walk who were shewed represented or propounded before God in the Temple over against the Candlestick but without the Holy of Holies Those twelve Cakes laid on the Table fresh every week were therefore called the bread of proposition and shew-bread But the Spirit of Man or rather the spiritual mind is to be the most holy place for God himself to dwell in This is the new-creature principle of marvellous light and eternal Life by which the Lamp or Candle of single humane Understanding is put out swallowed up and transformed into a better and more excellent the Light of the Sun The Lamp of Man's Understanding till transformed has nothing to do within the Veil The New-Ierusalem state of Life is so far from needing Man's intellectual Candle-light that angelical-star-light yea the sun-light of Christ's own natural perfection is out-shined there by the light of his Spiritual form which is sevenfold brighter There 's no need there of man's Candle or of the Light of the Sun or Moon for the glory of God lightens it and the Lamb is the light thereof Rev. 21.23 and 22. 5. What are in general all the Sacrifices and Ceremonies in the Old Testament but significant Types or Expressions of what we are to be or do in the New The Sacrifices Beeves Sheep and Goats taught and declared primarily the Sacrifice Christ was to make in his own person and secondarily also the sacrifices that all his true followers are to make in their persons that holy and acceptable sacrifice of our rational Life and powers thereof at best under the fire-baptism of God's spirit required Rom. 12. 1 2. that so we may be transformed and grow up into the spiritual powers of eternal Life hid with Christ in God as our true interest and grand concern without which we cannot be saved For persons Adam Enoch Noah Sem Abraham Isaac Iacob Ioseph Moses Ioshua Sampson Samuel David Solomon and many others were they not Types Letters or significant Figures of Christ Cain and Abel Ishmael and Isaac Iacob and Esau were Letters and Types of two Seeds or Births of Christ in Men one after the flesh for the cleansing them from the corruption of Nature another after the spirit which delivers them by degrees from corruptibility as before from corruption till mortality be swallowed up of Life Do not the Typical signifiers of Spiritual things in Moses and the Prophets hold on all along to the very end of the Revelation What 's the New Ierusalem character'd by at the very last but by the twelve precious stones in the High Priests Pectoral which also signified the twelve Tribes of Israel Are any so bruitish as to imagine that those glittering trifles of the East the Iasper Saphire Emrald Chrysoprase and the rest are litterally and really to be found in the heavenly Ierusalem Rev. 21 Does not Paul Allegorize the history of Abraham Sara Hagar Ishmael and Isaac as representing Christ the true Father of the faithful and as a twofold Husband to a first and second Covenant-Spouse which bring forth two sorts of Children one after the flesh another after the spirit The former of these Children arriving onely at the practical and experimental knowledge of and conformity with Christ in the flesh or in his fleshly changable manifestation persecutes the other the true Isaac the spiritual circumcision that 's born of Christ after the Spirit and brought into a likeness and conformity with him in his unchangable creature state Gal. 4. 22 31. Rom. 8. 1. Christ is that twofold Husband mentioned Rom. 7. 1 2 3. married first to a first-Covenant-Spouse then dies Unless that first Spouse be content to pass with him under the fire-baptism drink of his cup taste of his death in order to be brought into conformity with him therein she never meets with him or sees him more to her comfort Her Husband is dead but alive again and lives for ever more Rev. 1. 18. The Wife also must die with him or she cannot come to live with him for evermore 2 Tim. 2. 11. How die or to what To the Law or in the Ruling power of our own natural first-creation Spirit activity and principles however renewed or adorned that so we may come to live under grace the law of the spirit or spiritual eternal Life in the ruling activity and principles of that more excellent spirit we receive from Christ as a transcript of his heavenly manhood in us by the new creation This is that onely under the Government whereof Paul dares warrant us safe from sins ever recovering dominion again Rom. 6. 14. This is that state of Life onely in which as married to him that is risen from the dead we may bring forth fruit unto God in the newness of the Spirit of our new creation not in the oldness of the Letter of our first-creation Spirit as is signified Rom. 7. 4 5 6. The cleansed state of our first-creation Spirit amounts but to the renewed old man not the new but to the circumcision of the heart in the letter of the first-creation not by the spirit of the second whose praise is of Man not of God Rom. 2. 29. This makes but the concision that are of a diminutive narrow dogged snarling nature towards the true spiritual circumcision or circumcision of the heart in the Spirit whose praise is not of men but of God Phil. 3. 2 3. There may be a little dark interval in the passage the first wife of Christ adventures to make through death and the grave in order and with full assurance of hope to meet with him again in the better Life of the Resurrection But she will soon find her own again with usury the quitted and resigned activity and ruling authority of her own corruptible spirit which brings her into the true mystical grave and conformity with Christ in his death in the raised and advanced condition of the same spirit into harmony with and subjection to Christ in her superinduced incorruptible new-creation form and Life This is the mystical Resurrection the spiritual believer has real fellowship with Christ in even while yet in the mortal Body Such fellowship of Christs sufferings conformity with him in his death and power of his resurrection Paul lived in the experience and longed for the full accomplishment of Phil. 3. 10 11. This passage out of the Life of our first-creation spirit and form into that of the second being gradual and leisurely and the tempter laying all his engines of battery against those that are attempting this way and Christ for a little moment hiding his face or withdrawing that kind of comfortable presence he had afforded the soul in his first-marriage-union with her that after a little while he may with everlasting mercies have compassion upon her in the second these things considered 't is no wonder she sits for a little season as a disconsolate fruitless Widow But God bids her be of good cheer for more shall be the Children of the
THE LIFE AND DEATH OF Sir Henry Vane K t. OR A short Narrative of the main Passages of his Earthly Pilgrimage Together with a true Account of his purely Christian Peaceable Spiritual GOSPEL-PRINCIPLES DOCTRINE LIFE and WAY of WORSHIPPING GOD for which he Suffered Contradiction and Reproach from all sorts of Sinners and at last a violent Death Iune 14. Anno 1662. To which is added His last EXHORTATION to his Children the day before his Death Printed in the Year 1662. The LIFE and DEATH of Sir HENRY VANE Knight Christian Readers PRepare your Faith The ensuing Narrative concerns a person who for his unweariedness in doing well and suffering ill together with the ground and spring of his deportment in both doth in very truth exceed the single reception of humane understanding He was partaker of the Divine Nature 2 Pet. 1. 4. 't is past the skill of humane nature to interpret him His attainments were too big for the tongue of Men and Angels Divine Life must have divine words words which the holy Ghost teacheth to give its own Character All other will be swallowed up of matter He had the New Name which no man knowes but he that hath it A Riddle therefore he was to man in his New Birth Nature Life Principles Ways Actions He was full of Faith and of the holy Ghost Who can expound Sampsons typical Riddle unless he plow with his Heifer The things of God knoweth no man but the Spirit of God and he that hath it 1 Cor. 2. Can any give a true account of things he hath neither heard nor seen Can any see or hear Spiritual things without Spiritual Senses or have such Senses without Spiritual Life the New Name He was but affected not to be Mystical He sighed after he longed for the manifestation of the Sons of God He desired godliness might put off its mystical dress lay aside its sackcloth that they that are all glorious within Psal. 45. might be so without too they who are the Sons of God might appear to be so 1 Iohn 3. 2. When the seventh Angel begins to sound Time shall be no longer to wit for godliness to be a mystery The mystery of God shall be finished Revel 10. 7. This Angel is ready to come forth Then Godliness will be manifest and triumphant While that is a Mystery Iniquity is so to during which he that will live godly must suffer Persecution 2 Tim. 3. 12. He that departs from evil maketh himself a prey and there is no Iudgement Isa. 59. 15. Men hear of the Divine Life in a disgustful sound of words that lie cross to their designs and hate it It disparages it discountenances the whole Scene of things seen speaking of them as of things that are not What can they think of this that see no other It judges condemns the World the God the Spirit the Religion of this World It spares not the very goodliness of flesh the wisdom the glory the righteousness of Man It declares all to be vanity that man puts value on yea man himself and that at his best estate altogether vanity a goodly flourishing but a corruptible vanishing thing The day Adam sinned he died Lost the life glory wisdom and righteousness he was created in and so his communion with God in such shadowie manifestations and resemblances of divine glory as were suited to the discerning and made up the happiness of that condition 'T is sad tydings to all those whose Life is but of the first-creation-strein lies in things seen to hear that all they have are or aime at is less than nothing and vanity Isa. 40. 17. Who can bear it Yet the design is honest and full of kindness 'T is to rid our hearts of things seen which are temporal and make room in them for things not seen eternal 2 Cor. 4. 18. While the Believers Life is hid with Christ in God and he speaks at this rate of all the visible glory and righteousness of man and much more yet against the shameful apostate and unrighteous state of Man what entertainment is he like to find There are two sorts of Princes in this World that are on horseback by turns he is against them both and goes on foot till his great master come upon his white Horse with his heavenly Armies on the like Rev. 19. 11 14. There are inward and outward Princes of this World Princes over themselves and Princes over others The former have their rational Powers restored into Dominion over their sensual whereby they become workers of righteousness in the renewed Spirit of a man Such Princes reigning as Kings 1 Cor. 4. 8. were some of the Priests Scribes Pharisees and professing Iewes who yea knew not and therefore crucified the Lord of glory 1 Cor. 2. 8. because both in his example and doctrine he gave forth the proper character and discovery of a more excellent way The latter sort of this Worlds Princes are such as do sit upon visible Thrones of Judicature furnished with Crowns Scepters and other pompous Badges of Soveraignty and Dominion over others These are often such as have no Dominion over themselves at all the basest of men Nebuchadnezzar himself the golden head of the four worldly Monarchies Dan. 2. 38. was so and accordingly handled followed not the light of his reason and therefore was turned to graze among the very beasts of the field Dan. 4. 32. The true spiritual watchman of God is to warn both these sorts of Princes and all others the righteous and the wicked the one that he turn not from his righteousness or rather that he seek the righteousness of God in the true regeneration which cannot be turned from The other that he turn from his wickedness and work righteousness Ezek. 18. and Chap. 33. Will men bear this Can he that is a man of a marred visage one in whom the glory wisdom and righteousness of man is daily passing away spoil'd and triumphed over by the cross and spirit of Christ give this twofold witness against these two sorts of Princes and their Nations called Revel 13. two Beasts in all their flourish and ornament of things seen and will they not stone him will they not be ready to tear him in pieces Divine Life together with the Wisdom and Words of it seems such foolishness and is so distastful to man that let the person of the true spiritual watchman be cloathed as David with the outward Pompe of Thrones and visible Scepters this shall not secure him from the ill word of the Judges or from appearing so contemptible as to become the song of drunkards Psal. 69. 12. 'T is the divine Life men chiefly hate and strike at all along from Cain downwards but can hit onely the humane the Woman that brings it forth The natural man of the Saint is persecuted into a desolate wilderness condition but his spiritual part the Man-child is caught up to God and secured from the persecuting Dragon Rev. 12. 5
