Seraphim and Cherubim In its sensitive powers and parts it stretcheth forth it self through those lower Worlds the Coelestial and Elementary In its rational and discoursive faculty it makes a distinct World of its own at once dividing and uniting the invisible and visible Worlds filling up the internal or middle space between them The Soul from its Divine Unity in its most immediate Union with its eternal Idea where all Unities of things in their God-like forms do meet together in one descendeth into its Angelick Image or Intellectual Form Here all things in Angels shapes dwell together as in a Palace of Angels Here the Soul in her own face as in a Glass beholdeth all things in their universal Forms rouling through them all so that in each form she is Omniform comprehending in open view all things in their universal Forms under the Property or Character of that universal Form in which she at present appears From thence she passeth into her rational Form in which she is a contexture of universal and particular Images mutually infolding each other mutually springing up and shining forth in a beautiful Harmony from the Christalline Bosomes of each other So this Spirit slides by degrees into the most divided shapes in sense and on Earth through these into the lowest and obscurest shades beneath the Earth Again by answerable Revolutions and in the same proportions she gathereth her self up again into her first and supream Unity Three things make the Soul in these Circlings a most beautiful and delightful Prospect which three Beauties and Pleasures all flow by á sweetly-natural necessity from her Divine Unity 1. The Changes of the Soul through all these Diversities of forms are all most orderly and harmonious all together make up one most ravishing Harmony of Divine Beauty and Musick For the Unity spreadeth it self through all this diversity of Forms and Changes The Unity preserveth it self entire in the whole composure of these Changes and in each part in each turn of the whole Upon this account hath the Soul been defined to be Harmony and a self-moving Number or a numerous Motion a numerous spring of Motion Harmony consisteth in is measured and expressed by Numbers Inasmuch as Number is Unity diffusing it self Unity going forth from it self in a just order by Multiplication or Division of it self returning again into it self and all this within it self 2. The Soul through the whole Circle of its Descent and Return carrieth along with it all diversity of Forms into every Change For the Unity of the Soul is her self every where inseparable from the Soul and indivisible in it self This is clearly signified in that Maxim concerning the Soul universally taught in the Schools That the Soul is divisible and mutable in her Operation that is in respect to her Change into diversity of forms but through all this mutability of Operations and Changes indivisible and immutable in her Essence Thus is the Essence of the Soul as a Christalline Heaven or as a Palace composed all of purest and firmest Looking-Glass after such a manner that all the parts of the wonderful structure all the persons in all the Apartments all the Changes and Motions are seen at once in every point of the Divine Building All the Glories all the Inhabitants of this Heaven in all shapes in all postures of Light and Life meet the Eye every where not only by a most clear transparency but by the Spring or Fountain of Light and Life which in winding streams floweth through the whole openeth it self with all its various streams and all their curious windings in its Bosome every where 3. The Soul rouleth through all these Changes circling from the highest Lights above to the most shady depths below and through those shades into the brightnesses above within her self Her own Essence is within it self the Spring the Center the Seat the Circle of all those mysterious and harmonious Revolutions For this is the Essence of the Soul An Unity containing in it self all diversity of Forms This is the Soul in its Essence in the perfection of its natural form the Universe within it self like God comprehending conversing with all things within its self alone All this indeed was in a shadowy figure yet such as the Life it self brought forth supported filled illustrated and acted But alas now by the Fall this great and glorious Spirit contracted obscured in death wandreth within it self as a Ghost or shade of it self among the Dead It looketh up it beholdeth it self all things round about it and wondreth at their strange shapes as the shades of the Dead It understandeth knoweth nothing of it self or them not so much as that it is dead It calleth this state of Death Life This the World which is it self become its own Tomb. Perhaps this Picture which I have drawn of the Soul in her proper Essence or Nature in her true and essential form may seem rather a fancy than any thing taken from the Life I shall therefore attempt to touch it over again that I may give more lustre and life to it that I may at once make it more clear and confirm it I shall to this end make use of two Authorities The one Humane the other Divine I shall begin with Humane Authority that I may prepare the way to and close all with the Divine Authority as the seal of Truth The Humane Authority is taken from a Person eminent as a Philosopher and Divine for a profound Knowledge in all manner of Learning for a heighth of Beauty in his Life the suitable Birth and Image of that Divine Light in his Mind for a Death which was an ascent to the eternal Mansions in a flame of Martyrdome and Divine Love agreeable to both the Light of his Knowledge and the Beauty of his Life His Writings are universally esteemed His Testimony universally received and often cited as Authentick by the greatest Persons through many Ages He hath the stamp of Antiquity upon him Boetius that great Roman is the Person of whom I speak The Authority I cite from him is the Meeter in the Book of the Consolation of Philosophy It is a part of this Meeter which describes the nature of the Soul But the whole seems to me so pertinent to the general Subject of my Discourse so excellent in it self drawn forth from the inmost Treasuries of the Platonical Pythagorean Mosaical Christian Philosophy and Divinity that I thought I should oblige the Reader to set it down entire I have therefore first transcribed it in Latin for the sake of the learned Reader and then rendred it into English for the benefit of all that shall take any pleasure in those sacred Mysteries of Truth presented in her richest Robes at the whitest heighth of her never fading Beauty and Majesty The Latin O qui perpetua mundum ratione gubernas Terrarum Caelique sator qui tempus ab aevo Ire jubes stabilisque manens das Cunct a moveri Quem non
duality unfoldeth it self into the Ternary number As in the blessed Trinity the Father shines forth in the Person of the Son his Beauty and beautiful Object Both these breathe forth themselves into the Spirit the mutual Love the Marriage-Bed of these two When thus the Varieties and Distinctions of things proceed by even and just degrees springing up naturally and immediately out of the bosom of each other as they lie naturally and nakedly in the bosom of each other according to their Divine Love-sport and play in the Palace of their Father the supream Unity now the Unity shines and triumphs with a full Joy and Glory in the Face of the whole and of each part Now it flies singing and sporting it self upon the golden wings of a most ravishing Harmony over all According to these two Rules I shall proceed in my Answer upon which it rests as upon its two Pillars Jakin and Boaz Establishment and Strength God is the God of Order saith St. Paul Order is the sacred Harmony of the Divine Nature the Divine Nature the Divine Beauty the Divine Musick all in one first in their Architype then figuring themselves upon the whole Work of God sweetly flowing through it all shining smiling and playing every where upon the face of it This Order with a Divine skill by just degrees and harmonious proportions slides into its contrary which is disorder by which it sets off and heightens it self making the Variety more full The first the highest disorder the fountain of all disorder is Sin This is the disorder of Intellectual Spirits the chief of all the Works of God the Head the Guide the measure of all the rest All the other Creatures are to these as light cast forth from the body of the Sun which is the Sun's shadow or as shadows in this life the shadows of this shadow St. Jude expresseth the Sin of Angels by their disorder The Angels which kept not their first state but left their own Habitation State is in Greek Principle they kept not their first Principle the supream Unity They held not the Head as St. Paul expresseth it They left their proper Habitation the Divine Image the Divine Order and Harmony their proper place in that Harmony where they were divinely-beautiful and made an heavenly melody in the heavenly Consort and Quire The Psalmist saith of man and his sin Man being in honour continued not but became like the Beast that perisheth Honour is the delicate gloss or sparkling lustre of a true Beauty especially the beauty of Spirits delightfully shining forth and reflecting it self upon all Spirits round about it The Divine Order and Harmony alone is the true beauty every where This is immortal Thus man by sin breaks himself off from and so becomes like the Beast without any sense of or sensible subordination to the Order and Harmony of the whole While he cuts himself off from this he dies his disorder is his death the true life of man vanishing together with the Universal and Divine Harmony Every contrary supposeth or constituteth its Correlate contrary the contrary to disorder is order That then which the Scripture speaking with the tongue of a man gives the name of Displeasure Anger Wrath in God is no other than love it self in its naked and golden smiles the Divine Beauty in the purity and simplicity of its most native and unchangeable sweetness the Harmony of the Divine Nature as a Glory eternal calm and Sun-shine opposing themselves to the discord deformity enmity of Sin As they say ill natures are tormented by Musick as the evil Spirit in Saul was cast out by David's Harp So is anger in God the most delicious the most transporting melody sounding through the whole nature of things from Jesus Christ the Universal Image of the Divine Nature and the golden Harp of God which either charms the Spirit of disorder or torments it Contrariorum remedium est contrarium One contrariety is the cure and remedy of another Disorder is reduced into order by the Divine Harmony setting it self in an opposition and contrariety to it While the opposition between these contraries remains they heighten one another This state of