can make Darkness in thy Soul His Secret place out of which he shoots his invenomed arrows into thy heart He can make thick Clouds upon thy Soul his Pavilion from whence he will make war upon thee Thus we must distinguish upon the Appearances of God 2. Distinct. Secondly we must distinguish upon the Person of God as He is in Himself and as He is in Jesus Christ. 1. First God as He is in Himself is One One rest and blessedness in every State Thus God is All in All all that sweetness peace joy in every Appearance which he is in any Appearance It is said in Job of the Earth as it was in its first State No stranger passed thorow it So it is true of the God-Head in its first State in its simplicity that there is no Strange Appearance there This Throne of God wherever it is set up is a Circle and every hand is the Right Hand there every Shape in which God puts forth Himself is Love 2. Secondly God as He is in Iesus Christ hath his Right and his Left Hand his Sweet and Strange Appearances Light and Darkness Love and Wrath Revel 6. 16. They cry to the Rocks and the Mountains to fall upon them to hide them from the wrath of the Lamb. Jesus Christ witnesseth John 5. 22. The Father judgeth no man but hath committed all judgment to the Son This distinguishing and dividing Judgment by which God puts forth Himself in Love upon some in Wrath upon others is not exercised by the Father that is by God as He is in Himself but by the Son that is by God as He is in Jesus Christ. This is the Kingdom of God the shining forth of the God-Head from the right hand of the Lord Jesus in its own proper Glory calming and clearing up all in the Soul scattering like Clouds those strange Appearances of Darkness and Terrour into which God had before put himself This is Christ shewing us the Father discovering God in his First Light as He is the Fountain of Love where there is neither Fear nor Torment Use. 1. For Tryal By this we may try our selves whether we be in the Kingdom of God or no. The Kingdom of God is Peace If you be truly in Peace you are of a truth in the Kingdom of God I will enlarge this Tryal by Three Instances which are the Glory the Grace the Blessing of God 1. Glory First the Glory of God and the Peace of God ever go together Luk. 2. 14. In the Angels Song these two are united Glory to God on high Peace on Earth Jesus Christ when he came down from Heaven and was incarnate Angels in their Praises and Prayers at the Incarnation joyn these two Spiritual Glory and Spiritual Peace as undivided in their Life and Death in their absence and presence The Soul that is without Peace is indeed without in that Darkness which is without whither nothing of the Glory of God comes whence no Glory is given to God If thou canst live without Peace thou livest in a true Hell where there is nothing of the Light of the Glory of God nor any desire of it If thou hadst any taste or glympse of the Glory of God in thy Soul thou wouldst feel a sweet peace within thee with thy God with thy self and with all things The Glory of God is a Healing a Uniting a Perfecting thing it makes all perfect in One Mal. 4. 2. A Sun of Righteousness shall arise with healing in his Wings The Sun-shine of Glory falling from the Face of God upon the Soul in any degree sweetly and soundly closeth up wounds maketh up breaches and divisions in the Spirit The Wings of the Sun are his Beams Each touch of any one Beam of the Glory of God upon the Soul carries a healing lenifying appeasing vertue 2. Grace Secondly the Grace and the Peace of God ever go together St. Paul when he prays for the Saints at the beginning of all his Epistles joyns these Two Grace and peace from God our Father and from our Lord Jesus Christ. So much of the Grace of God as goes forth into the Soul so much of Peace goes along with it Where there is no Peace there is no Grace There is a Two-fold Grace of God the Love of God towards the Soul the Loveliness or Image of God in the Soul 1. Where there is nothing of Peace there is nothing of the Grace of God that is of the Love of God yet appearing to that Soul Where the Love of God is poured forth it is an overflowing Sweetness 1 Corin. 13. 5. Charity thinketh no ill This Charity which is said in the same Chapter to be perfect to remain for ever can be no other than the Love of God let down from Heaven into the Soul and revealed there gathering the Soul up into itself to dwell in this Love The Soul that dwells in this Love thinks no evil of God of itself of any thing but is at peace with all hath sweet thoughts of all For the Love of God is its Eye by which it sees and its Heart by which it thinks It sees God itself and all things by the Light of this Love it thinks of all things by the Strength of this Love 2. Where there is nothing of Peace there is nothing of the Grace of God that is of the loveliness of God of the Beauty of Holiness in that Soul So much of Peace so much of Holiness and Spirituality So much of Distraction and Disquiet so much of Corruption and Carnality Where things begin to descend there begins Flesh and Division As things descend and go lower so these things increase Where things begin to ascend there begins Spirit Spirituality Unity and Peace The more we ascend and go upward the more we increase in these 3. Blessing Thirdly the Blessing and the Peace of God ever go together Prov. 15. 17. Better is a Dinner of Herbs with Love than a stalled Ox with hatred Love is the Womb of Peace and Hatred is the Mother of Unquietness as appears by that place Prov. 10. 12. Hatred stirreth up strife but Love covereth a multitude of Sins Didst thou live at the highest rate of all content in thine outward man and hadst no peace in thy Soul thou couldst have nothing blest to thee All thy delicacies would have a bitterness on thy palate and a venom in thy bowels that will never suffer thee to have a true joy in any thing which thou enjoyest Hadst thou but a Dinner of Herbs the lowest fare such as the Cattel may have together with thee and hadst Spiritual peace with it these Herbs would have such a blessing in them that they would be as the food of Paradise was to man when he had Herbs and all Green things given him for meat If thine inward man had a stalled Ox those Oxen which Wisdom slays Prov. 9. 2. prepared for it the strongest notions the highest Mysteries set before thine understanding
O glorious Victory O Saints more than Conquerours in the Resurrection of your Saviour The World is faln before you it is no more The old things of Vanity Darkness Sin Sorrow Death are passed away in His Death Thus you are conquerours But in His Resurrection the World is raised again in a Form of Eternal Love and Glory for you All things are come again and are made New All things appear again the second time Immortal Spirits shining in the Loveliness burning in the Love of the God-Head for you opening all things past present and to come in themselves as Beautiful and Sacred Mysteries of Divine Love to you which ever is Delighting it self in You sporting with you preparing Joys Glories for you Thus you are more than Conquerous through Him who hath loved You. Live then in Him Joyfully gloriously Triumphantly I have done with the first Part of my last Use the Sweeâ—ning and Sanctifying Life in this World 2. Part. To sweeten and sanctifie Death by the Knowledge of Christ in Glory I shall lay down three Principles to this End 1. Principle Every Saint standeth â—compleat in Glory in the Glorified Person of Christ above even while he is living or dying here below Ye are compleat in Him who is the Head of all Principality and Power Col. 2. 10. In the verse before the Lord Jesus was described as in Him dwelleth all the Fulness or Compleatness of the God-Head bodily v. 9. Then this is added And in Him ye are compleat or full who is the Head of all Principality and Power A Believer is compleat in his Saviour as He hath the Compleatness of the God-Head in him and the Compleatness of all the Angels beneath him His Life then and His Death as they stand in Jesus Christ are more than Angelical They are Divine I shall endeavour to set in lively Figures before your Eyes the Beauty and Sweetness in the Death of a Saint by four Scriptures 1. Script And hath raised us up together and made us sit together in Heavenly places in Christ Jesus Eph. 2. v. 6. What is to be understood by together is plain in the verse before hath quickned us together with Christ It is God who doth all this as is seen v. 4. God who is rich in mercy for his great love wherewith he hath loved us Four Positions lye clear in this Scripture 1. Pos. A Believer is risen from the Dead He dieth no more He is passed from Death to Life As Abraham is said to have received Isaac from the Dead in a Figure So the Beloved of the Lord dâ—eth onely in a Figure Death is to him a Divine Figure standing in the Resurrection from the Dead His Death is a Flower of Life and Immortality growing up in the Paradise of God which is the Glorified Person of Jesus It beareth indeed the Figure of Death but is full of a Sweetness and Beauty which can never fade or dye Let us all labour for our part in the New Birth This is a Resurrection from the Dead All things after it are Life Pure Life without any mixture of Death Perpetual Life Endless Life without any Sting of Death in the tail of it 2. Pos. A Believer is already sâ—t down in Heavenly places nay more than Heavenly The Word Heavenly is by some translated and so it properly signifieth Supercoelestial more than Heavenly places above the Heavens Here a Saint is made to sit down He is fixed and established He is at rest at home at the end of all his journeyings and changes He is set as a Bride at the Marriage-feast He is set as a Prince upon the Throne of his Kingdom Thus God giveth His Beloved Sleep Rest a Feast a Throne in Death Jesus Christ in Glory is this Sleep this Rest this Feast this Throne which endureth for ever and ever O Christian rejoyce and glory in Death for the Hope of the Joy and Glory of thy Bridegroom there Thy Death hath nothing of Dust or Darkness in it It is a Heavenly Thing nay more than Heavenly It is something Supercoelestial It is a soft Strain and ravishing Touch in the Musick of the Divine and Eternal Rest. It is a savoury Dish such as thy soul loveth at the Feast in the Kingdom of God Solomon had a throne of Gold On the Steps which were the Ascents to the Throne on each side were Lyons of pure Gold Thy Death O Saint is now no more a fierce and devouring Lyon to affright thee It is the figure of a Lyon in Gold in one Glory It is not onely an Ascent to thy Throne O Jedidiah Beloved of the Lord It is One Piece of Eternal Glory with thy Throne It is an Ornament an Embâ—â—llishment of Glory to thy Throne How good is it for those who are born of God to keep themselves pure that they may alwaies see God that they may see all things to them Divine Objects in a Divine Light sparkling Jewels of Divine Love We are ever in the midst of these things which are more than Heavenly in the midst of these Supercoelestials even in the arms of Death While we keep our selves unspotted from this world we see these Supercoelestials and Death itself in the number of them But every sin casteth a mist upon them and covereth us with a Cloud that we see them no more Now the Visions of our Joy and Glory of Light and Truth are hid from our Eyes Now fear and trembling are upon 〈◊〉 Life is full of Trouble and Death full of Terrour 3. Pos. A Saint is set down in Heavenly places together with Jesus Christ. The sweetning and the heightning of all the Joys and Glories of the Gospel is the Union with thy Beloved Bridegroom The work of Grace is a Birth a Resurrection a Marriage all in one The Death of a Saint is an Act of Spiritual Communion between Christ and the Soul a Marriage-Joy The Lord Jesus presenteth himself to the Believer in the Form of Death as in a Heavenly a Supercoelâ—stial Beauty At this sight the Saint is immediately transformed into the same Image Jesus Christ springeth up into the Believer a Believer springeth up into his Beloved in this Heavenly Form So both are made one in it Thus Death becometh a Love-play between Christ and his Spouse He by a Spiritual Kiss breatheth forth his Spirit of Divine Loves Immortality and Invisible Glories into the Spouse The Spouse ravished sorth from her self again in the same moment breatheth forth her Spirit into the Bosom of her Lord. Thus they die together they die one in another they die one into another In the first of the Canticles there is a Prophetical Song which beginneth at the Resurrection of our Saviour and the Effusion of the Spirit together with the Spiritual Union between Christ and his Church which was as their Heavenly Espousals solemnized and sealed with a Kiss with the reiterated Kisses of his Mouth Then followeth in the process of the first
Chapter and beginning of the Second the Loveliness of the Spouse and the Love between her and the Heavenly Bridegroom in her Sufferings and Death as they are acted upon the Stage in the glorious Scene of the Resurrection and Ascension of Christ in the State of Espousals and in their Union in one Spirit The dying Spouse there singeth to her Lord Behold thou art fair my Love yea thou art pleasant also our Bed is green v. 16. Jesus Christ is fair to a Saint Eye in his Divine Loveliness being risen up into the Glory of the Father He is pleasant to her in his Loves which are his Loveliness in Motion acting beautiful parts transforming itself into delightful Shapes with endless variety in all pouring forth itself into her Bosom taking her up into itself with Blessed Changes of one into another The Unity of the Spirit is the Bed of Divine Loves which is ever green that is as the word importeth ever encompassed with a Heavenly Calm and Serenity ever flourishing ever fruitful Death itself is the mutual embracing of these two Heavenly Lovers in this Bed of Spiritual Loves in the midst of a Divine calm and clearness while out of these embraces they spring up into innumerable Forms of Eternal Beauties and Joys which are the flourishing Fruits and Blessed Children of this Marriage-Union It is said that nothing was made without Christ apart from Christ that was made in the Creation John 1. 2. Remember O Christian that in the new Creature thou art thou sufferest thou doest nothing in life or in death without thy Jesus in Glory apart from thy Jesus in the Unity of his Spirit which is the Center and Circle of all Blessed Spirits with all the Train and Treasures of the Divine Nature While thou livest all the Body of Christ Heavenly Spirits Innumerable Angels live with thee thy life All these all the Lights and Loves of the Supercoelestial State die with thee thy Death 4. Pos. All this Resurrection Ascension into the Heavenly places Fellowship of a Believer with Christ is in Christ. He hath raised us together and hath made us sit together in Heavenly Places in Christ Jesus See now those places above the Heavens those more than Heavenly Things in the midst of which a Saint is set They are all in the glorified Person of Christ who is made higher than the Heavens The Learned tell us that there are three Worlds 1. This which is visible 2. The Angelical World 3. The Divine World All things of the upper and greater Worlds are in the lower as in the Seed All Things of the lower are in the Superiour as ripe Fruit. Every thing is in each according to the nature of that place Behold This is the Divine World the Person of our Lord and Love ascended up on high above all Heavens of Angels Here in him the Fulness of the God-Head dwelleth Bodily that is not shadowily or seminally in its Shadow or Seed but in its Substance and Perfection While here thou standest fast in this thy Jesus thine own proper habitation Death itself is an Angel nay more it appeareth in a Divine Form is become a Divine Glory a rich and ravishing piece of variety in the Unity of the Divine Nature In the World of Angels every thing is a distinct Angel In the Divine World all things are cloathed with the form of God As a Child lying in its Mothers lap a branch from the Mother bearing her Image with its mouth at the Breast looking upon her Face falling asleep in her Bosom yet not so sleeping but that still it sucketh as it sleepeth such is a Saint dying in Jesus Christ. He lieth in the lap of the Supream Glory encompassing him on every side and bearing him as its own Birth and Image His mouth is at the breast of this Glory His Eye is upon the Face of this Glory He sleepeth in its Bosom But it is a Divine sleep While he sleepeth he is awake and keepeth his Eye still upon the Glory and sucketh in the Glory still in Death We have this excellently represented in one place by the Prophet Esay where the Heavenly Hierusalem which is our Jesus in the Spirit is said to bear her Children on her sides and to dandle them on her Knee In another place they are said to walk in the Light of the new Hierusalem These Dandlings and Dancings in the Arms of that Glory which is our Mother our Father and our Husband our Heavenly Jesus such walks in its sweet and living Light are all the Motions and Changes of Life and Death to those that are in Christ Jesus I shall conclude my Observations from this Scripture with the difference between the Death of a Man standing in the Root of the First Adam and a Christian in Christ. Death to one is a Poyson In eating of the Forbidden Fruit he dieth out of the Earthly Paradise yet remaining in its ruines in this World into a Land of Briars and Thorns into a vast and howling Wilderness where the Light is Darkness and where there is no Order The Death of the other is a Cordial of dissolved Pearl In eating of the Tree of Life he 〈◊〉 out of a Land of Briars and Thorns into a Heavenly Paradise the Paradise of God I have done now with the first Scripture 2. Script Verily verily I say unto you except a Corn of Wheat fall into the ground and die it abideth alone but if it die it bringeth forth much Fruit John 12. 24. These are the words of our Saviour concerning himself upon a report made to him hy Philip that some Greeks desired to see him The design of Jesus is partly to raise them from a Carnal view of him on Earth to a Spiritual sight of him in a Heavenly Glory after Death partly to signify the difference between his State of humiliation in this Life where he is single and Barren in the Flesh and his State of exaltation after Death where he â—iseth up an Universal Person reconciling comprehending All in the Unity of the Spirit a Fruitful Person being a new head and root in the Love Life and Glory of the Father to all Mankind Jews and Gentiles to all Creatures Our Saviour while he lived was as a single naked grain of Wheat But when he sprung up out of the Grave he became a pleasant and flourishing Plant bearing much Fruit many grains of Wheat in one Ear many all Persons all Angels and Spirits in Glory in that one his own Person and Spirit He was in the Flesh as one Rose one Apple pull'd off the Tree He is in the Spirit as the Rose-Tree the Apple-Tree All Angels and Saints all Forms of Things are glorified in his Glory all in Heavenly and Immortal Persons are in his Heavenly Person as full-blown Roses growing upon the Rose-Tree as full-ripe Apples upon the Apple-Tree The Death of a Saint is upon this ground made most beautiful and pleasant Can. 2. 3. As the