Father in me sayes Christ Iohn 14. 11. and Iohn 17. 21 22. He prayes for the like indissoluble union of his Saints with him as he ha's with the Father That they may be one as he and the Father are one by his being in them as the Father is in him that they may be made perfect in the one Mediator vers 2â— These things premised concerning the Trinity in their impersonality and the same Trinity as in their threefold personal appearance God and the Mediator Father and Son which are one we may I hope with better success descend into and re-assume the consideration of the various creature-capacity in the same person of Christ who is also God and of the derivation and communication thereof to the particular persons of men and angels who in Scripture phrase are thereby asserted to be partakers of the divine Nature Christ as he is the living WORD express Character or Image of the invisible God Col. 1. 15. brought forth from Eternity by the peculiar operation of the Father yet not without the joint concurrence of the otheâ— two is the personal manifestation of the Trinity in a form purelâ—â—â—vine very God and singly as so is discernable to God alone not at all to angels or men in any capacity that ever they are to be brought forth in natural or spiritual The same blessed Mediator as brought forth in his twofold creature capacity by the peculiar operations of the second and third in the Trinity not without the joynt concurrence of all the three in each is the immediate representer of God the root and parent to both worlds and the immediate satisfying object of enjoyment to the natural and spiritual capacities of angels or men In a shadowy resemblance of Christ in this twofold creature-capacity and right stated subordination of the natural to the spiritual was man at first created male and female in the same person Gen. 1. 27. before we hear of Eve unless by anticipation Gen. 2. 22. Rational and sensual nature the Angel and the beast were married together in Adam on these tearms and with this Law that the rational was to keep its ground and rule as Lord and Husband till a higher Lord came to which that also was to become subject and the sensual to obey and continue subject in his individual person So ought matters to go in every one of his posterity and then their house or first-creation-building would be in order but this still at best is not the new creature The new creation by way of fire-baptism purifies and strips this natural first-creation form of man of its mortality changeableness corruptibility and brings it into an incorruptible form an unchangable life of righteousness true holiness and glory everlasting This is the least fruit of the new-creation Over and above all this it brings upon a more peculiar sort of everlastingly saved men a distinct superiour forme of manhood and more excellent glory in association with the spiritual and most exalted capacity in Christ taking in and comprehending also the inferior in the same persons But by what in Christ is this transforming new-creation work performed upon the first-created formes and persons of angels and men By the highest most excellent and spiritual-creature power in the person of this Mediator As the natural root and head of the first-creation was Christ himself willing to become a Lamb slain under the fire-Baptisme-activity of his spiritual and more excellent creature-form brought forth-in him as a peculiar emanation from the third in the Trinity which was originally unchangable and in an indissoluble union with the living WORD or Image of the invisible God The duty and great concern of angels and men is to follow this Lamb whithersoever he go in that transition which he was coâ—â—â—â—t to make under the fire-baptisme once in the beginning of the world and again in the fulnes of time when made of woman Rev. 13. 8. Heb. 9.26 'T was the sin and fall of angels men at first that they refused to follow this head of the first creation in that transition he was willing to make by way of death resurrection into the unchangable state life thereof On the contrary t is said of the good angels that were content to have this fire baptism pass upon their first-creation state and glory that whithersoever this spirit or head of the first creation looked they looked and whither he went they went they turned not as they went This we find in that commonly reputed uninterpretable vision of the Wheels Ezek. 1. 20. and Ch. 10 11. By the way give me leave to ask what can the four living creatures be Chap. 1. 5. that are called also one living creature vers 20 21 22. and Chap. 10. 15 and 20. What but Christ as the Spirit and Creator Head and Ruler of the first Creation And what signifies the letting down of the wings of this living creature Chap. 1. 24. but the cessation from the voice of speech from the noise of his first ministry the dispensation of the Law given forth by the disposition of Angels Acts 7. 53. for the government of this first world This letting down the Wings was his becoming the Lamb slain in order to come forth a better comforter in the more excellent way and dispensation upon the Throne and that as a man Ezek. 1. 26. and Iohn 16. 7. And what are or can be the Wheels called also one Wheel Ezek. 1. 15. and 10. 13. moving up and down with the living creature Spirit and Head of the first creation but the angelical attendance and retinue of Christ in his first-creation Government and Ministry Some of these pass along with him under the fire-baptism into the more excellent glory while others with Lucifer their head apostarize into a fixed and everlasting enmity against him How familiarly are angels in their Ministry and Magistratical government of this World represented by Charets and Wheels It is written Psal. 68. 17. The Charets of God are twenty thousand thousands of angels the Lord is amongst them as in Sinai Thousand thousands of them also continue to minister before him when upon the Throne Dan. 7. 9. 10. Some of these good angels were the Charet and Horses of fire that translated Eliah from the Earth and delivered Elisha in Dotham from the Syrian army 2 King 2. 11. 12. and Chap. 6. 17. What all humane forces charets and horses have amounted to when they have come to grâ—pple with the angelical host hath sufficiently appeared To this effect above seven years ago have I heard this vision of the Wheels expounded by this blessed Martyr with abundance of satisfactory evidence and spiritual demonstration together with many rich fruitful and comfortable observations thereupon for relief of God's people when all visible means fail by the angelical host the next dispensation But to recover our selves out of this digression The devil and his angels as we find in this vision turned away from
Israel Chap. 41. 8 9. Thou Israel my servant Iacob whom I have chosen the seed of Abraham my friend unto whom I have said thou art my servant I have chosen thee and not cast thee away Here the holy seed or divine birth of God's Image that makes the true Israelite by faith is described to be of a nature and quality that is incorruptible securing him in whom it is whether Iacob the chosen servant or the seed of Abraham the chosen friend as well as chosen servant from ever being a castaway Hereby is intimated what it is to be the chosen faithful servant and no more and what it is over and above to be the chosen and intimate friend that is called and admitted to see God face to face a friend speaks with friend Thus of Aaron it is said Exod. 4. 15 16. That Moses should speak to him and put words in his mouth and saies God I will be with thy mouth and with his mouth and will teach you what ye shall do And Aaron shall be thy spokesman unto the People he shall be to thee instead of a mouth and thou shalt be to him in stead of God Consider how interpretable this is of the son of man glorified the great Prophet of all in the person of the blessed Mediator set down on the right hand oâ— the Majesty on high who still reteins the form of a servant or perfection of his natural man in its incorruptible form with which as with a mouth typified by Aaron he comes forth as a head to the holy Angels and Iacob his chosen servant in a suitable way of converse and fruition to their capacity speaking therein to the body of the People whilst at the same time he is in his spiritual manhood exalted to an equality with the eternal WORD as the man God's fellow admitted to a communication with God face to face as fâ—iend speaks with friend In this glory he is more properly the very mouth of God typified by Moses in a capacity andâ— fitness for converse with the Bride the Lambs Wife as head to the general Assembly of the first-born who are a sort of saints of greater dignity and preheminence by whom the manifold Wisdom of God or secret Name his WORD shall be made known to principallities and powers Ephes. 3. 10. The lowest sort of all these heaven-born Saints that have but the single portion of the spirit have not onely by the external influence of Christs heavenly Nature such a change as the legal or first Covenant Saint has from the polluted to the cleansed and reformed state of the natural man which make but a member of the mystical earthly Ierusalem that may become the spiritual Sodom but by the very seed of Christ's heavenly nature sown in them they have an inward real partaking of the divine nature or that new principle of Life which baptizes the natural state into a conformity with and subjection thereunto advancing it thereby for ever into a sublimated incorruptible form It is in his Light onely with whom is the fountain of all Life and perfection that we can see Light Psal. 36.9 In the spiritual new-creature discerning onely of a divine communicated understanding and superinduced form can we see that objective light or unveiled glory of God that renders the true heir everlastingly blessed But even amongst the children of the heavenly kingdom the children of the Resurrection there are some of a first and others of a second Resurrection into a more exalted state of Life and glory Yet all the Vessels of glory great and small will be filled from the Ocean of those unutterable riches of divine Glory that are in Christ which no natural eye can see There will be no want or envying one another there Concerning ORDINANCES HAving already spoken joyntly concerning this Sufferers Principles and Doctrine I come now to mention his way of worshiping God and what his Judgement and Practice was as to Ordinances After that way which men call Heresie did he worship the God of his believing Fathers Abraham and the rest Acts 24. 14. He was for worshipping God in spirit and in Truth such the Father seeks to worship him Joh. 4. 23. He lived walked worshipped prayed spake in the spirit and so as the oracles of God 1 Pet. 4. 11. ministring as of the ability that God gave him that God in all things might be glorified This language and way of Worshipping God that is so despicable to man is that onely which hath the praise of God He kept the true mystical Sabbath not thinking his own thoughts c. Esay 58. 13. He was baptized with the holy Ghost and with fire He did in such sort eat the flesh and drink the blood of Christ that he was thereby brought into a conformity with Christ in his death and had eternâ—l Life abiding in him Iohn 6. 54. This is satisfactory to God in this point that that answers his well pleasing What further shall be said shall not be in order to please but instruct convince and stop the mouâ—hes of gainsaying men Tit. 1. 9. He that worships God in the power of the single or double portion of the spirit of Christ does undeniably worship him in spirit and truth The power of godliness comes in with this new creation Spirit All Worship Righteousness Ordinances or whatever performed but in the renâ—wed reformed enlightned gifted adorned state of our first-creation spirit amounts but to the form of godliness that faith that may be shipwrack'd that interest in Christ and that good conscience that may be lost 1 Tim. 1. 19. They that have not the divine nature in the sence above expressed 2 Pet. 1. 4. are blind and cannot see afar off vers 9. they discern not the land of distances the new Ierusalem They may have great illumination excellent gifts and in the confidence of these they say they see what get they by that Therefore their sin remaineth Iohn 9. 41. that is is unpardonable there remaineth no more benefit of Christ's sacrifice to them There remaineth onely at last upon final refusal and resistance of the new-creature life spirit and way of worship nothing but a certain fearful looking for of judgement and fiery inignation which shall devour the adversaries Heb. 10. 27. and Chap. 6. 4 8. Their light their seeing takes away all cloak for their sin Iohn 15. 22 and 24. The warning which the true spiritual watchman gives them if neglected and despised by them does dangerously set forward this work through their miscarriage under it and becomes a savour of death to them Act. 13. 40. 41. but even so a sweet savour to God as prospering in the thing whereto he sends it and accomplishing his pleasure 2 Cor. 2. 16. Esay 55. 11. These keen concisionists that cannot afford a good word for the true circumcision that worship God in the spirit and have no confidence in the flesh or in the knowledge of Christ after the flesh they