opposition is in the Divine Poem or Work as the scene of storms and tempests of Blood Confusion of the blackness of Darkness of Death and Hell This scene coming in as a part of the Variety sets off with a greater heightning even to an extasy of wonder and delight the Sweetnesses the Beauties the Glories of the Divine Harmony surrounding it springing up shining forth with a golden calm and lustre in the midst of it St. Paul divinely represents this to us Rom. 5. ult The Law came in that Sin might abound that where Sin abounded Grace did superabound That as Sin had reigned unto Death so Grace might reign through Righteousness unto eternal Life by Jesus Christ our Lord. The Law which is the contrariety or opposition between the Harmony of Divine Love and the disorder the confusion of Lust 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 came in by the by or by the way in the course or stream of the heavenly Harmony of the general and grand contrivance of Divine Love to set it off and heighten it to raise and transcend all expectations to extend and surprise all Understandings to make the melody of the whole more full by the Variety and more gloriously triumphant by the Discords The evils of Sufferings according to the Law of the Divine Harmony which is the Image of the Divine Wisdom the first Beauty of Truth the Image of the Divine Will the first love and goodness in the Creature have their entrance three ways 1. Every Principle unfolds it self into all the powers and forms contained in it so the evil of Sin which is the root of Disorder springeth up into all manner of disorders through Spirit Soul and Body into all manner of evils of blame shame pain sorrow torment Lust when it conceiveth bringeth forth Sin Sin when it is perfect bringeth forth death All Disorders all Evils all Sufferings are steps and forms of death 2. The disorder of Sin as it is the contrariety in the Harmony is reduced into order and made harmonious in the whole by the opposition and contrariety of the Harmony as in Musick the setting the Concord by the Discord makes the Melody Now as the Harmony is all good of Grace Joy and Glory every good in every kind being a particular Harmony in the universal Harmony so where the Universal Order the Spirit of Order which is the Spirit of Christ and God setteth it self in a Contrariety to any disorderly Spirit there all good of every kind is withdrawn all evil as of loss so of pain ariseth God saith in Deuteronomy If you walk contrary unto me I also will walk contrary unto you Then all Plagues are reckoned up the natural consequencies of this Contrariety Then saith he several times over If you go on to walk contrary to me
Godhead it self with open Face with all its unclouded Sweetnesses all its unvailed Glories fills all springs shines forth with golden smiles in every part cloaths the whole Image is the Unity of all the Person in all This is the first Unity the Unity of the whole 2. The second is the Divine the Personal Unity in each part Such is the Virtue such is the undivided simplicity of the Spiritual the Divine Unity in this Person that the Unity the Person the Variety of the whole is equally perfectly entire and distinct in each part in every point of the whole Thus as there is one Body and many members so is Christ in this his spiritual and heavenly Body But such is the spirituality the heavenliness of this Divine Body this Divine Person that in every distinct Member the Unity of the Person and of the heavenly Body the Person in its full Amplitude in the greatness of its Majesty the whole Body in all its glorious Variety is most compleatly the same and distinct in every member Thus we read that in the Throne of God and the Vision of his Glory represented by Ezckiel and St. John The Lamb was in the midst of the Throne as the Center dissusing it self through the whole Circle There appeared also in the midst of the Throne four living Creatures which are interpreted by learned Divines to be four principal Ideas the four-fold Spring and Head of all Ideal Lives and Glories into which the supream and universal Idea the Lamb immediately distinguisheth it self like the Fountain of Eden in its four great streams These four living Creatures are so described that every one hath its own distinct Form that yet all are said to have one and the same Form Every one is said to have the form of a man which is the entire and universal Harmony of all forms the form of that man which rides in the Firmament above the heads of them all the Lamb himself This is the second Unity 3. The third is the Unity of all parts with each other and with the whole Every part equally subsisteth and shineth in all the other parts and in the entire Face of the whole as in it self being every where most perfectly distinct and the same So we read concerning those four living Creatures Whithersoever the Spirit of the living Creatures was to go they still went forward and never turned This is the force of the Unity of each part and with the whole Without change at once every part stands distimctly in every form of Beauty Pleasantness Glory In all the richness of their Divine Motions and Activities ever full ever new The beautiful and Divine Face of each part of the whole in each part standeth and looketh at once every way in every part of the whole and in the whole Now have I finished the three-fold Excellency of our Jesus in this Divine Image and Mediatory Glory Before I pass from it let me entreat you to cast your eye for a little space upon two Divine and delightful sights here 1. There is no particular Form so little or so low there is no privation so empty or so dark which hath not its two-fold Idea or Archetype here We read That Death and Hell are open and manifest before the eyes of the Lord. Where are the Forms of things so divided and broken as in the dust of Death What privations so shady and black so empty and desolate so deformed horrid and dreadful as those of Death and Hell Yet are Death and Hell manifest before the eyes of the Lord. Is not this Jesus the Divine Glass and Light in which alone all things appear to himself and to his Father Are not these Archetypes or Ideal Patterns in Christ both the Divine Eyes with which the eternal Spirit looketh upon all things and the Divine Objects which alone he beholdeth with these Eyes the Divine Images in these Eyes Then Death and Hell all particulars all privations are evidently and eminently here in the beautiful Form and Person of our blessed Mediator Here they are in their proper Ideas in their distinct and heavenly Patterns their eternal Truths But here they are no more particulars or privations inasmuch as every part every point of this Divine Image where these Ideas are seated is both the Center diffusing it self through the whole Image and a Circle comprehending the whole with its full Majesty and Glory in its own distinct propriety and form Thus the Psalmist sings divinely of this heavenly Mystery to Jesus Christ. The Darkness hideth not from thee but the Night shineth as the Day the Darkness and the Light both alike This is the first of those heavenly sights to which I invited thee 2. See if our Jesus in this Mediatory Image be not the Jerusalem above ever new altogether heavenly our Mother which bringeth us forth under the Apple-Tree the Tree of Love in the heavenly Paradise which beareth us upon her sides and dandles us upon her knees through our whole course in all our motions and changes of our Birth Life and Death which milketh forth from her Breasts abundance of Glory upon us See if this be not that City of the living God having the Godhead it self for a Foundation where all things dwell together in their heavenly Patterns and eternal Spirits See if this be not Jerusalaiim two Cities in one compacted together by one eternal Love into one eternal Spirit and Person the created and the Uncreated Image where the First-bron the whole Creation in general all Creatures in particular in their first-born Original Images and Truths dwell together See if this be not that Kingdom of God universal over all the last of all without end eternal which is Righteousness Peace and Joy The Righteousness of all Divine incorruptible Harmony and Beauty the Beauties of Holiness the Beauties of the Divine Nature in its most unstained unmixt highest Purity that Peace and Joy which is the most ravishing Harmony of all things as they spring shine and sing together in the Unity of the Divine Light Life and Love in the ever dear and delightful Person of our blessed Mediator I have proceeded thus far in our Discourse of the Lord Jesus as he is the Mediator of the Creation the way by which God descendeth into the Creature and the Creature cometh forth from God To this end he necessarily toucheth both the extremes is immediately united to both and unites both in himself in a middle state between both I have spoken of the Lord Jesus as he toucheth the extreme above and is God with God the essential Image of God the Original Seat and Image of all Forms of things in their first state We have treated of him in his middle state where he is the Union of God and the Creature of all Forms of things uncreated created joyned together in one Light and Spirit of Glory I now pass to the third Consideration of our Mediator as he toucheth the lower extream of the