Apple-Tree among the Trees of the Wood so is my Beloved among the Sons I sat down under his Shadow with great delight and his Fruit was sweet to my taste There are three distinct parts in the Hebrew 1. I desired and sweetly delighted in his Shadow 2. Then I sate down 3. And his Fruit was sweet to my taste The Apple in Holy Scriptures and in the writings of Learned Authors is famous for a pleasant Cordial nourishment of Life and for an Emblem of Love You may see this in this Chapter v. 5. Stay me with Flagons comfort me with Apples for I am sick of Love Apples are Emblems of Love for their pleasant looks to the Eye their fragrant smell their delightful tast their cordial vertue their round form which is a Figure of Unity the Root and Sap and Fruit of all Love In the midst of the Wood of this Life where all Forms of things are like blasted and barren Trees good neither for Shade nor Fruit Jesus Christ standeth as an Apple-Tree a Tree of Life and a Tree of Love Fair Flourishing and Fruitful When the poor Spouse of Christ thorow all this Life is wearied with scorching Heats sounding Tempests raging Storms then her Beloved when He seeth His Fit Time springeth up as a Paradisical and Heavenly Tree As He springeth up He overshadoweth His Spouse not as a cloud overshadoweth the Sun or as Darkness in the absence of the Sun overshadoweth the earth but as the approaching and rising Sun overshadoweth the Stars So the Lord as a Tree of Glory spreadeth His Shadow over all those Lights of the Night the Principles Powers Activities Appearances oâ— the Natural Man drinking them up into One Light of Glory and Immortality with Himself while He drowneth them with a Sea of Love breaking in upon them and overflowing them How sweet is this Approaching Shadow of her Lord's Blessed Person to the Love-sick Soul a Shadow perfumed with the Ointments of His Love shining with the purple Lustre of His Beauties quickened with the Life of His Glories a Divine Shadow With what Desire with what Delight doth the Holy Soul go under this Shadow How precious in the Eye of God of all the Angels of a Saint Himself is This Death This Death is no Evening to a pleasant Day but a Lovely Morning and glorious Sun putting out the Lights of the Moon with all the Sars because the Time of the Night is past and the Day is come Never did the softest and sweetest Sleep 〈◊〉 with more pleasure upon the Senses of any Person than this Shadow of Death cometh upon the Heavenly Bride Here a Saint sitteth down As Hee entreth into this Shadow he entreth into Rest into the Unâ—ty of God where He resteth for ever from his own Work and Spirit to lye down in the Eternal Spirit Now he catâ—h of his own Apple upon this Apple-Tree He meeteth with Himself in Glory in the Glorified Person of his Beloved as the ripe Fruit of Life and Love hanging ready upon its own Tree in Eternity In the same moment he seeth it he taketh it in he rellisheth it with unexpressible sweetness and delight as being Great Glorious His own by the nearest dearest Suitableness and propriety Himself in the Entirest Unity in the same Moment he seedeth upon it is Transubstantiated into it and becometh that Lovely Apple that full-ripe Fruit of â—ove upon the Tree As he thus seedeth upon his own Apple and is changed into it at once he seedeth upon is changed into all the Apples of the Tree and the whole Tree itself For this is the Divine Mystery of Spiritual Pâ—anâ—s in the Heaveâ—ly Paradise each Fruit each part of the Plâ—nt comprehendeth the whole Pâ—ant all the Plants stand live and grow together in each Plant. Every Person aâ—d Spirit in Glory hath its own Name all Names written upon it It is itself an Entire Heaven in which all the Heavenly Inhabitants shine and sing and dance together with their various Beauties Musicks and Motions cast into the most Divine Harmony by a most perfect Unity 3. Script Iohn 14. v. 2. 3. In my Father's hâ—use are many Mansions If it 〈…〉 I would have tâ—ld you I go to prepare a place for 〈◊〉 And if I goe and prepare a place for you I will come again â—nd receive you unto my self that where I am there ye may be also Three Mysteries are opened to us in these words 1. The Place of Blessed Persons after this Life 2. The Preparation of this Place 3. Their Passage into this Place All are full of a Joy glorious and unspeakable 1. The Place of Blessed Spirits after this Life It is saith Christ my Father's House The House of the Father is the Glorified-Person of His Son This is the Temple of God in Heaven the Palace of the great King In Him the fulness of the God-Head dwelleth bodily All glorious Persons Angels Saints and Spirits as they are comprehended in the Person of Christ and make up His Body the Divine Body the Body of Glories and Eternity in Him as they are Beautiful Members in that Body so are they Mansions in that Temple Apartments in that Palace Every Apartement in this Divine Palace hath the whole Palace with all the Persons Prospects Furniture Entertainments of the whole within itself This is the Place 2. The Preparation of this Place I go to prepare a place for you While this Palace of Eternity with all its Apartments which are also its Inhabitants the Glorified and Immortal Persons of all Saints stood in the Father in the Divine Nature alone it was hid from the Eye of every Creature it was shut up that none could enter into it it was remote from every Creature at a very great distance The Lord Jesus by His Death and Resurrection entring with the Humane Nature into this Eternal Habitation hath set it up in the Nature of Man hath brought it near to us hath set it in our view hath set it open for us The Gates of this Temple of this Heavenly Hierusalem stand open day and night to all quarters of the Heaven and the Earth All the Apartements of it with our several Names written upon them our several Persons in Glory appearing in them stand ready The Lord Jesus Himself is the Beautiful Gate the Living Way the Ascent the rich Stair-case to this Temple The Angels are continually descending in Him as Chariots to bring down riding upon them our glorious Saviour and our glorious Selves into the Bosom of our Spirits here below The Bridegroom and the Bride ready trimm'd and already joyned in One come thus down out of Heaven come thus forth from the Temple The Angels are continually ascending by this Stair-case carrying up our Spirits beforehand on visits into this Palace into our own Apartments into the Bosom of our own Glorified and Immortal Substances there Every Grace every Providence every Motion of things to him whose Eyes are opened is such an Angel
a Body of Divine Loves above all Heavens Rom. 8. 28 29. St. Paul triumpheth after this manner I am perswaded thâ—â— neither Death nor Life neither Angels Principalities Powers nor things present noâ— things to come nor heighth nor Depth nor any other Creature shall be able to separate us from the Love of God which is in Jesus Christ our Lord. The Love of God in Jesus Christ lineth covereth all things transubstantiateth all things into the same Divine Love St. Paul mentioneth the nearest things to us the most intimate the most Potent the most Penetrating the most Universal the most comprehending the most Transforming Death Life Angels things Present to come Depth Heighâ—h What cometh nearer what toucheth every Point of our whole Substance and Being than Death Life Angels What more intimate to our hearts and Spirits If none of these can come between the Love of God in Jesus Christ and our Persons then all these by the Touch of this Love must be Tinctured and changed into new Forms into Essences of Love As Sugar is dissolved in a Glass of Wine so Death Life Angels things Presâ—nt things to come heighths Depths every other Creature in this Golden Cup of Divine Love the Glorified Person of Christ is dissolved into Love becometh a Rich Love-Cordial to a fainting Spirit making it to dance and sing for Joy when it was intended a deadly Poyson to it The holy Apostle had said upon this Ground a little before In all these things Sword Famine Persecution wee are more than Conquerours It is plain how we are Conquerours Captivity is carried Cuptive Those Forms and Powers of Darkness of Death which thought to captivate us are themselves Captives to Eternal Life and Love in the Lord Jesus As Saul among the Prophets so the Bitterest the Blackest things which assault the Spirit of a Saint encompassed with this Love of the Father poured forth in Christ uncloath themselves and put on Amiable Shapes of Love sing songs of Love breath forth from every part of them the most Delightful Sweetness of Divine Love Thus this Love maketh us Conquerours But what meaneth this to be more than Conquerours Is there a Joy or Glory above this of a Conquerour Grace coming into Glory Love Reigning after Suffering Is there any thing sweeter any thing greater than this Victory of Love Yes St. Paul saith when he was caught up into the Third heavens into the Paradise there he heard Words which it is impossible to utter This is The Paradise in the Third Heavens the Love of God in the Glorified Person of Christ. This Love transformeth every thing every Creature to this heavenly Paradise Those blessed Souls which by believing enter into this Paradise hear Words of Love Words of Joy Words of Pleasure of Glory from this Love which it is impossible to utter which are too sweet too high too ravishing to be exprest A holy Soul in This Paradise of Love feeleth a Joy far beyond that of Marriage of Conquest of Reigning of Children of any thing named in this World or in that which is to come Thus the Sweetness of Divine Love expresseth itself in its Sweet Efficacy Thus the Purity of Divine Love in Christ is manifest in its Sweetness 2. The Love of God in Christ is most Pure because it hath the greatest Virtue Our Divines express hell after this manner All Diseases Pains Griefs here are Evils by a Tincture onely of Divine Wrath a little Drop of Divine Wrath mingling itself with them Hâ—ll is Pure Wrath. Hell is the Abstract of Wrath the Evil of all Diseases Pains and Griefs abstracted from them and heightned to the utmost So Jesus Christ bare all our Infirmities and took our Griefs though he was never sick On the Contrary all the Good all the Joyes in the Creature are a Weak Tincture of Divine Love The Shadow of St. Peter as hâ— passed along healed the sick All the Sweetness and Pleasure in things here is the Shadow onely of Divine Love falling upon them All the Joy in any heart here is the Shadow onely of Divine Love cast over it The Love of God is poured forth Purely in the Person of Christ. There Love is a Substance no Accident There Love is Infinite being allayed or limited by no mixture Our Saviour in Glory is Divine Love in the Abstract It is a Weak Glance of Divine Love like the Sunshine here below cast upon the Water or a Looking-Glass which maketh the Beauty the Sweetness of all Colours Figures Motions in the Creature It is a remote Touch of Divine Love like the Ends of the Sun-beams reflected in a Burning-Glass which maketh the Pleasantness and Pleasant Properties of all Plants the Lustre Gracefulness Virtue of all Precious Stones and Pearls the Joy of all Relations The Beauty the Sweetness of all Colours Features Motions the Pleasantness the Pleasant Properties of all Plants the Lustre Gracefulness Virtue Life of all Precious Stones Pearls heavenly Bodies heavenly Spirits the Joyes of all Relations are contained Eminently with an Infinite Enlargement an Infinite heightning in this Divine Face This Tree Pearl this Union the Unity the Purity of Eternal Love in our Glorified Jesus O Sinner come cast thy self freely into the Bosom of thy Saviour Here thou fallest immediately into a Sea of Pure Love Open thy Mouth wide enlarge all thy Faculties to drink in the Sweetness of Pure Love pouring itself by Floods and Seas into thee Feel the Transcendent virtue of Pure Love transforming thee thy heart thy Person into a rich clear and heavenly Pearl in this Sea O Saints swim continually in this Sea of Pure Love the Bosom of your Glorified Saviour Feel the Transcendent Virtue of Pure Love dissolving you also into a Sea of pure Love a Sea of Glass and Fire a Sea of Pure Chrystal Divine Beauty without any Spot of Flesh or Earth Darkness or Death a Sea of Pure Chrystal shining and burning with a Pure Flame of heavenly Joyes without any Smoak of Lusts or Passions Obj. how is the Love of God Pure in Christ Is there not in the Lord Jesus a mixture of Love and Wrath He saith of himself in one place All Judgment is given to the Son of Man He adjudgeth to Hell and to Torments as well as to Heaven and to Joys Matt. 25. Jesus Christ is represented as a King upon the Throne in Glory in the Judgment of the last day v 31. He maketh Separation between the Sheep and Goats v. 32. He setteth the Sheep at his Right hand in the Place of Power Honour and Love He setteth the Goats at his Left hand on his Wrath-side v. 33. He passeth the Sentence of Love upon One inviting them as Blessed Ones to the Kingdom of Love prepared for them of the Father in Eternity v. 34. He passeth a Sentence of Wrath upon the other sending them away with a Curse into the Hell fire with the Devils v. 40. How is the Love of God poured forth Purely without
of that Sacrament pointing out the Truth figured in that Type The Lord Jesus is a Husband to Thee in his own Blood Thou must also be a Spouse to him in thine own Blood St Paul saith Ye are dead to your first Husband by the Dead Body of Christ that ye may be married to another to him who is risen from the Dead Rom. 7. 4. You must come thorow the Death of Christ into his Marriage-Bed You cannot lye down in the Embraces of his Love in Glory except ye be first married to his Crucified Body and united to that in the Embraces of Death Flesh and Blood saith St Paul cannot enter into the Kingdom of God into the Kingdom of Spiritual Love If a Fleshly a Natural Spirit striveth to enter into the Love of God in the Glorified Person of our Lord Jesus it â—alleth short of the Truth the Life it attaineth to a Similitude only The Love and Glory of the Father of Christ of Heaven to the most raised Spirit of this Creation is an Enchantment Delusion a Dream This Gâ—ace of God in the Figure this Divine Love in a Dream is for the most part turned into Wantonness Lust. So men become in the heighth of the Purest Notions of the Sweetest Images no more than Filthy Dreamers The Death of Christ in the New Birth in Purity and Power of the holy Ghost is the Angel with a Flaming Sword turning every way which keepeth the Entrance into the True Paradise the Way to the Tree of Divine Love as well as of Divine Life The Eternal Spirit is the Flaming Sword Death here in its outward form is an Angel ministring to this Spirit He that dieth by this Sword and Flame in the hand of this Angel cutteth off burneth up all Fleshly Forms and Lives is in the same moment new-born into a Divine Immortal Spirit In this Spirit he entereth into the Paradise of Love in the Third Heavens above the Heaven of Sense or all things Visible above the Heaven of Reason Angels all things Invisible Intellectual of the First Creation in the Glorified Person of Christ. Here nothing entereth which hurteth or defilâ—th But be not discouraged when ye hear of a Baptism in Death before the Heavens open and the Dove Divine Love descend to rest upon you to give you rest in itself It is Love itself which is the Baptiser which leadeth you and goeth down with you into Death It is a River of Love which is the Jordan the Death into which you go down and are baptised We are baptised St. Paul saith in the forementioned place into the Similitude of Christ's Death The Death of Christ was Death in Truth a Substantial Real Death The Death of Christ in a Saint is Eternal Love Eternal Life in the Likeness and Form of Death a Similitude onely of Death in a Substance of Immortal Love and Glory in the Person of our Jesus ascended Use. 4. Take heed of mingling the Lusts of the Flesh with Spiritual Loves Jealousy is the Rage of God as well as of Man It burneth to the Foundations of the Earth A Fly bred out of Dung so infested the Eagle that it forced him to lay his Eggs for safety in the Lap of Jupiter the Heathen-God The Fly mounteth up aloft carrieth up some Dung with it letteth it fall into Jupiter's lap He arising and shaking the Dung out of his Lap shaketh ouâ— the Eagle's Eggs with it which fall broken to pieces upon the ground This is a Fable The Moral is good Thou art a Saint Thou layest the Births of the Divine Spirit in Thee thy Graces Hopes Joyes with thy self in the Bosom of Divine Love O take heed that thy Flesh that Dung-Fly mingle nothing of its Filth with these Births of the Spirit in the Pure Bosom of Heavenly Love If it do assure thy self that Love will cast all the Filth all Flesh out of its Chast and Spiritual Embraces As that falleth to the Ground thou also wilt fall with it and have many a broken bone many a broken heart We read in the Revelation of the Dragon and his Angels in Heaven together with Michael and his Angels But they fought there till the Dragon and his Angels were cast out Thou O Believer art a Heaven in which God dwelleth as Love where all the Angels as Angels of Love where all Forms of things are as Heavenly Angels of Pure Love round about him ministring to him Shall there be now seen in this Heaven in thy Person O Believer silthy Lusts furious Passions the Dragon and his Angels together with the Lord Jesus Divine Love and its holy Angels How hateful how horrid a Wonder What a Prodigy is this If it be so let there be no rest in the Heaven of thy Spirit let there be a continual Fight until the Dragon with his Angels the Fleshly Spirit with its Lusts and Passions be cast out When the Unclean Dog and the fiery Dragon are no more Thy Lamb will feed and lye down to rest thy Turtle will make its Nest and enjoy its Mate its Beloved in quiet Nothing shall disturb or make them afraid in all the Paradise of Divine Love Use. 5. Comfort your selves O Believers You travel thorough the Valley of Baca Baca signifieth a Mulberry Tree and Weeping You travel thorow a Valley of Tears a Mournful Valley where all the Trees that grow are Mulberry Trees Emblems of Grief and Wo. You are frequently overspread with the black Shades of Fear Unbelief Doubt Distrust Despair You often fall into the hands of violent Robbers Evil Spirits in the forms of various Temptations Corruptions Passions These spoil you leave you naked wounded desolate You dig up pits in Duties Ordinances But many times no Rain no Descent of the Spirit from Heaven filleth these Pits Yet be not discouraged all you who believe the Love of God in Jesus Christ. Strengthen the feeble Knees You shall go on from Strength to Strength from Light to Light so you shall come every one of you at last to a Clear Sight to a Compleat Fruition of the God of Gods on Mount Sion of God in his Supreme Glory in the Nakedness Purity Simplicity Unity of the Eternal Spirit Lift up the feeble hands These weak Graces of yours mixt interrupted with so much Corruption These weak Persons Bodies and Spirits wearied wounded stained with so many Sufferings Sins and Sorrows shall be crowned with perfect Glory For why Pure Love Almighty Love That Love which is itself God over all Blessed for ever This Love comes forth casting off all vails pouring forth itself from all its Eternal Springs in all its Infinite Fulnesses in the Glorified Person of Christ This Love hath begun and shall it not make an End As Certainly as it hath laid the Foundation and you have cried to it Grace Grace Pure Love Preventing Love as Certainly as it hath gone on to build you up thus far and still you have cried to it Grace Grace Pure Love