desolate Widow than of the first married Wife Esay 54. 1. And Christ gives that long and most solemn exhortation to his Disciples in the 14 15 16 and 17 Chapters of Iohn to this very purpose to establish and support their hearts in this passage so dark and dismal to flesh and blood into the Life and glory of the Resurrection Upon his fleshly departure and disappearance as their Bridegroom in that first way he knew they would have a little mourning season of it Mat. 9. 15. and therefore sets himself to comfort them before hand with the expectation of what was to follow You shall have another Comforter saies he meaning himself in the spirit and glory of the Resurrection I will not leave you comfortless Orphans and Windows I will come to you after a little while Ioâ— 14. 16 18. To the very same purpose is that Esay 54.7 8. For a small moment have I forsaken thee or withdrawn my self from thee as to my fleshly and first kind of manifestation to thee which looks like wrath but with great mercies and everlasting kindness will I gather thee up to my self in my second and more excellent glory and become thy husband in the new and everlasting Covenant saith the Lord thy Redeemer Both these Dispensations are on foot still Christ yet communicates himself to the souls of men in his fleshly way of manifestation bringing them into conformity with that holy state of his earthly manhood which makes the legal Christian first-covenant professor and Wife of Christ on this side the cross the grave the crown His withdrawing from them as to this appearance and the fruits of it is of the same import as his withdrawing from his disciples when he was actually personally in the flesh He was then litterally in the flesh in his own person but he was even then but mystically in the flesh as to the persons of his disciples as God manifested in their flesh so he is in all that thus experimentally know him but after the flesh now Their so being in Christ Jesus knowing of him and walking in him but after the flesh does not free or secure them from apostacy 2 Pet. 2.20,22 or condemnation Rom. 8. 1. but the knowing of him walking in him after the spirit as he is the new Covenant Bridegroom and better Comforter In this state they are married to him that is risen in the other to him only that was made flesh with whom they in that fleshly glory even from him received must be crucified How else can they be brought into conformity with him in his death It was holy flesh the natural man in its greatest purity that was offered up and slain in him This at the best then renewed by himself in us is also to be slain and offered up under and by the fire-baptism of the new-creature spirit or spirit of Christ that performes the new-creation work in man It must be the holy reformed natural state that must be offered as the true Christian sacrifice Rom. 12. 1. 2 By this means as we come to be married to Christ in the Resurrection so we come to be children of the Resurrection begotten by the force influence and benefit of Christ's Resurrection into a meetness of spirit to be married to him that is risen from the dead Luke 20. 36. 1 Pet. 1. 3. Such marriage there is even in the Resurrection Such a state of the resurrection there is while we are yet in this mortal body The spiritual man who lives in the spirit knoweâ— Christ in spirit and walks after the spirit Gal. 5. 25. Rom. 8. 1. is really and actually though but gradually in this mystical and best kind of Resurrection while yet in the earthly body The new creature he that lives the life and in the spirit of the new creation lives in the Resurrection The Resurrection of our Bodies after the death of them at last is not to be put in the ballance with the priviledges of this spiritual Resurrection while we are yet in the earthly body The spiritual new-creation Life we are risen into is eternal Life But millions of men will find their bodily rising to be but a Resurrection into eternal death and shame everlasting punishment and contempt Dan. 12. 2. Mat. 25. 46. But let 's take a little further view of Christ's first-Covenant Wife and Children what they may do and what may become of them They may play the harlot with that very beauty and comeliness that very first-creation kind of glory and perfect righteousnes of the Law that Christ has put upon them called God's comeliness and yet their own beauty because it beautifies and adorns but that selfish state of the first-creation Ezek. 16. 14 15. What comes of them for playing the harlot with this and opposing thereby the more excellent dispensation and glory that comes from the same Redeemer in his new-creation work They must be judged by Christ as those that shed blood and break wedlock are judged as Murtherers and Adulteresses vers 38. This they come to Not unlike to this is that Esay 63. 8 and 10. He said surely they are my People Children that will not lie so he was their Saviour But they rebelled and vexed his holy spirit therefore he turned to be their enemy and fought against them There are a People a Wife Children Members of Christ after the flesh that stand liable to forfeit all their priviledges and interest in him by apostacy and then Christ becomes their enemy As he delighted before to deliver and save them rejoyced over them to do them good and multiply them so now he will rejoyce over them to destroy them bring them to nought and root them out of the land he gave them Deut. 28. 63. If the transgression the apostacy be general so will the Judgement be too That which he hath built he will break down that which he hath planted he will pluck up even this whole land Jer. 45.4 This was the case between God and those religious Iews that lived and walked but in the wavering principles of the first-covenant They would be ever and anon starting aside like a deceitful Bow They were not of the right or new-covenant heart Their spirit was not stedfast with God and when they failed of their duty he let loose one enemy or another still upon them Then they remembred that God was their Rock and the high God their Redeemer Nevertheless they did but flatter him with their mouth and lied unto him with their tongues for their heart was not right with him neither were they stedfast in his Covenant or they were not in that new stedfast Covenant with him that is established in all things and sure And God will not be mocked he knows how to handle them All this over and over and much more is to be seen Psal. 78. 8. 35. 36. 37. and 57. verses c. And Ier. 3. 14. The same People in the same breath are reckoned
beloved Son so 1 Tim. 1. 2. 2 Tim. 1. 2. and 2. 1. They are also called Pastors Mothers and Nurses to both the Seeds or Children of Christ in their kind 1 Thes. 2. 7 and 11. Gal. 4. 19. In another respect every true believer as he becomes the Child so is the Mother of Christ as with pangs and throw's towards the new birth to the loss and at last death of the single activity of his fleshly mind and heart Christ in spirit be formed and brought forth in him by him Then comes the Life of Faith the true reigning New-Ierusalem Principle in which reason has its resurrection the kingdom of heaven within him He ownes Christ in his heavenly headship as his Lord and King expressed Cant. 3. 11. by setting the Crown upon his head owning a willing subjection to the Law of the Spirit of Life in this day of espousal to him which is a day of gladness to Christ good men and angels Luk. 15. 10. The believer is the wise Virgin who becomes at same time the Mother and Spouse of Christ brings forth her own Lord and King in Spirit as the Virgin Mary brought him forth in Flesh. In the very day that Christ is thus brought forth in and by the believer they are espoused together by the new and everlasting Covenant The believer owns Christ as Head Husband and King Upon this Christ rejoyces Angels rejoyce the Believeâ— himself rejoyces with joy unspeakable and full of glory 'T is a solemn thanksgiving day a day of gladness of the heart unto them all Thus in a various sence is Christ Father and Son of the Spiritual believer and the believer the Mother and Child of Christ. Christ is Head Lord King Husband Brother Son Fellow-heir to believers They are Body Subjects Wife Children Members Fellow-heirs to him All these expressions are Allegorical borrowed from natural Relations to signify spiritual Mysteries of love union and converse between Christ and his Church One thing is said and a farther more excellent thing meant The Apostle having spoken of the duties of Husbands and Wives towards one another winds up all into this as his main intendment the spiritual marriage-union between Christ and his Church This saies he is a great mystery or mystically signifies a far greater thing concerning Christ and his Church Ephes. â— 22 23. The Revelation in a manner all along is a description of heavenly things by such earthly Mediums such Allegorical types and expressions as are borrowed out of Moses Pentateuch in the Tabernacle and Temple-worship And of Christ himself t is said that without a parable a similitude an allegory he spake not unto the people Mat. 13. 34. Mark 4. 34. Must not he then that truly expounds those parables allegorize them But how must he do it Parable in the Hebrew is a word that signifies sharpness as proceeding from a sharp wit and needing the like to interpret it That sharp wit must be no less than spiritual discerning and that strong and well exercised too or Scripture Riddles will be too hard for it One or two more of these let us take notice of Sampsons typical Riddle together with the Philistines exposition does yet want an exposition Out of Christ the strong Lion of the tribe of Iudah as the eater or sacrificer of the natural man in himself and us by the fire-baptism comes the choicest meat the sweetest hony-comb of all that that feeds and brings us into a conformity with him in his death and resurrection Christ ha's left his own interpretation of the parable of the Sower and Seed of the Tares and the like upon record in Scripture and yet who understands them how much do men yet need an exposition of those very expositions Paul tells us Hagar and Sarai are an Allegory two Covenants Gal. 4. 24. Then he mystically expounds Ishmael and Isaac into two 〈◊〉 of Christ the true antitypical Father of the faithful in both Covenants He declares moreover that he that 's born of this Father but after the flesh will persecute him that 's born of the same Father after the spirit Even so it is now vers 29. Notwithstanding this Allegorizing exposition given by Paul how little does the self-confident legal Christian hold himself concerned in the character of him that is born after the flesh How verily does he conceit himself to be the other that 's born after the Spirit Hereupon he justâ—es out the spiritual man indeed for a Fanatick wrangler a fool a mad man a blasphemer any thing that he lists to call him Hos. 9. 7. At last he comes to this downright willful resolution as Esau against Iacob and as the professing religious Iewes against Christ in the very same case Come this is the heir let 's kill him and the inheritance shall be ours They imagine this vain thing even to take the kingdom of Heaven by force from the right owner But if this eager-spirited generation would but give themselves leisure to consider thisâ— the like Scriptures they might see that they that are charactered here by him that 's born after the flesh are a holy seed of Christ that have Covenant interest in him and actual communion with him They are Children of Hagar or the first Covenant One would wonder how they should miss this But they shuffle it oft upon the Iews that were under the ceremonious dispensation of the Law and so rid their hands of it Is there no legal Christian then is there no danger of the leaven of the Pharisees under the outward dispensasation of the Gospel Yes say they but that lies onely at their door who depend upon their own personal operations for their acceptance and communion with God not on the imputed righteousness of the Redeemer I interrogate When Paul describes his Pharisaical state he tells us he was touching that righteousness which is in the Law blameless Could this be unless by the comeliness of God put upon him or perfect righteousness of that kind from Christ imputed to him Ezek. 16. 14. Was he a legal Iew was he any more than a moral Heathen else But if what is above said will not help to rectify this mistake I shall be somewhat hopeless of being instrumental to your relief in this point 'T is sad to see the self-pleasing interpretations of this and the like Scriptures all along the Bible so universal and unscrupled amongst all sorts of Professors an epidemical mistake How to lift them out of the mire of these their own self-bewildring imaginations who knowes but Christ Flesh and the carnal mind that 's enmity to God Rom. 8. 7. must never be of any larger compass or farther significancy with them than corrupt polluted debauched degenerate nature dead in trespasses and sins or at best but the moral heathen with some glimmering revivals and sparklings of rational Light and Life But as for their part they are in Christ they experience actual communion with God and once in Christ for ever
