as in common with the other the very same benefit absolutely and unchangeably Of this generation of men in a state of fleshly Saint-ship Paul speaks when he intimates Rom. 9. that they are not all Israel which are of Israel neither saith he because they are the seed of Abraham are they all children but in Isaac shall thy seed be called that is they which are the children of the flesh these are not the children of God but the children of the promise are counted for the seed v. 6 7 8. The true seed even according to the flesh must be comprehended in Isaac as he is the figure of Christ coming in the flesh And not only this but when Rebecca also had conceived by one even by our father Isaac it was said unto her the elder shall serve the younger ver 10 12. the one representing him that was born after the flesh the seed and children of the earthly Jerusalem engendred from Mount Sinai the other him that was born after the spirit the seed that are begotten of the Ierusalem that is above which is the mother of all the right â—â—â—irs of the promise By this there is presented to our view First the natural fleshly seed of Israel that were only so outwardly whose circumcision was that only which was outward in the flesh which Rom. 2. is counted as no circumcision nor were the persons thereby really differenced at all from Heathens but were inferiour to such of them as by nature were doers of the law ver 25 26 27 28. Secondly here is described to us the true seed of Israel as they are the children of the first covenant and make up the earthly Jerusalem the proper subjects of Christ under this second dispensation as he hath Rule and Dominion over them by the law and is a husband to them by the covenant of works These are at large set out and particularly described Ezek. 16. ver 1. to the 15. Thirdly here are made known to us the true Iacobs those that like Princes wrestle with God and prevail who are the seed that overcome and though they be the younger in birth yet supplant the elder and of last do become the first being preferred before the children of the first covenant how glorious and excellent a shew soever they may make in the flesh for they are circumcised with a further circumcision made without hands in the death of Christ to the taking them out of the life of Christs natural body as it is the keeping up the first Tabernacle or Sanctuary and to the planting them into similitude with him in his dead and crucified body to open thereby unto them the way into the holiest of all the glory that is within the veyl and life that is from the dead Which circumcision Rom. 2. ver 29. is said to have its praise of God in distinction by way of eminency from the two former Now the second sort of Israelites whose Circumcision is inward to the doing away the filth of the flesh only and whose praise is of men are those the Scripture intends by the children of the first Covenant those upon whom the living WORD of God hath had such effect as to write out in the fleshly tables of their hearts a conformity to that image of God that shines forth in the flesh of Christ wherein his natural righteousness and perfection singly considered doth consist as the Rule and holy Commandment which they are to follow and be conformed unto for their sanctification whilst he himself is made their head and covering as to their justification through their actual implantation into the same living natural body or flesh with him or by the marriage union with him into which they are taken by the first Covenant Through which operation and change of condition brought upon them they are very much differenced from the doers or workers of righteousness by nature under the first dispensation for these are taught as to their justification before God and drawing near into communion with him to look at themselves as represented in their head and as having their plantation and abode in him which was figured out by the Shew-bread under the Law by their laying their hands on the head of the sacrifice upon which God had laid all their sins so as they are made righteous not in themselves thus considered but in another even through the Mediatorship of the Man Christ Jesus as their Head in whose natural righteousness and perfection they stand blameless before God wherein all their peace is founded and the comfort of all their communion And secondly as thus they are differenced by this state of their justification which the others are not acquainted with so also the image of God unto which they are to be conformed for their sanctification to the likening them in all things unto the pure and spotless natural man of Christ is that which exceeds and is superiour to the righteousness and perfection of the first Adam as the original pattern is above and before the first Copy though it be of the same nature and kind with it And such is the glory and excellency of this state that God thinks fit to lead the true heirs through this into the glory of their inheritance that is to follow and to give it them in common with those that are children of the first Covenant suffering them for a season to remain together with them as fellow-servants in the house and to live in the form and fashion of servants undifferenced in any thing from them though they be Lords of all Yea farther this first work and change as it is accompanyed with the seed of saving faith Heb. 6. 9. is the beginning of the new creation in the true heirs unto whom Christ is not only the beginner but the finisher of their faith not only the WORD that begins with them in the glory of his first appearance but the WORD that ends with them in the glory of his second whereas those that are the children of the first Covenant singly considered as left alone without the things that accompany salvation as Heb. 6. 1. to 9. though by the word of the beginning they attain great reformation and enlightnings yet after all they prove as the ground that is near to cursing whose end is to be burned falling away after all such enlightnings so that it is impossible to renew them any more unto repentance according to what is also spoken by Jeremiah Chap. 11. 15 16 17. What hath my beloved to do in mine house seeing she hath wrought lewdness with many And the holy flesh is passed from thee the Lord called thy name A green Olive-tree fair and of goodly fruit but now he that planted thee hath pronounced evil against thee and kindled a fire upon thee and thy branches are broken So then to such there remains no more sacrifice for sin but the very justification it self which they were admitted into is denyed them by Christ