Assisting Love so certainly will it lay the Top-stone Your Eyes shall see it You shall in like manner cry to it with a Shout of Angels and Blessed Spirits all round about you Grace Grace Pure Love Finishing Love There are Three Sorts of Comforts which the Finishing Love of God in Christ ministreth to us 1. Against the Difficulties of Life 2. Against the Darkness of Death 3. Against the Dreadfulness of the Great and Last Day 1. Comfort against the Difficulties of Life St. Paul had prayed thrice against the Thorn in his Flesh and the Buffetings of Satan He receiveth this Answer My Grace is sufficiâ—nt for thee My Strength is perfected in Weakness I rejoyce therefore gladly in my Infirmities For when I am weak the Power of Christ resteth upon me My Grace You have there the Father the Fountain of Love the Fountain of Free Grace You have at the end of the verse the Lord Jesus Glorified into whom this Fountain floweth continually covering his Person all over without filling it all within with the Gâ—ories Immortalities and Joys of Divine Love This Jesus resteth upon St Paul in the Power in the Perfection of All his Loves He maketh Perfect he finisheth his Loves the Pure and heavenly Work of his Loves upon him when he is weakest The Holy Ghost discovereth a Mystery here A Mystery is a Divine Secret A Divine Glory with a Divine Vail cast over it a Divine Light surrounded with a Divine Darkness The Head of Christ all Pure Fine Gold covered with Locks and Curles black as a Raven The Mystery which the Holy Ghost here unvaileth to us is One of the richest and sweetest among all the Mysteries of the Gospel It is the Mystery of Love of Finishing Love Blessed are those Eyes that see the Glory Blessed are those Hearts that understand and rellish the Sweetness of This Mystery It is This When Divine Love would put forth itself in Greatest Power and Glory when it would finish make Perfect the general or any Particular Work of Love in us it chooseth that Season when we are weakest lowest have least of Loveliness Life Love or Suitableness to Love when we are in the greatest unlikelyhood for it when we seem to be at the greatest Distance from it Cant. 6. v. 12. The Spouse is brought in speaking thus Ere I was aware my Soul made me as the Chariots of Amminadib I have not Learning enough to understand why Amminadib is set here as One Proper name whenas in the Hebrew there are Two distinct Words which have their common signification and are rendered in the Margint of the Bible My Willing People Moreover that word As is put in by the Translatours and where we read Made me the Original properly is expressed by Set me The words thâ—n run thus in the Hebrew Text Ere I was aware or I knew not I knew not how I knew nothing of it my Soul set me the Chariots of my Willing People or by the Addition of One Preposition understood My Soul set me in the Chariots of my willing people It will be worth our time and pains if we stay a little upon the opening of this verse We shall find a Spiritual a heavenly Treasure in it and bring the Application home to our hearts more Clearly more Comfortably There are Four Questions which may be made here 1. Qu. Who this People are which the heavenly Bride calleth My People 2 Qu. What the Willing People are 3 Qu. What the Chariots are 4. How the Soul of the Bride setteth her In these Chariots or maketh her As these Chariots 1. Qu. Who the heavenly Bride 's own People are Answ. These whom the Spiritual Bride calleth Her own Pâ—ople are Heavenly Spirits in Glory It was said of Jacob when he died He was gathered to his People While a holy Soul is in this World she is as an unknown Princess under a Disguise in a strange land the language whereof she understandeth not In Death this Princess-Bride returneth home to her own People to her own Kindred her own Relations and Acquaintances There all understand the languages Faces and hearts of Each other There they mutually drink in the Spirits of Each Other and in the Spirits of Each other all Pure Immortal Loves Beauties Joys There is another Scripture which commenteth upon this and confirmeth our Explication of it It is Eccles. 12. 7. The Dust returneth to the Earth as it was The Spirit to God who gave it That which is translated God is in the Plural Number Gods often applyed to the Angels The Jews say it signifieth God cum Indumentis suis as he cloatheth himself with the Forms of Angels and appeareth in them The Soul of a Saint cometh forth from the Land of Angels and Glorious Spirits in the midst of which God reigneth into this World as into an Exile or Banishment When it dieth then it goeth home to its own Countrey and People to its own City and Fellow-Citizens The Inhabitants of the heavenly Jerusalem the Mother of us all I shall add one Text more which will make all the rest Clear Hebr. 11. 14 15 16. The Saints there are said to seek a Countrey The Word is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Their Native Countrey Then to prevent a mistake you are told that this Native Countrey was not that from which they came on Earth It is distinguished from that and plainly called A heavenly Country Their Native Land which is a heavenly Countrey Behold those whom the Spouse of Christ calleth My People The Inhabitants of the City of the Living God her heavenly Countrey her Native Land above the Heavens as the word beareth These are described in the Epistle to the Hebrews The Assembly of the First-born all Forms of things all the Saints in Spiritual Beings and Beauties in the Likeness of Christ as he is the first-born of every Creature before they descend from their Thrones of Pure Glory from their Virgin-Lustre and Sweetness in the Bosom of Christ into Flesh upon the Earth The Innumerable Company of Angels the Glorious Attendants of the Saints in their higher and First-born Glory The Spirits of just men made Perfect either in the Body or out of the Body come to this heavenly Land Living walking and conversing there among the Inhabitants of this Land in the Spirit These are Thy People Thine own People O Believer O thou Blessed Bride of thy Glorified Jesus You have the Answer to the First Question 2 Qu. What are the Willing People Answ. Again I am ignorant why the same word is rendred in the Margin of this Scripture Willing when as immediately after Cant. 7. 1. The same word Nadib is translated Prince O Prince's Daughter or O Princely Daughter If I mistake not the Church is spoken of in that Chapter as being now in Glory upon the Throne You have this word Nadib used to the same sense of the same Subject Psal. 110. 3. Thy People shall be Willing in the day of thy
these so far as you stand in a Spiritual Principle are as another Heaven the Heaven of Heavens the Pallace of the great King which he fills with his Glory where he heeps his Court sits upon his Throne 3. The Saints have communion with God in his Temple In the Temple was the Golden Mercy-Seat There saith God will I commune with thee This was overspread with Cherubims of Glory as St. Paul calls them These Cherubims covered this Golden Mercy-Seat with their Wings and so made the State or Glory about the Throne This is therefore called the secret of the most high and the shadow of the Almighty where a Saint is said to dwell and to lodge Hear O ye Saints what glorious things are spoken of your Bodies be Spiritual and behold in these Temples the Golden Mercy-Seat which is the glorified Person of Christ and the Cherubims of Glory covering it with their Wings and God here upon this Golden Mercy-Seat the glorified Bosom of Christ from between the Wings of the Cherubims ready alwaies to commune with you yea taking you up upon this Golden Mercy-Seat within the Wings of the Cherubims to commune freely with him at all seasons in this secret of eternal safety rest love joy and glory This Temple is the Body of a Saint while he liveth below but now it is in too great a degree covered with a cloud of Flesh filled with the smoak of the Spirit of this world that a Saint too rarely enters into this Temple of the holy Ghost in his own Body and more rarely seeth with any degree of clearness the Glory or heareth the voice of the blessed Spirit there What joy is it to think in what a purely sacred and Divine Temple in what a clear and shining Pallace of the eternal King in what open and unstained unvailed visions of Divine Glory in what a secret in what a presence of glorious Angels and Eternal Spirits in the midst of what sweet overshadowings dear encompassings naked outshinings of the Eternal Spirit in what most blessed most ravishing Communion of Eternal Light Life and Love with this Spirit in what sight and embraces with what kisses of incomprehensible Beauties in the sound of what words what salutations what wooings what expressions of the highest Loves and Joys from the Eternal Spirit a Saint finds himself even in his own proper Body in the very moment of his Death when departing out of this Life at once he departs for ever out of the Fleshly Image and the Spirit of this World 4. The Divine Presence and Glory was the defence of the Temple Esa. 4. 5. There is a Prophesy concerning the times of the Gospel expressed by figures taken from the state of things under the Law And the Lord will create upon every â—welling place of Mount Sion and upon her Assemblies a Cloud and smoak by day and the shining of a flaming fire by night For upon all the Glory shall be a defence or a covering When the first Temple was to be destroyed the Prophet Ezekiel saw the Glory removing off from it afterwards when the second Temple was near its end a voice was heard in it saying Let us be gone from hence which was understood to be the voice of God and of his holy Angels with all those invisible companies and Ministers which made up the Glory of the Divine Presence as Nobles Officers and Guards make up the Court of a King O Saints why do you fear for your Bodies hidden Conspiracies or open force diseases the fury of the Elements the malice of Men or Devils These Bodies of yours are the Temples of the Holy Ghost Here are the Holy Assemblies of all the Heavenly Company in the unity of the Spirit whose Temples your Bodies are Of these it is Prophesied to these it is promised that God will create upon them a cloud and a smoak by day the shining of a flaming fire by night Upon these the Glory is a defence or a covering God himself with all his holy Ones his Angels his Watchmen his ministring Spirits is this Cloud this Glory which is the defence and covering upon your whole Persons your Bodies as well as your Souls both have together with Christ a hidden Life a secure Life in this secret of God within this covering of this Divine Cloud Flame and Glory From off these Temples of your Bodies this Glory never removes From within these Temples of your Bodies this heavenly Company never departs for as much as the union in the Spirit of Grace under the Gospel is Eternal Thus the Bodies also of Believers in this Life are the Temples of the Holy Ghost All things in them here are divine Figures of a divine Glory They are filled and covered with the Glory itself They are the seats of the freest Communion with this Glory being the Temples of the God of Gods and so the Pallaces of the King of Kings All this is true of them here as they stand in a Spiritual Principle and in union with Christ by the new birth But this Life is a mixt State We stand partly in a Spiritual partly in a Fleshly Principle These Temples of our Bodies are covered with a corrupt Flesh that we can hardly discern their Spiritual Beauties They are too frequently in too great a part filled with a smoak of Hell the smoak of the Spirit of this world that a Believer can rarely enter into this Temple of his Body to behold and converse with the Glory there This is the precious the blessed work of Death in a Believer It breaketh the union it maketh a separation not between Christ and a Believer not between the Soul and Body of a Believer as they are joyned together in Christ by the band and unity of the Eternal Spirit and make one Spiritual Man or Person in Christ but between the precious and the vile between the Carnal and Spiritual Principle of a Saint both in Soul and Body Now in the moment of Death the Soul and Body of a Saint come forth immediately clear and shining Temples of the Spirit the smoak and clouds of the Fleshly Principles and of this worldly Image being for ever driven away from within them and from without Thus you understand St. Pauls sweet and blessed sense of Death when he speaketh of the Body and saith 1 Corin. 5. 1. 2. That we shall not be found naked but be cloathed upon from above with a building of God Eternal in the Heavens which shall swallow up mortality in life Our Spiritual Body which we have in this life by our new Birth as we stand in our Spiritual Principle is this Divine Building sprung from a Divine Root of a Divine Nature or Substance of a Divine Form and Workmanship This is ever in Heaven being inseparably united to Christ and being ever in the Spirit This is Eternal when we die this casts off the Cloud of corrupt and cursed Flesh. This springs forth out of its Spiritual Principle
Death This World with all its Powers and Principalities the life of this World the Cross itself and Death which had so long captivated the Lord Jesus with all the Powers Beauties Joys and Glories of his Heavenly Image binding them in Chains of Darkness within the Dungeon of this Earthly Image whose light is darkness are now themselves in the Person of our Lord Jesus in his Soul and Body together with his Captivity itself carryed up as he ascends and made Captives to that Heavenly Image which they held Captive Here in this Pallace of the Spirit and of Eternity where Darkness itself shines as the Light they are seen as the Captives of the Lord Jesus bound in Chains of Glory spectacles to all the Holy Angels and Blessed Spirits in which the Beauties of Christs Victory and Triumph as so many ravishing Wonders of an Incomprehensible of a Mysterious Power Wisdom Love Glory Divinity subduing all things entirely to themselves eternally shine This honour have all the Saints in their Deaths by the vertue of their Saviours Death by vertue of their fellowship with him and his fellowship with them mutually in their several Deaths all in each Death dying together Where now is the Melancholy of Death and of the Grave It is swallowed up into the Divine Pomp and Pleasure of a most Glorious Victory and Triumph O Saint What fearest thou in Death Or thou who fearest not to be dead why fearest thou to die If thou rejoicest in the Glory of thy departed Soul why mournest thou over thy Body as left behind in a naked and loathsome Prison The act of dying to both is the gaining of a Glorious Victory over the Life and Death the Powers and Principalities of this whole World The passage itself out of this Life is a Glorious Triumph to thy Soul and Body both which with all the Triumphal Ornaments of the Light of Life and Immortality ride forth in the Chariot of the Heavenly Image and the Eternal Spirit over the Spirit and all the forms of this Creation which lie conquered under your Feet In the very moment of your dying all the Powers and Appearances of Nature which rule in the Kingdoms of Sense and Reason are lost for ever so that their place where once they reigned in your Persons knows them no more You sit down upon the Throne of Christ and the Father together with them All the Births Images and changes of time are swallowed up into the bright the beautiful the most delightful depths of Eternity the unfathomable depths of purest Light Love and Joy immediately as Triumphant Conquerors and Kings you are encompassed with the ravishing applauses and shouts of innumerable Angels of Immortal and Glorious spirits springing up and shining forth in all the places of this World where its Light or Darkness Life or Death seemed before to stand You see all these with a Heavenly Musick and Songs of Triumph setting Garlands and Crowns of Victory on your Heads immediately as you pass out of the Light of this Life you see your selves received your Souls and your Bodies both with the most delicious kisses into the Eternal Embraces of the Father and of Christ in that Unity of the Spirit which is the unfathomable center of all Lights Loves and Joys of all beautiful and blissful Spirits created and uncreated All now for ever are filling full your Joys in themselves and fulfilling their Joys in you 4. Scrip. Heb. 2. 14. That he by dying might destroy him who had the power of Death that is the Devil and set them free who all their life time were subject to bondage by the fear of Death The word Power in this place signifieth properly a Prince with a Principality or Dominion This whole world is the Principality of the Devil For the Devil is called in Scripture the Prince of this world All Flesh every thing of Nature and of this Creation is comprehended under that name as it is distinguished from and opposed to the Spirit and the new Creation in the Spirit the Kingdom of God in the Holy Ghost and is the Principality of the Devil All Darkness every shadow every evil of Sin or Suffering of Corruption and the Curse of Shame Deformity Pain Grief and Wrath as all these are expressed in the Scripture and in common Language with every other kind or degree of Evil by Darkness are the Principality of the Devil For the Devil is called the Prince of Darkness Death is the Devils Principality who in this Scripture is called the Power or Prince of Death All this then hath Jesus Christ by dying destroyed in his own Person this World the Principles and Forms of Nature the Life and Images of Flesh every Darkness inward or outward of mind or sense Death itself For all these lie within the Principality of the Devil and are his Region his Kingdom without the bounds of this Dominion all things are Light Life Love Joy Immortality Spirit and Truth As it is Jesus who dies again in the Death of every Saint as the Death of every Saint is the Death of Christ acted over again in the similitude by the vertue of his Death so doth every Saint as he is one Spirit with Christ after the like manner by dying destroy the Principality the Kingdom of the Devil in his Person also For this is said to be the end of Christ in his Death that he might free all the Saints from the fear of Death O Believers Let your Saviour gain his end upon you and end of most tender Love Be no more in bondage to the fear of Death Let the Lord Jesus see the seed of his Death springing up in your Deaths a Glorious and Divine Seed of Life and Immortality springing up in the place of Death and swallowing it up into Victory Lay aside now for ever those melancholy and delusive Imaginations of Death as a separation of those tenderest Bosom-Friends Soul and Body a separation from your dearest Relations and entertainments the delights of your Eyes an extinguishing of the sweet Light of Life a dismal solitude a perpetual Darkness the Confinement of the Body to the nakedness coldness streightness and horrour of the Grave Dust Stones and Bones covering it and ratling over it Worms feeding upon it the Soul naked and alone taking its flight through a vast distance of empty air and space to another place These are the Forms and Appearances of Death to the Dead only Those who follow Jesus Christ in that living and shining way in which he went thorow Death meet with none of these appalling and affrightful Apparitions Let the Dead bury their Dead saith Jesus Christ to his Disciples but follow thou me Understand this O Believers that all Shadows all Forms of Darkness and of Death are from below Earthly Sensual Devilish from the Earth from the Natural Soul and from the Devil as St. James speaks All this Image and sense of things is that Kingdom of the Devil which together
his spouse this Soul or this Body which he hath spoused as chast Virgins to himself to see Corruption No no my Bride-groom with all his Lights of Glory and the Father of lights in him will accompany this Darling-Soul and Darling-Body his pair of Doves which are to him as his two eyes through Death and the Grave There will he filling all things round about me with his shining Beauties make me to see the Path of Life Immortality all composed of innumerable Angels of Glory or the innumerable Glories of the Godhead as the Milky way in Heaven is said to be composed with innumerable Stars thick set Thorow all the shades of Death shall I behold all pleasantnesses in his Face shining forth upon me with a fresh Glory as a new Sun turning those Shades into a flowry and perfumed Arbour in the Heavenly Paradise I shall be continually at his right hand where pleasures are for evermore without mixture interruption or end Thus is his right hand which is the heighth and Fountain of Life and Pleasures the beginning of my Life my strength and guide in my way my end in Death We have finished the answers to the objection against the Immortality and Glory of the Body of a Saint together with the Soul in Death which was taken from the Body itself and strengthened by the particular consideration of the Body of Christ in Death and in the Grave We have finished the distinction between the two Bodâ—es the Body of Death in a Saint and the proper Body of a Saint which is an insâ—parable Member in the Spiritual and Heavenly Body of Christ and the Temple of the Holy Ghost as the Soul is We come now to the last objection taken from the resurrection of the Body at the last day which seems to be without any sense if our Bodies become Glorious and Immortal at our Death This Objection is answered by the distinction of three eminent steps or degrees in the resurrection from the Dead I shall take my ground upon which I shall build this answer and distinction from St. John Chap. 11. v. 25. these are the words of our Lord Jesus in that place I am the Resurrection and the Life He that lives and believes in me shall never die He that beliâ—ves in me though he were dead yet shall he live The Lord Jesus is here comforting Martha mourning over her dead Brother He propounds to her the comfort and Joy of his Resurrection Thy Brother saith he shall rise again That which would have been a present and powerful Joy looked upon with a Spiritual eye in a Light of Glory becomes to Martha a faint and far distant Joy while she looks upon the Resurrection a great way off at the end of the World So she answereth the Lord Jesus Yea Lord I know that my Brother shall rise again at the last Day The Lord Jesus scattereth this Cloud of Flesh by shining out upon Martha in the Brightness and Glory of his Heavenly and Divine Person as that Invisible and Eternal Sun which is at once the Fountain and Treasury of all Lights Lives and Forms of things in a state of Perfection and unchangeableness The Lord as he shineth out upon her annointeth the eyes of her mind with his Spirit and the Light of his appearance to see him as he is in the fulness of Glory as the fulness of the Glory of God and of all things dwelleth in him as he is the same and all things in him are the same yesterday to day and for ever I saith he am the Resurreâ—tion and the Life The latter of these is the cause and demonstration of the former It will not seem strange to him who seeth the Lord Jesus to be the Life of all things all things in their most exact distinction to be living perfectly and Eteâ—nally in him in the vast and unbounded Circle of the Unity of his Person and Spirit as in a secret Paradise a Field of Light and bliss above the Heavens and yet invisibly present every where that he should at his Pleasure bring forth things which have disappeared here by Death into new appearances as Resurrections from the Dead and present them again to our eye in the same Forme in which they before conversed with them not as Pâ—antasms or as empty Apparitions but real and Substantial Thus to Martha inlightned by this Spiritual Vision of Christ it was easie to understand that Jesus Christ could give her Brother Lazarus again out of his Grave living into her Arms even at that present time Having thus cleared my ground for my ensuing discourse by the opening of the words I procced to my distinction of a threefold eminent degree in the Resurrection from the Dâ—ad 1. The first eminent step or degree in the Resurrection from the dead is Regeneration which signifieth a new birth a second birth to be born again of God after the Death of that Life which we receive from him by our first Generation as Sons of God by the Creation 2. The Second eminent step or degree in the Resurrection from the Dead is the Natural Death 3. The last eminent step and degree is the Resurrection of the Dead at the last day 1. I shall begin with the first of these that the difference between these thâ—â—e Resurrections may more clearly appear I shall lay it down in the form of a Doctrine Doct. Regeneration is a Resurrection from the Dead St Paul clearly so expresseth it Eph. 5. v. 14. wherefore he saith Awake thou that sleepest and arise from the Dead and Christ shall give thee Light Behold three things here 1. A Sleep 2. The Awakening from this Sleep 3. The cause of Awakening 1. Here is a sleep Thou that sleepest Every man in his Natural state is a divine Spirit an Immortal Soul an Image of God a Son of God in a deep Sleep The Natural Sleep is defined to be a perfect ligation or binding up of all the senses outward or inward But this is an unnatural Sleep into which we are cast by the Enchantments and Power of the Devil It is the Sleep of Sin O man all thy senses and faculties outward and inward which were true pure and divine in the Similitude of God whilst they were awake and at liberty were continually feasted with divine Objects they possessed and enjoyed a Paradise in themselves But how are they now fallen asleep how are they bound up Thou now no more seest hearest tastest feelest understandest enjoyest any sweet beam of truth any thing of the Harmonious Musick of the delicate Relish of the soft Embraces of the immutable all-satisfying Reality and Substance of pure Love pure Light pure Beauty pure Joy pure Goodness Every thing pleasant every thing Real every thing Divine is to thee as if it were not at all Yet is not thy sleep quiet All this which thou seemest to thy self to hear to see to understand to converse with by any of thy senses or faculties
