Ther 's no speaking at present to the old self-deafned doting foolish King by the poor wise Child He scorns and rejects with a wry mouth Rhetorical mockings in utmost contempt all his words and warnings His whole Gospel-doctrine of the cross on all the foolish King rest's in for Salvation is rejected as absolute foolishness and madness 1 Cor. 1. 18 -- 23. and 4. 8. 10. Hos. 9. 7 8. These foolish self-confident first-covenant fifth-monarchists that tugge it out somtimes with worldly Caesars for the civil sword as that by which to manage the reign of Christ in this world are but at the same work the Jews desired to have Christ have been at by owning himself a King in his first-covenant law-life and righteousness of man which he refused them in 〈◊〉 6. 15. Refusing to be a King in the fading Law-principle of first-covenant life and operation and asserting his kingdom in the Gospel-spirit of the second they crucified their king Joh. 19. 15. They that would have set up Christ for their King in this world against Caesar say to rid their hands of him we have no King but Caesar in answer to Pilat's question This is the confusion and falshood found in man's shusfling wisdom on all accounts at every turn about and against his own Salvation When God not only by words but deeds in his blasting dispensations witnesses his displeasure against them and all their false confidences not suffering them to prosper in them 〈◊〉 2. 37. still they are at the same point When they find mystical gray hairs decays and old age convincing Harbingers and Messengers of the approaching Death upon them as to all that 〈◊〉 Life and Riches they have trusted in still there they 'l hold and hope for safety When God comes upon them in his beginning Judgments on that State they trust in so as undeniably to evidence to them that as six'd in 't is but the Mystical Land of their Nativity and Border of Wickedness and they therein the People against which and whom he hath Indignation for ever Mal. 1. 4. still they obstinately rest and trust for safety therein Here 's the case of these old foolish Kings that will not be brought to any happy obedient chang of mind by any thing the Lord either say's or does to them They obstinately persist in bringing forth Wild Grapes Gall and Worm-wood from a bitter Root of Enmity in them against God And they will still needs pass for his only Gospel-People and Saints when a downright Synagogue of Satan fix'd in unchangable Enmity and Rebellion against him This do they to their litteral Graves And to carry on the like destructive work on others that they leave behind them as their Counsel-Legacy to them in their dying words they 'l charg their hearers the pretended Gospel-Churches of Christ that they look not after regard or receive any other Gospel then that accursed false one they have Preach'd to them even the same the Old Serpent Preach'd to Eve that Eternal Life is to be found in the Old or first-Creation State of nature and that they shall not die at all and so that all Preaching the Cross and Death upon it is a Blasphemous fiction against the Law and that Holy place or State of Man Thus the Jews accused Stephen Act. 6. 13. The whole Gospel is reckon'd by them Blasphemy against the Law The whole current of Scripture in the Gospel-sense of all run's for the Poor Wise Child But the whole current of their false other Law-Gospel and short sighted Interpretation of all Scripture run's cleerly for the old Foolish King in exact Harmony with the Old Serpent that Bewitches Teachers and Hearers through self-love to the sading Life and Glory of their own nature into a state of unchangable Enmity to God and Death to themselvs with him Oh but say they that which you call Satan's and our accursed other Gospel is the very same you call Christ's You only come forth in an affected singularity of words but say all the same things we do We Preach and own the Cross of Christ. Upon what The corrupt Spirit of fallen nature with the vile affections and lusts thereof But what say you to the Cross on your enlight'ned restor'd righteous nature made Wise Strong and Honourable in Conformity to that Life of the Law or Holy Flesh Christ took as Born of a Virgin Is this the Subject of the Cross of Christ Are ye willing to part with all this in case ye had it to part with To despise your own righteous Law-Life or Living Soul for Christ's Gospel-Spirit
his own Spirit offer 's but the sacrifice of fools in God's judgment however highly he esteem the sacrifice or himself for it He does not rightly know what he does what he is whither he goes whom he 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ospel things and truths the whole Counsel of God the 〈◊〉 and only way of salvation the methods of God's wisdom in order thereunto all the law's ordinances statut's and judgments of his new creation-sanctuary describ'd in the nine last chapters of Ezekiel all these things lie quite out of his sight How can Man in his own best Wisdom that 's foolishness to God's in his own Spirit that at best is enmity to God's perform do any thing or offer up any sacrifice acceptable to God any but the sacrifice of fools These fools consider not will not consider that they do evil Stiff-necked are they in their own self-confident understandings which are not only blear-ey'd and dimm-sighted but stark blind and wholly ignorant of all Gospel-things and truths yet on they will turning their deaf ear to or setting their mouth against the heavens Ps. 73. 9. all heavenly Gospel-doctrin and instruction They 'l listen to nothing that may induce them to consider the great mischief they are doing to themselvs and others by preaching promising and warranting peace with God in a spirit of direct enmity to him Ezek. 13. 6. 10. and decrying might and main that which is the only way of salvation and the only spirit in which any can be saved with all the words thereof This desperate work are these blind leaders with their self-confident followers at all reck'ning they are doing very pleasing and acceptable service to God Act. 26. 