the grass withereth the flower fadeth away because the spirit of the Lord blows npon it surely the people is grass The grass withereth the flower fadeth but the WORD of our God shall stand for ever ver 7 8. So then at length the believing part in the Saint cometh to see and experiment the emptiness nothingness and fading of the best natural perfection and fleshly purity not only in legal worldly rudiments and principles but even in Evangelicals so far as they consist in the knowledge of Christ himself but according to the flesh Whereupon the believer becomes willing to be crucified to all confidence esteem or desire of Rest and abode in them seeing a patern left by Christ himself herein when he suffered in the flesh that we also might be armed with the same mind and by being crucified in the flesh may come at last to cease from sin attaining a perfect freedom there-from by the resurrection from the dead And now what high thoughts and proud imaginations do rise up in the heart fit to be brought down and subdued by the cross of Christ then which nothing is more grievous to the soul which loves this Absolon it s own uncrucified fleshly mind and the enlightned reasonings thereof in their very rebellion and endeavours to out it of the everlasting kingdom yea it struggles hard and wrestles vehemently to keep its Isaac from being offered up in sacrifice Oh! how with Zipporah doth the flesh cry out against faith as a bloody husband thus to require the full resignation of the judgement will and desire of the pure holy natural man as well as that of the corrupt All this it doth require and no less will serve its turn then the bringing of the exercise of these natnral senses as they are contesting with and resisting the workings of faith into perfect captivity to the obedience of faith and into perfect rest and silence in the grave of Christ where they are to be bound as in chains and fetters utterly disabled for ever acting more in any resisting or contradicting way unto the power and life of faith and so indeed are set free and have their truest liberty given to them to act more fully then ever in harmony with and subserviency unto the workings and life of faith Thus Rom 8. it is said If Christ be in you the body or flesh is dead because of sin but if the spirit of him that raised up Christ from the dead dwell in you he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies or crucified fleshly senses by his spirit that dwelleth in you to the bringing them forth in a better and more excellent way of operation then ever they had before For these fleshly senses as they are planted into the likeness of the death of Christ are made one dead body with him and so are shut up for ever in an everlasting impossibility to act against the truth but only for the truth to act in a way of resisting and contradicting the workings of faith but in subjection and subordination to â—â—em This is that we mean by the obedience of faith and keeping of the word of Christs patience which is required by the law of the new covenant the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus as it frees us from the law of sin and death which is so far from destroying the law that it fulfils it and so far from abolishing the good works required by the law that it disannuls only the unlawful use of them setting them up in their right and lawful exercise not single and alone without the faith that is saving or in resistance and contradiction to that faith nor so mixing them with a faith that fails whereby both faith and a good conscience may come to shipwrack but making them in such manner the fruit and children of the operation of the faith of Gods elect as that against such there is no law This is the gathering together into one dead body with Christ wherein all his elect must be found as fashioned into a similitude with him in his death and that for the filling up of the measure of his sufferings in the whole number of his beloved ones that so at last they may arise likewise with his dead body and be gathered together into one glorified body with him or into a similitude with him in the glory and power of his resurrection when they shall be like him and see him as he is when at this appearing of Christ who is their life they also shall appear with him in glory The hope and expectation hereof grounded upon the promises made to this purpose in Col 3. 4. 1 Joh. 3. 2. Phil. 3. 21. and many other places of Scripture is that that hath born up the spirits of his people and faithful ones in all ages that have been made willing to follow this Lamb whithersoever he goeth from desponding and sinking away under all those insolent affronts and contradictions they have met with in their several generations from their insulting unreasonable adversaries the inhabitants of the earth who flourish prosper in the world while they are chastened every morning disciplined under the cross of Christ miscarrying as to all that 's visible and overcome in those hot contests oppositions and assaults which the seed of the Serpent lusting to envy will not fail to exercise them with who indeed could have no power against them unless it were given them from above as Christ the head of this spiritual seed told Pilate in his own personal case Ioh. 19. 11. and as power was given from above against that great Master Lord so is it also given to them to make war with the Saints and to overcome them Rev. 13. 7. but though at present they be so overset by worldly powers that they cannot work any deliverance in the earth neither do the inhabitants of the world fall before them Isa 26. 18. yet at this second coming of Christ he will call up the dead bodies of these his crucified Saints and faithful witnesses not only into a state of security from the destroyer but into a singing and triumphing condition ver 19. Thy dead men shall live together with my dead body shall they arise awake and sing ye that dwell in dust Both these states of the true Saint are most lively described Isa 54. which we shall endeavour to give some short tasts of for our clearer enlightning in the present truth specially as to what concerns the former branch the Saints conformity with Christ in his death The other consisting in a conformity to him in his Resurrection-state we shall reserve for the latter end and conclusion of this discourse CHAP. XVIII Concerning the Saints conformity with Christ in his death particularly opened and cleared from those mistakes which the enemies to the Crosse of Christ are apt to brand it with BY conformity with Christ in his death which some have been