is a Dream in thy sleep a â—delusive a defiling a melancholy Dream where false and filthy showes of Pleasures are mingled with tumultuous disquiets confusions torments fears and Horrours This Sleep is the Sleep of Death not a Natural and momentany Death which is a meer cessation of Life with a rest from all its troubles but a living Death the second Death a Hellish Death the Death of damned Spâ—rits Thus are Sleep and Death joyned here Awake thou that sleepest and stand up from the Dead This Sleep is a true Death and this Death is truely a Sleep a living Death or an unquiet Sleep full of evil Dreams 2. The second thing is the Awakening The Awakening out of this Sleep is also a Resurrection from the Dead Awake thou that sleepest and stand up from the Dead This is the Regeneration or new Birth by which the soul is raised up from the Sleep and Death of Sin into the Light of Life and Immortality 3. The third thing is the cause of this Awakening And Christ shall give thee Light And here signifies as much as For by a common Hebraism Thus you are to read it Awake thou that sleepest and stand up from the Dead for Christ shall give thee Light This will be plain if you look to that Scripture from which this is taken Isaia 60. 1. v. Arise shâ—ne for thy Light is come and the Glory of the Lord is risen upon thee St. Paul applies this to the Lord Jesus and a Sinner in the work of Conversion or Regeneration Poor Sinner thou sleepest in a dark and miry Dungeon of Sensuality Lust Passion Ignorance Unbelief Despair like Peter sleeping in Prison bound with two Souldiers on each side him so thou sleepest in the dark Prison of the flesh and this World in the midst of Devils with whom thou art chained and bound Thou liest dead in this dead Image of things as in a Grave of Corruption and Rottenness Behold the Lord Jesus full of the Beauties of Holiness full of the unsearchable Riches of Divine Love shineth upon thee with a Light of Glory He who is the Light and Glory of God of Heaven of Eternity as he shineth upon thee giveth thee Light infuseth this Light of Glory into thee by giving himself to thee by infusing himself into thee by springing up himself within thee as he shineth from without upon thee Thus he awakens thee Thus awakened stand up from the Dead For Christ giveth thee Light The work of Regeneration which is a true Resurrection from Death to Life will be more clearly understood by considering it in these four Circumstances 1. The Life which is raised again 2. The Death out of which this Life is raised 3. The Resurrection itself 4. The way of this Resurrection 1. The life which is raised again is twofold 1. One Life is that of Paradise at the beginning of Time We had an earthly head in Paradise in whom we all stood and subsisted together in the Garden of Eden or of Divine Pleasures There we were clothed with a Divine Image and enjoyed a Divine Life We were made in the similitude of God and lived a life like to that of God himself St. Paul speaks of this Life Rom. 7. 9. v. For I was alive without the Law once I know that this Scripture is generally applied to the convincing and the condemning Power of the Law So St. Paul is understood here to speak of that Life of Pleasure and satisfaction to his own deceived mind and senses which he enjoyed in sin before he felt the work of the Law upon his Heart convincing him of the Evil of Sin But whoever well considers this Scripture will very plainly see that it cannot bear this sense For 1. The scope of this place is to shew that which is expressed at the 5th Verse That the Motions of Sin are by the Law which work in our Members to bring forth fruit unto Death 2. The objection which is made at the 7th verse what shall we say then is the Law sin can have no ground in any other sense than this that Sin itself takes life from the Law 3. St. Paul expresly proceeds in his reasoning by these steps verse 8th 9th Sin taking occasion by the Commandment wrought in me all manner of concupiscence He proves that by this Argument for without the Law sin was dead The force of the connection makes it clear that the death of sin here meant is not the death in Sin with stupidity and security but a Life free from the power and pollution of Sin This is explained and illustrated by another Argument For I was alive without the Law once While all things stood in the sâ—â—plicity and unity of the Divine Image undivided the Light and the Darkness no where appearing as two but as one in one Divine Spirit in one Divine Harmony There was nothing from which sin could take life Now St. Paul lived now as he so we lived and all Mankind according to our several properties and distinct Persons in Paradise together with Adam in Adam who was the Earthly Head and collective Body of us all like Christ in Heaven 2. The other Life which is raised again in the Regeneration is the Life of Heaven in Eternity Before and above our Earthly Head we had a Head in Heaven in Eternity the Lord Jesus in whose Image and Similitude Adam was Created to be a Figure of him In this heavenly and eternal Head had we a Heavenly and Eternal Life Our Heavenly Life in Eternity is as the Light Our Earthly Life in Paradise as the Shadow to this Light O thou who art now as a Dunghil covered with and composed of the most loathsom pollutions and defilements of Sin who art withered in all thy Beauties Hopes and Comforts who art sunk deepest into despair who art now no more a Man but a Worm the worst of Worms the seed of the Serpent See from whence thou art fallen what once thou wert what Lives what Joys what Glories lie buried in thee Thou wert once a beautiful Prince like the Morning Star Thou wert once the Perfection of Beauty and Pleasantness in the Figure in Paradise in Adam Thou wert once the Perfection of Beauty in the Life itself in Heaven in Eternity in the Lord Jesus Whither are these Beauties now fled How do these Beautiful Lives now lie as in the Grave covered with the Darkness of Death The Psalmist saith to the Lord That the Saints pity the Dust of Sion and take Pleasure in the Stones thereof O all you who hear and read this In your selves in each other see pity take Pleasure in the Ruins of the Divine Life of the Divine Image of Paradise of Heaven with all their Beauties Joys and Glories See the Lord Jesus from Heaven looking upon them with an eye of pity and delight Let this be a Beam of hope to you shining from his face into the midst of the Darkness of your Guilt Defilements
and despair that by him these beautiful and blessed Lives may rise again 2. The Death out of which this Life is raised is that of Sin and of the Curse for Sin Eph. 2. 1. v. St. Paul saith we were dead in Sin Hear and read this O man with sighs and tears with trembling and terrour Thy Life it self is now a Death and a cursed Death such a Death as makes the difference between an Angel in Glory and a Devil in Hell The corruption of the best things is worst The fall of the highest and greatest things makes the greatest and most dreadful Ruine The Divine Life is dead the Divine Image is fallen in thee Thou art dead in Sin Sin lived and I died saith St. Paul in the forementioned place A Life of Darkness shame Disorder deformity enmity the Life and Image of Hell and Devils are sprung up in thee and are become a Grave of hate and horrour which hath swallowed up the Life the Image of Love Beauty and Joy of Heaven of Angels of God into a cursed Victory in thee All the stings and terrours of the first death in the separation of the Soul and Body are all the secret burnings of this Hellish fire of the Death in Sin now quite consuming the broken Relicks of the Divine Light and sweetness in the Flesh and enlarging itself into the second Death as into an eternal Flame of Wrath and torment Look up oh man see this whole World of these Heavens and this Earth as a Charnel-house or a dark Vault for the Dead See thy self in this Body as a melancholy Coffin in the midst of this Vault where thine own Divine Life and Image with ten thousand blessed Lives the Life of Christ of Paradise of Heaven lie dead and buried See this place in which now thou art the smoaky porch and gloomy entrance into Hell like a cloudy Evening to that dismal Night See thy self walking here as a wretched Ghost and Shade in the midst of the Dead in the midst of cursed Apparitions from below and thy self together with all these ready every moment to vanish into everlasting Darkness and Flames This is the Death out of which the Divine Life is raised in the first Resurrection or the Regeneration 3. The Resurrection of this Life out of this Death is to be declared in its first step which is the Regeneration or New-birth The Divine Nature which lies hid at the bottom and in the center of the Soul lives there to itself with its Heavenly and Earthly Image as in the Secret of its own twofold Paradise whereof one was never yet revealed in any Creature until Christ the other with drew itself hither from the sight of the Soul at the Fall This Divine Nature as to the Soul itself whose Root it is of whose Being it is the only Life and Truth lies slain by the Life of Sin and buried in its own Ruines beneath the Darkness and Confusion of the Corrupt the Fleshly and the Hellish Image This Divine Nature in the moment of Regeneration or Conversion is new-born in the Soul or which is the same the Soul is new-born into the Divine Nature and comes forth with a new and Divine Being into a new and Divine World This change is called a Birth because the Divine Nature as the Seed of God sown in the Soul diffuseth itself thorough the Soul changeth the Soul into one Nature and Life with itself so bringeth forth itself in the soul and the Soul together with itself in its own Divine Life and Likeness The Eternal Spirit is the Father of this Birth which sendeth forth this holy Seed This Spirit is also the Mother For in the naked Bosom of the Eternal Spirit at once the Seed of God is sown in the soul and the Soul is sown as a new Seed sent forth immediately from God wrapt up in the Seed of God The Spirit also itself is this Seed For so the Lord Jesus saith John 3. That which is born of the Spirit is Spirit This New birth is said to be from above because it is immediately from God the Birth of God as he is in the Simplicity of his Godhead uncloathed of every Vail infinitely transcending all created powers and perfections This Birth is expressed by being born again as a second Birth For man was first born unto a Divine Light and Image in Pâ—radise where he aâ—so dyed to this Life and Image unto which he is now born a second time That was a Shadow onely This the Shadow and the Substance both in Union This Birth is also called a Resurrection and is truely so upon this account That same Divine Person in his own proper and individual Existency which died in Paradise which ever since hath lien slain and buried in the corrupt sinful Person sprung up in its place as in a Grave now riseth again As it riseth it casteth off this cursed and Hellish person as a Body rising to Glory casteth off the form of a dead Carcass of Rottenness and dust recovering it s own proper place and right But there is a threefold difference between this Divine Nature in its first Life in Paradise and its first Resurrection in its Regeneration or New-birth 1. In Paradise the Divine Nature sprung up and appeared in a Earthy Image and in an Earthy Person only as in a lovely shadow of itself The Heavenly Person the Heavenly Image although it were the Root the Truth the Life the Fulness of this Shadow yet it lay concealed beneath it as a Vail or as the Fruit lies hid in the Blossom By Sin the Blossom falls to make way for this Fruit. In the new birth out of the Ruins of the Earthy Person and the Earthy Image as the rending of the Vail the Divine Nature springs up and shines forth in its own Heavenly Person and Image Thus that which was sown by the Fall a Heavenly and Divine Shadow riseth again by the new birth a Heavenly and Divine Substance which is the Shadow in its Life and Truth The Holy Scriptures declare this Glorious Mystery 1 Epist. John 5. c. where we read That there are three which bear record in Heaven the Father the Word and the Spirit A little after we read That he who believeth hath the record in himself If a Believer hath the Record within himself he hath also within himself those who bear the Record For a Record or Testimony hath all its authority and force from the Persons of the Witnesses as it is given by them and cometh forth out of their mouths Behold then here in the moment of believing God himself in the three Persons in their Heavenly Image which is the Heaven of Heavens bringing forth the Divine Nature as their own proper Birth and Child in an Heavenly Person and in their own Heavenly Image in which they themselves dwell together with him giving their Testimony to him in which he believes 2. That which was the Beauty and the beautiful
by its Heavenly entire Unity maks the heavenly the earthly Image both one Spirit one Life one Glory one Divine Person one new man in Christ Jesus in whose bosom they lie mutually infolding each other in most beautiful and most delightful Embraces Thus now is the Earthly man and the Earthly Paradise risen again in the Regeneration not single but as a glorious Bride to the Heavenly Image the Heavenly Paradise having her Bridegroom in her arms and being clasped fast in his This is the second difference between the Soul in its Earthly Paradise and in the first Resurrection when it is new born to a life of Grace in the place of that Life of pure nature 3. You have seen two differences between the Life in the state of pure nature in Paradise and the Resurrection of this Life unto a state of Grace in the Regeneration or new birth In these two differences this Life as it is risen again excelleth itself as it was in its pure and primitive state for the kind and nature of it after a wonderful manner by an accession of the most Heavenly and highest Glory together with Immortality But this third difference will shew us this Life in the Resurrection as it is a Life of Grace for its present state and degrees on Earth far inferiour unto itself as it was puâ—ely natural in the first Paradise 1. The Life of Grace in the Regeneration or Resurrection is imperfect in degree while it is on Earth it is in its Infancy in its Childhood under age under Guardians under the Tutorship of Angels as St. Paul speaks It is a Life of Faith not of clear and compleat Fruition It is a dying Life a Life bearing the Image of Christ's Death and not yet brought forth entirely into the Resurrection from the Dead It is a Life subject to many weaknesses by reason of its Infant-state and Childhood It is a Life in Growth and so not arrived to its perfect Stature 2. The Life of Grace in this first Resurrection is imperfect for its state The Spiritual or Heavenly Man in a Believer is joyned in the same Person with the Old Man which is cursed and corrupt with the Child of the Curse and Corruption The Heavenly Image and the Earthly Image new-born Heaven itself and the first Paradise risen again are truly in a Saint on Earth do compose the true Nature Essence and Person of a Saint But there are joyned together with these in the same outward Person the Earthly Image as it is corrupt and the Hellish Image the Earthly or fleshly Image as it is fallen and the Hellish Image in which inseparably do reside the universal Corruption and Curse all the powers of Darkness Death and Hell Thus are all the Purities Sweetnesses Glories of Paradise or Heaven in a Saint mixed and Vailed that they can never appear intire or in their own proper Form but imperfectly darkly and Enigmatically as St Paul speaks or as those men that were seen walking in the forms of Trees by him whose eyes Jesus Christ had touched the first time only Thus the Spiritual Man in a Saint though it have Heaven and Paradise united in itself yet in this first step of its resurrection it hath within the same outward person a continual interchangeable War and Fight with the Earth and with Hell the Flesh and the Devil Sometimes it is made a Captive cast into Chains of darkness laid low with all its Glories in a deep and miery dungeon where no spark of Divine Light appears when it is a Conquerour it is in the field still where its sweetness and Glory are vailed and stained as with the dust of the Earth as with the smoke of the Fight and of Hell as with the Blood of its Wounds In the midst of these it is ever alarmed to new Fights This is the state of a Saint in the first step of the Resurrection which is the new Birth or the Life of Grace on Earth Objection Some that are truly Saints may now say to us Alas how are we excluded from the new birth if they who are new born have Heaven and Paradise in an Heavenly Form brought forth within them and they themselves are after an Heavenly manner brought forth into these as by a Resurrection from the dead How far are we from discerning any thing so sweet so great so Glorious in our selves Ans. I shall give five answers to this Objection to comfort the lowest of the Saints who least of all seem to themselves to be such 1. The Lord Jesus lay in the Womb was laid an Infant in the Manger slept as a man had all the Light of Heaven Visible or invisible withdrawn from him being deserted by the God-head itself in respect to any sensible presence assistance or enjoyment of it died on the Cross was shut up a dead Corps in the Grave Yet in the Womb in the Manger in his sleep in his Desertion on the Cross in the Grave had he Heaven and Paradise with their divinest sweetnesses and fulnesses in himself he himself was after the sweetest fullest and Divinest manner in Paradise and Heaven For he himself in his own Person is the Light the Life and Truth of both All this was unchangeably true of him even in his Flesh and in his natural man when to him in his Flesh and in his natural man nothing of this appeared or seemed to be at all Thus may it be with thee O doubting and mourning Christian who weepest for that life of the Spirit which hath Heaven and Paradise in it by having Jesus Christ risen from the dead in it Thou refusest to be comforted because these are not or rather appear not in thee But consider this and be comforted Cast thy eye upon thy Pattern the Lord Jesus and then say Christ with Heaven and Paradise may be in me I may be in Heaven and in Paradise by being in Christ though this appear not to me Christ may be in me I may be in Christ in the Womb or in the Manger in a deep sleep or a desertion upon the Cross or in the Grave But in Truth by all these Heaven and Paradise with all their Divine store and furniture rise up in me so much the more Gloriously by how much the more Christ is formed in me and I am conformed to Christ. 2. Ans. Jesus Christ in the Gospel compareth the Kingdom of Heaven or of God to a seed of wheat sown in the field which cometh up first in the Blade then in the Stalk then in the Ear and lastly in the Ripe Corn in the Ear. Why dost thou sigh O Believer and say that thou hast nothing of Christ of Heaven of Paradise risen from the dead and new-born in thee because they shine not forth in thee and they take not thee in to see them to be seen by them to converse with them in their Spiritual proper eternal Forms and Glories It may be true that they