9. Having nothing of Christ's very Gospel-Spirit or doctrin in their Church do they with great indignation and scorn cast all that are wholly for the very Christ and his very Gospel out of their church Isai. 66. 5. Ps. 50. 20 yes and out of the world too when they can as not fit to live any longer in it Act. 22. 22. All this do these Gospel-Wolvs in Sheep's Clothing reckon to be a doing God service Jo. 16. 2. in a blind zeal for him and his law against every word of his Gospel Rom. 10. 2 3 for the first-covenant life of the law in their own restor'd spirit of nature against the second-covenant life of the Gospel in his own spirit of grace So think they do God service when they joyn with the Devil to do despite to the spirit of grace Heb. 10. 29 casting all the words thereof behind their backs and all contempt they can on all such words and all the speakers and right hearers of them as the worst of blasphemies and blasphemers What was Saul's Sin in letter and mystery too is their's in mystery They must be brought to acknowledg with Saul that what the wisdom of God and the words or commands thereof require to be destroy'd their foolish wisdom in the words thereof preaches keeps up and warrants currant for salvation The Spirit of nature in Man recovered and restored by Christ out of the fall into the life wisdom and ruling power thereof over all inferiour sensual brutish power of life and operation in him amounts to no more in mystery and truth then the Amalekite King Agag and best of the cattel The refuse of the cattel the vile affections the disorderly unruly lusts of the corrupt state of nature they have subdued yet not fully but the King and best of the Cattel the rational and sensual powers reduced to good order in the ruling authority of the former and due subjection of the latter these they judg fit to be spared And what are these both king and subjects All but still the Amalekite spirit of nature and Man therein the direct enemy of God and all his Gospel-Saints and truths Was not Paul in and with all these fighting against God when he thought his had bin fighting for him With Saul will all such self-confident justifiers of themselvs be condemn'd out of their own mouth even amid'st their self-justifying plea against the Lord's and his true spiritual Prophet's charge drawn up against them as Samuel's against Saul They 'l be found partial in God's Law The refuse things the vile affections of their polluted nature they are content should be subdued in obedience to it But the choicer things thereof nature at best in the Glory Wisdom and righteousness thereof that all this must go up in sacrifice by a just and holy death to God being an unholy life or state of enmity to God however in a sense holy as cleansed from filth of flesh though convinc'd God's Wisdom requir's this also do they with Saul under a self-condemning light refuse to obey c. and yet stoutly assert with him that they have obeyed the voice of the Lord. All this find we 1 Sam. 15. 18-23 This get men by setting up their own Wisdom and Spirit as judg or interpreter of the Oracles dictat's or words of God's in a known contrariety to the spiritual meaning and intendment of all In their restor'd righteous inlight'ned nature that 's God's required Gospel-sacrifice sigured out by all clean law-sacrifices in the old Testament do they presumptuously with Saul and King 〈◊〉 intrude or thrust themselvs into the priests office 1 Sam. 13. 8-14 2 Chron. 26. 16-21 In their own Foolish Wisdom and Spirit of Enmity to God and all the Words of his Wisdom do they pretend to the Office of Christ's Priestly Gospel-spirit of Infallible Truth and Everlasting Righteousness as the only true declarers of the Will and Words of God that rightly take not his meaning in any of his Words nor ever can understand them This Presumptuous course persisted and fix'd in will render the contagious over-spreading Leprosy the Sin of Enmity to God filth of Spirit that 's no otherwise curable then by the compleat and full death of nature absolutely incurable and mortal as the case was with the Litteral Leprosy on Uzzia's Body to his dying day though said for a season to have done that which was right in the sight of the Lord in his long Reign of two and fifty Yeers 2 King 15. 2 3. The true Priestly Gospel-Spirit of Christ offer'd up our nature in himself at best in Sacrifice to God When Samuel Reprov'd Saul for Sacrificing his answer was The Philistins were ready to come upon me to Gilgal and I had not made Supplication to the Lord so I forc'd my self and Offer'd a Burnt-Offring These 〈◊〉 Pleas and Apologies of nature go for nothing when thorowly search'd by the Spirit of Christ in his seers Thou hast done foolishly say's Samuel and shalt lose thy Kingdom Life and all for 't by those Philistin's through the fear of whom thou did'st Offer this Sacrifice of Fools And what befel Adam and all his Posterity with King Uzziah for Presumptuously setting or keeping up his Law-State or changable first-Covenant righteous Life of his own nature as therein