one another into the Glory of God is the Rule of St. Paul Divines distinguish between the person together with the nature of the Deâ—…il and the evil The person the nature springs forth from God and so is good hath a Divinity and Glory in it a Divine Root a Divine Image It stands in the Glory of God as a Flower in the Garden a Bâ—…am in the Sun it is maintained by a continual emanation from the bosom of the supream Glory Thus thou art to receive every person clouded with the greatest evils as he is the work of Nature and of God into the Glory of God Thus every other person is to be thy Neighbour thy â—…rother in the Glory of God and the Object of a Divine Love No evil as evil is the nature or choice of any person but the mishap and the disease Truth is the only Object of every Understanding the only white at which it aims Like the Mary-gold it opens it self only to this Sun or that which shines upon it in the glorious form of this Sun and so descends in seeming beams of this Divine Beauty into its bosom Good is the only Object of the VVill. As the Needle toucht by the Load-stone is governed in its motion and rest by the North-pole so is the VVill moved and attracted by that alone which toucheth it with a sense of good It resteth in no bosom but that which courteth and wooeth it undâ—…r the Divine Form of good with the seeming Charms of this its only Beloved and Bridegroom St. Paul saith Sin deceived me and slew me No person is willingly dâ—…ceived in his belief of Truth on disappointed in his expectation of good Every evil is a degree of death a diseafe in the end death When it appeareth like it self all things fly from it as from death But as Cupid in the form of the young and flourishing Prince Ascanius by treacherous embraces and kisses breath'd a fatal poyson into the veins of the Carthaginean Queen So doth sin and evil by the hellish enchantments of the Prince of Darkness form it self into the most alluring resemblance of the heavenly Image composed of Truth and Goodness meeting in one immortal form It adorneth it self all over with the most curious and sparkling Counterfeits of all its most amiable most Divine Sweetnesses and Beauties Thus it insinuates it self into the eyes and hearts of the Sons of God and fills them with its false sweetnesses enflames them with a false Love as the poyson and fire from Hell Yet still in the midst of these enchantments and deaths as the Athenians in the midst of their Atheism and Idolatry had an Altar inscribed To the unknown God The Understanding and the Will according to their own proper natures stand in every natural Spirit as Altars in a Temple shining and burning with continual fires by night and by day aspiring to the highest and clearest Heavens through all opposed Clouds of Darkness while this inscription in clear Characters appeareth engraven round these Altars To the Unknown Good the Unknown God to the unknown Truth the unknown Jesus If any person then be faln into any evil Let those that are spiritual restore him with a spiritual skill with a spirit of Meekness and Divine Love Apply Reproofs Chastisements to evil persons in their seasons as a Brother gives an Antidote to a beloved Brother that by a mistake hath been surprized and drunk in poyson or as one hand applies a Medicine to the other hand or to the eye when it suffers by any wound or distemper If thou art an Angel and hast to do with a Devil use no reviling Language for so the Angel himself is by the Spirit of God markt with a Character of Honour for this that he used no reviling Speeches to the Devil Preserve thy self from that bitter zeal which St. James mentioneth upon which he setteth so evil a mark branding it deeply with the fire of Hell as a Devil transfiguring himself into the form of an Angel If there be saith he amongst you bitter envying this wisdom is not from above but earthly sensual and devillish We read it bitter envying In Greek it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 bitter zeal Take heed of suffering thy zeal against the evil to be mingled and tempered with a bitternâ—…ss against the person As Lightning from Heaven melts the Sword but doth no harm to the Scabbard Discover thou in all thy Reproofs and Chastisements an equal love to the person and hatred to the evil an equal desire to destroy the evil and save the person Or rather let thy zeal against the evil be love to the person flaming forth and burning with a great but with a sweet and Divine force that it may consume the Dross for the Golds-sake to which the dross cleaves that of the Gold thus refined it may make a Jewel for the Bosom or a Crown for the Head of Jesus Christ. Suffer not thy zeal against evil to be like the Locusts from the bottomless-pit which have faces like men hair soft and delicate like women Crowns of Glory upon their heads like Angels but venemous and killing stings in their tails Let it not be like Culinary fire or the fire of Hell black sooty and devouring but like the fire from the golden Altar mingled with sweet Incense filling all round about and carrying up that upon which it feeds as a Sacrifice to Heaven with the rich Odours and Perfumes of a Divine Love If I be lifted up to Heaven by manifold excellencies together with Corazin and Bethsaida from whence I look down upon another far beneath me lying like Sodom and Gomorrah in a loathed and hated deep of darknesses defilements disgraces Let me then think That this Sodom may have a better Spirit a better ground of good at the bottom of its Spirit than my self That if the seed of Love and Light which hath been sown in me had been sown with the like advantage there it would have far excelled me in its fruits Yea let me think that it may not only have a better ground but a Divine seed hid deep in that ground beneath all this soil and dung beneath all this darkness deformity and deadness of its Winter-season which may rise up in its proper Spring into pleasant Flowers and Fruits as the Garden of God Thus let me think and let these thoughts instruct me to love every other person removed to the greatest distance from me cast down to the greatest depth beneath me as my Neighbour my Brother my self This is my double Request to thee gentle Reader 1. That thou love every other person as thy Neighbour thy Friend thy self with that Divine Love in whose flame thou sacrificest thy self and all things to receive thy self again and all things together with thy self in a more excellent and durable form 2. That thou suffer nothing to stain the Candour of this Love whose Reasons being altogether Divine subject all other reason to themselves
much dearness and esteem upon my heart He came to a City filled with Reproaches cast upon him I saith he spake not one word to clear my self I received gladly the Humiliation Now gentle Reader I will seal up my Epistle to thee with that golden Sentence of St. Paul Let all your things be done to all in Charity or in Divine Love Let me add this one short Direction as a gloss upon it bear always clearly and deeply engraven upon thy Soul these and the like Precepts Love all Men Honour all men Love your Enemies Love another as thy self Study to know God as he is the Pattern and the Perfection of the Divine Perfection included in these Precepts Be you perfect saith Jesus Christ as your heavenly Father is perfect So he setteth before his Disciples the rich ground out of which these Precepts Spring as Plants of Paradise Study the Reason and the Equity of these Precepts The Precepts of God are true saith David and righteous altogether Every Divine Precept is founded in a Divine Truth The only reason of Love is loveliness Thus shalt thou be every where led into a Paradise and into Heaven while thou shalt now understand that God is Love a Godhead of Love That while thou livest and movest and hast thy Being in God thou livest and movest and hast thy Being in Love it self That while God works all in all fills all in all all within thee all without thee is a work of Love is full of Love Thus these Precepts in the reason of them which will shine out upon thee more and more as thou growest in the practice of them shall be an anointing upon thine eyes by virtue of which thou shalt see in all things every where which way soever thou turnest thy self a Divine Loveliness presenting it self to thee continually entertaining enflaming thine heart with a Divine Love crowning thy thoughts with a Divine Peace and Joy Gentle Reader There were in the Temple Vessels made of Wood but these were over-laid with pure and massy Gold This Treatise is no Temple thou wilt certainly meet with many things of wood and perhaps of the lowest sort of wood worthless the subject of Frailty and Corruption Let it be thy part and glory to over-lay it with the Gold of the Temple above Divine Love which covereth all Sin So my humble Prayer is That thou mayest be together with my self yea so shall we both be if we abide in the Divine Love Priests consecrated by an heavenly Blood and an heavenly Unction to minister to the God of all Loving kindnesses by day and by night in the Temple of Love Here now death is no more here from our Death-beds as from the golden Altar like the sweet and costly Incense we shall ascend in a pure and glorious flame of heavenly Love kindled from the Face and Heart of God above unto the Throne of God the Throne of Grace and Love to be ever in the circuit of that Throne where the eternal Spirit like a Rain-bow shall encompass us round as the seal and band of eternal Love shining with all innumerable beauties and pleasantuesses ever full ever fresh and flourishing Perhaps some one will say Who is this that thus preacheth Love to the World Is he himself a Dove washt in Milk Far is he from pretending to the praise and perfections of that Spirit the Bride of the heavenly Bridegroom which sitteth in the Garden of Divine Purities Sweetnesses and Light making her Beloved and his Companions to hear her Voice while they return their esteem affections and admiration in Songs saying to her Thy Voice is pleasant thy Face thy Person is lovely No the only Character here is that of a Voice in the Wilderness a Wilderness of many Deformities and Distractions within as well as without Crying Prepare ye the way of Divine Love make streight paths for it by bringing down every Mountain of Vanity and Pride by filling up the Vallies of low dejected lost dispairing Spirits He who thus cries to you too frequently too deeply hath â—…erc'd the side of this Love yet still from the woundâ—… heart through the wounds water and blood flow to wash off the stains of this blood upon him and by this blood as a Balsom as a Cordial as a Spring of Life all at once to heal his Wounds to infuse new vigour and joy into his Spirits to renew life in his heart even out of Death it self unto Immortality This is the Innocency and Wisdome which maketh them blessed who aspire to it who as often as they fail in their duty of loving every other person as themselves are sensible of the guilt of breaking the whole Law which is summed up in these two great Commandments and maketh them inseparable as the substance and the shadow in the Sun-shine or as the Fountain and the stream the Sun and the similitude of the Sun in the light surrounding it To love God with all our selves and To love our Neighbour as our selves A DISCOURSE OF THE Freedome of the Will The FIRST PART CONTAINING The Definition of the Free-will in question and the Arguments opposed to it Libertas est facultas ejus quod cuique facere libet ut Romani definiunt faith Grotius upon Genesis This is liberty to do that which we like to do Liking is from likeness Nihil est quod ad se rem ullam tam alliciat tam attrahat quà m ad amicitiam similitudo saith Cicero Nothing so allures and so attracts as similitude and likeness doth to liking and to love Liking then is founded in the nature and harmony of each essence Every thing moves and rests freely at liberty when it moves and rests according to its own nature according to the harmony of its own essence Zeno defines liberty to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a power of self-acting The Philosopher defines nature to be the principle of motion and rest there where it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by it self and not by accident Our nature is our true-self Then have we the power of self-acting when we move and rest according to our own natures being acted in them by our own natural and essential Principles We meet with this Rule often in Aquinas Vnumquodque operatur prout est Every thing acts as it is The being or nature of each thing is the Root and the Rule of its operation By these things which I have spoken two marks present themselves to us to guide us in our judgment of liberty 1. Liberty is a relation or harmony between the essence or nature of each thing and its operations 2. According to the Orders and Degrees of Being are the Orders and Degrees of Liberty According to these two Marks we shall find a two-fold measure of Liberty 1. The Principle 2. The Sphere of Activity I shall then upon this ground distinguish liberty into a four-fold Order 1. The freedome of the Elements and Coelestial