so ignorant of and such enemies to as most prophanely to call it a fiction and make little lesse of it then blasphemy We say that the flesh or natural man in the Saint whether considered in the workings of his morall nature or of his renewed enlightned nature under the first Covenant is crucified and rendred a copartner with Christ in his dead body whereby the powers and faculties of the mind in the natural man are neither annihilated nor deprived of their lawful use as lawful refers to the obedience of faith and the rule of the Gospel but only have death passe upon them or a disability and privation as to all unlawful use of them or possibility of acting in rebellion resistance or contradiction to the Law of the heavenly nature and mind set up by faith In this crucified posture of the flesh and broken-spiritednesse into which the powers and faculties of the natural mind are brought by faith the Prophet Isa 54. 1. calleth out to the Saint to sing as intimating that though the natural man be hereby disenabled to bear or bring forth fruit to its first husband Christ himself as made under the Law and head of natural perfection single yet it ought neverthelesse to break forth into singing in regard that by her being become dead to the Law she is married to another even to him that is raised from the dead to bring forth fruit in newnesse of spirit and life and that this its barrennesse is no just cause of reproach to it seeing it came to be lawfully disengaged from all obligation to its first Husband by the dead body of Christ through which her first Husband is become dead unto her so that she is no adulteresse though she be married to another man Rom. 7. 3 4. And therefore Cry aloud for joy saith the Prophet for more are the children of the desolate then of the married wife or she that keeps to her first Husband under the Law Fear not for thou shalt not be ashamed neither be thou confounded for thou shalt not be put to shame for thou shalt forget the shame of thy youth and shalt not remember the reproach of thy Widowheod any more for thy Maker is thy Husband the Lord of Hosts is his Name and thy Redeemer the holy one of Israel the God of the whole earth shall he be called In these two particulars therefore conformity to the death of Christ is made to consist by the Prophet Isaiah in this Chapter First in Christs own refusal to be any longer a Husband unto the natural man in the Saint through his own voluntary departure and withdrawing of himself out of his own fleshly life to go to his Father and be and remaine for ever in the glory of the Father in order to returne againe to the Saint as he that is risen from the dead to marry and espouse the soul that he hath thus grieved by his withdrawing For saith he The Lord hath called thee as a woman forsaken and grieved in spirit and a wife of youth when thou wast refused by thy God for a small moment have I forsaken thee but with everlasting mercies will I gather thee Secondly the Saints conformity unto the death of Christ consists in the desolate forsaken barren state wherein the flesh and natural man is left by Christ as in a dry and barren wildernesse exposed to all temptations and trials from God Angels and Men within and without ready to sink and faile in spirit every moment partly under the appearance of Gods displeasure whose withdrawing and forsaking the soul understands not any more then Job did who was privy and conscious to the faithfulnesse and integrity of his heart to his first Husband whilest he abode with him and partly from the cold dead disconsolate frame of spirit wherein it now finds it self as it measures it self by the life of sense and not by the life of faith under both which pressures the Word of Christs patience is set before the soul by faith to be kept and observed Who for the joy that was set before him endured the Crosse and despised the shame patiently suffering the bruising of his heele according as he had received commandment from the Father In this posture as a Widow indeed the poor broken-spirited Saint remains mourning and weeping left for a season as an Orphan by Christ brought into that condition which Christ foretold unto his Disciples whom at the present he acknowledged children of the Bridechamber whilest they had no higher knowledge of him then in his fleshly glory and perfection Of whom therefore he said As long as the Bridegroome was with them they could not fast but the dayes would come when the bridegroome should be taken away from them then they should fast intimating thereby the dayes of fasting and mourning and being clad in sackcloth which the true Saints witnesses of Christ were to be exercised with during the time of the trial of their faith upon the Bridegroomes being taken from them and changing that living fruitful frame of spirit which they were fed and nourished up in by him as they were his married wife under the Law into a fasting broken mournful desolate state of Widowhood which they are brought into as they are made one with Christ in his dead crucified body and are planted with him into the similitude of his death Christ then after he hath become a Bridegroome and married Husband unto true beleevers in and by his first appearance shining forth upon them in the life and glory of his natural and fleshly perfection wherein he hath nourished them up and made them fruitful children of that his Bride-chamber is pleased and hath power to take himself away from them and continue no longer with them as a Bridegroome under the first Covenant or in the ministery of his first appearance but wholly dissolve that marriage-band betweene them as refusing any longer to come