Woman to the Man This is plain by comparing those Two Places Psal. 8. 5. Thou hast made him that is man a little lower than the Angels Heb. 2. 5. Unto Angels he hath not put in subjection the World which is to come But unto Jesus Christ That is implyed in the Place The Law is the Law of the Husband Now the Law was administred by Angels the Ministring Spirits which are Principalities and Powers of this Creation as the Vice-Gerents of God Now St. Paul saith that by the Body of Christ that Husband died which held us in Subjection to the Law The whole Frame of Nature was shaken by the Death of Christ and must fall by the Power of it Then St. Paul adds that we were subject to the Law while we were in the Flesh. All these things make it plain that by the Flesh he understands the State of Nature in its highest Principles and utmost Extent Thus much for the First Term Flesh. 2. Letter This is the Image of God in Flesh. Letter and Spirit are opposed by St. Paul as Old and New Rom. 7. 4. And he teacheth us that by the Death of the Flesh in the Body of Christ we are freed from our Service to God in the Oldness of the Letter St. Paul opposeth Spirit and Letter as Inward and Outward He calleth that the Letter which is Outward in the Flesh Rom. 2. 28 29. The Spirit is Jesus Christ as He is the Heavenly Image of God within in the Heart of God 2. Cor. 3. 15. This is that which is Inward under the Vail of Flesh. The Letter is the Image of God in the outward Man as it is drawn forth from and discovered in the Principles of the first Creation which is the Vail 3. The Law This is the State of the Soul while she lives in the Letter and hath Communion with God only by the Letter St. Paul thus describes a Legal State Gal. 4. 3. When we were Children 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Infants we were in Bondage under the Elements of the World While we are under the Law we are Infants we have neither the Ear nor the Heart nor the Mouth of the Spirit and the Spiritual man in our Souls We are Uncapable of Taking in or making out God in his own Divine Image according to Spiritual Principles or the Elements of the New Creation Therefore we are in Bondage to Natural Principles and Reasonings We are bound up within the Compass of this Creation as in a Prison We are unskill'd in unacquainted with any Principles or Appearances of things besides those of this Creation We compare Spiritual Things by these Things of Nature We hear God with the Ear we speak of him with the Tongue of this Creation We receive and cherish such Notions of God as are agreeable with this Frame The Manifestations of God which spring from Spiritual Principles from the Face of God himself are Barbarians to us while we are under the Law To the Law of Nature to the Testimony of Reason to the Elements of this World whatsoever speaketh not according to these whatsoever casteth off or doth not cloth its Speakings with these Forms though it be the Spirit Himself hath no Light in it to our Understandings while we are under the Law These Elements or Forms in which we are tied up while we are under the Law are 1. Weak 2. Dark 3. Beggarly 4. Old 1. Forms are weak Things They have only the Shadows of Good Things to come They have not the Substance They cannot give us the Good Things Themselves Forms set the Picture of our Beloved before our Eyes but they cannot lay the Person Himself in our Arms. They are but a Letter from our Husband They have not the Spirit of our Husband in them 2. Forms in the knowledge of God are Dark Things They can give us no clear or certain Discoveries The greatest Light of Communion or Comfort that can come while we are shut up in Forms is but like a Spark from a Flint at Midnight It hath much Doubt Diffidence and Fear mingled with it 3. Forms are Beggerly Things They cannot lay open before us the Unsearchable Riches of Christ. Jesus Christ is Rich in Glory He can fill all Appearances He can bring forth Innumerable Appearances He hath Glory above all appearances which the Creature is capable of He can bring forth more Glory into thy Heart than can be made out in thy Heart itself by any Appearance The Power of Glory which thy Spirit feels shall be above the Appearance which it sees 1 Corin. 14. 14. Ephes. 3. 19. How poor then and Beggarly must that Spirit be in the knowledge of the Glory of God which is shut up in any one Form in any one Sort or Degree of Manifestations While thou canst not part with any Particular Form of Appearance while thy Spirit is not indifferent and universal extending itself to all Forms in the Manifestation of God while thou art not above the Forms of this World Thou wilt be but a Beggar in thy Divine Discoveries or Enjoyments He must be above the Letter in the Spirit above and out of all Created Images in the Light of Life itself that will attain to those Riches of assurance of a full understanding in the Mystery of God and Christ which St. Paul speaks of Coloss. 2. 2. 4. Forms are Old God hath blasted all Forms and Ways of his Appearing by the Principles and Elements of the Creature If they have had any Beauty yet now they are Blear-eyed If they have been Fruitful yet now they are become a Barren Womb which is as the Grave The Cross of Christ and the Glory of his Appearance in the Spirit have taken away the Life and Glory of all Manifestations or Administrations in the Flesh. They are Old Withered Decayed and Dying The more our Saviour shines out in the Glory of his Father the more will they Droop till they drop quite into the Dust 4. Sign Solicitude Rest and want of Rest are the distinguishing Notes of a Legal or Evangelical State His Rest shall be Glorious saith the Prophet of the Lord Jesus in the Times of the Gospel Esa. 11. 10. Come to me saith our Saviour to those under the Law You that labour and are heavy laden and I will give you Rest Mat. 11. 28. A Legal Spirit hath a Four-fold Solicitude 1. Solicitude for Acceptance of the Person 2. Solicitude for Assiance in Perplexities 3. Solicitude for Light in the way 4. Solicitude for Life in the work of Grace 1. Solicitude for Acceptance of the Person While the Soul is under the Law the Seed of God Jesus Christ is not yet come up nor revealed within her She sits therefore trembling in the Dark sometimes Confident that it is a Seed of Love sometimes as Peremptory that it is a Seed of Wrath which lies hid in her So she is perplexed and anxious in herself St. Paul teacheth us Coloss. 2. 2. that
with so sweet a Majesty that he pierc'd the Hearts of His Enemies with Arrows of Love Such a King is every Spirit which is Brother to this Jesus Righteousness sits upon him and shines from him as a Garment of Light Truth and Wisdom it shews as wrought into a Harmony of Courage Justice Temperance it sparkles with Tempers of Goodness Gentleness Meekness Humility These things like Arrows wound the stubbornest Hearts with a Liking and a Love that a man's bitterest Enemies bow to him 3. The Scepter Psal. 45. 6. It is said to our Saviour The Scepter of thy Kingdom is a Righteous Scepter Righteousness is the Scepter of Strength in the Kingdom of Christ by which all things are swayed and governed Psal. 16. 7. If a mans ways please the Lord his Enemies shall be at peace with him Holiness or Righteousness is such a Harmony such a Musick between God and Man as all things hear and obey They that make use of hellish Charms make the Picture of a Person in Wax and as they work the Wax by the Fire so they work upon the Person Goodness hath a Heavenly Charm in it For a Righteous man hath in himself the Heavenly Image of God which is the First and radical Image of all things By this Image he hath a power upon all things Thus Righteousness is the Crown Robe Scepter in the Kingdom of God 1. Use. Learn to hate Sin by the Rule of Contraries For if Righteousness cloath you with the highest Honour Worth Strength of Kings if it crown you with the Glory of God if it carry you up to the Life of God then what doth Sin Sin by the Rule of Contraries puts upon you the Baseness Badness Weakness of Slaves Sin wraps you up in the Shape sows in you the Seeds of Devils Let us then look on Sin in this Five-fold View As it puts on us 1. Weakness 2. Badness 3. Baseness of Slaves 4. Shapes of Devils 5. As it plants in us Seeds of Devils 1. Sin puts upon us the Weakness of Slaves Gen. 49. 3. 4. Reuben thou art my First born the Beginning of my Strength Excellency of power O Man O my Soul consider what thou wert in thy Beginning A Divine Flame shot forth from an Angels Bosom into this lump of Clay not to abide imprisoned in it but to feed upon it as fuel so to return and make its way upward making all things that resist its prey and nourishment What is it that hath thus enfeebled and cool'd thee and chang'd thee from Fire into Water Sin hath done this Now thou lyest spread upon the Earth swayed by every weak Breath or Spirit that blows upon thee unable to contain thy self casting thy self into the Figure and Shape of every Object on which thou touchest Thy Swordâ— hath thus weakned thee Man was the Reuben of God the First-born in the first Creation the Excellency of Dignity and Power the Head of Strength He was the Chieâ— Image of the Divine Nature made to be the Spouse and Queen of the God-Head the Onely One of her Mother The Rest of the Creatures were to be as Concubines only particular inferiour Images of God The Soul foolishly forsakes the Bosom of her God to throw herself into the Embraces of these Concubines so she defileth herself and them so she dishonoureth her King and Husband in both so pours forth her self loosely upon the Ground as spilt Water 2. Sin puts a Badness into men It puts into us a Three-fold Badness of Folly Filth Fury 1. Sin fills us with folly Sin so far befools thee O vain Man as to despise deny Blessedness Beauty Eternity there where they are in God the First the Fountain the Substance of all Beings and to seek them there where they are not in Fleshly shadowy fleeting Trifles This is that Folly the Head-Spring of all Sin which St. Paul complains of Rom. 1. 21. They became vain in their Imaginations their foolish Heart being darkned This was the Folly The Eternal Substance and Fulness was darkned and disappeared in their Spirits which brought forth instead thereof empty Images So St. Paul explains it at the 23. v. Changing the glory of the Incorruptible God into an Image made like to Corruptible Man and Birds c. What degree of Folly is this to refuse to acknowledge or own the true God who is Eternal Life and to make each painted perishing Vanity a God to us while we make it the Object and Spring of our Hopes and Happiness But thus it is most just that they to whom the true God is but as an Idol an empty name to them each Idol each empty Appearance should be their God This is the First Badness in Sin Folly 2. Sin fills a Man with Filth Carnality and Corruption signify both the same thing in Scripture To be Spiritual is to be Holy to be Fleshly Sinful To be Carnally minded that is to be Fleshly-minded is Death but to be Spiritually minded is Life and Peace Rom. 8. 6. Is there any thing more foul than this for a Soul which was made as a Spirit for Spiritual Joys and Glories so to mingle itself with Flesh as to see receive rellish nothing but by Senses of Flesh so to drown itself in Flesh as to be uncapable of conversing with taking conteâ—t in any but Fleshly objects This is the State of a Sinful Soul Thus is she over-spread with Flesh as one great Spot The Interpreters of the Proverbs teach us that the Young Man there is the Soul which is naturally Immortal ever young ever flourishing the Matron the chast Spouse that woes this Young Man Divine Wisdom the Heavenly Image of the Divine Nature The Strumpet this Worldly Image of things O say now when thou Sinnest Alass How do I dishonour and defile my self I who should who might live chastly constantly sweetly with the Eternal Image of Glory my God my Spouse mine own I pour forth my self into the lap of Strangers of Unconstant Whorish Flattering Fading Beauties in Flesh. O Filth O Shame That Spirit that should tread upon the Stars ride upon the Angels rejoyce with God everlastingly that Soul labours and sweats in Dust and Death as a Slave rowls in the Mire of Flesh like a Beast rakes in the unsavory sinks of all various Lusts as an unclean Spirit 3. Sin fills a man with Fury Solomon in his Proverbs tells us of One that throws about Fire-brands and Swords and saith Am I not in jest Prov. 26. 18. 19. This is Solomon's Foâ—l which is a Sinner Can it be that any should make Ruines and Reproaches their Delight nay their Devotion too Jonah said once He did well to be angry even unto Death Can it be that any should cherish a Rage to the Death Destruction of Men Kingdoms and Souls and then think such a Rage Religion such a Fury Zeal and that these things they ought to do Can it be that any should draw Tears and blood from others from
these are Varieties only in thee It is thy self thy Person besetteth compasseth comprehendeth me and my way in them all O Believers when you see Jesus Christ in the least glance of His Person with the same Eye of Light and Love as David saw him with do not you also meet with wonders of Delight and Glory which are too great for your Hearts Affections or Understandings to take in Do not the lowest and least things seen in him appear to you as Divine Wonders with such a height of Light in them as no created Eye can reach But David caught up into the view and Embraces of Jesus in his Heavenly Form proceedeth in his Rapture Whither shall I go from thy Spirit or whither shall I flee from thy Presence Face or Person v. 7. The Spirit and the Presence or Person of Christ are here both one to teach us that this Person and Presence of our Saviour in which he is the same yesterday to day and for ever in His Appearances to the Saints under the Law under Grace in Glory is entirely Spiritual a pure Spirit If I ascend up into Heaven thou art there if I make my Bed in Hell behold thou art there v. 8. Hell in Hebrew and Greek signifies no more 〈◊〉 the Grave or the State of the Dead It is added in Hebrew Behold Thou These words art there are put in by the Translatours as you may see by the Change of the Letter If I take the wings of the Morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the Sea v. 9. even there shall thy hand lead me and thy right Hand shall hold me v. 10. If I say the Darkness shall cover me even the Night shall be light round about me v. 11. Yea the Darkness hideth not from thee but the Night shineth as the Day the Darkness and Light are both alike to thee v. 12. These last words too are added to thee Go thy wayes O Believer O beloved Spouse of this Heavenly Lover say to him with the same tongue in the same language of Light and Love as David doth Wherever I fly or fall I am ever encompassed with ever wrapt up in thy Spiritual and Glorious Person as my Heaven as the Air of my Life O my Beloved If I fly it is in the face of these Brightnesses If I fall I lie in the Bosom of these Beauties When I ascend up into Heaven behold thou art there Heaven is as a great Room of State and Pleasure in the Divine Building of thy Person The Light of this is all the Glory the Love and Loveliness of this are all the Treasures and feasts of Joy there The several Appearances of those Distinct Varieties in thy Person shooting forth themselves like Beams with a Divine Lustre Warmth and Life make all the Angels in Heaven The Assembly of Glorified Saints is the Fruitfulness and Fulness of thy Person first thy Birth and then thy Bride like Eve to Adam in Paradise the Heavenly Eve to the Last Adam in the Heavenly Paradise thy self multiplying it self that it may have a meet Help for it self to be the Object of all its Loves the Subject of all its Joys the Mother of all Living What have I in Heaven besides thee Ps. 73. 25. Thy Person filleth all those shining and smiling Forms of things in Heaven They are all the Beauties in thy Face the smiles in thine Eye If I die behold thee Death itself is first an extasie of Love in which thou overshadowest me in a moment snatching me out of the Light of this world into the sweet and everlasting Light of a far greater and more Blessed world thy Person Then is it an extasie of Joy to find the same Jesus cloathed with the same white and shining Rayment in the Grave as I beheld him in Heaven The Grave becomes a Bed and that Bed thy Bosom Luke 16. 22. The Begger died and was carried by Angels into Abrahams Bosom the rich man also dieth and is buried That which the Grave is to the rich man that to the Begger to the poorest Saint is the Bosom of Jesus figured by Abraham in whom he lay hid as the Seed of Eternity Ere I was aware my Soul made me as the Chariots of Aminadab Cant. 7. Aminadab is my Princely People a Chariot of Angels of Glorious Spirits This is the manner of the Death of Christs Spouse Ere she is aware her Soul setteth her upon or rather itself becometh to her a Chariot of Angels where she sitteth upon a Golden Throne of Love encompassed with Curtains of Light and so is transported in the twinkling of an Eye into the Arms of her Beloved her whole way itself lying in the same embraces which are the end of her way and those Angels being the varieties and the movings of those Fulnesses of beauties in the Bridegrooms Person which is the same Spring and Rest of love in them all Go on then believing Soul with David and say to thy Saviour but the time may come when I shall neither rest on thy bosom as a Throne of Grace in Heaven nor as a Bed in the Grave in the Fellowship of thy Death I may be hurried to the uttermost parts of the Sea to that State where storms of malice and wrath rage most in the midst of the blackness of Darkness But when it is so even then thou risest upon me and sweetly breakest like a lovely morning in the Beauties of thy Person round about me Thou takest me upon thy Divine Beams as upon Silver Wings with Feathers of Gold in which the Glories of the Divine and Humane Nature are united As thou in thy course circlest thorow all the infiniteness of differing Beauties within thy self thou carriest me upon these Wings of thine to the extremities of this Sea of Darkness and Tempests Even here also as in Heaven itself thy hand which is thy self thy Spiritual Person thy Divine Life in Act the Activity and Appearance of thine inseparable Glories lead me as my Strength within my guide and way before me my light round about me Yea even here thy right Hand which is thy Person in the sweetest fullest Act and appearance of Love Beauty Majesty and Power holdeth me at once bearing me up in itself encompassing with itself Thus the Sea and Tempests are still thy Person in the same Lovely and Eternal Form opening new Wonders of Beauty and discovering greater Riches of vaster varieties within the bright Bound of its own Spiritual Fulness Yea if I sink so low that I begin to faint and say now the Darkness will cover and overwhelm me now the night will seal up my Eyes from the sight of my Beloved and hide him from me then the Night it self becomes a bright Sun round about me in the Heaven of thy Person where every spot of Darkness as well as Beam of Light is a shining Point or line of Beauty and all so many several Suns set thick one by another Can.