Thus the Soul rides forth in her three-fold Chariot Heavenly Airy Earthly upon the Circuit of the Heavens the purest Air and the Earth the true Venus the true Queen of Love and Beauty by which all things spring shine live and love through her Marriage-Union with her Lord and King the true Adonis or Adonai the Lord Jesus who died and lives again with his beloved Bride in the secret of Paradise in the midst of the Field of the Coelestial Light the pure Air in the bosome and nethermost parts of the Earth This is the Soul in its first make and proper state Plotinus teacheth That the first Soul which is the immediate Workman of this World in the order of its procession from the separate Intelligences or Angels and from God the only supream Father of all hath its face ever turned to the face of God and unmoveably fixed upon it from his Face it continually takes in as the Nectar of the Gods the Divine Light the Divine Life and Love it continually takes in as at an heavenly Feast as the heavenly Ambrosia the Ideal Beauty the first the Archetypal Forms in their most immediate sweetest freshest fullest Effulgency or Images This God-like Soul thus bred thus divinely formed thus nourished thus impregnated sends forth from it self this whole visible World in the figures of those first Glories in the similitude of their Unity Variety and Order without thought care or trouble without ever turning a look to this World As a Person with his Face to the Sun casts his shadow upon the ground behind him There is only this difference as this great Soul casts the shadow of this Corporeal World from it self there is no ground for it to fall upon besides the Soul it self All these Heavens this Earth and Sea with all their roulings springings fadings and floatings are then the soul it self in her lowest Form bearing the figures of all her superior Glories most curiously and delightfully wrought in deeper shades The Soul in this her lower form is her own living Looking-Glass of shadowy shaded Light in which she sees with a grateful Variety with a pleasing Reflection of her own Divine force and fruitfulness her own Beauties in a weaker fainter fading Image maintained only by continual beams from her self All Souls as they flow in their Order and successions from this first Soul by virtue of the first production bring forth to themselves and bear within themselves the whole World in its fairest and fullest measures Object If any ask these Philosophers what sign or appearance there is of this sublime state this amplitude this majesty in the soul of Man they will give you such answers as these Answ. 1. The Soul hath now lost her wings by which she flyes through the whole Heavens and Earth She now lies languishing contracted clouded divided wounded sick dying upon the ground of this earthly Body You can take no more any measure of the true nature of the Soul of the Soul in her own proper Divine Form and Image by her present state then you can of the humane Form Spirit and Life by a worm grown out of the putrified body of a man dead Answ. 2. As the Soul of a man sleeping is to the Light of this World so is the Soul in this Body to the Light of its own Intellectual Invisible Divine Form and Beauty As a Prince sleeps in some private Room with the Curtains drawn about him within his own Palace in the midst of all the splendors and splendid Persons of his Court seeming to himself in his dreams as he sleeps to be a naked forlorn Prisoner at the bottome of a dark and deep Dungeon In such a dream doth the Soul appear to her self sleeping in this Body in the midst of all her own Immortal Beauties in the Palace and Court of her own Divine Unity and Essence But I have now done with Humame Authority and Philosophy in its Testimony But as I part I will leave Philosophy with this Honourable Testimony The only and true Philosophy is the Light of Nature in its primitive purity as the scattered Beams and dispersed remainders of it in the midst of the ruines of Nature are collected strengthened and reflected from the most excellent of natural or Divine Spirits like Sun-beams centered in a burning-glass The second Authority I pass now to the Divine Authority which is the testimony of the Holy Scriptures I shall cite only two Scriptures one from the first of Genesis the other from the first of the Romans I being with the last which seems clearest and fullest 1. Scripture The first Testimony from the Scriptures is Rom. 1. 19 20. From this Text to the end of the third Chapter you have the Soul with a profound Depth Like a River rouling along with all her various serpentine windings from the Sea of Love the Divine Bosome till she return thither This Divine Philosopher after a Divine manner sets the humane Soul before us in the whole compass of her Essence in all her circlings through all forms of things as he saw her by a Light of Revelation in the eternal Design in her Idea in the heart of the Father the Fountain in the Bosom of the Lord Jesus the first seat of all Divine Designs and Ideas This Design is divided into three parts 1. The Soul in its primitive and pure state of Nature presented to us Chap. 1. vers 19. 20. 2. The Soul in her fall as she passeth through the shades beneath of Sin Suffering Death and Wrath from the 21. verse of the first Chapter to the 20. verse of the third Chapter 3. The Soul in its return and re-ascent to a greater Glory from the 22. verse of the third Chapter to the end of that Chapter I shall very briefly with all the perspicuity that I can point out the Heads of things in these three parts of the Souls course and design in the Divine Mind 1. The Soul in its primitive and pure state of Nature is presented to us Rom. 1. 19 20. That which may be known of God is manifest in them for God hath manifested it to them For the unseen things of him from the Creation of the world are seen being understood by the things that are made both his eternal Power and Godhead I shall make two Notes upon the Grammar of the words 1. That which may be known of God is manifest in them This relates to the pure state of Nature not to the Corrupt For of that it is said vers 21. Their foolish heart was darkned Things are manifest only in the Light The expression runs in the present time after the manner of the Divine and Prophetick stile which sets before our eyes all forms of things as they appear in the Divine Light where all things are ever present and appear at once in one Besides this as Paradise so the pure Image of God in the Soul seems to some not to be lost or destroyed but
19 20 21 22. For the earnest expectation of the Creature waiteth for the manifestation of the Sons of God For the Creature was made subject to vanity not willingly but for him who hath subjected the same in hope Because the Creature it self shall also be delivered from the bondage of Corruption into the glorious liberty of the Children of God For we know that the whole Creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now Observe here that Creature and Creation are both the same word in Greek Where you read the Creature in the 19 20 21. verses you may as well read it the Creation that which you read the whole Creation verse 22. is as properly every Creature There are two Questions which here naturally arise and are absolutely waved by me as having no necessary Connexion with my present purpose Quest. 1. The first Question is this In what sense the Creature or Creation is understood by the holy Apostle Is the whole Creation one entire living sensible Image of the Divine Nature in which every Creature as a part of this Divine Image partakes of the same life according to the Doctrine of Campanella Shall we say with Plato Every thing that is is an Act of Life and so nothing of Being without life Or may it seem agreeable to the Scriptures that all the Creatures stood together at first before the breach made by the Fall in the Unity of the Spirit in Christ the Head of the Creation without whom or apart from whom nothing was made that was made as St. John teacheth us Did every Creature stand now in Union with its proper Angel through its Angel with its proper Idea in Christ the Divine Mind and the Universal Idea Was every Creature thus cloathed with the Angelical Image partaker of the Angelical Life Did it through these receive the Divine Image the Divine Life of its own Idea That the whole Creation might seem a Contexture of Angels filled with Ideal Lights all meeting together in one chief Angel and one Universal Idea which is the Lord Jesus Had every Creature thus a sight and sense of the Divine Design in the Fall was it thus capable of a willingness and an unwillingness in its submission to it as it considered that particular state or the general design with the Divine end of all As it considered it self in this dark part to be acted by it or the eternal Spirit in its universaâ—…â—…ontrivance and the Mark the heighth of Glory to which it directed all Do the Creatures still though bound in Chains of Darkness retain so much of this Angelical Ideal Light and Life as to hope to groan for a return from their Captivity into these Angelical Ideal Forms and so into the glorious liberty of the Sons of God whom St. James saith to be the First-fruits of the Creation Whether this be so or all these terms of Will of Hope of Groans be by a figure attributed to Subjects without life or sense or some other sense be righter than either of these I consider not now as being unconcerned Quest. 