Love in the shadowy Image having lost it self in the enmity at the Fall The Divine Love it self in its eternal Image disguiseth it self in a form of wrath flaming forth with unquenchable burnings until it have devoured the Enmity and the shadowy Image it self in the Enmity unto the discovery of the eternal Love vailed beneath its shadow and buried in the Enmity All thus consumed meet again in the triumphant and pure flame in which the Divine Love meets with and embraceth it self But thus much of the second Revolution 3. Now the Soul with the whole nature of things in the shadowy Image the shadowy Harmony the shadowy Righteousness of its first Creation is lost by the dissolution of the Unity in discord and Deformity Sin Death and the Divine Wrath. Now Gâ—… in the essential Image the essential Harmony the essential Rightâ—…usness which is Love it self loveliness it self Power Wisdome the Essence of God declares himself our Jesus our Saviour He declares himself without the Law or the Prophets not from any Merit or Power in the Creature but of meer Grace from the sweet innate force of the Divine Harmony in himself by the beauties of which he is powerfully attracted and acted to the Musick of which he moves in all his actings with highest pleasure This essential Image and Harmony from the beginning lies hid beneath the shadowy Image at the bottom of it as the substance to the shadow which hath no possibility of subsisting in any point or degree of Being without it St. Paul calls this The mystery hid in God from the foundation of the World that is hid beneath the foundation of the World which was a Vail cast over the eternal Glories while they figured themselves in Divine shadows upon this Vail But now our Jesus the second Person in the Trinity the essential Image the essential Harmony the Righteousness of God becomes a Creature springs up from beneath the foundations of the Creation into an Humane Soul and Body in the midst of it ruines This Jesus is the Original Image of the Creation of Man of every Creature the Root the Rule the Actor of all who virtually eminently comprehends all in their distinct Ideal Forms within himself as so many eternal Beauties in his own eternal Beauty who bringeth them forth from himself beareth them in himself as Flowers in their Garden-beds who figureth himself in the riches of his glorious Varieties upon them to make of the whole one beautiful Figure of his own Beauties a Daughter Sister and Bride to himself He therefore now the Seed of Hope of Promise sown in the Soul dying together with the Soul in the Fall now comes up through this death in the form of a man faln man the Image of the whole which contains the whole in it self Thus he reduceth the Contrariety to the Unity He restores the Harmony he atones and reconciles all all manner of wayes 1. He bringeth all the Contrariety into the Harmony by bearing the Fall Guilt Shame all Deformities all Deaths the Divine Wrath the ruines of the Fall in himself who is the eternal universal Harmony and Righteousness Thus eternal Life dies without Death giving an eternal Life and Glory to Death in his Person Thus the Righteousness of God is made Sin for us without Sin He is altogether lovely every thing of him is not only lovely but loveliness it self Yea more loveliness a knot a spring of loveliness So sings the spiritual Bride of her Beloved in that Song of Loves The bushes of his Hair black as a Raven the Bird of Death in their order and place springing forth from his head of finest Gold the purest light of Glory encompassing it with their deep shade and setting it off are Divine Beauties 2. This Person the eternal the universal Image and Harmony of the Godhead of all Glories of all things gives himsâ—… in the extremities of all Sufferings unto Death to be a Sacrifice to the Holiness Justice Wrath and Glory of God He is a Sacrifice of infinite value and force a Sin-Offering expiating all Sin with a transcendency of Merit A Peace-Offering which charms the most offended spirits which changeth into a Golden Calm of Divine Love and Joy the most raging tempests of wrath raised through the whole nature of things from the breast of the eternal Spirit 3. He bears in his own Person the whole Contrariety the Contrariety of evil in the enmity of Sin to the Divine Good in its Love and Glory The Contrariety of the Divine Good in its Love and Glory to the evil in the deformity and enmity of Sin All the fiery darts of both these Contrarieties in their utmost force and fury meet in his Bosome the Bosome of Divâ—…e Beauty and Love exposed nakedly to them both Thus he fills up the design of his Father to make known the power of his Wrath. Thus he draws forth to its largest compass and heightens to its utmost point this Scene of wrath to make the Variety full and the Harmony absolute 4. Jesus the supream Harmony the everlasting Righteousness by dying carries the descent of things to the lowest point He makes an end of Sin Sufferings Death and Wrath for ever by the dissolution and end of the seat the subject of all these the shadowy Image the Creation of Nature in his own person The death of Jesus Christ is as the midnight of things The Sun of the eternal Image and Glory having by its course in the shadowy Image touched the utmost bound of distance from it self now begins its return to it self again 5. This Jesus by his Resurrection carries up with him in his own Person all things the whole Creation the shadowy Image with its Primitive Purity and Paradise the shadowy Image with its fall ruines and deaths into the Glory of the eternal Image unto an Union with it immediate naked entire eternal in one Light in one Spirit Where there is now no more any vail or shadow Now all appear Beauties and Glories divinely-harmonious being seen in their proper place and order in the Divine the Eternal the Universal Harmony 6. Lastly The Lord Jesus now in an humane Soul and Body being risen from the Dead and ascended up on high comprehends reconciles fills all things shining through all assimilating all to himself in the spiritual Glory of his own essential eternal Image in his own Person the most glorious unbounded Head of all Now according to the fulness the fruitfulness the Divine Order of the Ideas the Original Images of all things in the most ample and blissful Harmony in his Person He comes up he springs forth in his Spirit in the Spirit of this Divine Image this Harmony and Glory with the fulness of his Person of this Divine Image Harmony and Glory in the Soul of Man As he springs up he rends the Vail behind which he ever resided he reveals himself to the Soul in the Universal Harmony of his Person and his whole work
embraces the fountain of Life the center and circle of all Delights O bitter Peace disordering Melody broken and unpleasant Harmony where Love suffers all evil and is slain on both sides to make perfect the Harmony But oh full Compensation O full and sweet Harmony arising out of the Discords swallowing up the Discords themselves into the most pure the most perfect most pleasant melody whereas Love first suffered and was slain by the disorder and enmity of Sin so now Love again suffereth and is slain for the enmity for sin by the wrath of God against sin that is by the Love in its contrary to the enmity Thus Love it self in the place of us all most lovingly and beauty it self most beautifully is become a Sacrifice for it self to it self 3. Abolition The last step in the way of reducing disorder into order is the Abolition or Renovation this is the finishing of all in the Person of the Lord Jesus The Lord Jesus is the compleat Image of the invisible God Thus he comprehendeth the whole Creation in himself for all the Creatures are so many expressive or manifestative figures of the Divine Glory We read in Scripture That the things which are seen that is all the created Objects of Sense or Reason Humane or Angelical stand up out of the things which are not seen Jesus Christ then being the first highest Image of the invisible God as he is in his own unaccessible Light is the Root out of which and in which the Creation stands the Lord Jesus as this universal Person goes down into the Grave and carries thither into those lowest shades at once with himself all Images of things the Original and the Copy the Substance and the Shadow the Uncreated Glory and the created Figure So Christ dies and the whole Creation dieth with him so he makes an end of Sin and Transgression Here he sings that triumphant Song O Death I am thy death Here all the evil of Sin and Suffering of Disorder and Contrariety which as a grave had swallowed up the whole Creation is swallowed up into Victory in the grave of Christ. In this Divine Death the whole Creation is dissolved and comes to its last end in its last end it meets with its beginning falling quite out of it self falling down out of its own empty obscure shade and nothingness it falls into the bosom of its heavenly and eternal Mother the Original Glory The Original Glory in the Person of Christ hath descended thus low together with its Birth and shadow Here it finisheth its descent in its shadow here diffusing it self and its eternal Light through these shades of death and through the whole Creation in these shades it maketh it self perfectly one by an entire and mutual communion in death with all the Creatures whose life was a continual War with it The Light of the heavenly Image poured forth in these shades of death flowing through the created Image overflowing and taking it into it self is that precious and Divine Blood which by its mysterious washings maketh the crimson and scarlet sins or stains upon this Image whiter than the whitest wooll or snow In this Divine Death the shadowy Image with all its evils of disorder and enmity are now past away for ever in respect to any reality substantiality or subsistence in themselves they remain only as figures in the Divine shade of this death in which shade the heavenly Image bears all in its pure although obscured bosom It is now the Root of eternal Love and eternal Life in Death receiving into it self all the Creatures with all their disorders and enmities They all now do here put off their Realities and become only mysterious shadows through which the supream Beauty and Sweetness springeth and sporteth it self But the Original Glory in the Person of Christ having now finished the mystery of its descent in the Creature and in this final dissolution taken the Creature again into it self as its first and proper Root beginneth now its return and ascent As the Lord Jesus died so he riseth again an universal Person with both Images created and uncreated united in himself The eternal Glory once in the first Creation vailed it self beneath a shadowy Image to die in that Image accordingly he died with it and for it But now he riseth again in the brightness of his heavenly Image he raiseth the whole Creation together with himself as his proper and immediate Birth as its purest and loveliest Bride in the most intimate entire and mutual Union with it self in all its glories thus to live for ever in the richest and closest embraces of each other Here now ye have a three-fold Resurrection in one 1. The Divine Image which is eternal Love and life it self as it had been vailed as it had suffered and died in the Creature riseth sweetly and gloriously from beneath all those shades into its own freshest and fullest Beauties Thus it riseth in the midst of the created Image 2. The created Image was once a fair entire Picture of the eternal Beauty living a Divine Life breathing a Divine Sweetness being a Divine Paradise in it self to it self while it stood as a pure resemblance of its Divine Original But by its fall into the infâ—…rnal Deep of Sin it stained it self it broke it self all to pieces it buried its Life Beauty and Sweetness in a dreadful and hateful death Now having put off that death in the death of Christ it riseth again in the bosom of the Original Glory not only in its fullest Beauty and Sweetness but a Beauty and Sweetness far more excelling It was before its fall a sweet shade an earthly Paradise The shade vanished into darkness the Paradise faded and disappeared But now it riseth as the â—…un-shine of the Godhead as the sweetest Light at once lying in the Bosom of the highest Glory embraced by it and surrounding that Glory with its embraces by a mutual immediate and eternal Union 3. The fall the disorders the wounds and death of this shadowy Image so dreadful and hateful as they stood in time now also have their Resurrection and put on a new appearance in eternity Having now passed through the Death and Sufferings of Christ where they put off all their evil by putting off all their own proper reality they stand in his Resurrection as figures of eternal Glories which are themselves also Glories in the Bosom of their Glorious Original They are seen now as they eternally spring up and flourish in the Garden of the Divine Mind as they bear their part and shine in the universal Beauty of the Divine Image and Work As the eternal Original with its Paradisical shadow lay hid in them like a Flower in its Seed in the Earth as both these Glories now are sprung forth through them and bring forth them again as eternal Lights in the light and circle of their own Beauties So is Christ in the circle of the Throne of God as the