forth in the exercise of life toward them upon the single root of his natural perfection in order upon the trial of their faith and their dutiful keeping the word of his patience during the time of this his separation from them to return again after a little moment and with everlasting mercies to embrace them and be married unto them in the light and life of his second appearance not only supplying to them again that wherein he was withdrawn from them but adding over and above a fuller and more abundant communication of life and glory which untill this death or withdrawing of his be perfected in them they are not capable subjects perfectly to receive and inherit but according to the steps and degrees of this death doth the approa hand increase of this higher life let it self in upon them and fill them This separation and withdrawing of Christ as a Bridegroome is the more bitter and grievous because this his absence carrieth in it the appearance of his wrath and sore displeasure to the eye of flesh
power and glory shining forth in the beauty of his new name that is above every name either in this world or in that which is to come every knee is appointed to bow of things in heaven and things in earth and things under the earth and the duty of every tongue shall be to confesse that Iesus is the Lord to the glory of God the Father Hence then it is evident that as God or the WORD in Christs first appearance was pleased to be manifested in flesh wherein to condescend and make himself of no reputation by taking upon him the forme of a servant and being made in the likenesse or habit of a man and in this fashion as a man subjecting himself to the doing and suffering all that which was required to be done and suffered on the behalf of sinful mankind and for the bringing many sonnes unto glory so also is he that thus did and suffered all things as a man in the dayes of his flesh for our redemption at this time to see his seed and reap the fruit of the travel of his soul which then he made a sacrifice for sin being now a second time to appeare without any reference to sinne as then he did but instead thereof to declare himself the Sonne of God with power by the resurrection from the dead So as in and by this second appearance the man Christ Iesus in the fashion and forme of his exalted and glorified manhood consisting of spirit soul and body in substantial or personal union with the WORD is to shew and manifest himself in the glory of the Father in the joynt and united exercise of the same divine life and power with him and therein to give a plaine demonstration that he is the Sonne of God as by his being made flesh and becoming obedient to the death of the Crosse he did undeniably demonstrate that he was really and properly the Sonne of Man made of the seed of David according to the flesh living the life and dying the death of a perfect natural man Thus the Sonne of man shall come with power and great glory sitting with the Father upon the same Throne therein shewing himself the only POTENTATE the KING OF KINGS and LORD OF LORDS dwelling in immortality and that light which no man can approach hath seene or can see Christ then considered as thus dwelling in immortality and that light which is invisible and inaccessible in reference to all those that are meer natural men shall at this time declare himself to be the life and quickning of his own dead body and the object of their converse who having been made one dead body with him as planted in the similitude of his death shall now be called and gathered together unto him in one incorruptible immortal glorified state of spirit soul and body be planted into the likenesse of his Resurrection to the attaining of their compleat adoption and the redemption of the body at this manifestation of the sonnes of God and heirs of salvation which is spoken of Colos 3. 4. where 't is said that when Christ who is our life shall appear we shall also appear with him in glory and 1 Iohn 3. 2. we are now sonnes but it doth not yet appear what we shall be but we know when he shall appear we shall be like him for we shall see him as he is or as he dwells in immortality and in that light from whence he excludes every natural eye reserving it as the peculiar enjoyment and inheritance of his friends whom he loves that are Heirs of God and Co-heirs with Christ in the things prepared only for them which neither eye hath seene nor eare heard nor have entred into the heart of the natural man to consider This likenesse which the true Saints shall be brought forth into with Christ the beginning and first-begotten from the dead is described in general by the promise Christ makes to them on that behalf And Iesus said unto them Verily I say unto you that ye which have followed me in regeneration when the Sonne of man shall sit in the Throne of his glory ye also shall sit upon twelve Thrones judging the twelve Tribes of Israel Matth. 19. 28. So Rev. 3. 21. To him that overcometh sayes he I will grant to sit with me on my Throne even as I also overcame and am set down with my Father on his throne which imports First that as by the Fathers quickning of Christ raising him up and fitting him in spiririt soul and body to exercise in unity with him the same divine life and power to the making his manhood Second with him on the Throne so Christ in like manner will quicken and raise up all the members of his dead body or slaine faithful Witnesses that have beene made conformable unto him in his death and fit them in their spirit soul and body to exercise in unity and association with his heavenly manhood the life and power which he is enabled to exercise as he is the exalted Sonne of man to the rendring them a fit Bride Queene and Second with him in his Throne where they shall neverthelesse sit as upon Thrones of their owne as his Equals and co-heirs yet in subordination unto him judging the twelve Tribes of Israel in a light and glory superiour to the earthly Jerusalem or worldly Church yea to the good Angels themselves who shall be found but standing about the Throne whilst the Saints shall be sitting downe with Christ upon it Secondly as the Father gives authority to Christ in the capacity of the Sonne of man to execute judgement as the only l'OTENTATE KING OF KINGS and LORD