2. The second Question is whether the individual Creatures did all pre-exist being together in Paradise before the Fall in their Angelical Spirits and Forms Was among these Mankind with all individual Persons not only in a Representative but a Collective Adam unto whom Adam in his own distinct Person was the Head and the first born Did those thus who now groan under the ruines of the Fall then fore-see it in the Divine Design having an aversion to it in it self yet subjecting themselvns to it for God Are these who now through all Generations groan and travel in pangs for the delivery of the Divine seed in them unto the Birth of a new Glory the same who then had this Divine Seed of a sure Hope sown in them for their return And not for their return only but for their Resurrection unto a sight of the Face of God with a new and fuller Glory shining forth without any shadow or Vail purely and immediately upon them all through them taking them up into it self as a new Super-Coelestial eternal Paradise as far excelling their first Paradise as the Heavens are above the Earth as Eternity transcends Time But these then where have they been since the Fall Were they thrust down to the nethermost parts of the Earth imprisoned in the deep shades of the Earth below and bound there in Chains of Darkness Are they there reserved in the silence and sleep of that Death which came upon all by the Fall until as Seed buried in the ground they according to their several seasons spring up into Corruptible Forms and a wretched Life for a moment upon the stage of this World to act new parts in order to a refining through a Baptism with Christ in the fire of his Sufferings of his Death and the making of all new by this refining in the Glory of his Resurrection Dear Reader these Questions may be thought by some curious and difficult without use fruit or ground in the Word of God To others perhaps they may seem of great moment to open the mystery of God to unvail his Glory in the wonder of his Works which are sought out by all those who love him Some may esteem them of great advantage to enlighten the Daknesses and make easie the Difficulties about Principal Doctrines of the Christian Religion as that fundamental Truth of Original Sin that most sweet and sacred Mystery which is the Antitype to this Type Our justification by Jesus Christ the Return of all to life in the last Adam as all died in the first Others may believe that as God sheds abroad richer Anointings of the Light of his Spirit we shall see lying fair before us greater and stranger things than these which now like fresh colours in a beautiful Object appear not at all for the want of light in the Air in our Spirits As the eternal Sun shineth as the Heavens in the Scriptures and the Spirit shall open themselves they expect to see the Angels of Glory and of God the Divine Glories descending and ascending upon the Son of Man the Person of the Lord Jesus as a mystical Ladder reaching through the whole Creation from the top to the bottom where each rank of Creatures is a step in this Ladder a Divine Glory in the Angelical Form upon the Wings of its proper Angel descending and ascending But I leave these things to the freedome of every Spirit as bringing no weight to my present purpose begging thy pardon Christian Reader for this mention of them as being fairly led to by the present Scripture and willing to take the occasion of diverting thy self and me as I hope not without some spiritual pleasure and profit through the candour of thy Mind I shall take hold of that alone which seems to lie clear in the words of the Text and gives a full confirmation to my Proposition which is this That
of Free-will casts upon the Glories of God in these other Attributes it doth not at all excel the other Opinion in clearing the Glory and Justice of the Divine Goodness But while as with triumphant flourishes by Rhetorical Reproaches it insulteth upon the other Opinion as equalling God in savage cruelness to the most arbitrary Tyrants to the most inhumane and ferine Man-eaters It leaveth God equally exposed to the same Reproaches and it self to the imputations of the same Blasphemies I have now finished the first thing which I had to propound in answer to that Argument against the predetermination of the Will which is taken from the goodness and justice of God 2. The second thing which I have to propound is this the holy Scripture in many places seems plainly to assert the Divine Conduct with a potent and irresistable efficacy in this dark part of things the evil as also the Glory of the Divine Justice and Goodness in this conduct equal with that in the good I will instance in three Scriptures only 1. My first instance is that of Solomon Eccles. 3. There is a season for every thing and a time for every purpose A time to be born and a time to die A time to kill and a time to heal A time to embrace and a time to refrain from embraces A time to destroy and a time to preserve A time to love and a time to hate from the first to the ninth verse He that is God hath made every thing good in his time verse 11 I know that all which God hath done this shall be for ever I shall draw forth this Scripture into a few brief Maxims which seem to arise naturally and clearly out of it 1. There is all Variety in the Unity of the Divine work a Variety extending it self to the remotest the highest Contrarieties Affirmative or Negative to the most distant perfections and privations So the holy Spirit speaketh expresly in the general every thing every purpose all that can fall within the conception or comprehension of the vastest and most incomprehensible Spirit hath its season and time So the holy Spirit speaketh in particular love and hatred war and peace embracing and abstaining from embracing life and death destruction and salvation have their time and season Do not these particular instances expresly define the highest Contrariety Affirmative or Negative of good and evil in their greatest Latitude and most universal Nature 2. God makes all this Variety and Contrariety and that in the lowest Region also even under the Sun where it appears in a dark tempestuous scene of the greatest disorder and confusion There is a time saith Solomon for all and a season for every purpose The word Season signifieth a set measured time like the times in Musick the time or season of each thing is its duration Duration is the mode or measure of the Essence and so really the same with the Essence the Essence measured and bounded As Essences and Habits so also have privations their measure and bounds as Rests and Stops have time in Musick Every Essence is the Birth of an Understanding of which it beareth the impression and Seal It is the work of an Understanding alone to give measure and bounds to things That then which setteth the time for all Varieties and Contrarieties Perfections and Privations which consequently maketh and formeth them can be no other than the Divine Understanding God in his essential and eternal Word which alone is above and before all things So we read here concerning all these Contrarieties That God hath made them beautiful 〈◊〉 their time God then hath made them God maketh all Contrarieties Affirmative and Negative Perfections and Privations but after a contrary manner He maketh Perfections as the Sun maketh light in the Air after an Affirmative manner by a positive presence power and influence He maketh privations as the Sun maketh darkness and night after a Negative manner by his absence by a drawing in his power and binding up his sweet influence But this negation also and so the privations which flow from it are called here by Solomon the Master of all Wisdom Humane and Divine Purposes There is a season saith he for every purpose then he instances in the Contrarieties following Privations then are Divine purposes that is Designs Contrivances Divine Forms designed contrived and measured in the Divine Mind Upon this ground some Philosophers teach us That God is a transcendent Good above all Beings who comprehends Originally in himself not only all Beings but all privation of Being which themselves also as darkness night absence and death in their place and time are Forms of good although not Forms of Being and Divine Forms Forms in Divinity although not natural Forms nor Forms in natural Philosophy But now I am passing to my third Conclusion Thirdly God maketh all things the Varieties and Contrarieties beautiful in their time They are the express words of Solomon from the heighth of all created Wisdom in its single state They are the words of the Uncreated Wisdom it self speaking by Solomon God hath made all beautiful in his time verse 11. This is manifestly spoken with respect to the general All in the first verse and the particular All 's of the highest Contrarieties of the most distant privations enumerated in the following verses the time of each Being respecteth its relation to the whole Beauty is an Harmony and consisteth in the suitableness or conveniency of the several parts with each other and with the whole Suitableness is a similitude similitude is an Unity in Variety an Unity of Form in distinct Subjects as the same sweetness and colour in several Flowers The same beautiful light of knowledge the same pure and lovely sweetness of Spirit which makes a Divine Friendship the highest suitableness and similitude Philosophy teaches us That the first Good and the first Unity are the most proper Names of the most high God having both the same sense and force It teaches us also That the first Beauty is an effulgency from the first Good the first Good or the first Unity shining out into a distinct Image of it self which is the first Distinction or Variety and so the supream the most ample Variety All Beauty then in its kind and degree is an Unity diffusing it self and shining forth into a Variety where from the whole and from each part it reflecteth it self upon it self with all its united Vertues Proportions and Sweetnesses meeting every where in each point Upon this ground we are taught That the first Understanding is the first Beauty and that every Beauty is the Birth and Object of that Understanding alone at least in some impressions or foot-steps of it For Beauty being the meeting of many parts or proportions in one undivided Point or an Unity in Variety can neither be nor be discerned where there is not a spiritual Form or Substance which is it self an undivided Unity Then doth the Beauty spring with