fixed under the conduct thereof as not immediately to quit it for a better Guide the Light of Christ's Gospel Spirit Every one that thus fears God and works Righteousness is accepted with God all along under his various dispensations to them as seeing at first where he shall find them and they him at last even in unchangeable harmony of mind with himself and universal obedience to him in all things By following on to know the Lord from light to light dispensation to dispensation come they at length to a firm indissoluble Union with him With such fearers of God Solomon declares it shall be well They are all along accepted with God and in the same certainty for true Blessedness under the first and second as when under the third and last dispensation actually estated in new-creation principles of everlasting Righteousness In God's sight and purpose 't is sure to be well with them that so fear him that fear before him The doubling the words imports the certainty of both their truly fearing him and its being well with them for ever that are found to have the incorruptible Seed 1 Pet. 1. 23. of true Holiness and everlasting Righteousness in them They fear before him or are seen by him true fearers of him when but under the light of Nature or of the Law tho they have but obscure uncertain thoughts of him or themselves as to his purposes towards them or how it shall be with them for ever or in what spirit and life they can be truly blessed And so come we to the second thing here as positively declar'd by Solomon in the Spirit of Christ concerning the incorrigibly wicked that it shall as certainly be ill with them as well with the true fearers of God Vers. 13. But it shall not be well with the wicked neither shall he prolong his days which are as a shadow because he feareth not before God Though the wicked do evil a hundred times and his days be prolonged in this World and that in great outward or inward Prosperity and flourish so that he has more then heart can wish while the true fearer of God is continually plagu'd and chastned under the sharp discipline of the Cross Psal. 73. 1 -24. Yet at winding up of all t is certain it shall be well for ever with the obedient Saint and ill for ever with the incorrigible Sinner By wicked here are not chiefly nor properly meant such as are dead in the corrupt but made alive in some degree in the enlightned state of Nature and so brought actually under God's trial how they 'l demean themselves in following on to know and obey him till they do all in his Gospel-spirit of Truth Under every dispensation are they found in a directly contrary frame of Spirit to the true Saint and Fearer of the Lord. They fail in the main point a ready quitting inferiour dispensations and all their light life and attainments therein for the third and last a Gospel-state of everlasting Righteousness God requires the exchange of all restor'd natural Principles of Light Life or Operation for his spiritual Gospel Principles They are no true Fearers of the Lord from first to last that finally refuse this change of Life Food and Raiment Hence though they do evil a hundred times in their enlight'ned natural state against the highest and greatest spiritual Gospel-light and are permitted and gratified with a long flourish in all worldly Prosperity it will be ill with them at last for ever God's permitting all this signifies the utmost extent of his Patience and their trial after all which they 'l find themselves bound up in the bundle of Death in and with the very spirit of the Devil in unchangeable enmity to God This house or state of everlasting mourning will conclude their most prolonged day of Jollity and Mirth in their Wickedness The said Sinner being a hundred years old shall be accursed for ever Isa. 65. 20. Solomon in a holy scorning contradiction to what he had said of the Sinner's prolonging his days ver 12. says here he shall not prolong his days which are as a shadow This implies that the longest day such sinners against the Holy Ghost or Gospel-spirit are permitted to live on Earth will appear but as a transient shadow to the endless day of their Misery and Sufferings in Hell Their permitted larger time and more abundantly multiplied Wickednesses on Earth will increase their Torments for ever in Hell Wo unto them It shall be ill with them for the reward of their Hands shall be given them Isa. 3. 11. But with the Righteous it shall be well for ever for they shall eat the Fruit of their doings ver 10. in all their obedience to and fearing of God under every of his dispensations to them They have brought forth never-perishing fruits unto God in his newness of Life The incorrigible Sinner shall eat the Fruit of his rebellious doings in his oldness of Letter against God's newness of Life and be filled with his own devices or many inventions Prov. 1 31. Eccles. 7. 29. Thus will it fare for ever with the Saint and Sinner according to the several ways they have walk'd in and course they have steer'd in their own Spirit and Will or God's The Sinner shall go into everlasting Punishment and the Righteous into Life Eternal Mat. 25. 46. To these vastly differing ends do their as vastly differing ways lead Though the wicked not only prolong his days on Earth but be in great Power spreading himself like a green Bay-tree he will pass away and never find himself or be found more to his advantage and comfort Psal. 37. 35 36. Hold out as long as he can in his mortal body his end is to be out off and destroy'd for ever v. 38. But the end of the spiritual upright Man is everlasting peace with God v. 37. A brutish fool understands not this that when the workers of iniquity flourish 't is that they shall be destroy'd for ever Psal. 92. 6 7. In new-creation Sanctuary-light the Spiritual Saint understands and unriddles all 1 Cor. 2. 15. He sees the dreadful end of the wicked's utmost flourish and longest day of prosperity and the blessed end of the Saints utmost tribulations in this world Psal. 73. 17 -20. Job 21. 7 -20. Vers. 14. There is a Vanity which is done upon the Earth that there be just Men unto whom it happeneth according to the work of the Wicked again there be wicked Men to whom it happeneth according to the work of the Righteous I said that this also is Vanity This accords with Eccles. 9. 1. God's love or hatred to Men can't be known by his outward dispensations to them or dealings with them in this World Who-e'r goes this way to spell out or judg of his Love or Hatred Approbation of them or displeasure towards them will miss their mark and be dangerously deceived For in the wise Methods of God the truely righteous are