Persons or to the Sanctification of our Natures 3. The Law which is the Ministry of Wrath is not the first or chief design of God that in which he begins or with which he ends The Divine Love the Beauties of Holiness and the Divine Nature Immortality the Glory of God founded and wrapt up in that one Seed which is Christ from whom together with whom for whose Joy and Glory sake they spring freely fruitfully irresistably subduing all things to themselves These are the first and chief design of God the good pleasure of his Will So St. Paul teaches us Gal. 3. That the promise in the Seed was first and the Law came after that which cannot therefore frustrate the design of the Promise and of the Seed There is a beautiful and rich Scripture opening the Glory of the Divine Design of the Lord to us Rom. 5. 20 21. But the Law came in by the by that Sin might abound but where Sin abounded Grace hath abounded much more That as sin reigned unto death so Grace might reign by Righteousness unto eternal life through our Lord Jesus Christ. Two things are remarkable here 1. The way of the coming in of the Law 2. The end of bringing in of the Law 1. The way of bringing in of the Law is most elegantly and amply expressed in that one word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Law was not brought in first from the beginning nor for its own sake that it should be the end Grace the Divine Love the everlasting Righteousness eternal Life in the Seed the eternal Son of God the Image and fulness of the Godhead the brightness of his Glory Jesus Christ was the great design for which all things are constituted to which all things serve In which God beginneth and endeth all his Works all his Counsels and in which he eternally resteth In the stream and current of this Design the Law it self is brought in as subservient to it In Dramatick Poems which have the design laid in some one entire great and glorious action the continuance is set off heightned by two eminent parts in it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a knot tyed fast in the course of the action then the uniting of this knot which makes the action more full of Variety more glorious more delightful Thus in this great action of time and eternity the bringing of the Sons of God to Glory by their glorious Captain Jesus Christ the Law is brought in in the course ofit as a knot tyed fast which no created Power is able to unty or to understand how it should be loosed This is the way of bringing in the Law 2. The ends of the Law are of two sorts 1. The proper and next ends 2. The extrinsecal and Ultimate ends 1. The proper and next ends of the Law are Sin Condemnation Death and the Divine Wrath. So that St. Paul saith in this Scripture That the Law came in that Sin might abound 1. The Law let in Sin so St. Paul teacheth us expresly Rom. 7. 8. Sin taking occasion by the Commandment wrought in me all concupiscence Again as the 11. verse Sin taking occasion by the Commandment drceived me and slew me 2. The Law heightens Sin so that expression testifieth The Law came in that Sin might abound 3. The Law by bringing in Sin bringeth in upon us a spiritual Death in Sin St. Paul speaking as by a figure of all Mankind in his own person Rom. 7. 9 10. I was alive once without the Law that is in Paradise but the Law coming sin revived or sprung up into life but I died These three ends of the Law flow from it not by it self nor from the nature of the Law but by accident from the weakness of the Flesh and of the Creature So you read verse 10. The Commandment which was unto life in its own nature was found to me unto death in the effects of it verse 13. The holy Spirit opens the design in these effects of the Law Is then that which is good namely the Law made death to me But sin that sin might be made manifest wrought death to me by the good that sin might become excessively sinful by the Law God having a design which he intended to enrich with the fullest the highest Glories of his Godhead brings forth in the course of this design a dark scene of all evils Sin Death Wrath The evil in this scene is carried on to its utmost extent and heighth Thus the Variety becomes more full in the whole design and the chief design is heightned in its sweetest Glory God through his infinite Wisdom so bringeth in this scene of sin and evil that himself is perfectly pure and good in the contrivance and conduct of it He setteth up a Law good holy and spiritual but such that sin inevitably may take occasion from it through the frailty of Flesh and of the Creature to spring up by it unto an overflowing Flood to display it self over all things in its fullest foulest Forms and Births 4. The Law hath for its proper end the conviction condemnation and death of all men 1. The conviction of the Law is two-fold 1. Man is convinced of his frailty and consequent mutability in his Primitive state before the Fall So saith the Psalmist Man in his best state is altogether Vanity He is the shadow not the very Image the true Glory He hath a shadow of Righteousness of Wisdom of Power a shadow only of Life a shadow of Being Christ only in his heavenly Image and eternal State is the Life it self the truth of all these Man in Paradise had no Being Life or Motion of himself or in himself As a meer shadow is no more than it is in its proper substance on which it depends If it be any thing in it self it is no more a shadow but the substance The Spirit saith of the Heavens and the Earth That God turneth them as the Wax to or by the Seal The Divine presence and appearance in man newly created was the Seal to this Virgin Wax which as it changed changeth the impressions upon it together with its whole form 2. The Law convinceth man of his faln state of the evil of this state that there is no good or power of good at all in him That the whole person and nature of man is only evil and altogether evil Thus St. Paul chargeth Mankind universally Jews and Gentiles There is none that doth good no not one The poyson of Asps is under their Tongue they are altogether corrupt They have not known the way of peace He presseth this charge universally by these words Now we know That that which the Law saith it saith to those that are under the Law Now we know that all Mankind according to the state of nature and in the first Creation is under the Law if there be any difference found among men it ariseth not from nature or the principles of
darkest disguise upon the eternal Love the eternal Meekness and Gentleness the Lamb our Jesus In this state of Contrariety Sin and Death have their entrance Our Jesus the Lamb eternal Love is here slain and crucified by the Sin of the Creature In this death of his the whole Creation dies Here this Lamb the Divine Love in the region of Death in the midst of the Powers of Darkness and Death becomes a Sacrifice for every Creature By dying for sin as he dies by sin he makes an end of sin and death he takes away the subject the ground of Sin and Death the mutability of the Creature the shadowyness of the shadowy Image in its dissolution and restauration He at once scattereth the fearful dream and awakens it out of its sleep that it may dream no more but see the light of Life Divine Poets which with most inspired and acquired skill raise refine and delight the best Minds by awakning in them the richest the liveliest Images of the Divine Work and the Divine Mind place the greatest the sweetest life and heightning of their Figures in the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the knot and the untying of the knot This part in the Divine Design and Work is both these the knot and the untying of the knot The Law lets in Sin Sin brings in Death the shadowy Image is the Root and Seat of all these The death of Jesus Christ makes an end of Sin swallows up Death into Victory dissolves the shadowy Image sows it again by its dissolution in the Bosom of the Divine Love as they lie down together in its grave Here it springs up again immediately into a Child of Light in the Image of Light the heavenly Image In this Light it springs up an Immortal Bride in the Arms of its Bridegroom the eternal Love Thus the Grave of Love is changed into a Bridal Bed O that I had the anointing of Bezaleel and Aholiab upon me to draw the Divine Model of the Tabernacle of God in this part of the heavenly Image the Contrariety the Scene of Wraht We should see without Badgers skins sullied parched with dust sand and Sun We should see it in the midst of a desolate Wilderness round about it a Land of Graves and fiery Serpents But all this while within shine flourish and flow all the precious the pleasant things of the whole Creation and in the Bosom of these as Divine Figures unfold themselves all the blissful and glorious mysteries of the eternal Beauties and Sweetnesses of the Divinity unvailed Within are the richest materials colours works In the midst of all as the Center the Spring of all is God himself upon the golden Mercy Seat the Thrones of Grace and Love within the golden Wings which the Cherubims of Glory spread round about it to make a Pavilion for it Thus true is it that the Law is the Gospel eternal Love vailed the Gospel eternal Love and Beauty shine forth with naked Faces in the Law it self when the Vail is taken off But let us trace more exactly the steps of Divine Love which all drop Myrrh incorruptible Sweetnesses as he passeth thorow the Divine Mazes the curious Windings of this Divine Labyrinth To this end we will consider this state of Contrariety or of Wrath in its several Causes efficient material formal final St. Paul lays a clear and rich ground for us when he treats of this Subject His words are these What if God willing to declare the Power of his wrath Having such an Idea of the Divine Goodness of God that he is the supream Love the supream Unity the supream Good which are all divers words expressing one thing Where I meet with the darkest the dreadfulest appearance in his Births his Works I find my Spirit excited to seek the sweetest and delicatest Roses among these Thorns a Face filled with the richest smiles beneath these Vails the Divinest Wealth Skill and Figures in the Vails themselves as in that before the Holy of Holies Those Scriptures on such occasions sound with an heavenly Melody in mine Ears awakning and calling forth my Spirit to the expectation of some divinely-beautiful transporting and transforming sight He putteth the greatest comeliness upon the most uncomely parts It is the Glory of God to hide the Matter the Word the eternal Word or Wisdom the Divine Beauty and Love But it is the Glory of a King of the Royal Priesthood the Kingly and Priestly Mind to find it out to enter within the Vail to draw aside the Vail and discover the Glory These words What if God willing to declare the Power of his Wrath present to us this whole state of Wrath as it comprehends the Law Sin and Death in its three-fold Cause Efficient Exemplar Final The Idea of Wrath in the Divine Mind is a Variety in the gloriouslyample and delightfully-vast Variety of the supream Unity the eternal Love This Ideal Wrath in the Idea of the Godhead the Person of Christ as he is the essential Image of the Father in the Bosom of the Father is a beautiful and blissful Variety in the Beauty and most high blisses of the Godhead It is a Love-part in the triumphantly-joyous and glorious Variety of the eternal Love This Sun-like Idea in the supream and eternal Sun of the Divine Essence is the efficient the exemplar and final Cause of this Contrariety this wrathful state This is its first it s most universal most intimate efficient This its Original exactest Pattern This its Principal its Ultimate End Eternal Love it self in this Idea is the Divine Framer the Divine Actor the Divine Close of the whole Scene of this Wrath-part in the Love-play Here it begins here is its way here it ends in its Divine Ideâ—… in the Bosom in the Face in the midst of the Varieties the Beauties the Blisses of eternal Love Without this part in the Variety they were all imperfect Love it self without this Lovespot this beautiful and delightful Wound would have an eternal Cloud and Wound upon it A great Philosopher teacheth us That Power is an Unity containing manifold Forms in it self which it shoots up and sends forth from it self according to the Law of its own proper Harmony Every Idea in the eternal Mind is a Divine Unity The Ideal Wrath there is an Unity comprehending in Divine Images all the Forms all the Varieties of this Love-part the Divine Wrath in it self This is the eternal Reason of the whole Ministery of the Law and of Wrath in the Creation the displaying of this part of the Divine Variety by Divine Figures in its proper place in the Divine Work Thus God shows the Power of his Wrath. He seals the Creature with this Idea with the impression of the Divine and eternal Glory in this Divine Idea also According to the Language of St. Paul Now Grace Divine Love overflows us in all Wisdom and Prudence Jesus that essential compleat Idea of the Godhead