come now to the third Reason I am to answer Reason 3 The Language of the Scripture in the whole current of it seemeth generally to run along upon this ground of an undetermined freedom of the Will of Man The Divine Will is cleared from the evils of Sin and Suffering The Will of Man is charged with them Agreeable to this are the Divine Precepts Prohibitions Promises Threatnings Admonitions Reproofs Complaints Expostulations which compose a great part of the sacred Writings Answ. I answer by a distinction This manner of Language As I live I desire not the death of a Sinner Why will ye die O house of Israel with all expressions like to these are either 1. Proper and plain 2. Figurative and mysterious 1. If they be proper and plain two great Difficulties arise 1. The true and living God thus represented appears like Homers Gods and the Gods of the Poets Weak querulous passible ever in contentions and combates 2. While the Divine Will in that on which it fixeth it self with so great truth and intention is capable of being opposed and defeated it appears destitute of Wisdom Power and Blessedness 2. If they be figurative and mysterious The figures first are to be determined and the mystery vailed beneath the figure to be discovered before we can establish any certain or clear sense upon them 1. The figure made use of in this manner of Language is by the consent of Divines complicated of an Anthropopathy and a Metonymy 2. The Anthropopathy is then when passions proper to man are attributed to God 2. The Metonymy is of the cause set for the effect and the things signified in the place of the sign So those changeable passions in created Spirits which bring forth and express themselves by changes of good or evil the effects and signs of those passions are applied to the unchangeable God when he bringeth forth the like changes in his Work So the Jews say That the holy Scriptures speak with the Tongue and in the Language of a Man But all such figurative expressions concerning God are to be understood with this Caution Every thing indeed in the Creature is a figure which hath its Original pattern answering to it in the Divine Nature But all imperfections attending the figure are to be removed All perfections in their utmost heights and most absolute fulness are to be attributed to the Original pattern when by the shadowy figure in the Creature you look to the exemplar and primitive truth in God So by these changeable and diverse passions in man you are to represent to your selves in God a Goodness a Power an unsearchable Riches of Variety and manifoldly various Wisdom and all these apart and together with the most absolute simplicity and highest Unity in the Divine Essence producing all diversities of accidents all changes of good and evil in the Divine Design which cometh forth at once as one piece divinely Rich in all Varieties from him and as one entire Image filled with the riches of all distinct Beauties of him who is unchangeable and most perfectly one 2. Having thus determined of the Figure Let us try to lift up the Vail and discover the Divine Mystery beneath this Figure I shall endeavour to take a Prospect of this Divine Secret and hidden Glory by several steps or degrees 1. The letter of the Scripture in the general â—…ream and current of it is the Ministry of the Law So St. Paul in divers places distinguisheth the Law and the Gospel or the Covenant of Works and the Covenant of Grace 2 Cor. 3. 6. Who hath made us able speaking of God Ministers of the New Testament or the New Covenant not of the Letter but of the Spirit for the Letter killeth but the Spirit giveth life In the following verse the engraving of the Law in Tables of Stone and Moses are mentioned Again in prosecution of the same Discourse Moses with his Vail is brought in To this are opposed in the 17. and 18. verses The Spirit of the Lord the liberty of the Spirit the sight of the Glory of the Lord with an unvailed Face the tranfiguration of the Soul into the same Image from glory to glory and all this by the Lord the Spirit These things laid together seem to make it clear that in the sense of the holy Apostle the letter the proposal and pressing of any truth or goodness upon us in a literal and moral way only whether outward or inward amounteth to no more then the old Covenant the Ministery of the Law on the other side the new Covenant the Gospel is the Spirit himself ministring himself through the letter to us taking off the Vail which lies upon the letter and upon our hearts bringing us forth into the Liberty the open Light and the Divine Life of the Spirit giving us a naked view of the Face of Christ in his spiritual and heavenly Glory and by this view transforming us into living Images of the same Glory springing up and encreasing in us unto the perfect day of eternity Suitable to this is that of St. Paul Rom. 10. 5. Moses describeth the Righteousness which is of the Law That the man which doth these things shall live by them Whatever imposeth upon us any thing to be done by us as an antecedent condition to any consequent good is the Law opposed to the Gospel The Law maketh Precepts the ground of Promises He that doth these things shall live by them But the Gospel maketh Promises the sure the sweet the precious pleasant ground of Precepts So St. Peter 2 Pet. 1. teacheth us That by the Glory and Virtue of the Godhead calling us to it self most great and precious Promises are given us that by these we may be made partakers of the Divine Nature So St. Paul engrafts Evangelical Precepts upon Evangelical Communications of the Divine Nature through Evangelical Promises Work out saith he your salvation with fear and trembling for it is God that worketh in you both to will and to do Phil. 2. 2. The proper end of the Law in the design or effect is not Love Righteousness Life and Blessedness but Condemnation Death and Wrath 2 Cor. 3. 7. It is called the ministry of Death At the ninth verse The ministry of Condemnation St. Paul in another place speaketh plainly That if there had been a Law which could have given Life Righteousness should have been by the Law St. Paul instructeth us in two eminent essential differences between the Law and the Gospel First The Law by Descriptions Commands Allurements Terrors setteth Righteousness before us but infuseth not a new Nature a new Life into us which may of its own accord bring forth Righteousness as Plants spâ—…ing up out of the ground and out of their proper root Secondly the Law not giving Christ himself to us to be a quickning Spirit in us to be our Life to be one Life with us cannot give us Righteousness either to the acceptation of our
eternal life sown in it 4. The Law is an heightning to the sweetness and beauty of Christ. The Law came in that sin might abound That where sin had abounded Grace might super abound The Law is a three-fold heightning to the sweetness and beauty of Christ in the Gospel 1. The Law heightens the Glory of Christ by an Antiperistasis As in hard Frosts the Lights of Heaven shine brightest and look with sweetest Glories upon us As in the coldest season the Fire burns brightest and refeshes our Spirits with the liveliest warmth and heat So Darkness Death and Wrath in the Ministry of the Law by their opposition being carried to the greatest extremity excite and stir up the Godhead to pour forth it self from all its richest and unconfined Depths in the most full the overflowing Seas of all his sweetest richest most exalted Loves and Glories 2. The Law heightens the sweetness and beauty of Christ by being a soil to it There is more joy in Heaven over one Sinner that repenteth than over ten righteous persons continuing in their Righteousness The Father of the Prodigal in the Parable giveth this reason for the excess of Joy the unwonted Triumphs with all the heightnings of Feasts and of Musick This our Son which was lost is found which was dead is alive The Violets and Roses of the Spring are the sweeter and more beautiful for the Winter going before them How sweet and amiable is the light of life arising upon those who sit in darkness and under the shadow of death As a foil beneath a Diamond so do the darknesses and deformities of Sin the hateful stains and insupportable guilt of Sin the terrors the horrors the torments of Death and the Divine Wrath under the Law make the freedom and fulness of the Divine Grace the Righteousness the Life and Glory of God in the Person of the Lord Jesus appearing to a lost forelorn Soul in the midst of these black shades unvaluably precious infinitely amiable pleasant far surpassing all the sweetness and beauties of the loveliest Morning all the Lights and Glories of the purest Sun arising out of the darknesses of the most melancholy and tempestuous night 3. The Law heightens the brightness and delightfulness of Christ in the Day of the Gospel as fewel to that heavenly and blessed flame of Divine Love As Sin hath reigned unto Death saith St. Paul so Grace reigns through Righteousness unto eternal Life by Jesus Christ our Lord. Sin exalted its black and fiery Throne by subduing to it self the first man in all his Primitive powers and purities The first Paradise with its sweet peace and pleasantness the first Creation in the whole Compass of its Divine Glories sprung forth from and resembling the Divine World in eternity How great and deep is that darkness bottomless as Hell it self How bitter is that death as the poyson of Asps as the poyson of the old Serpent the Dragon himself which hath extinguished the light of so much Beauty which hath corrupted so much Sweetness which hath devoured and swallowed up into the black and bottomless Abyss of a first and second death an unsearchable depth of confusion and woe such a world of so Divine Sweetnesses and Beauties with all their amiable light and life But now what Tongue can express what Heart can conceive the unmeasurable heightnings of that Divine Grace and Love the unparalleled unbounded Beauties and Glories of that Righteousness the infinite purities pleasures powers perpetuities of that life the inestimable incomprehensible Sweetnesses Beauties Virtues and force of that Person our Jesus in whom all these united who by all these uniteth in his own Person reigneth over these devouring Powers of darkness and death subduing them all unto himself and carrying this whole captivity captive into the Kingdom of Light and Love unto which he himself returneth as he ascends The fire at once encreaseth its own force and flame by the great quantity of fewel on which it feeds and converts the dead fewel into one glorious spreading ascending flame with it self Shadows seen alone have little grace in them but skilfully mixt with the bright colours in a Picture and presenting themselves to the eye in one view together with them encrease the beauty of the Picture are themselves a sweet part of the Beauty and a rich Variety in it Discordant touches upon a Lute offend the Ear but in a Lesson of Musick they are themselves harmonious and enrich the Harmony of the whole Lesson Thus the first Adam who was only an earthly Image a shadowy similitude of the Divinity and made under the Law the Fall the whole reign of sin unto death by the Ministry of the Law with all its Clouds and Storms of shame terror and torment are in themselves a melancholy Image filling us with the afflicting Forms of deformity confusion desolation and woe But when these in the Gospel become fewel to that pure potent and pleasant fire of the Divine Love the eternal Spirit the Spirit of Grace and Glory now they enlarge and heighten this beautiful and blessed flame now themselves are become spiritual immortal flames of highest sweetness and beauty in this Divine flame Now these discordant