such a chariot of Angels with these Persons riding in it 3. The Passage into this Place I will come unto you and take you unto my self that where I am there ye may be also There are three Steps of Christ's Coming to us in Glory 1. Into our whole Spirits by Regeneration 2. Into our whole Souls at death 3. Into our whole Persons Spirit Soul and Body at the Resurrection By every step he maketh a mutual Union so far as he goeth He cometh to us He taketh us to himself that we may be both together in one place in one Spirit He letteth himself down in his Heavenly Palace into us he taketh us up into the Heavenly Palace in himself he maketh our Persons a Heavenly Palace like his glorified Person and one with it This is our passage in Death into Glory Of old God descended upon the Tabernacle in a Cloud the Glory was in the Cloud Then Moses was summoned to enter into the Cloud and so into the Glory where God talked with him In latter times the most excellent Majesty in a 〈◊〉 Cloud overshadowed the Lord Jesus and in overshadowing him transfigured him then in the transfiguration talked to him of his Sonship to the Father and of Love In like manner at the set time the Lord Jesus as a living Temple of Heavenly Glory cometh down upon thee in a white Cloud of some Love-storm or Love-sickness I call it a Love-sickness because it ariseth at once from the Love of the Spirit of the Bride in thee and from the Love of thy Bridegroom to thee from the longings and burning desires of both after the immediate perpetual and full enjoyments of each other As thou entrest into this Cloud and art overshadowed by it thou art in a moment at the same time taken into that Palace of Glory and transfigured into the Glory of that Pallace There thou appearest to be the Son of God the Spouse of the Immortal King God speaketh to thee converseth with thee as a Son and Spouse in one He seeth the Figure of his own Beauties in thy Face and his Heart resteth in thy Bosom He seeth and enjoyeth thy Person as springing up eternally with incomprehensible Pleasures out of the Root of his own Divine Loveliness he feeleth and rellisheth thy Spirit as the flowing of his own sweetnesses from their own Fountain in himself he poureth forth himself in a flood of Beauties and Sweetnesses into thee All his Loves rest in thy Love and he in thee 4. Script I am now come to the last Scripture For we know that if our Earthly House of this Tabernacle be dissolved we have a Building of God an House not made with hands Eternal in the Heavens For in this we groan earnestly desiring to be cloathed upon with our House which is from Heaven If so he that being cloathed we shall not be found naked For we that are in this Tabernacle do groan being burthened not that we would be uncloathed but cloathed upon that Mortality might be swallowed up of Life Now he that hath wrought us for this self-same thing is God who hath also given us the Earnest of the Spirit 2 Cor. 5 1 2 3 4 5. This is a rich and deep Scripture What expressions of Death are those How full of Joy Not to be found naked Naked of any support or comfort Of any cloathing of Being or Beauty Essence or Substance Form or Fulness in Person or Relations Not to be uncloathed Of any Garment of Light or Life To be cloathed upon with an House from Heaven To have the Lord Jesus as a circling Glory coming down upon this Image in which we now dwell neither taking away the Nature nor Form of any thing that here we are or have but taking up all as sacred Mysteries into a Temple of Glory giving them a place for ever in this Temple penetrating filling and cloathing them the Glory To have Mortality swallowed up of Life To lose none of the things or entertainments which here we enjoy in this mortal state but the mortality of them only and that not by Death breaking them down with violence but by the sweet breakings in of Life and Immortality upon them not by a blackness of Darkness dreadfully over-spreading them but a brightness of Eternal Glory delightfully rising upon them like the Sun upon the beautiful Forms of Heaven and Earth after they have weakly appeared in the melancholy Beams of the Moon shining faintly in the shade of the Night And He that hath wrought us for the Self-same Thing is God It is a Divine Hand and Skill which hath framed and fashioned us to this capacity It is God who by his own operations in us not mediately as in tâ—e works of Nature but immediately as in all works of Grace and Glory hath wrought out this Spiritual and Divine Being this Spiritual and Divine Nature in us which never dyeth but is changed from Glory to Glory which in Death putteth off nothing but putteth on a greater and purer Light upon its weaker Lights and Shades piercing thorow and breaking up delusive Shapes formed out of the Darkness of remaining night by stronger Beams of Glory falling from above Who hath also given us the Earnest of his Spirit An Earnest is part of the Sum in present and an assurance of the rest God doth not only frame a Spiritual work like a new Heaven in us but giveth us the Person of his Spirit himself in which the Persons of the Father and the Son are seen together unvailed in their Union and Communion of Beauties and Loves in the unity of which all Angels and Blessed Spirits dwell together as their proper Center and Circle This Spirit God giveth to be in the Spiritual Nature framed by himself in us as a new Sun in the new Heaven This Spirit in us is the Earnest of our Death a foretast of its Sweetness and Delights a vision in part beforehand of the manner of our dying and an assurance of the compleating of its season after the same Beautiful and pleasant Image As at the first Effusion of the Spirit upon us or any new Effusion as at any Act of the Spirit when he shineth our freshly in us this Natural Image of Things is no more a Light of Glory Forms of Glory Immortal Spirits full of a Divine Beauty and Majesty appear every where They are alone and there is nothing besides in the whole space of Things above or below past present or to come As they are so are we All Things are one Vision of Divine Glory Neither do we perceive how one Image of Things goeth and another cometh Both are done one is come the other is gone in the same moment in the twinkling or cast of an Eye So is Death This is the Earnest of our Death This is a step of Death a foretast of it So shall Death he perfected us I have three Observations to make upon this Scripture besides that which I have
the Victory the Joy and Crown of the Feast I know you prevent me in your thoughts you who love the Lord Jesus by applying this to your Prince your Beloved and his Love his Bride your own Souls I shall bring down all to my purpose and to your practice in the exercise of those Principal and Triumphant Graces Faith Love Heavenly Joy by three Conclusions or Spiritual Maxims 1. Conclu All the Armies of God all the Powers of the God-Head the innumerable Companies of holy Angels and blessed Spirits all the Hosts of Heaven and Earth with their Captain the Lord Jesus at the head of them move and fight in their courses under the Banner of Love Thy Person in a glorious Image of all Divine Beauties is figured upon the Banner as this Eternal Princes Love Love to thee is wrought upon the Banner in Characters of Glory This is the Cause of all motions in Heaven and Earth To this Banner all Powers every where resort unto this they are united under this they march and fight 2. Conclu The Lord Jesus as Captain of the Lord's Hosts with all his Heavenly Armies his ten thousands of Angels his Chariots of fire and Horses of fire continually encompasseth thee marcheth encampeth round about tâ—ee as his chiefest Treasure his Love with Banners of Love spred and displaid over thee on every side of thee round about Every step thou takest in thy way to Heaven is in the midst of these Warriours All Divine Powers continually circle thee in The Invisible and Invincible Hosts of God under the conduct of thy Beloved Jesus are thy perpetual Guard and Convoy In the midst of these thou walkest â—ittest and lyest down thou wakest and sleepest Psal. 91. 11. The Angels have a charge of thee from their Prince and thy Bridegroom that they keep thee in all thy ways that they bear thee in their hands least at any time thou strike thy foot against a stone that thou never stumble The Angels of God are thy Chariots of War thy Chariots of State thy Chariots of Love thy Chariots for Travel in which thou journiest thorow this Wilderness to thy Kingdom the Kingdom of Love and Glory All this they are in one They make thy way thy Palace in the midst of thy Kingdom for Strength for Glory for Delights for Rest in thy Love They bear thee up above in the light of Life in the Life of Divine Love This is the way high and lifted up above all the Powers of Darkness and Death in which they carry thee along that thou mayst never strike thy foot against any stone of offence against any hard and hurtful Form of Darkness Enmity or Death Thy Jesus the Bosom of thy Beloved is this way 3. Conclu These Banners of Love which are spred over thee in thy marches here the same hang streaming over thy head to Eternity and over the Head of thy King as thou fittest at the Feast with him in Heaven The Fights about thee here are the Trophies and Triumphs at the Feast here The same Love is figured on all which maketh all precious Stones and Jewels in thy Marriage-Crown and Crown of Glory to shine there and adorn it for ever Use. The Use which we make of this is to see the difference between the two states of a Saint and a Sinner a Believer and him who believeth not 1. See the blessedness of â— Believer Heb. 1. 2. Jesus Christ is said to be the Brightness of the Glory of God that is of Love the express Image of the Substance or Person of God that is of Love For God is Love v. 6. 7. When God bringeth his Son again that is after his Resurrection in his Spiritual and Heavenly Appearance into the world he saith Let all the Angels of God worship him He hath made all his Ministers Spirits and his Angels a flame of Fire This concerneth thee O Believer and is spoken of thee O the blessedness of that Soul which indeed receiveth Jesus Christ and his Love by Faith if only thou didst know thine own happiness God hath brought his Son in his second Appearance in his Spirit into thine Heart He is in thee the brightness of the Glory of Love that is of the Divine Nature shining in the midst of thee This is that Eternal Sun from which all blessed Spirits continually drink in the Light Influences Joys of Life and Immortality He is in thee the express Image of Love which is the Substance and Person of God This setteth itself thorow him as a Seal upon thine Heart Now the Power of God is a Servant to his Love in thee Now God saith Let all the Angels of God worship how down to serve my Love in this Soul God himself maketh his Angels Flames of Love enfolding thee penetrating thy Body and Spirit shining within thee round about thee continually in the darkest night He maketh his Angels Ministring Spirits to thee Spirits of Glory Minister Love to thee after an Invisible manner in all visible Things Every moment of time every Circumstance or Accident in time are the Wings of Angels a Chariot of Angels carrying thee above the snares of Death below into Heaven This is thy Portion who believest in the Lord Jesus and his Love 2. See the misery of Unbelievers How wretched art thou who believest not who sayest to the Love of God and the Tydings of it from Heaven Depart from me I have no pleasure in you Those Powers of Darkness that are ever ready to raise up Leviathan from his Stormy deep below curse thee All evil Spirits are Flames of Wrath burning within thee burning from without upon thee alwaies in the midst of thy Jollities at thy Feasts on thy Beds of pleasure Evil Spirits are ever Ministring Wrath to thee after an Invisible manner thorow all Visible Things Devils are thy Chariots These wrap thee up in a thick Cloud in the blackness of Darkness and hurry thee to Hell O be not unbelievers but believe that you may inherit the Land of Love and dwell in it for ever Love inviteth wooeth you to believe that is to receive itself into your Hearts Love will bring its own entertainment and make the Feast for itself if you for your parts will but take it in as a guest 3. Instance The Righteousness of God serveth his Love Rom. 5. l. Grace reâ—gneth by Righteousness unto Eternal Life thorow Jesus Christ our Lord. Grace is Love in its Fountain Love upon the Throne Love is brought in here by the Apostle under the name of Grace as a King Eternal Life Heaven is the Kingdom of Love Jesus Christ is the chief Minister of State to this great King God is Love sitting upon the Throne The Lord Jesus is the same supream Love descending from the Throne to be the Universal Servant and General Officer throughout all this Kingdom of Love Righteousness is the Scepter of the King Thy Scepter is a Scepter of Righteousness Psal. 45. Love reigneth by
forth as A Spirit as the Eternal Spirit having married the Humane Nature into One Heavenly Form and Spirit with itself Now all the Treasures of Righteousness Life Immortality Love Joy all the Treasures of the God-Head display themselves over the whole Person of Christ entirely nakedly richly to the Height of all their Beauties and Sweetnesses as Flowers full-blown in Spring as Fruit-trees laden with ripe fruit in Autumn Who now can express the Joys when a Naked Heart meeteth with its Naked Jesus when both have cast off their Vails One from his Face The other from his Heart It is the same Blessed hand of the Eternal Spirit which taketh off the Vails from Both dropping Myrrhe a heavenly Sweetness Purity and Immortality as It taketh them off The Reflection of the Face of God upon the Face of Moses on the Mount cast a Divine Lustre and Beauty which remained upon it He came down into the midst of the People bringing a Heaven in his Face along with him But they could not bear the Brightness of this Naked Beauty He therefore casteth a Vail upon his Face So they remain in Darkness their Minds are blinded until Wrath cometh upon them to the uttermost This is an Example unto us upon whom the Ends of all Fore-going Times and Actions are come Behold the Lord Jesus is gone up to the top of the Mount He is ascended He is Glorified with the Father with that Glory which he had with the Father before the World was As a Spirit he cometh down again to us in the Shining Form of this Spiritual Uncreated Eternal Glory Wo to you who cannot bear the Brightness of this Appearance who cannot look stedfastly upon the Naked Face the Naked Form of the Lord Jesus this Spirit To you he casteth a Vail over his Face and as he casteth a Vail over his own Face he casteth a Vail over your Hearts To you now he cometh as a Thief in the Night bringing Darkness and Doubt Trouble and Terrours Confusion Desolation and Despair spoiling you of all your Counterfeit Jewels false hopes false Joys false Graces false Christ. But you who love and wait for this Appearanâ—e of your Lord and Saviour like Lightning shining from Heaven into your Hearts you who with the single Eye of a Chast Spouse look to the Beloved Person of your Jesus in the simplicity of his Spiritual and Divine Form Blessed are you of the Lord Jesus To you he cometh as a Sun of Righteousness with healing in his Wings Overspreading you with his warm and Naked Beauties Covering your Deformities Curing your Maladies Infusing new Cordials of Immortal Life and Joy into your Hearts Hatching you to Spirituality raising you upon Silver Wings and Golden Feathers to Heavenly Flights with himself To you he cometh Enlightning enlivening Transforming Glorifying Gathering you up into One Spirit One Glory with himself Where this Spirit the Lord Jesus is there is Liberty of beholding of enjoying the Lord Jesus nakedly immediately entirely eternally without any chain clog cloud interposal or interruption There is Liberty of growing up into a Spirit out of All the Vails of Flesh into One Spirit with him O the Joys of a Naked Heart when it meeteth with its Naked Saviour But as it was with the Painter who called to remove the Vail that he might see the Picture when their was a Vail onely painted there The Vail was all the Picture so is it with the hypocrite with the Temporary Believer His Jesus his Heaven is a Vail onely a Vail like that of the Tabernacle finely wrought with Pictures of Angels of Heaven of Jesus but Keeping him for ever from the Face the Bosom of Jesus the society of Angels the Joys of Heaven in the Outermost Darkness His hope is a Spiders Web. The Poison of Death and Hell are bred there I hear a Voice frequently in my Spirit saying to me Cry What shall I cry 1. Cry There was an Ark in which Noah and his Family were safe from the Flood which drowned the World The onely Ark in which Noah the Believer the Child of Rest shall be safe from the Flames which are now ready to devour the World is the Naked Person of Christ in the Invisibility and Spirituality of his Divine Eternal Form 2. Cry The Sound and noise of the Hammers framing the Ark for Noah preached the Righteousness of God the Ruin of the World very near The Sound and noise of the Lord Jesus the Spirit of Life the Spirit of Love in his Naked Person in his Naked Loves and Lovelinesses growing up forming himself in the Spirits of his Saints preaches now a Deluge of Destruction Death and Hell at the Door ready to enter in The Rest and Righteousness of God in his Bosom alone the Rest of God in his Loves the Righteousness of God in his Loveliness 3. Cry As it was in the Days of Noah so it will be now The whole World will go on to eat and Drink to marry and give in Marriage to mock at this Preparation of an Ark at these Discourses of these Endeavours for the Spiritual Person of Christ in the Heavenly Image for the Revelation of him in our Spirits for the Retirement of our Persons into him The whole World will go on in Sensuality and Carnality mocking at the Lord this Spirit the Ark till the day that God open the Windows of Heaven from above and break up the great Deep of Hell from below to cover them with and swallow them up in Unquenchable Flames They say that Seth foreseeing Two Destructions of the World prepared Two Pillars upon which he engraved all Mysteries of Humane and Divine Knowledge One of Marble to endure the Flood the other of Brick to continue in the Flames St Peter speaking of the Flood and the Ark addeth The Like Figure whereunto now saveth us Baptism not the washing away of the filth of the Flesh but the Answer of a Good Conscience by the Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the Dead The Lord Jesus counselleth the last Church Laodicea to buy of him Gold tried in the Fire Gold tried in the Fire no more loseth any thing or receiveth any harm in the Fire but shineth more gloriously The Lord Jesus risen from the Dead and become a Spirit the Fountain of Life is the Gold tried in the Fire of Death and the Divine Wrath. An Ark of Wood saved Noah from the Waters Behold an Ark of pure Gold a Spirit of Immortality and Glory which shineth with greatest Glory in the midst of the Everlasting Burnings This is our Jesus who saveth us from the Fire which is already Kindled and burneth upon the World which will immediately raise itself to a Mighty Irresistible Flame Blessed are you who enter into this Ark of Gold and shut your selves up into It. Here you shall lie upon beds of Love as in the Marriage-Chamber in the Bosom of your Bridegroom encompassed with Songs of Joy while the Fire dreadfully devoureth all without