OF LORDS under him so Christ also shall give and derive to his body the general assembly of the first-borne whose names are written in heaven authority to be the only Potentates Lords of Lords and Kings of Kings under him whose Decrees and Ordinances shall be binding unto all in heaven or in earth or under the earth next and immediately under Christ their head and this as well in reference to the regulating and well-ordering the service and worship of God in the societies of Saints and all his true worshippers as in reference to the governing and well-ordering the natural and outward converse of men in their humane societies during the reigne of Christ upon earth the thousand years Both these powers and jurisdictions shall be residing in the general assembly of the first-borne whose names are written in heaven who shall then be declared the Bride the Lambs wife the New Ierusalem coming downe from God out of heaven described Rev. 21. 2. as she that is prepared as a Bride adorned for her husband being that Tabernacle of God with men wherein he will dwell with them and they shall be his people and he himself will be with them and be their God wiping away all teares from their eyes so as there shall be amongst them no more death nor sorrow nor crying
head of the woman is the man the head of every man is Christ and the head of Christ is God testifying hereby to faith which hath Christ for its object in all it receives the method wherein God proceeds as he creates all things by Jesus Christ for saith he God is the head of Christ or the Trinity by their immediate operation do first comprehend the person of the Mediator in God himself and then do send him forth as the true Messiah making him the Minister of Gods first and second appearance to the creature in the capacity of head and root to both creations Thus Secondly Christ is the head unto every man comprehending all mankind whatsoever as well they that are of the earth earthy as those that are of the Lord from heaven in himself who is the root to both creations and from thence causes them to flow forth and exist as his off-spring in their particular nature and proper persons in their several generations from the beginning to the end of the world Lastly Man is the head unto the woman in his creation so made by God unto Eve that therein he might as a shadow and figure illustrate not only the truth and reality of being which Eve had in her head but withall the true end of her being so comprehended that she might not abide single and alone cut off from dependance on and duty to her head but be brought into compleatness of being through her return into the neerness and intimacy of marriage-union with him yet without losing the property of being which she is made to have as the woman in distinction from the man This is the figure and resemblance of Gods method and proceeding in creating all things by Jesus Christ which haply the wisdom of man will carp at thinking to find absurdities in it through the deceits of Philosophy and worldly rudiments that are not after Christ but faith sees through all these Clouds and if need be interprets the riddle shewing that the truth which is spoken in Gods word hath also its testimony from humane principles so far as they have any rectitude in them It is plain That the worlds were made by the word of God that is God from eternity gives being unto the WORD as image of the Trinity and the WORD through the excellency of power and glory which he hath in and with God was able out of nothing to create both worlds giving them their beginning and foundation in himself as he became the first-born of every creature and first-begotten from the dead In which state he that thus was the first and was also the last did with his call cause all things in both to stand up together as by name in his sight and presence when he took notice of them recorded them in his books whilst as yet they were not fashioned and did behold them in the particular forms wherein afterwards they were to be Thus in the beginning was the WORD the WORD was with God and the WORD was God in this WORD was life even the life of both creations and therefore also of the man Christ Jesus that was fore-appointed the head and original pattern unto which as well the natural as spiritual man were to be conformed who did as the truth and substance it self at last appear and minister the true sanctuary which God pitched and not man accomplishing all that was written in the Volume of Gods book for him to perform for the abolishing of sin and death and the bringing forth of life and immortality to light In this his Angelical and spiritual state wherein the man Christ Jesus stood comprehended in the root of David before the world began he was figured out unto the children of Israel by the two Cherubims of glory covering or shadowing the Mercy-seat Heb. 9. 5. and by the two Olive-trees or the two anointed ones standing by the Lord of the whole earth Zech. 4. 14. which compared with 1 Kings 6. 23. will make it appear that Solomon was not ignorant of this great mysterie in that he made the two Cherubims when he was to build the Temple and set them up therein of Olive trees or trees of oyl to signifie the mediation of Christ in spirit in his head as these two Olive-trees were the two golden pipes that emptied out the golden oyl Zech. 4. 