man that is of the new-creation frame Their glory wisdom righteousness are but shadows of his and to be done away Their goodness is but a morning cloud and as the early dew it goeth away Hos. 6.4 Their wisdom is comparatively but foolishness and their lesser shadowy glory of the Law or ruling powers of their first-creation state is to be done away as no glory by reason of the glory that excelleth in the spiritual man 2 Cor. 3. 10. Every man at his best estate renewed enlightened gifted man is altogether vanity He was so in his first-creation he is so in his greatest renewal Nothing below the new-creature the spiritual man is exempted from this title in Scripture Vanity is of larger extent than sin Any thing that will vanish that is corruptible and perishable is vanity The whole first-creation is vanity and was sowne in corruption that is was a corruptible not a corrupt thing Angels and Men the choicest flowers in it have withered and corrupted their way before God and so lost that life of communion with God wherein they were created The natural body that 's interpreted to be the first Adam at best with his living soul 1 Cor. 15. 44 45. is but the vile body or inferiour first-creation state of man that is to be transformed into the likeness of Christ's glorious body in the new-creation Phil. 3. 21. How too generally and universally are professors in all variety of form judgement and way lodg'd in a kind of invincible conceitedness that the revival of first-creation principles and life in them towards a conformity with Adam in innocency or Christ in the flesh is the only attainment beyond which they are not concerned to look All this is but the natural or vile body Yet how strangly are men captivated to this day under this embondaging and incorrigible dotage Every thing that they are have see or desire while in this case can be no other than vanity Their wisdom glory righteousness all are vanity vanishing things Men that are vanity love vanity ouâ—ward visible vanities that gratify sense inward vanities that gratify reason Man's reason is vanity How oft have we heard and seen mens reason to vanish before their bodies All the inmost thoughts of mans heart all the more overly imaginations of his fancy all the reasonings and desires springing from both are vanity There is nothing man is or does till he come within the sphere of the spiritual world the new creation but it 's vanity Outward visible Thrones Crownes Scepters great Revenews and all possible flourishing accommodations of bodily life amounts but to the more glittering splendid sort of bruitish vanities and often fall to the share of beasts the vilest most bruitish men Rational parts together with their advance and ornament by acquired and infused humane Learning Arts Sciences excellent Gifts the tongue of Men and Angels these are far choicer and more eligible things than the above mentioned Lordly circumstances of bodily or bruitish Life and yet these all fall within the compass and sphere of vanities vanishing things as sounding brass and tinckling Cymbals Nothing below the very seed of spiritual new-creation Life gets out of the sphere of vanity Those that have all possible outward and inward gallantry too of the natural man or vile body are exhibited to us as to their duration and continuance under the allegory or parable of a green bay tree They may be in great power spreading themselves like a green bay tree but they soon pass away and are not we may seek them while we will their place can no more be â—ound What a stage of the choicer sort of vanities glory righteousness wisdom of man excellent gifts high illuminations dexterity of expression tongues of men and angels has England been these twenty years We have seen a praying Ministry Parliament Army going forth in a way of Righteousness in Covenant with God and no weapon that was formed against them could prosper No Army no Counsel could stand before them All opposition proved a feeble infatuated thing What is all come to They were not stedfast in the Covenant they started aside like a deceitful Bow Their righteousness vanished â—â— a morning cloud an early dew and the bodies of the chief Leaders in that Ministry Parliament and Army are in their graves All is vanished save a few faithful chast-spirited men who for being true to their trust stedfast in their Covenant and undertake have been and are daily delivered up â—s Lambs for the slaughter by their apostatized friends What a Scene of vanities and shadows is this earth at best how little worth minding Things seen things temporal are the things that are not Things eternal things not seen are the onely things that are Man thinks quite otherwise That matters not Did we truly know our selves we might the more easily be perswaded in another sence not to know our selves If we knew but the vanity of our whole first-creation state the goodliness thereof comparatively with what we are capable to be made in the second we would not know our own souls no though we were perfect yet would we despise our life Iob 9.21 All the wisdom righteousness thoughts reasonings imaginations and desires thereof are vanity Did we thorowly know this we would be content to resign all not think our own thoughts speak our own words do our own works find our own pleasures and so enter into the true mystical Sabbath and rest of God in the new creation If we lose the temporary life and righteousness of our first-creation we shall find it again with usury in the eternal Life and everlasting righteousness of the second If not we shall lose it for ever in the eternal or second death If we lose our litteral shadowy Life and Image of God received in the first creation we shall find it again with usury in the mystical substance spirit and truth of the second Then let the letter and figure of Scripture be interpreted into spirit and truth we shall know what to make of it not before Could man be content to be baffled out of himself allegorized out of his first-creation shadow into spirit and truth he would be content Scripture should be so allegorized too out of its letter and shadow into spirit and truth The true allegorizing interpreter of the Scriptures does and must expound them into things not seen things eternal into a sence quite out of the reach and discerning of all the sense and reason in mankind Spiritual things things eternal are discernable onely to the eye of faith the spiritual discerning the hearing ear He only that hath this ear will hear what the spirit saith unto the Churches Heb. 11. 1. Rev. 2. 29. 1 Cor. 2. 14. Men then do seem concerned in this point for the allegorical sence of Scripture leaves them quite at a loss If they will not therefore be content to lose their sense and reason with a full assurance and stedfast perswasion
that they shall find them again with usury in conjunction and harmony with the new-creature Life of saving Faith let them make their best of them for their defence in this case Let them produce their strong reasons let them come forth in the greatest pomp of Argument and Eloquence they can against allegorizing Unless they can afford more pertinent interpretations of the â—bove mentioned Scriptures and many others without allegorizing what they say in this matter is not much to be valued They will find themselves as far wide from understanding the Scriptures in any other way as Iobs three friends were from understanding his case and my answer to such colourable reasonings shall be that which Iob has furnished me with How forcible are right words but what doth your arguing reprove Job 6. 25. This yet must be granted that the devil who is a most dextrous and skilful imitator of Christ in all his dispensations by feigned resemblances of truth will also strike in at this allegorizing way of interpreting the Scriptures He will labour hereby to the utmost to confound and bewilder both teachers and hearers that take and own this course He will if possible run them all a ground in a thousand mistakes and false conclusions But he never puts himself to this trouble till he finds men will be allegorizing as neither will he make use of the choicest flourishes of his transformed angelical appearance to impose himself on men as Christ in spirit till nothing but that will serve their turn Then he perremptorily commands them under this disguise of an angel of light out of their own senses wills and understandings into a pure subjection to his dictating and ruling influence as the onely superior dispensation and attainment to what they ever yet experienced And allegorizing of Scripture in his way he finds to be a very apposite means to nourish and keep them safe under his wing in that his highest dispensation his mystical sabbath a rest from their labours under his angelical steerage These with all other his inferiour crafts and designs above mentioned does this perillous Impostor mannage upon the various tempered and differently enlightened inhabitants of the whole world every moment of time But it is one grand piece of his mystery of iniquity to keep men quite off if he can from allegorizing of the Scriptures and consequently from all the spiritual sence and mystery of them throughout He perswades by all means that men would stick in the letter as the onely course to hold fast the form of sound words and that they would quit mystical sence in the Scriptures and so the mystery of Godliness in their persons He would never have them own the Life hid with Christ in God That 's the onely Life he fears Those that rest in the letter of Scripture and deny the mystery will easily be induced to rest in the form of godliness and deny the power thereof from such turn away 2 Tim. 3. 5. They cry out against the Allegorist call him blasphemer say he has a devil as the Iews served Christ and Luther Swenckfeld in that general answer to his puzzling Letters The Lord rebuke thee Satan So much for Allegory BY way of Recapitulation then and as deducible from or at least in exact consonancy with the divinity part of this Sufferers Doctrine and Character take these following Conclusions 1. God in Christ as Christ is the purely divine form of God is absolutely unmovable incommunicable in a capacity too high for the creation of either world natural or spiritual 2. Had God remaining purely in the divine nature without assuming Creature-nature into personal union therewith produced or created this first world it must needs have been created in a violent instantaneous manner without any progressive motion as in the six dayes Gen. 1. And when created Angels and men so made must needs have been everlastingly miserable unless reduced to their primitive nothing again For God that is the onely Fountaine of all happiness and satisfaction had remained in an utter uncommunicableness and been shut up in absolute invisibility to them for ever 3. God therefore in Christ condescended to cloth himself with a twofold creature-forme natural and spiritual through the peculiar operations of the second and third of the three that are one 1 Ioh. 5.7 in order to capacitate himself for the creation of both worlds as also for the communication of himself to his creatures when created 4. This twofold creature-nature as in personal Union with God in Christ may by communication of Idioms and denomination of the whole person from the purely divine nature and form be called God God is said Acts 20. 28. to have purchased the Church with his own blood 'T is a Maxime in School divinity Whatsoever is in God is God 5. This twofold creature-nature of Christ as transcribed and copied out by him in the persons of elect angels and men may be called divine specially the superiour and more excellent kind of it but not God neither are the persons of angels or men by being but thus partakers of the divine nature either Christ or God 6. That being which angels men received in their first creation and that Image of God that was then stamped on them was in the life glory and righteousness of it but a shadowy corruptible or changable thing It was the image of the Mediator considered as in the changeable state of creatureship wherein he became the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world and again in the â—ulness of time the image of the first Adam in Christ that that is to be crucified in us as well as in him otherwise how can we be broughâ— into conformity with him in his death 7. Angels and the souls of men as having but this mutable Image of God in them received in thier first-creation are mortal as to the glory and life of their Beings in communion with God and in the way of righteousness The angels that fell and man when he fell died the death as to this Life that is lost that Life of communion they had with God in the righteousness and glory of their first-creation Thus in the day Adam did eate the forbidden fruit he died yet lived in the body many hundred years after 8. All mankind fell in Adam the tree out of which we spring as branches In him we all died Christ comes to give a general revival general redemption out of this dangerous fall Rom. 5. 12 19. and 1 Cor. 15. 22. As in Adam all die even so in Christ shall all be made alive It shall not be said our first parents eate the sowre grape and our teeth are thereby set on edge but all souls are redeemed and recoverable by Christ if they stubbornly refuse not into the life light and liberty of their understanding and will the proper principles of their first-creation The soul then that sinâ—eâ—h either by willful refusal of this renewal or the loss