is the Divine Wisdom The innumerable Ideas in this Divine VVord or Mind in this Univeral Idea make up that which the holy Apostle stileth All VVisdom When Jesus the essential Image of all Lights and Loves in the Father of Lights and Loves hath wrought upon the Creature the clear and full engravings of all the Ideas in the Divine Mind then hath he finished it unto a compleat Image of himself Now doth this Spirit of Grace of Love and Beauty flow forth upon it in all wisdom in all the various Lights of heavenly Beauty in all the various sweetnesses of the heavenly Love When this work of wrath shall be seen in the whole piece of the Divine Design when it shall be seen in Union with its Divine Idea in the light and brightness of its eternal Pattern What a pomp and triumph of Divine Love Joy and Glory shall we see it how will it increase the pomp and triumph in the Godhead and its Work So we see it there where I now treat of it in the heavenly Image in the Mediatory Person of Christ. St. Paul presenteth this Joy and Glory to the Disciples of Christ All things saith he are yours things present and things to come this world Life and Death all things are yours and you are Christs and Christ is Gods So far as we by Jesus Christ are united unto our proper Idea in the Divine Mind which is our Mansion or Apartment in our Fathers House we through the Unity of the eternal Spirit which by a Love-Union binds up all the Ideas in every one behold possess converse with enjoy all things in their eternal Ideas their Original Truths and Glories All things here are cloathed and filled with the richest Lights of Divine Beauty the purest Sweetnesses and sweetest Joys of Divine Love But thus much for the Universal the Ideal Cause efficient exemplar final The material Cause of this Contrariety is the subject where it is immediately seated the ground out of which it immediately ariseth The shadowy Image the Creature in its shadowy state is the subject and seat of this wrathful appearance The ground is the shadowyness the darkness the ground of defectibility and mutability The form of this legal or wrathful state is composed of many Circumstances God who is the eternal Truth the only ever-glorious Life and Substance appeareth in a shadowy Image God who is Love pure unmixt perfect unbounded who hath all pleasantness in his Face and Person who is all of him in every part in every glance the Spring and Center of all desirableness and delights covers this most amiable most attracting Face and Person with a Vizard of Clouds Tempests and Fires as on Mount Sinai In this Form he divides between himself and the Creature He sits upon the Throne of his Sovereignty and Dominion founded on Righteousness and attended with the Ministers of his Justice He setteth the Creature upon the root of his own shadowy Temporaries faint and fading Principle cloathed with the Beauties and Purities of an heavenly Image in an earthly Form He imposeth a severe Law upon him urged and pressed with terrible Menaces a Law to be observed and performed by the shadowy Power of this fading Principle The Law imposed is that by the virtue of this temporary Root he preserve the Beauties of the heavenly Image in himself eternally pure and entire that he keep his heart chast unstained from all the Glories appearing in this shadowy Image which alone are ever present with the senses and all the powers of the Soul that he place his Heart all the love of his Heart to the eternal Truth the unseen Glory hid beneath the shadowy Image and appearing from the midst of dreadful Tempests devouring Flames encompassing and guarding the Beauties of the shadowy Image The Creatures sading Root no more fed from the rich ground of Eternity now fails the shadowy Beauties wither the Darkness springs up and over-casts all Sin from this bed of darkness springeth up and takes life Sin by occasion of this shadowy Image in which God appears turns all heavenly Love all Divine Charity into Lust and Concupiscence by terminating it upon the shadow From the vizor of severity and wrath which God now puts on sin takes occasion to bring forth in the Creature averseness from God enmity towards him the fiery soarce of all hellish passions Thus as the Wax is turned to the Seal eternal Love by the force of the eternal Idea treasured up in it self in the midst of the rich Varieties putting on a form of Contrariety becometh an occasion for a form of Contrariety and Enmity which is the Root and Essence of all sin to spring up in the Creature The Contrariety on both sides heightens it self unto the utmost extremity that the Idea of Wrath may fully display it self in all its forms and forces to make this part of the Divine Variety full So is accomplished that which St. Paul speaketh of himself as a figure of Mankind Sin taking occasion by the Law taking life from the Commandment deceived me and so slew me The shadowy Light of the Divine Beauty the shadowy sense and life of the Divine Love is now extinguished in the Creature or which is worse corrupted and depraved The whole face of things is covered with a foul and horrid tempest of darkness lust and wrath This tempest riseth to its height when Jesus Christ the God of Love with his essential Image with his Mediatory Image with his Angelical Image in which he is the first Creature the immediate Head of the shadowy Image with the full Glories of all these vailed beneath the fleshly form of fallen man taken from the Virgin Mary and espousing it to one person with himself in all those beautiful and blessed Images riseth up and appeareth in the midst of this Tempest and is slain by the fury of it All the Contrarieties the enmities of God and the Creature meet in him as the mark of them all The rage of the Creature heightned to the utmost height of all sinfulness burns out upon him sealing up the sâ—… of all guilt The Wrath of God in iâ—…â—…tmost force set on by the Divine Justice Holiness and Glory descends upon him at once satiating it self and making him a Sacrifice for all the World Thus is the knot in the Divine Design at once tyed faster and united in the Death of Jesus Christ. This part of the Divine Variety the Contrariety now carried to its utmost point is finished In the Death of Jesus Christ the first and Universal Creature the Head and Spirit of the whole Creation in the Divine Workmanship the whole Creation dies The shadowy Image the seat the ground of Sin Death and Wrath is dissolved in the Grave of Jesus Christ that as eternal Love in him riseth again returning to its own proper form and place it may carry up all the Births of Love together with it self opening it self in its own Divine Sweetnesses and
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
proper shadow Some think this following sense to be intended by St. Paul in these words Christ is the Image of the invisible God the first-born of the whole Creation or of every Creature Col. 1. God in that same second Person which is the Godhead in its essential Image which in the fulness of time took flesh of the Virgin Mary in the beginning of Time came forth from the secret and unaccessible Light of Eternity in a shadowy Image This Image was the full figure of his Person with all its Divine Glories according to the capacity of a shadow This was the whole Creation compleat in its first Draught All the Glories of the Divine Nature which are imitable were here first distinctly figured in the primitive and pure forms of all the Creatures Thus was he the Image of the Invisible God the first-born of the whole Creation in general and of each Creature in particular Thus was He in the Language of the Jews the great Adam who brought forth the little Adam in his own likeness Thus was Jesus Christ in Adam at once the life of all in his essential Glories the Original Copy or first Draught of the Creature in the whole compass of it of each Creature in particular All this in the Humane Soul in Adam as the only perfect and proper Figure of this Original I understand nothing in this interpretation of St. Pauls words contrary to the Analogy of Faith or the Scriptures There seemeth to be in it a compleat Harmony and order in the nature of things according to this sense 1. All things stand first in an Uncreated Subsistence and Essence Then in an Uncreated Subsistence or Person they come forth into Created Essences or Natures Lastly By this medium uniting all they pass in Created Subsistencies and Essences into created Persons and Natures 2. Jesus Christ gradually descends from his essential Glories into an Universal Original Figure of himself of the whole Creation of each Creature Through this He passeth into the particular form of faln man in the Womb of the Virgin So he descends to the nethermost parts of the Earth ascends again through all forms of things with all united in his own Person above all Heavens and fills All. After this manner the Lord Jesus is the Mediatour of the Creation as well as of the Reconciliation and Regeneration All things are made by him and nothing that is made or brought forth from the beginning of things to the end comes forth without him As according to his appearances in Grace or Glory the Saints appear together with him so according to his Appearances in Nature all things appear together with him He lives and subsists in the form of every Creature Every Creature subsists by its transcendental Union with him in Nature Thus it is most true That we are in this World as he is in this World We are Sojourners together with him in his Land He suffers in all our Sufferings is straitned in all our straitnings He is in all things made like unto us Sin only excepted He carries along in every particular form the Universal Harmony the Divine Glory even in all the sufferings and straitnings of every Creature The Universal Harmony and Divine Glory is to him the liberty the joy of Paradise Heaven Eternity in each straitning and suffering Sin only is the breach of this Harmony the violation of this Glory not by a privation only but a Contradiction and Enmity founded in the privation This can bear no part in the Divine Harmony save as it is reduced into Order and the Harmony carried on through the Wrath and Righteousness of God in the Death and Resurrection of the Lord Jesus But I desire to leave my self and my Reader free in this Point I have now finished in four Distinctions my Answer to the first part of the Objection made against the Variety of forms in the Unity of the Soul In this part of my Answer I have endeavoured to state the presence of God with and in the Soul of man as perspicuously as my dark and narrow mind is capable of taking in and expressing a Divine Mystery of so great an amplitude and such an heigth of Glory I pass now to the second part of my Answer which concerns the Angels 2. Answer Angels with the whole Company of invisible substances or separated Forms and immortal Spirits are contained in the Unity of the Soul these two wayes 1. They are Superior and Universal Causes subordinate to the first Cause Thus they are most intimately and inseparably present in the Constitution of the Soul As Entity or Being and substantiality in their Superiour and Universal Nature descend into incorporeal Spirits and through these into Corporeal Shapes and Bodies so do all the Angels greater in Might and Glory cloath themselves with the Incorporeal Form of the immortal Soul communicating all their divers Virtues Powers and Glories to this Form in which themselves subsist and live together with it being an head of Glory to it 2. All Angelical Immortal Spirits are another way in the Soul as making up the full diversity of all Forms in it and so composing its Essence Thus all Angels all Essences all Forms of things in their immortal Substances as Intellectual Spirits meet in the proper Unity under the peculiar Character and Diversity of each Intellectual Soul as in some obscure resemblance Variety of colours in a particular colour or as all the Elements in each Element in each mixt Form under the proper Character of the predominant Element or Form 3. Answer The Intellectual Soul containeth all Corporeal Forms or Bodies in it self two wayes 1. Virtually 2. Formally 1. The Soul hath in it self all Bodies virtually from the Angels above it as the shining Bosome where the eternal Spring through Jesus Christ powres forth its living streams Here the Soul drinketh in the Essences and essential forms of things in their Angelick Truth and Goodness These feast and fill the Understanding and the Will In the Understanding or Angelick Light of the Soul they shine as the Exemplars or Patterns of all below in the visible World In the Will as in the Angelick Love of the Soul they lie as in the Womb or in the seminal Virtue or executive Power which brings them forth 2. This Soul comprehends the Corporeal World in it self formally The Essences of all Bodies as they are Objects only of the Understanding and not of Sense so are they according to the Nature and Law of all Essences Intellectual Unities and Forms in the Unity or essential Form of this Intellectual Spirit The Soul in these distinct Essences floweth forth into these shadowy forms with which our Senses the shadows of the Intellectual Light are entertained The Intellectual Unity diffuseth it self into the continued parts of these divisible Forms This Unity formeth the Proportions of the parts in their mutual Correspondencies knitteth them together unto a mutual sympathy in each natural Body For as I have