notes these dark lines and stroaks in the Evangelical melody of the eternal Word in the unvailed Face of the heavenly Bridegroom the Lord Jesus in the Musick of the eternal Love in the beauty of the Righteousness the unvailed Glory of the Godhead in the Person of Christ become themselves most rich heightnings most pleasant and beautiful parts most dear and delightful Varieties in the eternal Melody and unfading Beauty of the Divine Loveliness and Love I have now finished my Reply to this Reason for Free-will in man taken from the Language of the Scripture In which Reply I have endeavoured to set before you in their clear distinctions the difference between the vail of the Letter and the mystery of the Spirit hid beneath this Vail I shall now conclude this Discourse by offering humbly to you three Rules for the right understanding of those expressions in the Scripture which are most of all pressed and pressing in this Point 1. God planteth and establisheth man upon natural Principles of rectitude in the Divine Image he leaveth him to the force and to the trial of these Principles he ministreth to him outwardly inwardly all moral assistances for the strengthning actuating and heightning of these Principles to their utmost perfections Thus God who properly hath no Will nor any thing common to the Creature or proportionable to the Creature But as a Will with other faculties and forms proper to the Creature are given to him by a fit figure and according to the manner of the Creature saith of himself I will not the death of a Sinner but rather that he return and live 2. When God appeareth unvailed in the Face of Christ who is the brightness of his Glory Righteousness Love Life Immortality Joy and Glory attend upon and
the sum of all Perfections is divinely seated Having the Glory of God But let us here a while feast our Understandings and Affections our whole Persons with all our Powers upon our Jesus whom all our desires cannot equal Let us endeavour to take a more distinct and exact view of the Mediatory Glories of his blissful Person in this divinely-admirable piece his created Image For this end we will fix our eye for a short season upon the threefold Riches of this Work 1. The Variety 2. The harmonious Order in each part of the Variety 3. The Unity of the whole of each part with the whole and with it self Now gentle Reader let me humbly fore-warn thee that I may not seem too far to transgress the laws and limits of that Method which I have prescribed to my self in treating of the Mediatorship of our Lord Jesus by touching here in this part and taking in all things of the Creator and the Creature of the Fall and the Recovery of Nature and Grace I intreat thee therefore to consider and bear in thy mind when thou meetest with this these three things 1. The Person of our Lord Jesus in this Mediatory Image of which I speak unites all Here God is come down somewhat from the heighths of his unapproachable Light nearer to us Here God is with a delicate and transparent Veil of his own clearest Beams not hiding any of his Glories but tempering them after the sweetest manner to a more pleasing suitableness unto us that we may with a more agreeable familiarity and a more familiar delight feed the eyes of our minds with them Here is the Creation in the whole Circuit of it with an Amplitude and Glory far beyond far above it self Here it lies together all as one piece not only in it self but in the most richly heightned Light of Christ's Divine Person and Spirit Here it lies in Union with the Divine Nature in its essential Image filled with the eternal Ideas the numberless Original and exemplar Glories of all things composing one piece subsisting and shining in one Person together with these No Form or Person in nature drawn with greatest care and pleasure by the hand of the most skilful Painter a Titian Portogenes or Apelles or contemplated in its Idea shining in the Intellectual Light of some excellent and Divine Spirit so far transcendeth it self seen by a common eye in it self As the whole Creation with each minute part and motion is glorified here in the Spirit and Person of our blessed Jesus with an heightning far transcending the most exalted Beauties of its own proper state Here the Creation appears as the Sun-beam where it is immediately united to the Sun being far more full far more bright and crowned with the Sun This is that Divine Glass which God in his supream Wisdom hath framed that himself may have ever before him all his Works as they are presented here in one most lively and lovely view as also that his Work his Creature in this Glass alone may take a view and measure of it self of him of his way and his glory Think then Christian Reader that all things here treated of are now before thee in this Divine Spirit and Person as Flowers of Spices in those beds of Spice which are the Cheeks the Face of thy Jesus thy Beloved thy Delight Thine and Ours 2. This Discourse of the Creation and Redemption as they lie here in the Person of Christ their efficient exemplar and final Cause prepares our way for our contemplation of them in their proper places We know things by the knowledge of their Causes 3. Our stay here will be compensated with the compendiousness of our way in the following parts of our Discourse upon the Mediation of Christ. He that hath newly seen a Rose flourishing upon its stalk and root in the Garden with a more easie and transient view takes in the beauties of a painted Rose so far as he respecteth nature alone It is now time to come to a Distinct Contemplation of that threefold excellency which we mentioned The Variety in this Divine Piece the Order of the Parts the Unity of the whole and of each part 1. The Variety which renders the beauty and the delight in any piece more full is that it self be most full The things which make the Variety any where full are these 1. The Variety from its highest state extends it self to the most remote distance by even and united steps that all the distances be full 2. The Variety passeth into and loseth it self in the Contrariety carried to its greatest heighth and to the utmost point This most enlargeth the Variety most heightens and sets off the Unity the Beauty most excites enlargeth and heightens the Understanding This is of so great a moment this containeth so Divine a secret so high a mystery of something surprising transporting beyond that which is understood that no Work of God or of man wrought with any skill wanteth it or rather hath not the greatest skill laid out upon it to carry it farthest No Work pleaseth our Eye our Ear our Mind all falls flat to all where the Shades the Discords the Contrarieties are wanting The wisest man saith of the wisest God in his Ecclesiastes That God hath set one thing over against another that man may find nothing to add to the perfection of his Work Light and Darkness Life and Death Contraries one opposed to another How in an History in a Theatre do we take the greatest pleasure to have afflicting passions of pity fear grief raised in us even unto sighs a real melancholy and tears while we know that this is only a part in the whole a Scene which adorns and heighthens the beauty of the whole and then loseth the melancholy of its shade and discord in the universal lustre and sweetness 3. In the last place that which makes the Variety full is the return of the whole thorow the Contrariety by a sweet and full close into its Unity the return by the Contrariety from its low estate to its first and most perfect heighth The Lord Jesus in his Mediatory Person is the fairest the richest Draught or Portrait of the Divine Design and Work as it lies in the Divine Mind animated and heightned by the most immediate intimate mutual Union with the Divine Mind Here therefore is to be expected the most ample Variety The Lord Jesus is stiled in the Scriptures The Wisdom of God He is the Wisdom of God in every sense 1. He is the Wisdom of God in the Divine Mind 2. He is the Wisdom of God in the Divine Work brought forth from that Mind 3. He is the Wisdom of God in the Divine Model of that Mind and Work intervening between both and uniting them Proclus defines Wisdom to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a fulness of things Our Jesus is the highest Wisdom the first the fullest the richest Variety St. Paul gives to this Wisdom the
Creature as its proper Seed He is the seminal Virtue which puts forth it self through the whole Creation from the beginning to the end in every Essence of each Creature in all the powers of every Essence in all the operations of each Power He is the seminal Reason the seminal Form and Proportion which springs up equally in like degrees in each Creature together with it in all the states and modifications of it forming it and figuring it in all Thus saith St. John when he treats of him under this term 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ratio the Reason of all things and that in order to the Creation that without him or apart from him nothing was made or came to pass that was made or came to pass He lives he dies he flourisheth he falls he triumphs he suffers in all with all In him was Light saith St. John and that light was the life of man The Life of Christ as it was in Christ the Seed of every Creature was the Life of the Humane Form the Light of all Forms as they meet together harmoniously in the Humane Form or as they appear distinctly in their proper places to man to serve and entertain him This was the Light of every Form as it sparkleth forth in all its Qualities and Acts as it appeareth in all states and changes This Light of Life in Christ was the Life and the Light of every Beauty every Sweetness every Form of things in every Creature Together they did spring together they did fade being ever inseparable So was the Creature continually figured and framed in all states by the immediate inseparable presence of the Lord Jesus with it When the Creature falls and dies by sin then also is Jesus Christ slain in it and by it If the Life in Christ be the light of man and so of all things then is the retiring of this Life like the setting of the Sun the darkning of all the over-casting of all with the shadow of Death But then this eternal Love the Lamb our Jesus dies by our death together with us that he may become in death a Sacrifice to expiate the guilt of his blood lying upon us So he becomes also the Seed of immortality and the Resurrection from the Dead that as he riseth we also may rise in him together with him Yet is the difference great between his manner of dying and ours He knows what he doth in both these Deaths We know not at present what he doth nor what we our selves do in either of them He sins not falling short in nothing of the Glory of God which ever fills his Heart his Eye and his Hand through all darknesses and deaths he carries on the Ideal Glories of both the Archetypes his two superior Images and so the universal Design and Beauty of the whole Work in the Creation which is to be a compleat figure of these having its beginning and ending in them By virtue of the Personal Union he at once carrieth down with him the Light of all the Glories the Musick of the universal Harmony in both these superior Images into these Deaths and also comprehendeth these Deaths in the Light of these Glories in the Musick of this Harmony as part of the Glory and the Harmony This he doth as the Head the Seed the First-fruits of the whole Creation Thus he lives and dies in every Creature Thus they that are new born into him most beautifully most blessedly live and die together with him 2. I pass now from the first part of the Mediation of Christ that in the first Creation the descent of things the coming forth of the Creatures from God I come to the second Part the Mediation of Christ in the new Creation the Redemption the return of the Creature to God I shall endeavour to set before you this Mediatory Work of our Jesus of our God and Saviour First In the parts of it as they lie in the Person of the Lord Jesus the Head and Pattern of the new Creature Secondly In the progress and propagation of it through the whole Body belonging to this Head 1. The parts of it most commodiously for my purpose are contained in this three-fold Division 1. The Incarnation of Christ and his Life in the Flesh. 