Gentiles all the world over Rom. 9. 19 24. God that is infinitely â—ust and can be no otherwise is not bound to give an account of any of his matters Job 33. 13. Why therefore do ye strive against God while ye put forth this querulous demand Who hath resisted his will Will you cast all your sins and destruction too upon God's final rejection of you as reprobate silver Ier. 6. 30. God strives by his Spirit with men to bring them to himself Gen. 6. 3. to which Peter refers 1 Pet. 3. 19 20. Men strive and fight against God are disobedient and rebellious If God suffer men to prevail in a final resisting of his spirit that strives with them they are undone for ever If they be conquered they are saved If they lose their mutable Life they find it again in that which is unchangable If they keep it a while in opposition to the more excellent Life they lose it at last in eternal death These are the Gospel riddles which the very disciples scarcely understood while Christ was with them in the flesh nor we while we have but the like knowledge of Christ after the flesh as they then had Knowingly to resist and hate the new-creature Life and words thereof is to do despite to the spirit of grace to sin against the Holy Ghost He that hath an ear to hear let him bear 'T is in vain for man to quarrel God will be justified when he judges Ps. 51.4 He will at last bring forth the grounds of all his dispensations towardâ— man and proceedings with him in such a demonstrative and undeniable consonancy to the very reason of man that every mouth shall be stopped Yea there is enough said already in his written Oracles to stop every mouth 24. We may take notice from what hath been said who those poor mourning meek-spirited men those merciful pure peace-making yet persecuted Children of God are that Christ pronounces blessed Mat. 5. 3 11. We may also come thereby to know on the other hand what Christ meanes by that rich full laughing sort of people to whom he cries wo wo wo Luke 6. 24 25. The poor in spirit are they that are willing to be broken emptied of the activity life righteousness glory wisdom reasonings desires thoughts and wayes of their own mutable first-creation spirit in order to be filled with the spirit of Christ the wisdom and righteousness of God in the new creation Thus with Steven they come to be ful of faith and of the Holy Ghost Act. 6. 5. rich in God or rich towards God Luk. 12. 21. That righteousness that is imputed to or inherent and operative in the new creature is called the righteousness of God All the fruits of saving faith all the works that are performed in the operative principle of new-creature Life are the righteous works of God who by his indwelling spirit worketh all such works in us Esay 26. 12. On the other hand all the righteousness imputed to or inherent and operative in the first Covenant Saint is called the righteousness of man such righteousness as Christ had and wrought in his changeable fleshly manhood which he imputes to them that are sanctified through his blood into an experimental knowledge of him and conformity with him in the flesh This imputed comeliness or righteousness is called both God's and Man's in a breath Ezek. 16. 14 15. Men dome too often to trample the blood of this Covenant under their feet after they have been so sanctified Heb. 10.29 and to play the harlot with that sort of righteousness imputed to them after they have been so justified The first creation state of Life in man by being broken and crucified under the second comes into a peaceable everlasting harmony with God This makes a true son of peace as well as of righteousness answering his father Melchizedeck's constitution who is both king of righteousness and king of peace Such sons of peace are commonly reckoned men of contention though the only true peace-makers the world has in it that desire and labour to bring others also into the same state of peace harmony and everlasting union with God as one spirit with him the state of love charactered 1 Cor. 13. Is not God himself reckoned a God of contention for striving with men by his spirit in order to conquer them into a state of salvation deliver them out of their own hands take them out of their own dispose by bereaving them of their own liberty and power of sinning against him and wronging their own soules And is not Satan the God of this world reckoned the God of peace that speaks smooth and pleasing things to flesh and blood by all his various instruments from amongst men even by those whom he transformes into the very likeness of the Apostles of Christ 2 Cor. 11. Do not men generally approve of and like the doctrine of him and his ministers best as orthodox and sound that advises men not to gaze after or listen to those spiritual wanderers â—hat speak of an attainment beyond the righteousness and glory of our first-creation This doctrine of his runs through all forms of proâ—essing Christians at this day and the spiritual man is reckoned mad for contradicting it Is not Satan reckoned the God of order that is for one man's continued speaking onely in a Pulpit accounting it a breach of the peace punishable by the Magistrates sword for any other to speak there though all that his pulpit man does is but to shut up the kingdom of heaven and in effect to charge men that they look not after it that is not listen to those who after the way which they call Heresy are worshipping God in the spirit Is it not the business of those authorized deceivers to open their mouthes in blasphemy against God to 〈◊〉 his Name his tabeâ—nacle and them that dwell or have their conversation in heaven Rev. 13. 6. Phil. 3. 20. And is not God himself reckoned the author of disorder and confusion for saying If any thing be revealed to another that 〈◊〉 by â—â—t the first hold his peace for ye may prophesy all one by one that all may learn and be comforted 1 Cor. 14. 30 33. Thus Satan and men neâ—tâ—e warm together in the first creation and no right tidings or character of the second will be listened to That crafty Serpent has blinded their mindes and stop'd their ears least this light of the glorious gospel should shine unto them or find any entertainment amongst them The Things the Persons the Churches that this strong man thus fraudulently possesses are in peace till Christ the stronger than he cometh to force him out He is coming 25. Those rich full old foolish kings as to the righteousness of man 1 Cor. 4. 8. That will no more be admonished or warned by the wise child in the true regeneration Eccles. 4. 13. those flourishing legal-spirited Christians that laugh are warm and confident in their present
has none but that has the righteousness and glory of man really in and upon him and in the credit and flourish of this would personate and pass for that which he is not the true spiritual heir that has the glory and righteousness of God in and upon him and then the next news is he falls to persecuting of him that indeed is the true heir saying to his fellows in spirit and principle Come this is the heir le ts kill him and the inheritance shall be ours A hypocrite is one that personates and would passe for that which he is not If he be stark naught he would pass for that which is good If good and righteous in one kind he would pass for that that is better and more excellent in another Such an hypocritical spirit is a persecuting spirit He that 's born of Christ after the flesh and will go no farther will persecute him that is born of the same Christ after the spirit will hate his Brother slander his own Mothers Son Psal. 50. 20. To this effect did this Sufferer use to Allegorize the two Trees in Eden and other Scriptures in exact analogie and harmony therewith But come we now to consider the method of his sufferings how this meek dove-like harmless person has been handled by the injurious wolvish spirit of this world that has affronted contradicted and blasphemed his principles and doctrine and at length killed his body as a contentious wrangler and a malefactor Christ was so served He went about doing good and suffering ill to the last This eminent disciple and follower of his hath waded through all those injurious reproaches and mis-interpretations men have put upon his most innocent and useful words and actions in that thank-worthy and acceptable imitation of him which Peter represents to us under the similitude of good servants that can suffer patiently for well-doing commiting themselves to him that judgeth righteously 1 Pet. 2. 18 23. He considered him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself and did not faint in his mind but striving against sin and sinners of all sorts by his faithful witnes-bearing resisted unto blood Heb. 12. 3 4. But be it known that amidst the personal sufferings of Saints 't is not onely lawful but their duty to pray that God would awake to their judgement even to their CAUSE which is his CAUSE that all those may yet come to shout for joy that favour their righteous CAUSE and that the enemy may not rejoyce over them as if he had swallowed them up though they abuse and kill them all the day long 〈◊〉 sheep appointed for the slaughter Psal. 35. 23 27. Some of you saies Christ they shall put to death but not a hair of your head shall perish Luk. 21. 16 18. This worthy Patriot was freely chosen without any seeking of his to serve as Burgess for the Town of Kingston upon Hull in that Parliament which sate doâ—â— November 3. 1640. About thirteen years did he indefatigably labour therein for his Countries relief against manifest Oppressions and publick grievances that were upon it And well nigh ten years more he hath patiently suffered as either a useless or pernicious person because of his destructive constitution to the Peace and Interest of Tyranny During the long Parliament he was usually so engaged for the Publick in the HOUSE and several Committees from early in the morning to very late at night that he had scarce any leisure to eat his bread converse with his nearest Relations or at all to mind his Family affaires Were I indeed furnished with the tongue of the learned the pen of a ready writer I should think it adviseable to let the usefulness successe of his publick Actings all along that Parliament till forcibly dissolved speak for themselves That race of action being run not without much struggling contradiction and mis-reports all the while he comes to his suffering Scene He was for several years rejected persecuted imprisoned by his apostatized friends that had gone to the house of God in company with him who at length to compleat their persecuting work upon him delivered him up to be hunted to death by his professed foes enemies of all righteousness Gods and mans too First his false Friends that had sat in Council with him and who owed in great measure their very Lives and success to him under God they fasted for strife and debate kept a mock fast to draw such as durst give them faithful counsel and warning into a snare Upon their apostacy when brought into distress through forreign disappointments they somewhat Iezebel-like proclaimed a fast publickly declaring their willingness to receive information from any hand as to what was amiss in the Government that might be the ground of God's not going forth with their Armies as he was wont He laid hold on this published offer and as a faithful watchman and able Patriot exhibited his thoughts to them in a Healing Question on which he was shortly after sent for by the Council from the place of his residence at Belleaâ— in Lincolnshire proceeded against as seditious and imprisoned about four moneths at Caris-brough Castle in the Isle or Weight Thus the Iews served Ieremy Jer. 42. and 43. They desired him to enquire the mind of the Lord as to their intended journey for Egypt and solemnly engaged they would obey the message â—â—lling God to witness between them and him He seeks the Lord and after ten dayes receives and faithfully declares the word of the Lord which was That if they went to Egypt the sword they feared at home should meet with them there and if they tarried in their own land they should be preserved They proudly rebelled againâ—â— this word and not onely so but forced Ieremy along with them to Egypt to bear a share in their sufferings though not in their sin as the wise Servant was handled by his foolish Master in Aristophanes and as is frequently the case amongst mortals God the great disposer of all the kingdoms of men gave Egypt to Nebuchadnezzar and his Army as wages for their hard service in pulling down proud Tyre whose Merchants were Princes Esay 23. 8. where every head was made bald and every shoulder peeld with long and excessive labour in a thirteen years siege and filling up a channel of the sea in order to their approaches Ezek. 26. 9. and Chap. 29. 18 20. Thus Nebuchadnezzars sword that the Iews feared in their own Countrey upon the killing of his Deputy Governour Gedaliah meets with them amongst the rest in Egypt the character and ruine whereof we have Ezek. 29. 30. 31. and 32. Chapters as of Tyre Chap. 26. 27. and 28. Thus treacherously was this steddy Witness of the true Liberties of Christs Kingdom and his native Countrey handled by those that for many years had joyned with him in the profession of the same righteous CAUSE against sacrilegious and tyrannical domination in Church or State What was his