the removal of just blame by the removal of the cause As Praise and Glory are the Eccho or Reflection of Virtue of some good so Blame and Shame are the Eccho the Reflection of some Fault or Evil. The fault in man is the deficiency which ariseth from the defectibility or nothingness inseparable from the nature of the Creature in its shadowy state in the purity of its first Creation This defectibility and deficiency this nothingness and tendency to nothing in the Creature is evidently discovered past all denial or excuse For when God hath cloathed the Creature with the Glory of his own Image in all Knowledge Righteousness and Blessedness The Creature hath no power in it self to retain or maintain this Glory or the least glimpse the least stricture of Light from it one moment In the same moment that God with-holds his Beams and Influences the Soul sinks into the depth of darkness in which darkness it springs up the same moment into all the evils of Sin Deformity Death Wrath Torment Thus man in his best state is Vanity a shadow which hath nothing of its own but nothingness a tendency to nothing Thus being in Honour he continueth not but sinketh into his own nothingness when once he is left to himself This nothingness in the nature of the Creature is not to be understood a meer simple nothing for this hath no existence no expression no attribute no effect nothing can be said or thought of it This nothingness of which we speak or Not-Being is a contrariety to Being so to all the Beauty the Blessedness of Being This is the Contrariety it self which is a part of the Variety of things in the Unity of the whole This taken apart in it self is the breach of the Unity and the Harmony the first and blackest ground of all Discord Division Darkness Enmity Death of all the evils of sin and sufferings Object 3. How is God inexcusable who frames a Creature with this defectibility this Contrariety this Necessity of all Evil in its nature then leaves it to it self to fall inevetiably into all Sin then condemns it and casts it into all manner of Torments into all the Evils of suffering for Sin Answ. Sufferings are the immediate inseparable Companions of Sin The Contrariety when once it hath broken the Harmony of the shadowy Image of God in the Paradise of pure Nature by the withdrawing of the Divine Unity which by its presence tuned it to and bound it up in a Divine Harmony now breaks forth over-runs all with all manner of Evils of Sin of Shame of Sufferings of all kinds But that which seemeth to me alone to justifie God is the design in the whole My desire is here with all humility and submission to conceive and express so high mysteries the way and the Glory of God in so great and Divine deeps The design which with all humility I conceive not to clear God but to represent him through all his way most glorious in the Beauties of Holiness in the most spotless the exactest Justice in the richest lustre the highest sweetness the most exalted Grace of all Goodness and Love hath several steps or parts 1. The first step is the Discovery of man and the Creature in its primitive nature in all its good and glories to be shadowy an earthly and shadowy Image in an earthly a shadowy Paradise 2. The second step is the Declaration of God to be the only fountain and fulness of all good in whose Face and Presence alone are the Beauties and Pleasantnesses of all good whose absence makes the Night of all trouble and evil 3. The opening of new fuller higher Glories in God then did shine forth in the first Creation in the most exalted Natures of all the Creatures of Men or Angels These new Glories of the Godhead open themselves in the last step the full harmonious triumphant close of the whole design after this manner 1. The heighth of the Contrariety between the good in God and the evil of Sin between the purity the beauty of Holiness in the Divine Nature the filth the deformity of sin display the Beauties in the Face of God with a new heightning a new lustre infinitely more sweet and ravishing 2. The Power of the Divine Wrath brings forth a new Scene a new World full of new Forms of things New Wonders in Heaven and eternity in the Divine Nature the Divine Wisdom and Work 3. What is the Glory in the force and riches of the Divine Unity spreading it self into so vast a Variety unto so remote a distance from it self to such Contrarieties to such Extremities comprehending them all in it self gathering them up tuning them all and binding them up into a Divine most agreeable eternal Harmony of all most ravishing most pure most perfect Beauties and Sweetnesses in it self discovering them all to be most melodious musical parts of the Divine Variety and Harmony eternal Varieties of Beauty and Sweetness in the Divine Unity 4. Lastly The shadowy happiness of the Creature is changed into a substantial one There is wrought out by these changes a far more exceedingly exceeding weight of Glory in Man a Glory infinitely transcending that of the first Paradise Now open themselves all these newer fuller higher Glories of the Godhead to man in man Now is man formed to a Divine Image infinitely newer fuller higher in the most immediate similitude and fruition of these highest Glories Now is man brought from the shadowy Union with God in the shadow of the Angelical Image through the dissolution of that Union and Image to the most intimate immediate inseparable Union the most perfect Union with God in the utmost Perfection of all his Excellencies wholly unvailed in the purest Essence of all his Glories in the eternal Spirit the Spirit of all the Divine Beauties Loves and Joys in the most heightned Unity in the most ample and unconfined Variety of the Divine Nature in the highest and sweetest Union of both these Now man sees enjoys God as he is in his own Likeness perfectly without transcendently above all Vails all Clouds all Shadows all Mixtures or Mutability Now is man as he is in the same Likeness together with him without above all Vails Clouds Shadows Mixture or Mutability Now God and Man awakened together as out of a sleep and the dreams in the sleep into the same Righteousness are satisfied with the same likeness in each other reflected from man as the Son the Image of God the Father of Lights the Original Glory But I now am sliding into my last Proposition and have indeed in a great degree prevented my self in it 4. Proposition The change in Man at the Fall did fall from the Divine Harmony in the Universal Design was comprehended in it and part of it I shall add to that which I have already written above only one Scripture with a short gloss upon it for the establishing of this Proposition St. Paul thus discourseth Rom. 8.
all her changes were but circlings through the various parts of the Divine Harmony within her self within the heavenly compass of her own Divine Essence While all that while she with her beautiful Essence and Form lies in the embraces of the Divine Essence it self There compleating in her self the circle of the Universal and Eternal Harmony returning thither as into the Bosome of her Beloved Bridegroom from whence she first came forth as from her everlasting Father and first Cause Thus I have endeavoured to bring to the Eye the Ear of our Understanding the Beauty the Musick of the Divine Harmony in the discords of Humane Nature in the Fall of Man which excludes all undetermined Liberty in the Will as altogether inconsistent with this Harmony and the Divine Unity the band of this Harmony I pass now to the Essence of the Soul in the third Scene into which it opens it self or that third state into which it rouls it self within it self My design is the same here to shew how the sacred and irresistible force of the Divine Harmony restores the Soul without any thing of Free-Will in the sense in which we have stated it intermingling it self in this Work 3. State This third state of the Soul is its return or restitution This is clearly and compleatly described by St. Paul after the lively Picture which he hath given us of the storm in the Fall But now the Righteousness of God is made manifest without the Law being witnessed to by the Law and the Prophets Rom. 3. 21. Even the Righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ on all that believe verse 22. Being justified freely by his Grace through the Redemption which is in Jesus Christ verse 24. Whom God hath set forth to be a Propitiation through faith in his blood to declare his own Righteousness for the remission of Sins verse 25. To declare I say at this time his own Righteousness that he by his his own Righteousness or Justice might be just and by the same his his own Righteousness the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus vers 26. Take here four brief Notes upon the words 1. The Righteousness of God is with great care and skill distinguished here and specificated in its distinction from the Righteousness of Man under the Law in the state of Innocency You have this distinction emphatically set out and sealed with a deep impression four times over The Right eousness of God without the Law vers 21. Even the Righteousness of God vers 22. God to declare his own Righteousness vers 25. To declare I say his own Righteousness or Justice That he may be just or righteous and the Justifier or the Maker righteous by his own Righteousness This is the Righteousness of the Gospel by which we have the pardon of Sins and are justified This the Law the Prophets Nature in its Purity in all its natural Improvements point out to us in shadows and pictures But cannot set before us nor give to us no more than the Picture can give a sight or fruition of the Life the living Beauty 2. Grace free Love alone without the Conjunction of Free-will discovers and brings in this Righteousness This Righteousness is the Beauty of the Divine Harmony Grace or Love is the sweetness the sweet force of this Harmony or the Unity in this Harmony which alone carries it on through all things and makes all things perfect in it 3. Jesus Christ with his Blood and Faith in him are means to this end the declaration of the Righteousness of God This Divine Harmony which is the Beauty and the Righteousness of the Divine Nature as the last end is the first Mover carries on it self by its own sweet most agreeable and irresistable force which is the Grace and Love in the Godhead This forms and fashions all its own means brings forth Jesus Christ to die for us to live in us by Faith and it self in this Jesus through the death and the life of this Jesus 4. The essential Righteousness of God as it brings forth it self through Jesus Christ is that in which we have the pardon of Sin and Justification It is his own Righteousness or Justice by which God is just himself and maketh us just In Greek the words are all the same his Righteousness that he may be just and the Justisier You will understand this and the elegant force of this Scripture which is very much lost in English by the change of the word in the Translation from Righteousness to Just and Justifier When you know that in Greek Righteousness and Justice are both one word as in the sense and in nature they are both one thing This essential Righteousness of God alone hath an infiniteness of value and virtue in it to be a satisfaction for the infinite Demerit and Guilt in Sin to make a Saint infinitely amiable and lovely that it may be proportioned to the Eye and infinite Love of an infinite Spirit We say our Jesus was Man that he might Suffer God that he might Merit by suffering We are rightly taught That it is the Person in Christ which gives the value to his Active and Passive Obedience That gives the value and virtue to the whole work of his Mediation The Person in Christ is God the second Person in the Trinity the essential Image of the Godhead eternal unchangeable infinite It is then the essential eternal infinite Beauty Value Virtue Righteousness of this Person which declares it self through the Humane Nature of Christ in the Humiliations the Exaltations of that unto the Remission of Sins unto Justification to make us infinitely amiable in the eye of an infinite God the worthy Objects of an infinite Love the worthy Subjects of an infinite Glory and Blessedness in the eternal unlimited free and full fruition of an infinite Object infinite in Loveliness and Delights But let us endeavour according to the meanness of our capacity in taking in so great Glory to give some Light to this so sweet and so high a mystery Righteousness and Justice in Greek are the same Justice is defined that which giveth every one it s own That is to every thing it s own due and proper to it which makes up the Harmony and Unity of the whole in that part The Harmony and Unity of the whole is the perfection of the whole and of each part Every part is in order to the whole as its end As it is perfection which is due to each thing So the end of each thing is its perfection Thus Justice consists in the Harmony and Unity of things Righteousness is that by which we are right and do right Right is a conformity to its rule The first in every kind is the measure and rule of all the rest God is absolutely universally the first of all things so is He the absolute measure and rule of all The Righteousness of God then is the conformity of the Divine Nature to