2. The Sufferings and Death 3. The Resurrection and Ascension of our Lord Jesus 1. The first part of the Mediation of Christ in the Redemption is his Incarnation and Life in the Flesh. We have seen the eternal Light and Love our Jesus our God gradually descending in a three-fold form 1. We have seen him in his essential Form and Godhead comprehending all Varieties of things in their Original and eternal Glories 2. We have seen him in his Mediatory and spiritual Form the Marriage of God with the Creature in one Spirit and Glory where all the Uncreated Glories and all the Creatures according to their distinct Essences in spiritual and incorruptible forms as two are one 3. We have had a delightful view of the same Jesus in both these Divine Forms set with innumerable and distinct Glories descending into a shadowy Image of himself where he becomes the proper and immediate Head of the first Creation in whom all the Creatures consist and flourish together according to their shadowy Originals in the first-born strength and beauty of this created state 4. Our Lord Jesus with these universal Beauties subsisting together and mutually enfolding each other in the Unity of the same Divine Person goeth down one step lower from the beautiful face of the Earth into the dark places and nethermost parts of it This last step of his descent is at once also the first step of his Ascent and Return Together with man and the whole Creation falling by sin he also falls but altogether without sin He subsists in the whole Creation and in each particular Creature beneath the universal Ruine being the weight of all Here he is the Seed maintaining the Remainders of the Divine Image in nature obscured deformed wounded broken and slain Obscured deformed wounded broken and slain in it together with it He maintaineth the Relicks of the Life of this natural Image in the midst of death This he doth by a new spring of Grace opening it self in fallen Nature by the virtue of his Mediatory and essential form now putting forth themselves through his shadowy form in the Creature thus lapsed Thus is he both in one the old Seed of the first Creation and the new Seed of the new Creature which thus in the heavenly Image of the Mediatory Form of Christ makes its way and breaks forth through the ruines of the earthly Image This is the promised Seed the Seed of the Woman the Seed of the Divine Image both in Nature and in Grace which gives a new Birth to Nature This Seed propagating it self through all Generations in the fulness of time when the season is now for Eternity to shine out through the extended shadow of Time and to
him If any man be in Christ saith St. Paul he is a new Creation old things are passed away 2 Cor. 5. It is a known story recited by Plutarch That of a great Cry with dreadful shrieks and groans to Thamus a Pilot as he passed by a desolate Island in the Reign of Tiberius under whom Christ was put to death Great Pan is dead this great All is dead The Heathen figured the whole Creation in the Person of their God Pan the Angelical Coelestial and Elementary parts of it 2. The Death of Christ is an universal Resolution or Return of all things as they stand in Christ into their first and Divine Principles The Light the Life the Forms the Essences of all things return into their Ideal Forms their incorruptible Originals and Patterns their pure eternal Springs in the Mediatory Form and Divine Nature of Christ. The shadowyness returns into that blessed shade that fell immediately from the Person of Christ in Glory that Primitive and Divine Darkness which was before the first Day the Womb of the first Light and of the whole Creation which composed those Nights of Beauty Peace and Pleasure the Nights of the six Days the Night of the seventh Day and all the Nights of Paradise Thus was Jesus with the good Thief and all things with him in him in Paradise at his Death The Jewish Rabbins distinguish Paradise from Heaven thus Heaven is a state of Divine Glory and Pleasure above in the open Light of â—…e Godhead Paradise is a state of Divine incorruptible Glory and Pleasure below beneath the shades of the Earth This is that pure primitive Divine Darkness of which I speak which was the shade out of which the pure Earth with all the unstained Forms of things at first arose and into which they now return again in Christ. This is the Divine sleep of all things in the Death of Christ their retirement into their Divine Patterns their sweet and entire rest in them their contemplation and fruition of all the immortal Joys and Glories of their Patterns and of themselves in those Joys and Glories as a Divine dream in this sleep within this sweet this amiable this more than Angelical shade which over-spreads them Here they desirously and delightfully wait for the Day of the Resurrection from the Face of God which they see by degrees dawning and rising upon them when the sweet Peace of this lovely shade shall break up into the more full and glorious sweetness of the supream Light and that eternal Day St. Paul expresseth all this to us when he teacheth us That Christ hath gathered up all things into one in himself Col. 2. The Greek word properly signifies there the Resolution or Return of things back into their first Principle their Original Spring and Pattern 3. The third and last part of the Mediation of Christ in our Redemption as it was accomplished in his own Person is his Resurrection and Ascension These two agree are the same in nature and kind differing only in degree The Resurrection of Christ is the breaking up of that primitive shade which over-spread him into a clear Light of Glory Now he springs up and flourisheth throughout his whole Person and all things together with him in his Person in the Beauty and Immortality of his Mediatory Form He is now become an entire Spirit in his Humane Nature both Soul and Body This two Scriptures make clear to us Jesus Christ saith to Nicodemus Joh. 3. 6. That that which is begotten of the Spirit is Spirit The word there is a Substantive 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a spiritual substance or substantial Spirit Now it is manifest in the Scriptures that the Resurrection of Christ in the Body was an immediate Generation by the eternal Spirit So Divines interpret and apply those words Heb. 1. 5. cited from the second Psalm Thou art my Son this day have I begotten thee Suitable to this is that Scripture Rom. 1. 4. Declared the Son of God with power according to the holy spirit by the Resurrection from the dead Two things are manifest from this Scripture 1. That Jesus Christ was raised from the Dead by the immediate Power and Operation of the holy Spirit 2. That this Resurrection was a Divine Generation by the Spirit through which he was brought forth into the proper Form of the Son of God That which we read declared 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifieth properly defined or determinately formed This receives further Light from St. Peter 1 Pet. 3. 18. Being put to death truly in the flesh but quickned in the spirit We read it by the Spirit but in Grâ—… the Flesh and Spirit do so exactly answer one another in the construction and manner of expression that one would think nothing to be plainer than the intention of the Holy Ghost to signifie that the Flesh and the Spirit had both the same relation to the Person of Christ in those different states of his dying and rising again that by this change the Spirit came in the place of the Flesh and that the Flesh was changed into a Spirit as by a natural Generation that that was Water or Air is made Fire The words are these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 In the same sense in which he died in Flesh or to the Flesh So he rose again in the Spirit or to Spirit That same Body which died a fleshly compounded mortal substance rose again a simple pure immortal Spirit As the Humanity of Christ rose again a Spirit so it rose in an immediate inseparable Union with the eternal Spirit upon the same Root into the same Life and Image St. Paul instructeth us in this mystery 1 Cor. 15. 45. The first Adam was made a living Soul the last Adam a quickning Spirit vers 45. The subject of St. Paul's Discourse there and in many verses before is the Resurrection of the Body He said immediately before It is sown a natural Body 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Body proper for a Soul It is raised a spiritual Body a Body proper for a Spirit vers 44. He illustrates this afterwards The first man is of the Earth earthly the second man is the Lord from Heaven vers 47. Then he distinguisheth them by the names of the earthly and the heavenly man or the Super-Coelestial vers 48. He likewise distinguisheth their two Images the Image of the earthly and the Image of the heavenly or super-coelestial vers 49. Then he concludes with a a positive and emphatical Declaration But this I say brethren that flesh and blood cannot enter into the Kingdom of God vers 50. From these Scriptures laid together these particulars seem evidently to arise 1. Jesus Christ by the Resurrection in his whole Humane Nature both Soul and Body is a supernatural super-coelestial Spirit far above the nature of Souls or Angels in the first Creation 2. The humanity of Christ hath now its Root in Heaven in that Heaven out of which it comes forth