the heathen and punishments upon the people even upon both those sorts of enemies that took counsel together against them whether the prophane or but legally religious party Psal. 2. 1 2. Both the Heathen that are no People of God at all and such a People of God as may apostatize become no people again they shall all go to wrack their Kings shall be bound with chains and their Nobles with fetters of iron All this shall be performed by the faith and prayer of Believers in association with the holy Angels Such honour have all his Saints This concluding Battel that is to make a clear riddance of all the wicked tyrannical Monarchies and Powers of this world is else where expressed thus Not by might nor by power but by my spirit saith the Lord of Hosts Zech. 4. 6. But the greatest conquest that can be attained over enemies while t is yet but a suffering season is by Death This Martyr followed his great Master herein Who by Death overcame him that had the power of Death the Devil Heb. 2. 14. He that conquers by killing overcomes but men he that conquers by dying overcomes the Devil His false friends conquered their enemies by killing them he tried another and the surer way of Conquest though mystical to conquer them by being killed by them He has more advantaged a good CAUSE and condemned a bad one done his honest Countrey-men more service and his enemies more disservice by his death as Sampson served the Philistines then before in all his Life though that also were very considerable If death were not the noblest most excellent and certain way of conquest would the great Captaine of our Salvation have led us that way Are we followers of that Captain unless we go the same way he went They that conquer by killing others are still subject to death themselves Yea to be killed by some remainders of those they conquered They that conquer by dying are no longer subject to death 'T is appointed unto man once to die No rage or power of man can take away this Martyrs Life the second time 'T is true Christ himself offered up supplications with strong crying and teares unto him that was able to save him from death and was heard in that he feared Heb. 5. 7. that is was delivered from the fear of Death before hand and out of the jawes of it after for it was not possible he should be holden of it Act. 2. 24. This disciple of his prayed for the same thing and he did experience and say Death shrunke from him not he from it He had experienced the good hand of God in delivering him from Deaths ofâ— and when the season was come he found that Death it self would prove the greatest deliverance that he ever had in all his life So he experienced the delivering hand of God from Death oft and by Deaâ—h once which was the accomplishment of all his former deliverances He did look Death in the face with a true chearful boldness not in a transport or dissembled courage as is usual but in a fixed composure and full vigor of all his natural senses To be thus delivered from the fear of Death is more then to be delivered from Death So to be delivered from all inordinate love of our natural Life and the concerns thereof is a greater mercy then to be gratified with a confluence of all worldly desirables All the Crowns and Scepters of this world are short of this frame of mind crucified to things seen Alexander put so great a value upon a shadow of this in Diogenes that he said Were he not Alexander he would be Diogenes The Conqueror accounted a deadness to the whole scene of outward Vanities the best condition next to the having all at command Had he not been partial he might have reckoned it better He soon after lost his world and himself together in a drunken fit at Babylon the common Rendevouz for bruitish pomp under three of the four worldly Monarchies Assyrian Persian and Greek The love of this world is enmity to God and breeds in us the fear of man that can deprive us of what we love and the fear of man brings a snare will keep us from witnessing a good confession as Christ did If we fear them that can kill the Body we shall never be bold in a good cause before wicked Judges This Patriot feared not Death and therefore did as boldly fully and clearly assert his Countries Rights and Liberties at their Bar as he had before for many years together on all occasions in the Parliament House His stedfastness in the Faith in the Covenant his constancy for the publick Interest rendered him very unsolicitous as to his own personal concerns or Life And what must all this be tearmed by his enemies This steadiness and boldness of spirit in asserting the Cause of God and these Nations to the Death which is highly esteemed of God and all good men is by his bruitish adversaries called an impudent defence of his Treason He was well steeled and made of God with Ieremy as an iron pillar and brazen walles against any impudence or treason that others could affront him with under a face of authoâ—ity He evidently preferred the Lives and Liberties of all the knowing honest-hearted people in the Nation to his own He was couragious therefore in the defence of them What thought his enemies of this Ready they were to charge him with such deportment in his Trial and on the Scaffold towards them and the king as Iob was truly charged with by Elihu against God Iob 34.37 He addeth rebellion to his sin he clappeth his hands amongst us and multiplieth his words against the King What were the words can any tell They multiplied their words against God the Laws of England and him He resisted them unto blood This was the highest demonstration of his sincerity that was possible to be given and the greatest victory over all his enemies that was possible to be obteined Cromwels victories are swallowed up of Death he has swallowed up Death it self into victory and is gone in the Charet of salvation to receive his Crown from the hands of Christ 2 Tim. 4. 7 8. which no man by any treachery or force can ever take from him He let fall his mantle left his body behind him that he had worn nine and forty years and is gone to keep his everlasting Jubile in Gods â—â—est 'T is all DAY with him now no night or sorrow more no prisons or death He is gone from a plâ—ce where so much as the righteousness of man can't be endured He is gone to a place where the righteousness of God is the universal gaâ—be of all the inhabitants He is gone to that better City the New-Ierusalem He had served his generation in his mortal Body done his work and was glad to fall a sleep and go look for his reward some where else You see what this ingrateful world has
afforded him for all his kindness reproach prisons and death he had need have other returns some where Great is his reward in heaven He was a burning and shining light he burned hotter and shined brighter in heavenly life and light under all the injuries of this persecuting world so that his last works were his best So death was to him a great gain If any sit down by the loss 't is we that survive him But he left this comfortable word behind him God would never want instruments to do his work Yet we may say The honourable Counsellour is taken from thee O England this day whose worth few knew A famous Master in our Israel is taken from our heads and who laies it rightly to heart His enemies were afraid of him as Saul of David because the Lord was with him 1 Sam. 18. 12. Pharaoh though but a heathen Prince was of another mind concerning Ioseph He advised with his Council about appointing some discreet wise man over the Land of Egypt and of Ioseph he saith Can we find such a one as this a man in whom the spirit of God is So Ioseph became chief Ruler in Egypt under several Kings fourscore years together from the thirtieth to the hundred and tenth year of his age The like great authority fell to Daniels share as a man of this more excellent spirit in Babylon under several Assyrian or Babylonish and Persian Monarchs 'T is a sign Monarchy is notoriously degenerated that persons of Ioseph's and Daniels spirit are for that very reason hated and slain for which they were advanced even in heathen States The enemies of this English Ioseph and deliverer were of the right Satanick spirit hated him only for following the thing that good is They that render evil for good are mine adversaries in the original 't is are Satan Psal. 38. 20. Men of the excellent spirit do now find sad entertainment People flock together and every one is ready to act his part towards the shedding of their innocent blood Judges Jurors Witnesses Counsellors No time must be granted all must be huddled up in a trice when they are making haste to destroy them And they are ready to say as the Iewes of Christ His blood be upon us and on our children It is not like to be alone upon them they must take a heavier load with it Upon the abettours and contrivers of this murder if they repent not will come all the blood that has been shed upon the earth from the blood of righteous Abel to the last drop of the innocent blood that they have or shall farther spill Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his Saints Psal. 116. 15. God will be soundly payd for their blood He will not fail to encrease his wealth by their price Psal. 44. 12. One main ground of the unjust proceedings of worldly Powers against righteous and conscientious men is Reason of State which usually brings the most signal desolation upon them by that very means whereby they thought to prevent it With what a vengeance this thing called Reason of State has been repayed we may observe in all times and places Pharaoh for Reasons of State murthered the Male-Children and sought to suppress the Hebrews by cruel bondage No messages from God though accompanied with Prodigies could stop him in his course till he was payd home once for all in the Red Sea Reason of State made Saul seek the ruine of David Absolon lie with his Fathers Concubines Ieroboam seek the establishment of himself by his Calf-worship thereby distinguishing his people in Religion from the Ierusalem-Worship under another King This made Herod seek Christ's life and destroy the male Children about Bethlehem This made the Iews and Pilate crucifie him least Caesar should destroy their Nation whereas for that very thing they came to be destroy'd by Caesar and what end all the other with many like examples came to I refer you to the Scriptures and other authentick Histories to enquire Caiaphas said of Christ It was expedient that one man should dye for the people The like was urged against this follower of Christ. Here 's another Reason of State And he declared himself content to be any thing God should permit them to make of him to be handled as Paul was reckoned as the filth of the world the off-scouring of all things 1 Cor. 4. 13. The word there is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which relates to the heathenish custome of culling out slaves or other contemptible persons to offer up to the devil as expiatory sacrifices to purge from some National guilt they had contracted and so deliver them from some National judgement they lay under Be the adversaries Reasons of State what they will they have done all they can do to this lover of his Countrey and the Laws thereof But I would willingly have their understandings disabused in one point Let them not think they have conquered him They knew him not He judg'd his Judges at the Bar. He triumphed over his executioners on the Scaffold R. and the rest Such a publick execution was more eligible then to have lingred out some small time in a prison as a condemned person liable to any arbitrary afterclaps on any future motion or pretence of motion in our troubled Sea He had more ease God more glory the honest party of the Nation and their just CAUSE more advantage and why may I not say his most intimate friends and dearest Relations more comfort in this way of his deliverance once for all He did fully comply with that rational notion of the heathen Philosophers concerning his mortal body That it was one of his prisons from which he could receive no final discharge as he might from others but by death Right joyful he was to lay aside this burthensome weight and go to his Father His heart was fixed trusting in the Lord. He was not therefore afraid or any way starâ—led at evil tydings but did sing and give praise that his full redemption drew so near Psal. 112. 6 7. and 108. 1. When the Sheriffs Chaplain came very gravely to him at the midnight before his execution the most dismal unseasonable and unusual time for such messages he told him he was come to bring him as he called it the fatal message of Death On this the Lord presently cast into his mind that which is written Zech. 3.4 to intimate to him That he was now taking away his filthy garments with intention to give him change of raiment that his mortal might put on immortallity Thus his Mortallity came to be swallowed up of Life and Death and the Grave into Victory Presently after his receit of that message of Death he laid him down and slept for the Lord sustained him Psal. 3. 5. When his Relations and Acquaintance came about him in the morning he told them he did not look upon that message of Death as having any thing at all of dismalness in it