and Hell But this Heathenism and Manicheism are exploded as by the universal consent of all sober Christians so by the voice of reason it self For if there be two first Beings these agree in Being they differ in being two Being it self as it is One making both these one in its self as it is pure is before and above that state in which it is allayed and abased by being mixt and compounded with those differences which make it two This then alone is the first and supream Being the eternal One the only true God 2. If God then be not properly and directly the Author of Sin Sin is no positive Being but a privation only So the Scriptures express it which call it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an irregularity a falling short of the Glory of God a missing of the mark 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Divines generally teach us That the Sin consisteth not in any Act but in the Deordination in the privation a want of the due order appertaining to the Act. Sin then being nothing positive but a meer privation can have no efficient but a deficient Cause only This deficient Cause is that defectibility which is inseparable from every created Nature Darkness is the privation or absence of Light which naturally and necessarily accompanieth obscure and opact Bodies as the Air the Water and the Earth While the Sun shines upon them this deficiency or want of Light discovereth not it self All things are illuminated and the natural obscurity of these Bodies illustrated by the Sun-beams when these beams are withdrawn or intercepted then the defect of Light natural to these substances appeareth and so the darkness is predominant Thus every Creature hath in it self a tendency to annihilation being of it self like the Earth before the beautiful work of the first day which was light void and without form Thus the Soul of Man in its Understanding and in its Will hath naturally of it self a tendency to unreasonableness which is a degree of Annihilation the privation of that two-sold Beauty Truth in the Understanding and goodness in the Will While the Face of God shines upon the face of the Soul by a continued irradiation as in the first moment of the Creation these Intellectual Forms of Divine Beauty Truth and Goodness flourish in the Soul binding up the natural defectibility both of the Understanding and the Will in the golden Chains of an heavenly Light and heavenly Love but in that moment in which God turns away his Face with-draws his beams in the same moment the Soul of Man is left naked its natural defectibility prevails the privation or absence of Truth is now the darkness the deformity of folly and falshood The privation or absence of Goodness is now the evil and the disorder into which as a bottomless pit the Understanding and the Will and the whole Soul with these miserably endlesly sinks This is that horrible pit out of which sin ariseth the defectibility or nothingness of the Creature in it self This is the way by which it ariseth upon the Soul over-spreading it and carrying it back into that pit of horrour the deflectibility or nothingness of the Creature prevailing in the absence of the Divine beams The Royal Prophet divinely sings the penury of the Creature and the Praises of the great Creator in this Mystery Psal. 104. 29. Thou hidest thy Face they are troubled thou takest away their Breath or Spirit they die and return to their dust Thou sendest forth thy spirit they are created and thou renewest the face of the Earth It is a truth asserted by all Philosophers and Divines That the Understanding acteth necessarily being infallibly and irresistably reduced into act by its Object duly presented The Scripture manifestly teacheth us that sin entreth into the Soul by the Understanding Those two places which I have cited above are clear The woman being deceived was first in the Transgression Sin deceived me and so slew me St. Paul speaketh in both these places of the first entrance of sin into the World in the person of the first Woman and in his own person set as a figure of all Mankind as it was collectively and representatively in the first Adam Musaeus joyns these together 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Light going out and Leander perishing Man is deceived and so slain by sin As the Light of Truth goes out in the Understanding the Life of Goodness dies in the Will As the sight and light of the eye from the natural composition of the eye faileth as the irradiations from the Sun which it enjoyeth either mediately or immediately from the body of the Sun it self or from other luminous bodies depending upon the Sun are obscured So is the Souls eye the Understanding obscured according to the proportion in which the Divine illuminations in the way of Grace or Nature cease In these two first steps I have endeavoured to make clear the nature of Sin and the way of its entrance into the World in which we see a most genuine conformity to the dependance of the Will and of the whole Soul in all its changes and motions upon the first Cause as a link in the mystical Chain of the order of Causes The beauty and goodness of the Soul in its Understanding and its Will flow in the golden Pipe of the order of Causes as golden Oyl from the first cause as the Olive-Tree flourishing upon the Mount of Eternity As this golden stream from its Well-head fails beauty and goodness are no more in the Soul The deficiency or privation of these is the evil of Darkness Deformity Sin and Death to this intellectual and immortal Spirit But the knot seems to be tyed stronger by this discourse man sins inevitably by the necessity of his nature The first and free withdrawings of the Divine influence give way for the deflectibility of the Creature to spring up into those defects which are properly and formally the evils of Sin the first and greatest evils the fountains of all evils How then doth shame or guilt lie upon the Creature Why is God yet angry How is he just in punishing Is not the evil of sin from these grounds clearly cast upon God as the Author of it I shall endeavour to answer these Objections and to remove these Difficulties in the three following steps 3. I shall endeavour here to bring in some clear light into the obscure shades of this doubt how shame and guilt lie upon the Soul when it falls inevitably from the necessity of its nature Shame is a fear of Infamy from a sense of Deformity Deformity is the absence of the Divine Form originally present and so proper to the subject The subject of the form or beauty while it is present is also in its absence the subject of the privation and deformity To the deformity is annexed the reproach or disesteem Esteem or disesteem is a right judgment and so a value of each thing according to its proper state
in both from the meeting and blissful embraces of these two this Love and Loveliness in the Divine Nature his Joy and Complacency is alike in both equally full equally at the heighth A Divine Philosopher with a pleasant and beautiful Allegory teacheth us That the expansion of Light in the heavenly Bodies which is the Act of the Angelical World in this their most beautiful Figure is Risus Coelorum the laughter of the Heavens God maketh every thing beautiful in its proper place and time to kill as to make alive unformed deformed privations as the fairest and most flourishing forms In every Act of Providence in every accident from the beginning to the end of things he equally preserveth and perfecteth the Divine Order and Harmony This golden Harmony extended like the sweet Light of Heaven over all things is as a Divine laughter the complacency of the Divine Nature in its Work in its Image in it self I have yet one thing more to say before I take my other step We learn from Philosophers That heat and cold which continually fight in the Elements below are in the heavenly Bodies but after so eminent a manner that there they meet and enfold each other with a most harmonious agreeableness By the Laws of Divinity we are answerably taught That Anger and Love as all forms of things most discordant in the Creatures are first in the Divine Nature But they are there with an eminency with a transcendency in which they are refined and heightned far above all imperfections Here they all meet as most grateful and most agreeable Varieties in the entire and undivided Unity of the same eternal Light of the same eternal Love of the same eternal God As from this heighth of a most perfect Unity these Divine Varieties bring forth their various effects in shadowy resemblances here below they make the figure of the whole divinely one and divinely beautiful As Divine Seals they likewise impress the figure of their own Divine Unity upon each single effect Thus the whole work in general each single effect in particular is a divinely beautiful figure of the Divine Beauty shining with delightful beams upon those Eyes and Spirits which anointed with a Divine Knowledge see the golden and secret Seal this glorious and sacred impression of the Divine Unity upon it Thus we have spoken of the shame and guilt of Sin as also of Anger and in part of the Justice of God concerning which there remaineth more to be said 5. Step. We have yet before us that great Deep which swalloweth up all Understandings the face of which seemeth covered with a thick and impenitrable darkness Let us pray to the Father of Lights for irradiations from his eye that so this unfathomable Deep may discover it self to us as a blissful Deep of purest clearest and sweetest Glory If God first from the counsel of his own Will alone withdraw those beams which are all our Light and Beauty and we then by the inevitable necessity of our Natures wander as deformed shades in a wild darkness through the Regions of Sin Death and Hell Is not God now in a moral sense clearly and fully the sole Author of Sin and Evil This is the knot which indeed standeth in need of the Rosy Fingers of the heavenly Morning the beams of the eternal Day to unty it How shall we in this place vindicate the Justice and Goodness of God I have here three things to propound 1. Let us impartially and ingeniously consider whether the freedome of the VVill to determine it self absolutely in all its Acts reflect a greater Glory upon the Justice and Goodness of God than the VVill predetermined in its Essence in its superior Causes in the first and universal Cause That we may make a clearer judgment in this case let us compare these two different states of the VVill together with several Antecedents and Consequencies by placing them both in our view one by another as plainly within as narrow a compass as we can Let us set that Free-will in our eye after this manner God brings forth an Intellectual Spirit with a Divine Light of Truth in its heavenly Beauties shining upon its Understanding with a Divine Love of the true Good with all its heavenly Sweetnesses springing in its VVill. He now sets down the will of this Spirit upon such a ground of indifferency and absoluteness in it self that being undetermined into any forms of good or evil the most heavenly or the most hellish it is equally free for it in the face of all this blessed Light shining in the Understanding in the midst of all the heavenly sweetnesses flowing from the bosome of the true Good through the VVill it self to cast it self forth from the bosome of the eternal Good Appearing thus in its own naked and Divine Form and to cast it self into the embraces of the foulest evil the fountain of all evil presenting it self as evil in its own most direful and haggish shapes A great part of Intellectual Spirits far the greatest part of humane Spirits placed by the Divine Providence in this state refuse the good choose the evil so render themselves obnoxious to the Divine Justice and become by the pursuits and inflictions of that Avenger the lost Subjects of all horror and woes without end Let us now in the like manner cast our eye upon the Will predetermined in its Causes God brings forth an Intellectual Spirit compounded Ex aliquo Dei ex aliquo sui With something of God something of its own That of God in it is all the good of it the clear Face of the eternal Truth shining in its Understanding as in a Christal Mirror the sweet flame of pure Goodness and as pure a love to this Goodness burning in its VVill as upon the golden Altar in the Temple of God the beams of this Beauty and the flames of this Love unitedly spreading varying and forming themselves through the whole Person and Life of this Spirit into all Divine Virtues and Joys by which it becomes as God himself descended into a God-like Image of God himself This is that of God in the Creature That which is ofits own in this Intellectual Spirit is beneath all this heavenly beauty and goodness a deflectibility inseparable from the nature of the Creature bound up only by the heavenly charms of this Divinity resting upon the Person of this Spirit God in the depth of a design perhaps too blessed and too glorious to be penetrated and fathomed by us as the eternal Sun ascends up on high going away from this Spirit and carrying away with him his whole train of immortal beams with a Divine Light Heat and Virtue Now like a mournful and hated darkness from below the natural defectibility of this Spirit covers the whole face of it making it like Hell it self the seat of all evils both of Sin and Suffering which lie eternally upon innumerable multitudes Let us now consider the two-fold Law or
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