12. of all Gods communications unto the works of his hands in both worlds This is that Jesus who whilst comprehended in his head and for a long time shadowed and typed out as the promised seed that was to come in the flesh had notwithstanding all the actions of his head and root attributed to him as much as when in the very image it self he was made manifest and therefore is said to be that Jesus by whom all things are and were created and are of him and to him and for him in subordination to the Word Thus is Christ the son of man in heaven before he descended and was made flesh and in this heavenly state of his man-hood doth not actually exercise his humane life but his life is the same with the life of the Word all whose actions are imputed unto him as Abrahams were unto Levi who is said to have paid Tythes to Melchisedec in his fathers loyns so Jesus Christ may be said to comprehend in him and the actings of his mind the particular forms and life of all in both worlds to be manifested and brought forth in their proper seasons into their visible appearances in the worlds by him and at his pleasure for whom they are and were created And when we say that the particular life and form of every creature is thus comprehended in the heavenly manhood of Christ the meaning is either immediately or mediately For he that is thus before all things is not created alone but in and with this head they all consist or stand up together as in their head capable to exist in themselves in their heavenly invisible part at the pleasure of their head before they be brought forth into their mortal and visible frame and fashion in this world In which sense all of them are Christs off-spring and seed known to him by name whether such of them as are given to him by the Father to be trained and brought up by him as children of the second new and everlasting covenant or those of the first whether they be inhabitants of Mount Sion or Mount Sinai of the heavenly City that is above or of the earthly and fleshly Jerusalem whether they be men or Angels they are all his off-spring in one of these two respects and are to receive their natural or spiritual perfection from him as he is the Minister of Gods name in his first or second appearance unto them whence it is that Christ saith to his Father Heb. 2. 13. Behold me and the children which thou hast given me in distinction from the rest of the world the former of these
yea have no glory at all in comparison of that which excels and is to follow 2 Cor. 3. 10. or else as that which will be swallowed up of corruption and changed into a body of sin and death is the wages of mans disobedience and fruit of Gods displeasure for the same In this sense we are to understand man to be made in a mutable and corruptible state as having that set up in him and given to him through the well or evil ordering whereof he may either lose and justly be deprived of it in a way of Gods displeasure or exchange it for a second and more excellent appearance of God the glory that is to follow wherein this also is comprehended and made perfect and durable And that we may the better understand the nature of this changeable state wherein man is found under the first Covenant and see the weakness and faultiness thereof comparatively with that which is designed by God unto man wherein to fix and rest it will be needful for us to be more particular in describing first what man is in his essential properties and operations in that make and constitution communicated to him by the Trinity in his creation and then to shew what was the nature of the communion and converse with God which he was thereby fitted and qualified unto in order to grow up to be perfected in by the means for that end given him by God if the fault were not his own as it is written Thy destruction O man is of thy self Man then as he bears the image of the Trinity is constituted of spirit soul and body as his essential parts which whatever suspension of exercise or temporary alteration any of them may have do never suffer annihilation but make up the proper discriminating form of man by which he stands distinguished from all other the works of Gods hands in both worlds And thus first man is created spirit and made to subsist in his head Christ Jesus before the foundation of the world as we have already shewed where he stands comprehended in the life of Christs natural perfection as he is the Father of spirits in like manner by way of comparison as in reference to his fleshly seed all the posterity of Adam stood in the loyns of their common parent from the time of his creation Yet this is not the state of mans spirit made perfect but is only a first degree of his being which is the foundation laid by God to mans exercise of a bodily and spiritual life and operation incident and essential to him as a man whether he become a vessel of honour or dishonour So that in this state of a created spirit man had a being in his head before he was brought forth in the exercise either of his sensual or rational life and is rather comprehended in his head then actually and perfectly apprehending or enjoying in respect of which first state and invisibility of being he is a dark shadow of the witness of the Father Secondly man is to be considered in his bodily frame as he is made of the dust of the ground and had the breath of life breathed into him by God through which he became a living soul This breathing of the breath of life by God into mans nostrils doth declare first Gods bringing the soul of man into the actual being and exercise of its sensual life which till then lay hid in mans spirit by the means whereof he is furnished with a capacity of receiving and taking in by the organs of sense the knowledge of things proper to him as a man which though it be his weaker and inferiour part yet is first in motion in order to yield its service and subjection to the rational and superiour part This life which the soul leads and manages by actuating and informing the senses serving herself of them is that whereby the report of things from without is let in upon mans reason which is for the most part so prevalent as if the soul were absolutely and intirely dependent upon and necessitated unto the use of the senses in respect whereof some have thought very groundlesly that it hath either slept or ceased to be upon the laying down of the body By this first exercise of a living soul in man is figured out the witness of the Son Thirdly the spirit of man is the foundation and spring unto a rational spiritual or intellectual exercise of life wherein he is capable of associating with Angels and becoming their equal even in his natural capacity of a man which also was actually set up in Adam by that act of Gods breathing into him the breath of life and was as the superiour ruling part in man obtaining the place of Lord Ruler and Husband unto his first inferiour and sensual part which in its actings was to be dependent upon and subservient unto this in all usefulness and harmony Thus in a mystical sense man was made Male and Female in the same person through the setting up this two-fold exercise of life and operation of soul in him sensual and rational This second sort of operation is mans higher and nobler part and shews most the man in it the other distinguishes the man very little from the beast but that the countenance of man looks upward and the face of the beast downward The exercise of life in this higher and more raised part of man Adam obtained at first in perfection and had it in its compleat stature so far as it was capable during its association with its mortal body and while it was on this side the state of being made perfect in spirit and equal to Angels Luke 20. 