The World was no longer worthy of him He is therefore gone from the earth But his Person and righteous Testimony shall be â—ad in everlasting remembrance Psal. 112. 6. His eye was fixed upon a better Countrey the Saints everlasting Rest. There the wicked cease from troubling and the weary are at rest Those that have been made Prisoners and out-casts in this world as the off-scouring of all things shall rest together there They shall no more hear the voice of the oppressor Job 3. 17 18. The present enjoyments and blessedness of this deceased Saint do set him clear out of the reach of his enemies malice or my pen. He steaddily sees and unchangeably enjoyes what Paul before quite rid of his mortal body had but the transient view of in a short rapture when caught up to the third heaven 1 Cor. 12. or into that vision of God in Christ that is exhibited to the double-portioned Saint that sits on the Throne with Christ. 'T is the favourable presence of God in Christ onely that makes heaven to angels or men God's threefold various presence with his Church in and through Christ makes the three heavens That presence that is afforded in the adaequate intelligible form to the highest life and discerning of the double-portioned Saint the Bride the Lambs Wife makes the third heaven That which is given forth in the adaequate intelligible form to the elect Angels and Spirits of just men made perfect as the sutable immediate object of their discerning makes the second heaven That presence of God together with the fruits of it that in Christ is afforded to Saints on earth makes the first They have their conversation in this first heaven Phil. 3.20 or lowest kind of presence and converse of Christ in spirit They do live in the exercise of that spiritual seed and those principles which when fully awakened in the resurrection will render them fit inhabitants of the second and third heavens Paul in the short glance he had of that most excellent glory of God in Christ that is intelligible or discernable to the most exalted sort of Saints tells us he heard unspeakable words or saw unspeakable things which it is not lawful or possible for a man to utter Here then I must take off my hand and leave you to make the best you can of it in silence and wonder Thus have I cast in my small mite towards the vindication of the Person Doctrine and Way of this choice anointed one of the Lord and faithful assertor of his Countries Liberties unto Death from the groundless aspersions causeless hatred misprisions and injuries that have fallen to his share in this world There are two sorts of enemies who in the rage and vain imaginations of their hearts have reproached blasphemed assaulted affronted resisted and persecuted Christ in him They are both deciphered Psal. 2. 1. under the titles of Heathen and People I have a word of two to divide between them and speak to each of them apart My first word is to a People of God who in whatever variety of form perswasion or way have all of them with one consent separated from Rome as justly loathing and nauseating her most gross visible Idolatries and abominations They have also separated from the dry impertinent formality of a meer outward profession of Protestantisme under a superstitious Episcopacy These they have separated from on the left hand it was their duty so to do But they have also separated from or rather cast out the spiritual Believer and true heir of the everlasting Kingdom on the right hand This is their great sin that has brought a prophane heathenish superstitious idolatrous Interest over their heads again and run all a-ground They have demonstrated themselves to be of that spirit that Paul reproved in some of the Corinthian Church that would be reigning as Kings in the but renewed principles of humane nature and righteousness of man 1 Cor. 4. 8. When therefore this true heir sounded his trumpet in his RETIRED MEDITATIONS and proclaimed another sort of Saints men of another spirit other principles and a more excellent way of life to be the onely true heirs of the Kingdom and possessed of the true reigning Principle they could not bear it They have chosen rather to give the Scepter back again into any hand then the true heir of the heavenly Kingdom should wield it I mean not a Person onely but a People a People prepared for the Lord. Whoever you be that have thus demeaned your selves and sinned away twenty years Mercies and Deliverancies whatever your Judgment Form or Way be as to this or that particular Doctrine or Ordinance if you yet lodge but in the renewed old Adam state of life or first-creation spirit and principles as you have seen them above-charactered to you it is I direct this word You that are in some good measure and degree inwardly cleansed from the pollutions of this world the corruption of nature give me leave to tell you you may be thus wash'd and baptized by the word of truth into a practical experimental knowledge of Christ after the flesh and conformity with him as he was â—ound in the flesh born of a woman made under the Law for your sanctification Let me tell you further you may be made comely through his comeliness or righteousness of that sort put upon you or imputed to you for your justification You may over and above all this be adorned with many jewels and bracelets excellent gifts and the tongue of men and angels and yet fall short of the glory and righteousness of God in the new and everlasting Covenant and so may prove to be at last but sounding brass or tinkling cymbals Ez. 16. 11 12. 1 Cor. 12. 31. 13. 1. All your sanctified justified beautified and adorned state in which you flourished was but the rectified adorned first-covenant natural man and you took all to be spiritual new-covenant Life and ornament This is one of the saddest mistakes mortal men are subject to and is like to cost them dearest Their disappointment is fatal and irrecoverable Their work is exceeding dangerous in kicking against the pricks persecuting of Christ in the true spiritual believer But their case is noâ—remediless as they may see in Paul till they knowingly and malitiously say Come this is the heir let 's kill him and the inheritance shall be ours There are those from amongst these Legal spirited professors both Pastors and People that have had their share in betraying this just man in blaspheming his Principles and Doctrine in casting reproaches upon him while living and pleasing themselves to think that they are now well rid of him his Doctrine and Way by his Death Deceive not your selves His testimony has received a more signal ratification by his Death then in all his Life He warn'd you of many things In reference to one of his warning-pieces as to the making clean riddance of Antichrist from amongst us I shall ask
who revealeth his secrets to his servants the Prophets Amos 3. 7. and them that fear him Psal. 25. 14. for the discovering unto Abraham that exemplary vengeance he then resolved to pour out upon Sodom and the neighbouring Cities for their wickedness Abraham by the offering up of Isaac did certainly perform the choicest highest and most acceptable Sacrifice and Service that is required of God or performable by the Faith of Gods Elect. Nothing was so dear to him as the Will of God and God thought nothing too much to give him He must become a great and mighty Nation yea all the Nations of the Earth must be blessed in him Moreover he will not withhold his secret counsels and resolutions from his friend Abraham If he intend to execute his Judgements in the Earth he will unbosom himself to Abraham before-hand and so afford him the opportunity of trying the utmost that may be done by his intercession on behalf of the Generation amongst whom his lot was cast The servant knows not what his Lord is about to do but the Friend the Son all must be discovered to him The Friend will readily do whatsoever the Lord commands Ioh. 15. 14 15. will follow the Lamb whithersoever he goes Rev. 14. 4. therefore is the Lord willing to disclose to him whatsoever he is going about to do The Son that abideth in the house for ever is open-handed free and universal in his love and resignation of all he is or hath unto God and God is as free and open-hearted unto him knowing that he will make a right construction and improvement of his discoveries Observe first then That the life of Faith is the most excellent life and that those therefore that live by Faith in the highest operation of it are of highest esteem with God This is apparant in Abraham's case here before us He was a Believer of the highest rank and therefore the choice Friend of God the Father of the Faithful in whom all Nations are to be blessed He is thought â—it for most intimate bosom familiarity and converse with God 'T was a more excellent operation of the Faith that saves and is Eternal life in the Believer which Abraham did experience and walk in in distinction from â—nd-superiority to the elect Angels and an inferiour â—ort of everlastingly â—aved Men that shall stand about the Throne on which Abraham with others of his more sublimated spirit and higher participations of Christ shall sit as the Bride the Lamb's Wife From the singular notice God here takes of Abraham and the peculiar friendliness â—he shews in revealing to him alone of all mankind his present intendment towards Sodom Observe secondly That â—â— it is the 〈◊〉 so is it the great Priviledge and advantage of Believers highly to value and carefully to improve Divine Discoveries Why did God shew this secret to Abraham more than to 〈◊〉 living but because of the singular good use he knew Abraham woâ—â—â— make of it He knew he would instruct and command his Children and Family after him to keep the way of the Lord and to worship him in Spirit and in Truth though a way by men called Heresie God thinks he can never be open enough to a tryed Believer a known Friend Vse 1. How should this encourage us to give up all our Isaacs to him to do with us and all we are or have whatsoever pleases him How willing should this render us to have our Sacrifices fast bound to the horns of the Altar with the threefold cord of God's love to us man's enmity to us and our love to God Whatever we surrender and part with in obedience to the Will of God we are sure to receive again with Usury to die is gain To lose life is the way to find it eternally A Believer draws forth the choicest communicable Excelleâ—cies and bosom-secrets of Christ. God puts a great value upon every motion of his believing Friends Much tribulation they meâ—e with in this Vale of tears many affronts and cruel mockings from contradictious men yea bonds imprisonments and cruel deathâ— But the Lord stands by them to assist and give them peace in the midst of all to make them stedfast and unmovable in the work of the Lord and in their sufferings for such work He raises in them such ravishments of joy through the manifestation of the glory that follows that they chuse rather to be tortured and flain than to accept of deliverance in order to obtain a better resurrection than their deliverance from prisons and death would amount unto They abide stedfastly with God unto a temporary death and he then sets upon their heads the Crown of eternal life Consider was not Christ the great Captain of our Salvation made perfect through sufferings did not he pass this way to the Crown and must not he that will live godly suffeâ— persecution and through much tribulation enter into the Kingdom of God The Apostle bids us consider Christ who quietly endured such contradiction of sinners against himself lest we be wearied and faint in our minds I am now going through the grace of God to resist man unto blood as knowing that I ought to obey God rather than meâ— I am ready to follow the Lord whithersoever he goes and calls me after him Rest assured of this However dismal and sad the Believers work and condition appears to men God will give besides a holy triumph of rejoycing in the way an expected end an end that will answer and over-answer all the desires and expectations of his soul. Whoever is able throughout to mark the perfect man and to behold â—â—e upright in heart will find that the end of that man is peace such peace and so given not as the world giveth but so as no man can take it from him Objection But what peace is this Believers have Is it not their usual lot here to be delivered into the hands of sinners doth not God permit the men of this world the inhabitants of the earth to trample upon and insult over them yea even to ride over their heads Psal. 66. 12. so that they are forced to lay their bodies as the ground and â—â— the sheet to their oppressors that go over them Isa. 51. 23. Doth he not suffer the Devil by wicked men to proceed further against them for the tryal of their Faith than he had commission to proceed against Job for the tryal of his patience even to the touching and taking away their very lives and that with all manner of lying aggravations contring in this to fix the black and infamous character of the greatest malefactors upon them and then cry Crucifie them crucifie them away with such people from the earth it is not fit they should live any longer Act. 22. 22. Answ. To this I answer Thus Christ himself was served and therefore all this notwithstanding they may have peace Yea they have the only true peace which passeth understanding In the midst of all