I will yet bring seven times more Plagues upon you As the opposition and disorder and sin encreaseth so the Divine Harmony also is heightned in its contrariety to it All this is done that the evil of sin and disorder the beauty and sweetness of the Divine Grace and Order may set out the Contrariety This also is that the distinction between the Ceator and the Creature the heavenly Image the Original and Substance which is all pure Light and Good without any mixture of Darkness or capacity of Evil. And the earthly Image the shadow which is composed of a figure of Light and true Darkness from which sin with all evils spring and take life according to the Language of the Apostle may be more clearly discovered Thus by the breaking in of sin by blame and shame and sufferings which are as so many Glasses to set before sin the deformity and ugliness of its own face the Creature the shadowy Image is humbled is broken to pieces is brought into the dust that it may give all glory and attribute all good to the Creator the Original and eternal Image that it may resign it self to it seek its rest alone in it and that it may finally return into the bosom of the Original Glory which in these wayes by these degrees through the breakings of it springeth up in it breaketh forth through it and bringeth it back again to lie down eternally in that Bosom of purest Love and Light where it was at first from eternity where it hath been eternally hid with Christ in God All this God doth that he may eternally display the unsearchable Riches of that Variety and Fulness which is in himself that he may swallow up the Understanding of every Creature Man or Angel into an admiration and adoration of the incomprehensibleness of his Wayes his Wisdom his Blessedness and Glory who at once bringeth forth these Varieties which like Morning-Stars and Sons of God in the purest unmixt Light and Love dance and sing together in his Bosom into such fighting Contrarieties upon the stage of the earthly and created Image here below making that the seat of deformity shame woe and death while it figureth out the highest Joys and Glories of eternal Life above who again gathers up all these jarring and tumultuous Contrarieties into the first state and supream Unity where the Variety is far more vast and boundless in the whole far more full and distinct in each branch of it where the whole is all an eternal Melody an eternal Beauty an eternal Joy unexpressibly Divine pure and ravishing where each branch in its own distinct Form is a Beauty a Melody a Joy equally pure perfect and ravishing with the whole being crowned with the Unity and Eternity which is the highest Unity This St. Paul representeth to us clearly and fully in the person of each Saint when he saith Heights and Depths things present and things to come this World Life and Death all things are yours and you are Christs and Christ is Gods All things are Divine distinct eternal Glories in the person of a Saint as a Saint is taken up into the Glory of Christ as Christ is in the Glory of God 3. The evil of Sufferings is the proper way in the Universal Order by which the disorderly Spirit with its disorders returneth into order to possess and enjoy in it self the Divine Beauty and Musick of the whole Guilt is the Obligation upon each Spirit from every Act of disorder unto the Divine Justice which is the Law of the Divine Harmony seated originally in the Divine Nature from the opposing it self to the disorderly Spirit and the reducing it by the opposition into order This is done three wayes 1. By Expiation 2. By Compensation 3. By Abolition 1. Expiation or atonement is the bringing in of something Sacred Divine and Perfect The Heathen in their Expiations generally made use of brimstone which seemed to have something Sacred and Divine in it as appears by the Greek name 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifieth both brimstone and something Divine perhaps the reason is its aptness to take fire and its resemblance in its pure and fiery flame to the Coelestial Bodies 2. Compensation is of like to like by an equality this turneth the Discord into a Concord and gathereth it up into the Unity 3. The Abolition is the effacing and blotting out the disorder bringing it forth now into order where the deformity of the discord is swallowed up into an amiable and beautiful Harmony This is the chief part of the expiation or atonement in which the Ancients to this end made use of a living stream or fire as things Sacred and proper for purification But this whole work is comprehended in the mystery of Christ it is begun and finished in his Person alone literally or mystically 1. Expiation Jesus Christ the eternal Spirit of the Divine Order and Harmony springs up in the midst of the disorder and takes it all upon himself by taking Flesh. This is the beginning of the Expiation this is the truly sacred Divine and perfect thing brought in to expiate the confusion and the abomination This is the supream Unity the supream Harmony Love it self the Prince of Peace and Harmony the God of Order discovering himself as a sacred and eternal Root at the bottom of the disorder in whom that also stands after an orderly and harmonious manner while he himself also is springing up through it This is the beginning of the Expiation 2. Compensation This Jesus which is Divine Love it self appearing in the enmity the Divine Harmony it self in the disorder seats himself as the mark of the opposition and contrariety by which the Divine Order in the Spirit of Order which is himself sets it self against the Disorder to subdue and reduce it he receiveth himself into his own bosom and heart all the invenomed arrows and fiery darts which the Justice and Wrath of God that is Love it self casteth forth in its highest opposition and contrariety to the enmity This contrariety of the Divine Love to the enmity which hath violated and slain this Love in breaking the Harmony is maintained by a War of Blood and Fire till it come to its ut most height till the contrariety of Love to the enmity be fully displayed and discharged till the enmity and disorder that work of the Devil be subdued and destroyed together with the dissolution of flesh it self The earthly and shadowy Image the seat and ground of sin and enmity by the death of Jesus Christ who hath taken our Sins and Nature upon himself as the first root and ground of all O sweet and Divine Mystery O musical Discord and harmonious Contrariety O peaceful and pleasant War where the supream Love stands on both sides where as in a mysterious Love-sport or a Divine Love-play it fights with it self suffering for it self dying by it self and so it self sinking by death into its own sweetest bosom and dearest
Lamb that was slain where his wounds appear in his glorified Person not as Wounds but as Beauties not as Fractures or Stains but as Diamonds or Pearls in the Crown of his Righteousness and Glory Perhaps I may seem too long upon this part of my Discourse but we read of a Sanctuary into which the Holy Spirit entreth when it is perplext with the outward face of the Divine Providence in the evil of sin and Sinners and of Sufferings to the Saints There it seeth the end of all There the mystery openeth it self into an universal Uniform piece and prospect of Divine Beauty and Delight Psal. 73. If I be not deceived Jesus risen from the dead in this order and manner is this Sanctuary this Temple of Grace and Truth He hath now rent the Vail of his Flesh and opened himself into an universal eternal Spirit He now shines out with a sweet amiable clearness and glory into an universal eternal Light In this Spirit which is this Light of Life the whole course of his Work in the Creation and in Providence his Incarnation Sufferings and Death present themselves in all the smallest threads and contextures of them as one Diâ—…ine piece as full of Divinity every where Here all in the whole and in the parts present themselves to the spiritual Eye as beautiful and blessed Spirits in numberless troops by a Divine sport figuring their immortal Glories in all Varieties of lights and shades hiding their Glories beneath these figures breaking with their Glories out of these figures as so many Suns out of their Clouds shewing their figures themselves as Glories Like the Palms and Lilies and Cherubims of the Temple carved first in Cedar and then covered with massy Gold In the mean time all these numberless Spirits in their whole play from the beginning to the end are comprehended in this one Spirit the universal Spirit of Harmony Order Beauty and pleasantness in all Jesus risen from the dead the first and the last the same yesterday to day and for ever O the Wisdom the Power the Grace the Glory the unsearchable Riches of the mystery of God in Christ What a depth is this without any bottom What an heighth without any bound What a breadth what a length without any measure How doth it stretch forth it self beneath all above all through all beyond all things or thoughts Who can ever satisfie himself with any the richest the fullest forms of words or conceptions in conceiving or expressing this Mystery this Jesus But I have now brought to an end according to my weak manner the reducing the disorder it self into order in the Person of Christ by these three sacred steps of Expiation Compensation Abolition of the Disorder in the Order or which is the same the Renovation of the Order in all I have endeavoured to shew how every thing of partâ—…cular order and disorder hath been made beautiful in its season keeping its time in the Universal Harmony of this Song of the Lamb in the Musick of the eternal Word I have also attempted to open that mystery how this Work of God in every part of it with its Beauty is for eternity the light of eternity being the only light of Truth with a golden Calm an unstained Sun-shine of purest perpetual Peace Pleasantness and Glory In this light of eternity alone is the Work of God seen aright in the entire piece in the whole design from the beginning to the end As all times appear in this Light less than a moment a point nothing being as eternity in the undivided Unity of eternity so are all the disorders of time no more not so much as a shadow in a dream that is past but as the highest and sweetest Harmony in the undivided Unity of the eternal Harmony All this is true in the Person of Christ to which the Scriptures give a clear Testimony All things are gathered together in one in Christ both which are in Heaven and which are on Earth Ephes. 1. 10. Having made peace through the blood of his Cross God hath by him reconciled all things to himself by him whether they be things on Earth or in Heaven Col. 1. 20. These are true in us as Christ springs up in us Then only are we our selves baptized Then only do we see all things unto us together with us baptized into the sweet shining boundless bottomless Sea of this universal aâ—…d eternal Harmony when we are baptized into Christ. As many of us as are baptized into Christ are baptized into his Death and into â—…is Resurrection from the dead How then can we live any longer in sin being now dead to it How can we live any life besides that of Holiness and Heaven being now risen again with Christ into the Glory of God Thus St. Paul excludes all pleas of the Flesh for a licentiousness in sin from this Doctrine of the free and rich Grace of God in Christ Rom. 6. 1 2 3 4. I am now come to the end of my design upon this Scripture Eccles. 3. I have been large in the prosecution of my design upon this Scripture my purpose was to reconcile the absoluteness of the Divine Sovereignty Wisdom and Power through this whole Work with the Divine Justice Goodness and Glory in the determination of the Will by its essential Principles by the uninterrupted order and connexion of causes by the first and universal Cause which is most intimate to every effect and worketh most of all Secundum modum naturae in a natural way as being the nâ—…tura naturans I promised two other Scriptures for the making good of this design I will lightly touch them and so hasten to an end of my Discourse The Lord hath made all things for himself yea even the Wicked for the day of evil Prov. 16. 4. There are four parts clear and distinct in this Scripture 1. An efficient cause or beginning The Lord Jehovah 2. The final cause or end For himself 3. The universality of the effect and influence of these Causes The Lord hath made all things for himself 4. A confirmation of this universal influence of these Divine Causes upon every Effect by a particular and most eminent instance Yea even the Wicked for the day of evil Three things are remarkable in this particular instance 1. It is brought in as an anticipation of an Objection and with a two-fold Asseveration Yea even Here in this point men are apt most of all to doubt the continuation and universality of the Divine influence What say they hath God made all things for himself What the evils of Sin and of Suffering Here men of greatest wit through all Ages have been at a stand not knowing how to fasten the golden Links of the Divine Chain in the Work of God one within another Here they have broken the Chain of the holy and heavenly Order Here therefore the Divine Wisdom by Solomon peculiarly fasteneth the Links and maketh the Chain entire that he may enclose