36. by laying down the body in the grave either to good Angels when they become the spirits of just men made perfect or to evil Angels when they are the spirits of wicked men grown up to the height of their natural stature in spirit and by vertue of that perfect exercise of the rational and intellectual part which Adam had in the body he had a capacity to take in the knowledge and discerning of things immediatly from the inward vision represented to him by the ministry of Angels he had also an intuitive prospect into the nature of all visible and bodily things in their causes without being beholding to the report given by his senses and as a fruit hereof we do find Gen. 2. 19 20. That Adam gave names to every living creature according to their nature by vertue of this his intuitive knowledge which he exercised in a way independent upon his sensual part the property of this his spiritual and rational part being to act as in the body or as out of the body that is to say to serve it self of the use of its bodily senses or not according as they conduce to the furthering and bettering him in his true and right discerning of things man then hath a perfect compleat intellectual and rational life springing up
in him which is so far from being lessened or interrupted by death and the laying down of the use of his bodily life for a time that it never comes to its full and mature perfection until then and as a consequence hereof the body be re-assumed incorruptible In this property and operation of humane life man bears the figure and image of the witness of the Holy Ghost Thus we have described what man is in his essential parts and operations in order to fit him for that communion and converse with God designed unto him by the two Covenants unto the first of which he was actually and perfectly qualified as he became a living soul and did bear the image of God in and upon his natural man as the first Adam being of the earth earthy But unto the other man by his creation was no otherwise qualified and prepared then as he was set up in such a being as was capable by a farther workmanship of God to arrive unto and attain the glory and everlasting perfection of the new and second covenant without which all that was done unto him yet by what he had received from God in his creation if left to his own freewill would but redound to his greater misery and more righteous condemnation before the judgement seat of Christ through his own default This finishing and compleating work of God upon man was reserved to be Ministred to him on the seventh day whereby a far higher and more exalted capacity of mind and operation was to be added to him for the enabling him unto an everlasting happy and compleat communion with God This is that which in his first state was wanting and could not be obtained by him but as the free gift of God then propounded to him in the tree of life This second and last state of perfection held forth unto man from the beginning in the tree of life in the midst of the Paradise of God is described by the Apostle Paul 1 Cor. 15. 44 45 46 47 48 49. where he sets it up in contra-distinction to the first and earthly make of man by his creation shewing it to be that life and immortality which is brought to light in Christ as the last Adam the Lord from heaven and quickning spirit calling it the spiritual body as that in which the power of this endless life was comprehended comparatively with the natural body wherein the perfection of Adams mutable and corruptible life consisted saying plainly that there is this spiritual body and heavenly image in the last Adam as well as that natural body and earthly image in the first howbeit that is not first which is spiritual but that which is natural and afterwards that which is spiritual the first being the life of perfection that was found in the earthly Adam the other being that which was brought to light in the heavenly by his resurrection from the dead and therefore as is the earthly such are they that are earthly and as is the heavenly such are they also that are heavenly And in reference unto such as are the right heirs of salvation it is said as they have born the image of the earthly so shall they also bear the image of the heavenly and have their natural or vile bodies changed and fashioned like unto his glorious body by him who through his mighty power is able to subdue all things uno himself And if we desire to be satisfied how this change and translation out of the one perfection and image into the other is to be effected he positively asserts that it is brought upon man as the fruit of Christs resurrection or Ministry of Gods second appearance by and in him which rends the first veil and brings down the first Tabernacle of the natural body into the grave with Christ whence it springs up clothed upon with this house from heaven its spiritual body by means whereof this corruptible puts on incorruption and this mortal puts on immortality and death and the grave are swallowed up in victory This change and translation was as we have said propounded unto Adam as the end of his creation and was figured out to him in the tree of life and by the twofold exercise of life and ability of mind set up in their perfection in in him by creation he was indued with a power improveable in the use of the means God afforded him to be at least in a tendency unto so glorious an end and disposed in such a posture and frame of spirit as God required in him by the first covenant in order to this farther work which on the seventh day God would make known and impart to him What God herein required from man was signified unto him by the tree of knowledge of good and evil and the prohibition accompanying the same which was not to eat of the fruit of that