course of well-doing without any amazement Sufferings for well-doing patiently born are acceptable with God A quiet rejoycing deportment in sufferings will be to your adversaries an evident token of their Perdition but to you of Salvation and that of God To him that thus overcometh in the Faith and Spirit of Christ the true Abraham he will give to sit with him on his Throne and to inherit all things Let the like Spirit of Faith be in you that was in Abraham and you will never rest till you come into his bosom You will be but pilgrims and strangers here Your eye your heart and expectations will be upon that better Country Such a frame of mind and heart God is so well pleased with that he will not fail to make more rich and full discoveries of himself to you daily for the building and gathering of you up nearer and closer unto himself till he be the whole desire of your soul the only desirable who is altogether lovely Text. I know Abraham sayes God that he will command his Children and houshold c. Obs. 3. Observe hence That it is the duty of every believing Father not only to teach his Children and Family for the keeping them in a good conversation while he is present with them but to leave instructions with them and charge them after him that they may know how to deport themselves both in their inward and outward man when he is gone Thus it was with Abraham He instructed or catechized them as the Original imports laid the foundation for a future growth and progress in the same Faith with him whereby they also might be enabled to communicate it and so lay the like foundation in others and build up one another in the same most holy Faith which charge is also implyed and supposed to have been insisted on and with all earnestness pressed upon them as being unspeakably most carefull and concerned in the propâ—gating of his believing Seed to the worlds end Thus Abraham also as others in like case will have his great personal advantage by the bountiful communicating and instilling the spiritual and heavenly Doctrine of the Gospel into the hearts of as many as he can spreading abroad amongst others the precious savour of that grace of God that he had so plentifully been enriched with and tasted of in his own experiences all-along This heavenly Life and marvellous Light of the Faith of the Son of God is of that nature that the more it is diffused by way of communication unto others the more it encreases in the Dispenser thereof redounding to his advantage as well as theirs that receive it The fruit of his doings Ier. 17. 10. spring up from such foundations of Holiness as by his instruction were ministerially laid The works that naturally flow from that Doctrine follow them after they are gone hence Rev. 14.13 The Church in the Canticles chap. 7. 1. is described by him that best knew her temper to be of this noble princely communicative disposition Freely ye have received freely give sayes Christ and by giving they receive more abundance The fruit of such labours will be reckoned on their account This is a great encouragement for men to abound in the work of the Lord forasmuch as they know that their labour is not in vain in the Lord 1 Cor. 15. 58. Let it be your constant care then to multiply such fruits as may abound to both our accounts in pursuance and imitation of that Faith which by word and deed ye have heard and seen in me all the time that God hath pleased to continue me with you It will be both yours and my great gain if you be careful to glorifie your heavenly Father answerably to the many seasonable instructions directed to you in the Word of the Lord by my Ministry This was Abraham's faith way life and practice who being dead yet speaketh to the whole Family of Faith throughout the whole world unto this day While he was present with his Family he taught them in word and deed by what he said in his Ministry and by what he did in all other holy coversation and godliness First by the things he did as a pattern of Faith Holiness and Sobriety in his conversation and then by what he said in giving daily instructions to them to follow his steps walk honestly as in the day in the Spirit worthy of God by the same Rule they observed him to walk For they ought so to walk even as he walked abiding in his words 1 Joh. 2.6 Thus Abraham's Family had his pattern and instruction in the Faith of God's Elect for their direction while he was conversant amongst them Secondly He gave forth command and instructed them in the Name of the Lord that when he their believing Father should be gone from them into a more exalted state of life to them invisible and undiscernable â—â— to any further personal converse with him in his former way they should be as carefull still as ever to walk in the steps of his Faith bringing forth the fruits thereof unto holiness if not more than ever before while he was with them Christ himself the most true and absolute Father of the Faithful took this course a little before his death gave that large and most admirably significant Instruction to his Disciples recorded in the 13 15 16 and 17. Chapters of Iohn to strengthen and establish their hearts in the present Truth they had been taught and were possessed of whatever hatred persecution or cross blows they should meet with from the world as also to beget in them anâ— assured expectation of his Return to them in a more excellent way of converse than ever they yet experienced On this account he told them that how sad and troubled soever they may be through mistake of his departure and of the sharp and bitter way of it it was expedient even for them as well as for himself that he should go away forasmuch as he would then return to them in a more excellent estate a better Comforter a better Counsellor that would tell them more excellent things things they could not yet bear to the fulfilling of their joy Use. Let me then direct unto you a word of Exhortation by the example of Abraham and Christ himself in my present circumstances in the near approach of my dissolution and parting with you Be not disheartned in the way of the Lord be not discouraged in the way I have gone before you in and am yet going drawing near now to the finishing of my course with joy The God of Heaven hath set his seal to it in my heart that it is the very way of Truth the choicest and best way you can go the way that not only will have the most comfortable close by ending in everlasting joy but that hath also the most solid foundation of inward rejâ—ycing all-along attending it even in this world Though there be sorrow and death to the flesh
in this way there is life and joy in the Spirit The Believer the true spiritual Circumcision rejoyces in Christ Jesus having no confidence in the flâ—sh nor mastering much how iâ— goes with that So he may win Christ and know him in the power of his Resurrection he is willing also to know him in the fellowship of his Sufferings and in being made conformable unto his death There is no other way to the eternal Crown If we suffer with him who before Pontius Pilate witnessed a good Confession 1 Tim. 6. 13. we shall also reign with him if we deny Him and his â—ause before men through fear of them that can but kill the body and have no more that they can do he that can destroy both body and soul in Hell will deâ—â— us before the Angels of God Whatever frightful appearance the present tribulations may have this remains sure Light â—â— sown for the Righteous and gladness for the upright in heart My harvest is at hand the season for me to reap the good fruit of the incorruptible seed of eternal life that hath been sown in me many years ago by the good hand of the Lord. I have so much already of that fruit as makes me set very light by the present tribulations that are but for a moment and are not to be compared with the glory that follows I have sown in tears and am now going to reap in joy where all tears shall be wiped away for ever There shall be no more sorrow crying or hearing the voice of the oppressor I charge you therefore be ye followers of me as I am a follower of Christ. Walk in that Faith ye have seen me to walk in and be not dismayed Observe what I now say to you and the Lord will bless you yea you shall be encouraged and commended by him as a choice pattern of obedience unto others like the sons of Ionadab the son of Rechab who were commended for performing the words of their father that he commanded them and were therein propounded as an imitable pattern to the men of Iudah and inhabitants of Ierusalem who did most perversly refuse to obey the Commands of God himself in the Messages he sent to them by the ministry of the Prophets Encline your ear therefore and hearken unto me now in this parâ—ing Instruction Listen to my command and obey the words I speak to you in the Name of the Lord. I charge you to walk in the Faith of our Lord Jesus Christ and that with all steadiness and constancy as not in the least discouraged by what you see now to befal me and other his servants and followers in this evil day The servant is not greater than the Lord. He went this way and hath warned us that through much persecution and tribulation we must strive to enter into the Kingdom of God Walk then in the Spirit and Faith of Abraham in that immutable frame of spirit that feeds upon that which is incorruptible whereby you will be nourished up into eternal life and carried on through all difficulties and oppositions to the compleat full and certain saving of your souls Be bold confident stedfast and undaunted herein though bryaâ—s and thorns be with you and you dwell among Scorpions Be not afraid of their big words or stout looks though they be a 〈◊〉 house Ezek. 2. not 〈◊〉 the 〈◊〉 of God before their eyes and therefore lifting up themselves 〈…〉 against the Lord of Heaven and practising to destroy the People of the Most High till the Antient of dayes come and set them upon their feet at which time Judgement shall be given to the Saints of the most High and they must possess the Kingdom Who are you then if you live and abide in the Faith of Abraham that you should be afraid of a man that shall die and be made as grâ—â—â— Isa. 51. 12. All the Nations of the World are less than nothing before Him in whom is your help Isa. 40. 17. Stay your selves then upon God in the greatest outward confusions or alterations of Government or Governours that possibly can befall though the Earth be removed and the Mountains be carried into the midst of the Sea Be of good courage take to you the whole Armour of God fight the Battels of the Lord the good fight of Faith and he will make you more than Conquerors Let these dying words of your Father never be forgotten Be strong in the Faith of Abraham He that now speakâ— to you hath for many years proved and tryed what this amounts unto he sees great cause to recommend it to you upon that Experience he hath had of the support and relief it carries with it in all occurrences as also how bold stedfast and comfortable it renders the possessors thereof against all possible affronts contradictions and oppositions of sinners When you can no longer enjoy the bodily or visible Presence of your Father with you live more in the Faith of your Father that he that is my heavenly Father may discover himself more and more to be yours also as you shew your selves more to be his Children which will highly concern you that through the more plentiful commâ—â—â—â— of his grace and spirit amongst you and in you you may be more strengthened with his might and glorious power in your inward man unto all patience and long-suffering with joyfulness and be able to stand it out in this evil day This is the last opportunity I am like to have of this kind The Lord set my words home upon your hearts Be glad and rejoyce thus to be minded of your duty and charged by meâ— And what greateâ— cause of rejoycing can your Father have than that his Children walk in the Truth See then that you alwayes keep your Consciences void of offence towards God and towards men Hate and decline every unrighteous way and whatever is contrary to the Gospel of our Lord and Saviour Iesus Christ. Put one another in mind of these things that your Father thus minds you all of in this his last Charge and Instruction which he leaves with you Provoke one another unto love and good worke Exhort one another so much the more as you see the day approaching Shew forth your Faith in the workings of it by which you may glorifie your Father which is in Heaven Those that believe in God will be careful to maintain good works Tit. 3. 8. Consider what manner of persons it concerns you to be in all holy Conversation and godliness seeing that all these thingsâ— that now are and which ye see are very shortly to be dissolved sooner it may be than you can yet believe even the Heavens and Earth that now are the whole outward face of things in Church and State the world throughout 2 Pet. 3.7.11,12 Live then as those that wait for their masters coming for the new heaven and new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness Live in the pure Spirit of this tried Faith of