Corruption These burthened Spirits groan for the Dissolution of this Tabernacle But how Not that we would be uncloathed but cloathed upon with our house from Heaven not to be found naked but to have Mortality swallowed up of Life St. Paul expresseth the meaning of the Unutterable Groans with which the Spirit of Supplications maketh Intercession in the Saints They would not be uncloathed of the Spiritual Image which they put on at the New Birth They would not be uncloathed of the Natural Image which they put on at their First Birth They would never no not for a moment be found naked of any thing of that Life Light or Sweetness Heavenly or Earthly which belong to either of these No they groan to have these cloathed upon with that their Buiâ—ding from above to have not onely their Immortal and Inward but their Outward and Mortal Part itself swallowed up into Life Life itself in its Purity in its Perâ—ection in its Spring which is Eternity 3. The Workmanship of God in a Saint is wonderful and indeed Divine in this Now he that hath made us for this or he that hath wrought us unto this is God St Paul assureth every Saint that his Groans are heard and answered from the Workmanship and the Workman We read in the Canticles that the Thighs of the Princess and Bride are as Jewels the Work of the hands of a Curious and Faithful Workman So the Word in Hebrew signifieth The Spiritual and Natural Life the Whole Frame and Composure of a Saint Inward and Outward all are Mysterious Jewels wrought by the Divine hands of God himself as a most Curious and Faithful Workman as a most Skilful and Firm Piece of Work They are by an Unexpressible Wisdom and Love framed unto this that the Substance of these Jewels should never fail the Vertue never decay the Lustre never fade no not in Death itself but then most of all grow bigger and brighter more Pure more Perfect more Powerful by being drunk up into Eternity as the Waters of a fine Spring are drawn and drunk up by the Sun 4. The Earnest of the Spirit Who hath also given us the Earnest of the Spirit The Eternal Spirit in the Immortal Soul and Mortal Body of a Saint The Eternal Spirit in which a Saint possesseth Soul Body things of Faith of Reason of Sense This Spirit is to a Saint an Earnest both a foretast and a seal of this truth that both the Soul and the Body of a Saint in Death are like the Spice in the Golden Censor or upon the Golden Altar in the Temple which is the Glorified Bosom of Christ. Both lose nothing of themselves but change into a more Spiritual and Divine Form in which they ascend and carry up all their Preciousness all their Pleasantness with them like the Pillar of Smoak from the Altar perfumed with all the Spices of the Apothecary in which those Spices themselves with all their Sweetness and Vertue go up refining and enlarging themelves till they rest and spread themselves in the Bosom of Heaven How Curious and Sure a Workman is Jesus Christ is the Love of the Father in the Death of a Saint O the Freedom O the Fulness O the Skill O the Faithfulness of Finishing Love in the Death of a Saint O Believers Preventing Love hath brought you out of Aegypt out of the Servitude to your Lusts and the God the Spirit of this World Assisting Love hath carried you along thorough this Weary Wilderness your Conformity and Fellowship with the Lord Jesus in his Sufferings Be of good Courage Your Cloaths shall not wax old Nothing of you shall fall in this Wilderness You shall certainly come into the Good Land the Land of Promise the Land of Rest the Land flowing with Milk and Honey with Life and Peace Immortality and Immortal Pleasures Finishing Love in the Glorious and Immortal Person of your Beloved like the Ark before the Israelites shall lead you thorow this Jordan thorow Death on the Dry Firm and Pleasant Land of Life itself Not so much as any single Drops of any Dark Waters shall sprinkle themselves upon any Parts of your Garment The clear Streams of this Beloved River shall stand on heaps on each side of you as Christal or Diamond Rocks as Lights Prospects and Guards of Angels while you pass When You are weakest under the Pangs of Death the Finishing Love of Christ in Power your Glorified Jesus in the Power of his Finishing Love shall rest upon you shall spring up in you at once to comprehend you and enlarge you to Cloath you upon and to transform you within Nothing of the Graces and Joys of your Inward Man Nothing of the Beauties and Delights of your Outward Man shall be divorced from you or darkened in you Like a Heaven of Stars they may pass under many Clouds But under all Clouds they shall go on shining still and increasing their Lustre When they seem to be extinguished in Death they shall be only drunk up into that Pure Light of Life which is Invisible to all Mortal Eyes by its Fineness and Fulness of Glory They shall disappear onely by the Degree of heightning He who hath wrought us unto this is God The Sweet Colours of a fair Summer-Morning in the Sky are so made that they fade not but go on changing to fair and fresher Colours still until they all vanish into Pure Light For These Colours are all the Light of the Approaching Sun figuring itself in divers degrees into Different Forms of Beauty till at last It Break up into the Full Glory of unmixt Light by the immediate Presence of the Sun appearing with the unclouded Brightness of his heavenly Body In like manner all the Excellencies Entertainments and Joys of a Saint in his Immortal and Mortal Part The Immortal and Mortal Parts themselves of a Saint thorowout are so framed by the Father of Lights and Loves that they can never fade nor pass away but in the moment of Death itself are cloathed upon from above with a Brighter a Diviner Form and are swallowed up into the Abysses the Incomprehensiblenesses of Eternity For God is Love A Saint is a Birth of Love A Seed of Divine Love springing up in his Outward and Inward Man Forming itself into a Body and Spirit into all the Powers Pleasures Objects Relations of Both. Divine Love is the Substance and the Sap The Matter and the Form in all A Saint in his Essence and Operations all Entirely is a Plant of Divine Love Death is the Ripening of the whole Plant all over into the Perfect Fruit of Pure Love of Finishing Love In this Form It can be seen felt tasted no more but by the Pure Eyes Embraces and Mouth of Divine Love God hath also given us the Earnest of his Spirit for this Tell me now you who have received the Spirit What do you see what do you feel when you are blessed from on high with any fresh Anointing
of man and dreadfulâ— man in an humane Sense as Death are Divine have a Divine Beauty 〈◊〉 sweetness in them to a Divine Sense and Savour 3. The Humane sense the Humane Image and rellish of things springs from the Devil as he is Saâ—tan that is the Hater the Enemy to all things Divine to Love to Lighâ— to Truth to Immortality and Blessedness 3. The Companion of a Carnal Sense and Savour is Death To be Caâ—â—nally minded is Death 'T is Death in all the black Properties and Powers 〈◊〉 Death 1. That Divine Image of things which alone is the Truth is Spirit and Life both the Paradises the Heavenly and the Earthly as it is new born and united unto the Heavenly lie captivated in a Carnal Mind or Sense as in a Prison or Grave 2. A Carnal Sense is that outermost Darkness which is without the new and Heavenly Jerusalem 3. In a Carnal Sense are disorder confusion and desolation the dissolutions of all the banâ—s of Peace Beauty and Life For these all consist in that order alone which hath for its band the Unity of the Spirit 4. A Carnal Sense hath ever the sting of Death in it Fears Cares Grief Pains Anguishes Torments never cease here They are the Worm which never dyes the Fire which never goes out in this region of the shadow of Death a Carnal Mind or Fleshly Sense Naturalists tell us that some Candles may be so made that all the Persons seen by those lights shall appear as Ghosts one to another or the whole place seem full of Snakes and dreadful Serpents Such are those lights of a Carnal Sense by which all things are seen of thee who art in a Carnal Fleshly State Every thing of Truth as it appears to thee is an apparition from below bearing Paleness Terrour Death and Hell in the face of it Thou canst no where walk sit lie down in peace All places all States to thee are full of Serpents hissing shooting out their forked stings casting their poyson at thee Wo to you O ye Inhabitants of the Earth ye who dwell in a fleshly sense of things The Devil is ever in the midst of you with great rage here he is known by his name Satan the Enemy the Hater But ye O ye Inhabitants of Heaven who live in a Spiritual Principle why are you ever found abroad Why are not all your walks within in the Spirit the heavenly Paradise which God hath planted and set you in to dress it and to keep it and to eat of the fruits of it without any exception within your own Spirits Behold not a single Cherubim but the whole Army of glorious Angels with the Presence and Power of the Eternal Spirit as a flaming Sword turning every way keeps the entrance into this Paradise not to keep you out but to defend you in it by suffering no evil thing none of the Powers of Darkness of Death of Wrath to enter here While you are without in a Carnal Mind and Worldly Spirit you are among the holes of the Foxes the Dens of the Lyons and the Mountains of Leopards All things with which you converse ascend from below from the Earth from the natural Soul and from the Devil as St James teacheth us All these three the Earth the Natural Soul and the Devil are Links in the same chain of Darkness immediately fastned one to another The light and breath of your life in the Spirit of this world is the smoak from the Bottomless Pit Your Beauties your Joys your pleasant things are those Locusts sent forth from thence mentioned in the Revelation with Faces and Hair like Women with Crowns upon their Heads false Shows of Sweetness Softness Greatness and Glory but stings invenomed stings the stings of Death are in their tails O! Retire into your own enclosed Gardens there within your own enclosed Grounds your own Souls sit under your own Fig-Tree your own Vine which are your own Spiritual Principle out of which the universal Image of things both Heavenly and Earthly springeth up into the perfection of all pure Beauties and Joys with immortality Delight your selves under their shadows where you are safe from all Evil and at rest for ever I again testify unto you as I have often and alwaies testified in all my Sermons and Discourses that there is no Salvation to the flesh or in the flesh O then ye who are yet found walking after the flesh give no rest to your selves here Cry night and day without ceasing to the Holy Spirit to take you up upon his Wings and to translate you suddenly in a moment out of this Wilderness of fiery Serpents into the promised and good Land flowing with Rivers of Milk and Hony the Milk of the Eternal Word and the Hony of the Divine Wisdom which both are Jesus Christ the Fulness Sweetness and Glory of the God-Head O that these words as now you read or hear them in this very moment thorow the power of the blessed Spirit might be as the hands of Angels laid upon Lot to hasten you out of this Sodom of the flesh while you linger here into a place of safety the City of the living God in the secret of the Spirit before the Lord rain down fire from the Lord upon all Flesh. The profit the pleasure the seasonableness of this discourse hath carryed me farther stayed me longer upon it than my method seemed to require Let us now return to apply this distinction of a twofold sense Carnal and Spiritual to our present purpose which is to set forth the Beautiful and Blessed Staâ—â— of a Saints Soul and Body in Death We have heard that a Spiritual sense is Life and Peace absolutely universally eternally without mixture confinement or change that all things here are in the purity and perfection of Divine Life Beauty and Joy We have also heard that the Carnal Sense is Death as it reigns entirely here so it it is confined hither shut up in this Pit and without this fleshly Principle hath no where any place I shall bring this Distinction home to my purpose of making Death all over in every part lovely and pleasant to a Saint by two Propositions 1. Propos. This is the first A Saint by dying is taken entirely in his whole Person Soul and Body out of the Carnal or Fleshly Principle out of the Fleshly Sense and so out of Death 2. Propos. A Saint by dying is in his whole Person Soul and Body gathered up entirely into a Spiritual Principle and so into the Immortality of a Divine Life Peace and Delight 1. Propos. A Saint by dying is taken entirely in his whole Person Soul and Body out of the Carnal or Fleshly Sense and so out of Death I shall open and confirm this Proposition to you by two Scriptures 1. The first Scripture is the 1 Epistle of St. Peter 4. 1. Wherefore seeing Christ hath suffered in the Flesh let us also arm our selves with the same mind For
drop upon your hearts four brief exhortations 1. O that all Men would love the King of Saints the Lord Jesus It is he alone who subdues the King of Terror that is Death and is more than a conqueror over him making him the King of delights He changeth the Region and Kingdom of Death which is the Principality of the Devil into the Kingdom of God which is Righteousness Peace and Joy in the Holy Ghost 2. Set a value upon the union with the Lord Jesus by faith Ask seek dig for this by day and by night in Prayer in the Word in the Society of the Saints in every ordinance in every creature that you may believe in the Lord Jesus and that you may be united to him by believing Let nothing discourage you in this pursuit and expectation The Lord Jesus hath given himself for you even unto Death that you may be his in the sweetest and most intimate union He giveth himself to you in his life of Glory that he may be yours by an immediate and entire union He giveth his Spirit to you to be the Maker and the band of this union to work faith in you and make you Believers He is now with you now in you in the fulness of his merits righteousness glory love and Spirit Now this moment open the Eyes of your minds and behold him in the midst of you open your hearts and take him in cast your selves into his open arms and heart cleave to him by believing So even this moment shall your Souls and Bodies both which are naturally the Members of this Harlot the Flesh and the World which are naturally Dens of Thieves and Devils become the Members of the Lord Jesus and the Temples of the Holy Ghost The Lord Jesus shall be in your Body itself as in a Member of himself a Fountain of living waters even in Death and in the Grave making it there a Paradise a Garden for God and for all blessed Spirits The Holy Ghost shall be not only in your Souls but in your Bodies also as in his Holy Temple even in the darkness of Death itself filling it with his Glory and moving over it with his Doves Wings the Wings of Eternal Love 3. Make it your chief work and end to grow in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus What care and pains do we take to grow in riches yet riches profit not in the day of Wrath. To know him is eternal life With what diligence do we pursue the wisdom of this world Yet saith Solomon as dyeth the Fool so dyeth the wise Man If thou gain and grow in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus this is a wisdom which will make thy Soul and Body both shine with a Light of Glory and Immortality even in Death itself Solomon saith that when understanding enters into our Souls wisdom will be sweeter than hony to our tast O what new tast and rellishes of new and unexpressible sweetnesses doth the Soul still meet with which is still growing in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus What a sweet tast and rellish of Death beyond all the delights of Life doth the knowledge of Jesus Christ give unto us representing it as a Feast of pleasant things to our Bodies also as well as to our Souls When thou understandest the fellowship and vertue of Christs Death in thy Death thou shalt see Death in thy Soul and in thy Body as the Carkass of a dead Lyon torn in pieces by that true Samson the Lord Jesus whither the Father himself and Christ and the Holy Spirit with all the blessed Angels resort as Bees to their Hive laying there their Hony and their Hony-comb for thee to eat 4. O you that are Christs love Death Death is now become but a shadow of Death True life with all the joys of life vails itself beneath that shadow If you knew the love of the Father the Glory of the Lord Jesus the joys of the Holy Ghost in Death if you knew what the Death of a Saint were how precious you would ask it continually of God that he would hasten it in the time thereof You would cry out continually as Sisera's Mother did why doth his Chariot stay Death is not now a shadow of Death but a living delightful and divine shadow cast from the glorious face of our Lord Jesus under which our Souls and Bodies lie together as in a sweet and divine sleep in his Bosom in which sleep all the joys and glories of Heaven and Eternity are present with us as a divine Dream out of which we wake at the Resurrection finding all to be true eternally true and the sweet shadow and dream themselves swallowed up into a bright clear and full enjoyment Thus according to St. Pauls Language doth the very Body of a Saint when he dies sleep in the Lord. Thus is death to the Soul and Body of a Saint as the Curtains of Purple round about Solomons Bed where the Saint lies now in the embraces of the true Solomon himself the King of Righteousness and King of Peace or round about the Chariot of Solomon which had within it a Throne of Gold and was paved with Love As the Sun by its influence forms a precious Mine of Gold in the bowels of the Earth which afterward being taken out and separated from its dross becomes pure and incorruptible and is made a Crown for the Head of a great King so the Lord Jesus by his Spirit frames a new a heavenly Soul and Body in a Saint which are both his precious Members his Temples of Gold But while this life lasts they are in this Body of Sin and Death as Gold in the Oar. In the moment of Death the Lord Jesus takes them both out separates them entirely from the dross of all earthliness and carnality makes them pure and shining Diadems in the hand of God 2. Propos. The whole Person of a Saint in Soul and Body at the moment of Death is gathered up entirely into a Spiritual Principle and so into a Spiritual Sense and so into a Divine Life and Peace This followeth of necessity upon the former Proposition which I have already proved by the Scripture For if a Saint in Death be gathered up entirely out of a Carnal Principle he is gathered up entirely into a Spiritual Principle There is now no middle between these two We read in Scripture of the divided state of a Saint between freedom and bondage liberty and captivity the War between the Spirit and the Flesh while he lives on Earth Accordingly we meet with exhortations to abide in Christ to walk in the Spirit if we live in the Spirit But when a Saint dies we read of him and that with a peculiar relation to his Body that he sleeps in the Lord that he sleeps in Christ. O sweet and full expression O beautiful and blessed State Now is a Saint with his Body as well as his Soul alone in Christ entirely in Christ for
Glorious Person by the Heavenly and Personal Union in and with the Eternal Word Soul and Body were separated in respect to their Natural Union and Composition All the Relations and Delights of both all the precious Treasures all the clear Images and Lights of Life with the sweet life itself vanished and fled away so far as they were founded upon the Natural Union the band being broken which tyed them all together in one at the dissolution of this Union But all these still dwelt together undivided still possessed and enjoyed one another after the most intimate manner without allay or interruption in the Unexpressible and Glorious Unity of the Eternal Word the Second Person in the Trinity This Unity was a Divine Band an undivided Center a living Spring an unfathomable depth of Loves and Glories where they lay perpetually enfolded in the warm embraces each of other covered with all the sweetest Lights and Beauties even upon the bitter Cross and in the cold Grave never to be divorced from each other Separation itself was here only a various and delightful form of embracing in the Unity of this Eternal Person 4. In the fourth and last place follows the manner of the Triumph This hath three parts 1. The Triumph over Corruption exprest in these words Thou shalt not suffer thy holy One to see Corruption 2. The Triumph of Life Thou wilt shew me the path of Life 3. A Triumph in the Pleasures of Life In thy Presence is fulness of Joy at thy Right Hand Pleasures for evermore 1. The first part in the manner of the Triumph is the Triumph over Corruption Thou wilt not suffer thy Holy One to see Corruption The Triumphant Person here is the holy one of God the holy Son of God the pure Seed Birth and Image of God Jesus Christ in his Divine and Humane Nature as he is in both the Holy One of God the Holy Birth and Son of God Jesus Christ in himself Jesus Christ in David David in Jesus Christ Jesus Christ in the Holy Soul and Holy Body of every Member of Christ as they are the Spiritual Births and Spiritual Temples of the Holy Spirit This is the Person which Triumphs in Death That which he Triumphs over is Corruption There is a complication of four Evils in Corruption 1. Division or Dissolution which is the chief and the Root of the other Evils 2. Darkness increasing 3. Deformity overspreading 4. Decay which is a tendency to a destruction of Being or to a contrariety in Being to all the good of Being Over all these Evils of Corruption Jesus Christ Triumpheth as he dyeth 1. Jesus Christ Triumpheth over Division or Dissolution in Death The Eternal Unity of his Divine Person was at once as a Root and a Band to both his Natures to both parts of his Humane Nature to all the Powers and parts of his Soul and Body to the several Elements in his Body to all Perfections of Glory Grace and Nature in all Powers and Parts of the Humane Soul and Body All were as an Immortal Nosegay or a Mysterious Knot of Divine Flowers ever inseparably united in this Band ever unfadingly flourishing in this Root of the Hypostatical Union or the Divine Unity of the Eternal Person which was indissoluble in Death itself Yea those Separations which are Natural and necessary in Death were themselves Flowers of the Heavenly and Earthly Paradise bound up with this Heavenly Band in this ever-fair ever-fragrant Nosegay 2. Jesus Christ dying Triumpheth over the gloomy horrours of the increasing darkness which ariseth from the hateful Womb of Darkness in the dreaded vaults of Death The Divine Nature which is inseparable from the Humane Nature the Personal Unity which is really and substantially one with the Divine Nature which gives a subsistence in itself to the Humane Nature and makes it in its Personal subsistence one with the Divine this is a brightness of Glory shining in the Grave this is a Golden Candlestick in which all the seven Lamps of God burn continually by day and by night before the Throne of God and make the vaults of Death themselves a Temple of Gold and Christal filled with the sweet Beams of the Heavenly Eternal Sun All things even Death and the darkness of Death are as precious Stones set together in the rich Jewel of this Person or Hypostatical Union where no one Stone contracts the least degree of dimness but all in the midnight of Death itself ever sparkle with the sweetest and clearest water of Eternal Life 3. The deformity of Death as it springs up out of the Corruption in Death is the subject of our dying and dead Saviours Triumph The Heavenly Image of the God-Head which is the supream Beauty the Arche-type and first Pattern of all Beauties upon the Mount of Eternity is the Person of Christ in which the Divine and Humane Nature with all its changes of Life and Death stand and subsist together Can any thing be deformed in Beauty itself Can any thing be Unlovely where the highest and purest Loveliness shines thorow all and over all What must the Harmony what must the amiableness and agreeableness be how exact and ravishing as in Heaven itself there where the Supream Unity the most Sacred Unity of one of the most blessed Persons in the All-glorious Trinity diffuseth itself thorow all the variety of things Divine and Humane of Soul and of Body binding up all by itself immediately into the most perfect and Divine Order and gathering up all into one most perfect and Divine Person in itself How High and Glorious is the Triumph of Divine Beauty over the deformity of Death when thus the Eternal Beauty itself dies dressing itself up in the Forms of Death and giving to Death it s own most lovely Face which enflames the highest Angels and God himself with Eternal and Infinite Loves In the place of Deformity what potent what attractive charms of Loveliness hath this Death to ravish Souls into the bosom of it which are thus to die by a Fellowship with the Lord Jesus as he dies 4 The last Evil in the Corruption of Death is the decay which is a Tendency to a Nothingness a Privation the destruction of the being of things or to a contrariety to all good in Being This is that dark Cave that bottomless Pit out of which like the smoak of Hell like gastly black and flaming apparitions from Hell the deepest and darkest Melancholy the most dismal Horrours and the most horrid Imaginations from the sense and fear of Death issue forth and cover the face of the Soul as pitchy and stormy Clouds cover the Face of Heaven How does the dying Soul dread to be cast forth into the uttermost Darkness to be dispossest of itself together with all thigns To be endlessly sinking in an abyss or bottomless deep of a vast emptiness and a cheerless formless shade to be no more or to be in the midst of all the wounds and torments that