Creation but from common Grace supernaturally communicated by virtue of the heavenly Seed all along sown and springing up in the nature of man Now to this conviction as to their proper end are directed The precepts the vehemency of exhortation expostulations comminations and allurements which God maketh use of to man through the whole Scriptures That man may be sensible if he be capable of any sense that he is dead in sin that there is no principle no power of good at all in him which may be a ground to receive this good seed cast from without upon him that it may take root in it and bring forth fruit by it 2. The Law is a ministry of condemnation so St. Paul expresly stiles it This conviction and condemnation both the holy Apostle presenteth clearly to us when he saith That the end of this whole ministry is That every mouth might be stopped and the whole world become guilty before God 3. The last end of the Law is Death Death upon all Mankind upon the whole person of man a spiritual and natural death Death here where man is truly dead while he seem to live Death in the departure out of this life death after this life in Hell in torments This death is without any Ransom or Redemption within the compass or power of the whole Creation These are the proper and next ends of the Law Before I come to the remote and Ultimate ends I shall make my way clearer by answering an Objection which may here set it self in our way Object Is it not the proper and next end of the Law to be a rule of Holiness and a guide to it Answ. Indeed not rarely the form of each thing being its perfection is called the end of it But if we distinguish the formal and the final cause this is not the end but the essential form of the Law The true form and essence of the Law is a proposal of good and evil to man as the object of his choice In the Law we have before us the good of Holiness with its Divine Nature and Beauties with its attendant joys and blessedness The evil of sin with its hateful form and the monstrous disorders in the nature of which an Angel becomes a Devil and which is the proper constitutive form of a Devil together with the consequent horrors and torments extending themselves to the nethermost Hell Thus is the Law as now we speak in its essential form a convenant of works presenting to man holiness and sin with life and death accompanying them that he may make his choice by embracing holiness taking life in it and together with it Or by entertaining sin receiving death into his whole person and all his solaces round about him From this essential form of the Law see how the Law is directed to the fore-mentioned ends Man is composed of the light of God and his own proper darkness These two the Schools call the Act and the potentiality the form and the matter being and not being which constitute every Creature The darkness or nothingness which is the Creatures own is the proper ground of sin which is its own form and is a privation or deficiency a falling to nothing While the Divine Glory shines upon man tempering forming and confining this darkness by its own light to an harmonious Union with it it becomes the Daughter and Image and Spouse of this Light Now sin lies dead in us but the man lives This Divine Life shining in the darkness and through the darkness is to him a Divine shadow of the Divine Light While these two stand undivided and undistinguished to man in the Unity of the Divine Image and in the simplicity of this Divine Unity sin finds no way can take no occasion to bring forth it self into life The Law comes this distinguisheth between the Light of God and the darkness of the Creature in man This is the temptation and the state of tryal Abide saith the Lord to man with thy darkness in the Divine Light as a shadow of the Divine Glory in the simplicity of the Divine Unity so shall this Unity this Glory be a Tree of Life to thee thou shalt eat of it and live for ever Thou thy self shall be as the fruit upon this Tree which shall never fail nor fall But if thou choose to thy self thine own darkness if in this darkness thou distinguish and divide thy self from the Divine Light seeking to captivate this Light in thy darkness and to turn it to a glory to thy self as if thou hadst in thy self and in thine own darkness the root upon which this Divine Light with all its beauty force and sweetness grew This division in thy self will prove to thee the forbidden and that cursed Tree of knowledge of Good and Evil in eating of it thou shalt immediately die God thus in the Law presenteth this trial to man That he may discover man in the earthly Image of the first Creation with all his Strengths and Beauties to be altogether shadowy That he may make way for the dissolution of this shadowy Image in order to the springing up of the heavenly Image as its proper seed through it into its ripe fruit and perfect form God with-holds his Divine presence appearances and influences from man during this trial Now the darkness which alone is mans own discovereth it self in its own proper deformities and confusions it predominateth in man captivateth man entirely to it self becomes his choice and his Lord. Thus now sin springs up thus it takes life to it self bringing forth death together with it which is the perfection of sin and of the Original Darkness dividing it self from the Divine Light heightning it self to an enmity against the Divine Light making it self by this means as a Mark and a Butt of opposition to the Divine Light against which it shooteth all the fiery Arrows of the Divine Displeasure and Wrath. This seemeth to be the proper meaning of St. Paul's words before cited I had not known concupiscence if the Law had not said Thou shalt not covet I was alive once without the Law and sin in me was dead But when the Law came sin lived and I died Sin taking an occasion by the Law deceived me and so slew me That of mans own the darkness was the Womb out of which sin the delusion of sin and death by sin spring forth into life There is one note upon this Scripture which is very necessary for the enlightning of the whole sense Some Copies read in the 9. vers 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sin revived this supposeth a former life of sin this seemeth uncapable of any sense agreeable to the Text the Context the Design of the Apostle in this place But other Copies as that interlineary Greek Testament of Arias Montanus readeth it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sin lived now first took life This reading alone furnisheth us with a sense in which all the expressions of the holy
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
which composeth the Harmony and is the Soul of Harmony Variety it self being a singular name is an Unity Things absolutely divided and separate one from another make not a Variety This ariseth from the Unity in which they agree in which they are bound up together like Flowers in a Posie and presented in one Form in one view to the eye or to the mind A part of the Variety then which by its independancy upon the whole breaketh the Unity dividing it self from it destroyeth both the end and the essence it self of the Variety which are the Harmony and the Unity 3. Nature is the Law of Being Variety is Being varied Is not this a contradiction in the terms that the Law of Being that Being varied should call for as its Perfection a Being independant upon Being it self the first the universal Being that is should call for a Non-ens a not Being Such doth that VVill seem clearly to be in its essence motions and actions which in these in any moment and point of these in any circumstance is absolute in it self independant upon the first and Universal Cause the Fountain of Being Being thus cast into the bosom of the Divine Variety in which Nature and Grace the Fall and the Exaltation of things things visible and invisible of the Creature and the Creator lie and spring together as in their Garden-Bed Here with this Variety we will close our Discourse and in this Bosom take up our rest Jesus Christ in his Discourse to Nicodemus representeth the spiritual Birth by this similitude Joh. 3. 8. The wind bloweth where it listeth and thou hearest the sound thereof but thou knowest not whence it cometh nor whither it goeth so is every one that is born of the Spirit St. John saith 1 Epist. 2. Chap. 10. vers He that hateth his Brother is in darkness and walks in darkness and knows not whither he goes O that all the Lord's people O that all Mankind were enlightned with the heavenly brightness and splendor of the Divine Love anointing their Spirits with the heavenly perfume of the same love to their Brethren that is to every other Person or Spirit as St. Paul explains it Rom. 13. 8. He that loves another fulfils the Law That which the other Scriptures call a Neighbour a Brother is here Another every other person This Love would be an anointing of light upon the eyes of our mind giving us a clear and sweet prospect round about us in which we should not only hear a sound or a voice but see whence we came whither we go where we are the truth of all this and the way By the practice of this Divine Command To love one another we should as by a shining hand from Heaven dropping Mirth upon our Spirits be lead to the reason and the root of this Love which is the Divine Variety now mentioned the Jerusalem above the Mother of us all free and unconfined This is to love another according to the heavenly Command and to love another as my Neighbour my Brother to love every other person and thing as a fellow Branch with me in this Variety But if we will see the sweet and glorious Light of this heavenly Love we must not take the Variety alone but joyn to it the Unity and the Union of both these which are integral essential and primary parts of the Variety which are every way equal to the Variety and distinctly essentially comprehend it in themselves Thrice happy is that Spirit which by the Initiations Sanctisications and Anointings of the eternal Spirit hath been admitted to this Sacred and Supream Mystery To behold this Trinity the Variety in its first highest and unbounded form The Unity most absolute entire and undivided The Union of both these every way mutual and perfect O what Joys what Glories how pure how high how universal filling all in all transcending all things and thoughts open themselves to this Spirit who now sees himself a Variety of the same joy and glory in these joys and glories who now sees himself one eternal Joy and Glory with all these Joys and Glories in their Divine Unity What an eternal Marriage-day doth this Spirit now enjoy while at once by the bond of this Divine Union it seeth it self a distinct beauty and blessedness in the midst of all these innumerable glories equally distinct from him and one from another with the first the highest the most full distinction which is the perfection the compleatness the life of the Variety and yet in the same Scene in the same appearance and person one with them all as they all are one in the first and highest Unity This Spirit now seeth those Divine beauties and truths shining upon it with a most ravishing amiableness which we have toucht in our former discourse as the Divine ground on which the determination of the Will is built from which spring up those great and Sacred mysteries of the Gospel and the Law together with all the several Seeds or Forms of Light and Darkness Life and Death Nature Sin Grace and Glory comprehended in them The Seed of God which is the Seed of the Divine Unity and by St. Paul called one Spirit 1 Cor. 6. Hath been first before the world was in the Bosom of the Father in the Arms of Christ. So saith Jesus to his Father Thine they were and thou gavest them me This Divine Seed is brought down into a shadowy Image as a sleep and a dream in a sleep It still descends lower by the Fall not only to the remotest distance from the Purity Pleasantness and Glory of its Original but to the greatest estrangedness from it and opposition to it as a tragical dream of some excellent Person or Prince in a troubled sleep God several times mentioneth it with several senses and applications as a Sacred and Divine mystery That he calleth his Son out of Egypt It is his own Seed his own Son which first descended into Egypt the House of Bondage a Land of darkness and of Devils where almost every Creature was an Idol-god and so a Devil By an heavenly and Divine Call as by the returning of the Sun in the Spring to the Plants This Seed of Glory and Eternity sown and sunk so low by degrees comes up and returns again through all the beautiful the various the encreasing Forms of Light and Love springing up out of Darkness and Wrath. So at length it arriveth at its first habitation of Glory and Delights in the Arms of Christ in the Bosom of the Father It now flourisheth in the prime in the full blown Beauties and Joys of that life which it had at first which it ever hath had hidden with Christ in God the Life of eternity Thus is the Variety compleat thus is the whole Variety fully displayed in the heavenly Seed being carried along through all distinctions diversities contrarieties of forms and states of Good and of Evil. Thus is the Seed it self preserved pure through