Being is capable of to be consuming so as ever to wish it as the only medicine of ones evil and ever to fear it as the greatest of all Evils as the most incomprehensible Evil to be no more How sweet and delightful was the Triumph of our Lord Jesus over this Monster which stands with so grim and frightful a look in the Gate of Death O Corruption O Decay O Destructions where is your Victory Jesus Christ comes into the empty and obscure shades of Death with the fulness of the Godhead with all the Lights of the Divine Nature of Angelical and created Glories of Heaven and Eternity with their full splendours shining together all at once in the Unity of his Divine Person This Person which is the Fulness that filleth all in all which is the Brightness that shineth eternally in the Divine Essence now filleth the whole space oâ— Death now enlighteneth it thorough-out now becometh the stage and Scene of Death supporting it on his delicious Bosom bounding it with his bright and blissful Beams Where is the emptiness where is the shade where is the bottomless Pit of Dread decay in Death They are all swallowed up into shining full substantial Glorys in this Triumph of our Saviour over Death These are the Evils of Corruption in Death over which Christ triumphs See row the height of this Triumph Thou wilt not suffer thy Holy One to see Corruption Jesus Christ passeth so triumphantly through the Regions of Death that Corruption loseth not onely its force but its appearance 〈◊〉 his presence Jesus Christ seeks for the place of Corruption and finds it no more Thou O God wilt not suffer thy Holy One to see Corruption The God-head itself the Divine Person of Christ the Divine Nature inseparable from that Person goes before the Lord Jesus as a Guide when he passeth through this waste Wilderness It cometh behind him as a Rearward of Glory It encompasseth him on every side with its highest Brightnesses and Blessednesses It suffereth him to see nothing but Itself on every side of him The living shining Glorys of his God-head are Light and Eyes to his dead Body in the Grave With these and with these alone his Divine Person now looketh forth thorough his Body in the Grave thorough the Grave to the utmost bounds of the Regions of Death In this Light to these Eyes all things near at hand and afar off throughout are a shining Prospect of Living Beauties to Eternity This Divine Light and these Divine Eyes are a Divine Flame which in a moment in the twinkling of an Eye break up all Shades of obscurity fill all space with their own Brightnesses transform all Shapes even Corruption and Death into the same Divine Forms with themselves to the utmost bound of things Thus God suffereth not his Holy One to see Corruption 2. The second part is the manner of the Triumph the Triumph of Life is expressed in those words Thou shalt shâ—w me the Path of Life There are here two remarkable Triumphs over Death 1 Life in Death 2. The sight and Triumphant sense of this Life 1. Life in Death is declared by the Path of Life which is made for the Lord Jesus thorough Death Noah with his dear Relations and all kinds of Creatures kept dry and safe in the Ark while the fountains of the great Deep were broken up from below and the windows of heaven were opened from above to cover all things with a Flood of Waters the Children of Israel in the Land of Goshen whâ—â—re there was Light and Rivers of Water while darkness was upon the whole Land of Egypt and the Rivers in it were turned into Blood the Children of Israel passing in a dry path thorough the Red Sea which overwhelmed the Eâ—yptian King with his whole Army the Three Children with the similitude of the son of God walking in the midst of the fiery furnace which burnt their bands only and devoured their enemies which cast them in all these were Figures of Jesus Christ passing in a Path of life thorow Death The Lord Jesus himself in his Heavenly divine form as he is the Essential Image of his Father is his own Way and Life thorough Death This is the Fountain of Life and Eternity itself This hath all Lives bound up in one like those innumerable Beams which pour forth themselves through all things in Heaven and on Earth united in the sun Here Life riseth up in its greatest Fulness in its freshest purest and sweetest Streams where all the strengths Beauties and Joys of Life are at their greatest heighth Thus the Godhead in its Essential Image stands in every part and point of the Humane Nature of Christ dying or dead Thus it stands in every step and point of its Way through Death Thus it makes it all as a Fountain and Fâ—ood of Life As the Milky way in Heaven where innumerable Stars mingle their Beams into one Path of Light Such is the Way of Christ in Death which is all a mixture or contexture of the innumerable Beauties and sweetnesses of Life rising up fresh from the innumerable springs of Life in the Bosom of this Heavenly Image which is Eternity and the Divine Essence it self in its own substantial Form 2. The Triumphant sight and sense of Life accompanys the Lord Jesus in this Path of Life thorow Death as is signified by those words Thou 〈◊〉 shew me or make me to know the Path of Life As a Princely Bridegroom leading his Royal Bride in his hand thorough delightful walks when the spring is in its prime makes her to observe all the delights in the Walks saying to her see how pleasantly all things look how sweetly Heaven and Earth smile one upon another how lovely the leaves and blossoms are upon the Trees the grass and the Flowers upon the ground how pleasantly the birds sing in every bush how pure and sweet the air is how 〈◊〉 the year is now Thus God the Father leads Jesus Christ thus the Divine Nature in the brightness of its Glory leads the Humane Nature thorough the Paâ—h of Life in Death as a heavenly Bridegroom its dearest Bride He loâ—k forth upon him with a flaming eye of Love he saith to him behold a new and large prospect of Divine Lights and all the Beauties of Life in Death with what spicy sweetness and immortal perfumes the Spirit of Life and Love as the Air of Paradise and Heaven itself breaths upon all things here 〈◊〉 do Heaven and Earth the uncreated and the created Image of things reflect the same Beauties and sweetnesses one upon another like the Living Face and the Face in a Chrystal Mirrouâ— How do all glories in their lovelyest Forms richest Varieties looking down from above sprouting forth and blossoming from beneath meet and kiss each other How do Angels how do Immortal and shining Spirits spring and sing every where How doth the Shade of Death itself mingling itself with all
these surrounding this Divine Light at the same time surrounded by it give a solemn sweetning and heightning to all like the Base string to the Musick of a Lute making Death it self another Heaven distinct from the Heaven after Death and contending with it for delightfulness Thus God the Father maketh Christ to see the Path of Light in Death 3. The third part in the manner of the Triumph the Pleasure In thy presence are all pleasantnesses and at thy right hand Pleasures for evermore Three pleasâ—n things are here presented in one 1. The Seat of Pleasure 2. The Perfection 3. The Perpetuity of Pleasures 1. The Seat of Pleasure is the Presence and right hand of God The Presence in Hebrew is the Face of God The Son of God The Eternal Word The Essential Form of God and the Brightness of his Glory is the Face of God Behold thou art fair my beloved yea thou art Pleasant our Bed is green saith the spouse in the Canâ—cles to Jesus Christ. He is that Eternal Form and naked face of the Godhead where all the Pleasantnesses of the purest Beauties Loves and Joys first spring flourish and seat themselves His Cheeks therefore in the same Book are said to be the Garden-beds of the most fragrant Spices and persumed Flowers where the highest Beauties and the highest sweetnesses are born and married one to another and bring forth an endless race of Loves and Delights This Face of God in which all Loveliness and Loves thus shine and flame together is also set with so many eyes which continually behold and rejoyce in their own Beauties and Pleasantnesses This Face this Form of God is the Person which subsists in the Human Nature of Christ both Soul Body which in itself gives a subsistance to the whole Humanity of Christ living and dying Thus is it in the Grave and in the dead Body of Christ the seat of all Pleasantnesses the Throne of divine Beauty of Love in Death It is also as a thousand never sleeping never sâ—umbring eyes in this blessed Body with which it uninterruptedly contemplates in it self this Eternal face and Form of God this seat of Pleasantnesses which is its own Person it s own self in its personal Unity and subsistence The right hand of God is the Godhead in the strength at the heighth of Love Power Majesty and Glory as it is above all heavens Here are Pleasures in their proper fear in their greatest force and fulness as they transcend the joys themselves of all created Heavens At this right hand of God is Jesus in the Grave By this right hand of God which hath all pleasures ever attending it was he pleasantly led thorough the Shadow of Death In the Bed of Death this right hand of the most High embraced him that he might sweetly rest there in the midst of all the Pleasures of this Right Hand of his 2. The Perfection of Pleasures is exprest by these two names of Pleasantnesses and Pleasures Pleasantnesses are the Objects of delight or Pleasures in the object Pleasures are the Delights themselves in the fruition and enjoyment of those objects or Pleasures in their Subject The Subject and the Object uniting and mingling and transforming themselves variously by their various mixtures in their union into one mutual life and Form of Beauty and Love make Pleasure and delight You have here all Pleasantnesses in the Face of God and so all Pleasures at the Right Hand of God The Lord Jesus dying and in death beholds the Face of God In this Face he at once beholds all pleasant forms and Forms of Pleasantness the pleasantness of all Forms among Men Angels in their first highest Patterns to which the most Glorious spectacles and spirits of Men or Angels are obscure Shadows and faint imitations In this face he beholdeth pleasant Forms incomprehensible for variety and Glory which never cast any the least shadow of themselves nor were capable of being in the least degree imitated in the highest of created excellencies Death itself is a divine Marriage-bed in which Jesus Châ—ist receives all these pleasant Forms into his Bosom as Lights of Glory shining thick thorow the Cristal Temple of his pure and sacred Body in this Night of his Divine Death He beâ—reth in his dead Body the impressions and Figures of them all with the Heavenly substances themselves in these Impressions and Figures like a seal of Gold fixed on Virgin-wax his dying and dead Body is transformed into one Life and Form with those Original Forms of Pleasantnesses being embraced by them as by a Divine flame which makes it one pure flame of Pleasantness and Pleasure with itself 3. The Perpetuity of the Pleasure At thy right hand are Pleasures for evermore Two things are here signified 1. The continuation of Pleasures in the Person of Christ without any interruption 2. The endlesness of those Pleasures Jesus Christ saith to his Father in one Place thou leadest me by thy right hand The Lord Jesus was ever led by the right hand of the Father out of Heaven into the Virgins Womb out of the Womb into the gloomy Light of this World thorow this World thorow Death and the Grave into Heaven again Thus was this blessed Person ever at the right hand of his Father that is at the right haâ—d aâ—d Fountain of Power Majesty Love Life and Pleasures in the Womb on the earth on the Cross in the Grave So was the Path of this righteous oâ—e a shining Light of divine Pleasures uniâ—terrupted thorow all these thick shades of the blackâ—â—â— darkness There is one thing more in the duration of Christs Pleasures signified in the last Verse of this Psalm above all this The Lord saith to his Father all Pleasaâ—â—â—â—sses are in thy Face Behold here in one undivided point the full circle of Eternity and that an Eternity of Pleasures The Face of God with all Pleasantâ—esses in it Eternity implyes three things 1. the Fulness of all Beiâ—g 2. the utmost heighth of being 3. the undividedness In this Time falls below Eternity that it is a contracted successive Shadow The Face of God which is his Essential Image and substantial Form the God Head itself in the second Person in the Trinity which is our Lord Jesus is this Eternity This is that Person which was Man was Flesh hung on the Cross and lay dead in the Grave No more could the Lord Jesus be separated from the Face of his Father in any part of his Soul or Body in any season either of Life or of Death than a person can be separated from itself or the Lord Jesus be divided from the Second Person in the Trinity Thorow every state thorow the most cloudy days and the most tempestuous Nights the Face of God the Son of Eternity went along with the 〈◊〉 Jesus shining upon every Cloud aâ—d Storm shining thorough all gâ—â—ding all with the Joys and Glories of Heaven itself In this Face as in the
which thou cryest Abba Father Although thou understandest it no more than the Lamb understandeth how or why it is carryed to its Dam and drawn by its bleatings Go thy way then and be no more troubled give thy self up to the instinct and leadings of this holy Spirit within thee Thou shalt certainly see the time when the obscure smoak of the Spiritual Instinct in thee will break up into a clear Light and flame of a Joy unspeakable and Glorious both in the Testimony of the Spirit heard within thee and the Seal of the Spirit seen upon thee either in this Life or in Eternity We read in the 2 of Chron. That Solomons Throne had a Foot-stool of Gold and six steps up to the Throne On each side of these steps were two Lyons that supported every step Thou who hast the Throne of the Divine Nature in the midst of the Spiritual Paradise and Heaven set up within thee in its obscurest and lowest state rest in peace and joy on the Foot-stool itself and upon the lowest step of this Throne For the Foot-stool itself the lowest state is of Gold of an incorruptible and Divine Nature which will certainly in its proper time lift thee up to the full height and Glory of the Throne itself The lowest step here even at the highest hath for its support and guard two Lyons The Lord Jesus the true Lyon of the Tribe of Judah in all the Varieties and Riches of his Spiritual Glories multiplies his Presence and Appearance round about thee to sustain defend and cherish thee in these first beginnings of Grace in thee in the midst of thy darkness and weakness after the same manner in the same Heavenly Person of his in the same fulness of Love Power and Glory as he is with the highest Saints When we began to speak of this first step of the Resurrection or new Birth we propounded four Heads to treat upon 1. The Life which is risen 2. The Death out of which it riseth 3. The Resurrection itself 4. The way of this Resurrection We have finished our discourse upon three of these We are now to speak briefly of the last 4. The way of the Resurrection in the new birth is Jesus Christ. He saith of himself in the Gospel of St. John I am the Way Jesus Christ is the way of this Resurrection in six Steps 1. He is the Price 2. The Head 3. The Root 4. The Pattern 5. The Companion 6. The Life of this Resurrection 1. The Blood of Christ is the Price of this Resurrection Jesus Christ by his Blood hath doubly redeemed us from Death 1. By Purchase giving his Life a Ransom for us to the Divine Justice 2. By Conquest having by the effusion of his Blood and loss of his Life gained a perfect Victory over all the Powers of Darkness 2. The Lord Jesus above in Heaven is the Head of the Resurrection from the Dead In the latter part of the first of Eph. we have Jesus Christ gloriously presented unto us in his Resurrection from the nethermost part of the Earth and in his Ascent above all Heavens Then the Apostle concludes that discourse and Chapter with this Blessed Consolation that God had given him in this Glory of the Resurrection from the Dead to be the Head over all things to his Church Thou who mouâ—nest over thy sins as the worst of Deaths who doubtest who despairest of Life raise thy self to a lively Hope Look up and see thy self already risen in his Resurrection already set down in Heavenly Places together with Christ as a Glorious Spirit in that first Spirit the Head and Fountain of them all from which they are as Inseparable as the Beams in their upper ends are from the Sun Thus St. Paul speaks in the former part of the 2d Chap. of the Eph. upon that Divine Ground which he had laid in the end of the first Chapter That Christ in his Resurrection from the Dead is the Head over all to his Church 3. The Lord Jesus as he is risen from the Dead by his Spiritual Presence in our Hearts is the root of the Resurrection or new Birth in us 1 Corin. 15. Jesus Christ as he is the second Adam is said to be a quickning Spirit and the living corner Stone precious and tryed in his Death and precious in his Resurrection out of which we grow up to be a Temple to God that is both a Spiritual Heaven and a Spiritual Paradise Eph. 3. He is said to dwell in our Hearts by Faith The Lord Jesus is that Spirit which is the Root of all Spirits natural or supernatural the Root of all Life Natural and Spiritual Earthly or Heavenly Humane Angelical or Divine Dost thou feel the weight of Death heavy upon thee hast thou no sense of any spark of true Life in thee to sweeten either Death or Life to thee Look up to thy Root at the bottom of thy Spirit thy Jesus Abide in this Root wait for this Root Here are all the Treasures of Spiritual Life laid up At the set time in the proper season this Root shall spring and bud and blossom and bring forth it 's heavenly Fruits replenished with the Light and sweetness of the Divine Life and spreading themselves thorow thy whole Soul Thus shall that Life of God which thou hast lost which in thy death retired itself hither into its Root rise again in thee and thou be new-born into this Life Thus shall Jesus Christ as an Heavenly Root in thy Heart bring forth himself unto the Life of Faith which is his own Heavenly Image in thee within the Vail the Cloud of Flesh. Thus doth he make thine heart from this Root of Eternity to be an Heavenly Habitation and dwelling place for himself raised up new and Eternal out of the Ruines of Death 4. Our blessed Saviour is the Pattern of the Resurrection to us In the 8th of the Rom. we are said to be predestinated to be conformed to his Image Eph. 1. God is spoken of as working Faith and so bringing forth the Spiritual Life in us according to that exceeding greatness of his Power by which he raised Christ from the Dead We read in the Gospel that a mighty Angel came down from Heaven and rolled away the Stone from the mouth of the Grave while the Watchmen about the Grave were cast into a deep sleep to make way for the rising of Christ. How frequently doth the Soul which feels the horrour of the Spiritual Death think its Resurrection to a Divine Life to the Heavenly Graces and sweet Peaces of that Life impossible Alass the Flesh is as a Grave in which it is shut up Its Lusts and Temptations are as a mighty Stone rolled upon the mouth of this Grave Tempters visible and invisible are as Watchmen round about the Grave to keep thee there But be not discouraged at any of these things O thou disconsolate Soul Look to thy Pattern the Lord Jesus as it was