a Divine Satisfaction a Divine Atonement The Wrath and the Contrariety now ceaseth being reconciled and charmed by these Divine Harmonies into the Unity of eternal Love Thus is the Cross of our Lord Jesus the utmost bound of things In this Cross the Divine Design is finished the Mystery is finished the Vail is rent all things in Heaven and on Earth are reconciled and gathered up into One tuned to a Divine and Universal Harmony which is the Musick of Eternity Now is that Song sung O Death where is thy sting O Grave where is thy Victory The sting of Death is Sin and the strength of Sin is the Law but thanks be to God who giveth us the Victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ on his Cross hath swallowed up the Law Sin and Death in the Victory of the Divine Love the Divine Purities the Beauties of Holiness and eternal Life Eternal Life eternal Love that is our Jesus now cries with a triumphant shout O Death I will be thy Plague and Death This is the Day of the manifestation of the Righteous Judgments of God Now in the close and end of all the Divine Design through all the parts and passages of it clearly opens and unfolds it self Now it appears unto all Eyes and Hearts to be all throughout in every point of it divinely-beautiful and pleasant transcending the Understanding the Affections the Expectations the Desires the most unbounded Imagination of all Men or Angels proportioned only to a God and that God which is so Light that there is no darkness in him So Love that there is no Fury in him Now is that found clearly compleatly true All his ways are ways of peace and all his paths are pleasantness This is our God and we will praise him our Fathers God and we will exalt him This is our Jesus whom our Soul loves we will rejoyce in him and wait for him Pardon me courteous Reader if I seem something longer in this tract of my Discourse describing that most beautiful and Divine Harmony with which all things lie together most delightfully in this shining Seat of all Truth and enflaming Object of all Love the dear and adored Form and Person of our great Mediator This is the Eye the Heart of my design and work If the entire and naked Face of Divine Truth were rightly drawn and set before us in any degree answerable to the Life in this heavenly Image how powerfully would it attract all Understandings into its embraces how pleasantly would it subdue them to it self far beyond the force of all Disputes and Syllogisms which gather up only small divided and dead parts of this Divine Form like Ae as collecting the scattered members of his Son Absertus thrown up and down at diverse distances by his bloody Sister Medea to retard his way Or like the Philosophers in Boetius which take hold of the Garment only of Divine Truth and tear that into deformed shreds of which they possess themselves and in which they glory If I could entirely conceive that of which I seem to my self to have some little but rich and pleasant glances If I could clearly express and conveigh into the Minds of men that which I conceive of the nature of God and his Work which appeareth to me to have been gathered from all things Humane and Divine from Poetry Philosophy and Theology From Nature and Grace the letter of the Scriptures and the Spirit according to my little acquaintance with them and less understanding of them I am perhaps too vainly apt to perswade my self that I should make the noblest Conquest a Conquest of Hearts which would be equally Conquerors with me partaking equally in the Joy and Glory of the Conquest For what Understanding would not gladly be swallowed up into the richly unfathomable Depths of the Divine Wisdom if it were touched with this sense that the whole Understanding and Mind of God in its utmost and unlimited compass is taken up and filled with a Love of equal extent to it and equally unlimited What Understanding would not joyfully lie down for ever and lose it self in the gloriously soft and bright Bosom of the Divine Wisdome if it once by the least sweet glimpse perceived this that the Divine Wisdom throughout is no other than the beautiful and blissful Harmony of the Divine Love that all the Work of his Wisdom within and without is a deep delightful God-like contrivance of Love on which the whole Godhead layeth out it self to the utmost of all its unbounded fulnesses and treasures For this Love to bring forth and express it self with all possible advantage with all beautifyings sweetnings and heightnings as in the whole contrivance so in each part and point of it through all which this Love by this Wisdom conducteth it self with an inevitable force and sweetness This is that which the holy Apostle hath testified speaking of things which he had seen when the Father revealed Jesus Christ in his Spirit that God by Jesus Christ in his Grace that is his Love hath abounded towards us in all Wisdom and Prudence What Will of Man or Angel if it had in it self the greatest Arbitrarinâ—…s and highest Soveraignty over its own Actions would not with unexpressible pleasure resign its Arbitrariness its Soveraignty its self and all to the Divine Will when this Will should appear unto it in nothing Arbitrary but Goodness it self it s own Object Rule and Perfection a Goodness eternal unalterable and inviolable The supream and universal Goodness containing in it self all kinds and degrees of Goodness at an equal height with it self A Goodness which bringeth forth it self into the supream and universal Beauty its proper and essential Image to which every Will by its own Principle and most essential activity and motion is carried with a necessity and irresistableness most rational and most voluntary that is most divinely-harmonious and agreeable What Spirit endued with an Understanding and a Will can forbear from casting it self with most enamoured and most sweetly forcible transports into the Arms and absolute Conduct of this our Jesus this our God when by the first and most obscure beam of his own Light it is awakned unto this Divine Sight that this Jesus our God is Goodness it self most pure most perfect whose continued Birth and essential Image is Truth it self Beauty it self Truth and Beauty in their clearest Glories in their highest Sweetnesses in their fullest Amplitude Extent and Majesty Truth and Beauty comprehending all things within themselves as one Truth and Beauty with themselves bringing forth all things from themselves as Flowers from their Garden-beds filling all shining through all forming themselves upon all Shall not the Understanding and Will of every Spirit now be as Wings of Divine Light and Love on which the Spirit flies with a sweet and a swift strength into the Bosom of the Lord Jesus that here by its Understanding it may feast it self with an Appetite and Delight ever
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
Glory the eternal Spirit St. Austin in his Discourses of the Trinity interprets the mission or sending Christ by the Father to be his coming forth out of the invisible Glory of the Father into a visible state and form The invisible Glory being immutable undivided and unconfined comprehendeth constantly in it self after its own manner that visible Form which it sendeth forth from it self Object How do we say that the Manhood of Christ was a Spirit in its Resurrection when he saith in one place to his Disciples A Spirit hath not flesh and bone as ye see me to have In another place he shewed his hands and his side to the Apostles Joh. 20. 20. Again he calleth to Thomas Bring thy finger hither and see mine hands and bring thine hand and put it into my side and be not unbelieving but believing In a visible form he ascended before the eyes of the Apostles and a Cloud took him up out of their sight Act. 1. 9. To this I give three Answers Answ. 1. Jesus Christ intended not that these outward appearances of a natural Form to their outward and natural senses should be in themselves alone any demonstration of his Resurrection and Glory Did not he know that all their senses were equally capable of being deluded by a Fantom or an Apparition of the Devil If Satan can change himself into an Angel of Light to the deluding of our most noble and Divine Faculty our Understanding can he not as easily by the same skill and power change himself into any known or agreeable Object to abuse any of our senses might not he either by false Species or Images impressed upon the outward Organs of sense the natural Spirit the Imagination or by thickning and forming a Body of Air counterfeit the softness the warmth the solidity of Christs Flesh and his Wounds to the touch and to the hands of St. Thomas as well as to his sight and to his eyes Histories of those affairs which write them with greatest Authority and best Reputation tell us of dissolute Persons who have seemed to themselves in the warm embraces of a delightful Person on a soft and rich bed who yet in the end have found themselves with a filthy sow in the mire Answ. 2. We read in Daniel that the Bodies of the Saints in the Resurrection shine as the Sun in the Firmament When Jesus Christ was transfigured his Face did shine as the Sun in its strength If then the Body of our Lord Jesus risen from the dead did remain flesh still yet certainly it was rarified and heightned to such a degree of Spirituality and Glory that it could bear no resemblance to the natural Body the Flesh of Christ in its Humiliation upon the Cross stained and broken with Wounds with Blood with Agonies with the forms of Death invading it Can we think a glorified Body could bear any proportion to our natural senses when our own reason according to the Rules of Philosophy teacheth us That a sensible Object if it excel destroys the sense Our experience makes this plain to us in the Sun which shining clearly forth is uncapable of being lookt upon by us chastizing us with a blindness even to inferior Objects if we dare to cast our eyes upon him yet is he in his brightest Glory but a shadowy Figure of the glorified Body of Christ and of his Saints For when Christ shall appear in his glorified Body and the Saints in their glorified Bodies shall appear and shine in their full splendor with him the Sun shall have no glory before this excelling Glory but be turned into Sack-cloath as the Stars lose their light when the Sun riseth upon them Can we think then our eyes our natural senses or those of the Apostles capable of discerning or taking in the Glory of Christs spiritual Body in its proper and true Form when he was risen from the dead Answ. 3. The holy Spirit saith expresly of these appearances of Christ to the natural senses of the Apostles immediately upon that History of St. Thomus Many truly therefore and other signs Jesus wrought before his Disciples Joh. 20. 30. We read also concerning these appearances of Christ to the Apostles that Jesus Christ presented himself to them alive by many signs or wonders for the space of forty days appearing to them and seen by them These then were Signs or Miracles wrought by Christ which had no force in the outward Form any farther than the eternal Spirit with a Divine Power and Glory wrought in them and shined through them Such Signs and Wonders were the Images of things presented of old to the eyes or imaginations of the Prophets which were of no use any farther than the eternal Word the Glory of God opened it self to the Spirits of the Prophets through them at once discovering them in it self and it self in them So now the Lord Jesus by these Signs to the outward senses at once opened fortified heightned enlarged the Understanding and the spiritual senses of the Apostles and presented himself to them with his whole Man-hood Soul and Body risen into the Glory of his Mediatory Form and of his Divine Nature Here he set before them all those fleshly Forms of his Humiliation of his Incarnation Life and Death through which he had passed in their proper Forms of their several seasons not as shadowy Images to shadowy senses but as the essential eternal Truth the Spirit and Life of them as Mysteries and Glories unvailed and sealing themselves upon the spiritual senses of those whose eyes were thus anointed to behold them This was the sight which Christ presented to Thomas when he said to him with words which carried a new Creation along with them be not unbeliving but believing This was the sight which Thomas saw when he cryed My Lord and my God The Ascention of our Lord Jesus is his passage out of his Mediatory Form and Glory carrying that also up together with himself into the Glory of the Father Jesus Christ distinguisheth between his own Glory and the Glory of his Father Luke 9. 26. When the Son of Man cometh in his own Glory and the Glory of his Father and the Glory of his holy Angels The Glory of the holy Angels is that of this Creation which is subjected to them in which they are according to the Language of the Scripture Principalities Powers and Thrones His own Glory the proper Glory of Christ which he calls his own Glory is that of his Mediatory Form The Glory of his Father transcendeth that shining forth in the supream Unity and purest simplicity of the Godhead This three-fold Glory Jesus Christ united in his own Person Through this three-fold Glory he ascended taking up all with him into the highest Glory He cometh again in the Spirit of Glory and of God as the Root of this three-fold Glory putting forth himself gradually in it through the Saints till by springing and forming himself in them he bring them also