tree In this tree of knowledge of good and evil man had the sight of himself in the exercise of his natural life and operations appertaining unto him as he became a living soul in the well or evi use whereof he might arrive unto the experience of the supream good held forth to him as the end of his creation the endless life that was to follow or else he might come by the forfeiture of the present good he enjoyed to know the evil of a much worse condition then at first he had for the avoiding of which and to continue in a posture meet to receive the other God required him in the state of innocency to abide in a waiting frame of spirit as a sojourner and stranger in the midst of his present enjoyments in the earthly Paradise that so through his patient forbearance from taking up his Rest or terminating his delight in seen things he might preserve in himself an unengaged unprejudiced spirit to what was yet behind of the counsel of God to be communicated to him as to a more excellent attainment and inheritance to be exhibited to him in the light of the approaching day of the Lord the beamings forth whereof as considered in type were already present CHAP. VI. Concerning the fall of man the steps and degrees to it with the bitter fruits and consequents thereof BY what hath been said of mans Creation it is undeniable that God made him perfect though the perfection of his estate was mutable or subject to change and therefore not the Rest from all eternity designed him by God so that man in this first perfect state had that still wanting which was the finishing and compleating work to what he at present enjoyed howbeit that which was wanting unto man did no way cause or necessitate his fall but that as we shall shew proceeded from the suggestion of Sathan and enticing of his own lust which lust when it had conceived brought forth sin and sin when it was perfected brought forth death although man in this estate was well and sufficiently armed and provided against it if he
the first as that wherein this second sort of men that make up the earthly Jerusalem have all things in common with the first as to their being benefited by the dispensation of natural right and justice enjoying withall much more then all this amounts to even the comfortable warmth and life that is found in the day-light of Christs first appearance and by immediate and fruitful converse with him in the same which is far to be preferred before the night of the Gentile world The third and last form or administration of the Kingdom of Christ which is exercised over men is that whereby the true spiritual seed of Abraham according to Gods promise Gen. 22. 17. do possess the gates of their enemies and shall in their proper season be manifested to be the seed wherein all the Nations of the earth shall be blessed which is farther explained Dan. 7. 18. 22. where it is said that the Saints of the most high shall take the Kingdom and possess it for ever even for ever and ever in fellowship and society with Christ their Head sitting upon the Throne with him having a dominion glory and a Kingdom that shall never be destroyed The supreme Lords and Rulers then in this kingdom under Christ are the Saints or general assembly of the first-born whose names are written in heaven Children that Christ will make princes in all lands giving them the honour written to bind even Kings in chains and the Nobles in fetters of iron unto whom as unto the right heirs of salvation the elect Angels will be constant ministers and attendants in their charge and office of administing natural right and justice and executing vengeance on all the enemies of these Saints of the most High who come not to the attainment of this high glory and dignity suddenly or one before another but by a general gathering of them all together by their head first into one dead body with him as planted together in the likeness of his death or offering up in the flesh which is a needful preparation to the bearing and right managing the honour and preheminence of that Crown and dominion which they are called unto over all the works of Gods hands Secondly by their being gathered together unto him in one heavenly and glorified body as planted also in the likeness of his resurrection in the glory wherein he is set down at Gods right hand which is expected to be fulfilled at his return when we shall see him coming from heaven in like manner as he was seen to ascend up thither This third sort of Christs subjects are compared by himself Luke 8. unto the good ground on whom Christ the word and seed of life fell as into honest and good hearts that having heard the word keep it and bring forth fruit with patience having such a faith as is mentioned James 1. 3. that under manifold temptations approves and justifies itself to be found durable and saving in and by the fruit of patience which it works obtaining a free passage and course for the WORD OF CHRISTS PATIENCE in the soul till it hath had its perfect work and made the mind perfectly conformable with Christ in his death 1 Pet. 4. 1. to the making the believer perfect and entire wanting nothing and to be of the number of those that do overcome and are made pillars in the house of God never to go out more These are the true Heirs of salvation that as princes may be found walking on foot here in this world whilst servants are riding on horseback and are in faith and patience possessing their souls albeit they be killed all the day long and accounted as sheep for the slaughter Rom. 8. 36. slain for the word of God and for the testimony which they hold Rev. 6 9 10 11. unto whom white robes are given even garments washed in the blood of the Lamb in which patient posture they are appointed to wait and rest for a little season untill their fellow-servants also and brethren that should be killed as they were should be fufillled We find not only this third sort of Christs subjects mentioned and comprehended under that parable of the sower Luk. 8. but the second and first also very lively described to those that have ears te hear yea and Christ himself as the universal seeds-man the living WORD OF GOD who scatters the seed of his searching light and life into all hearts and consciences whatsoever enlightning every one that comes into the world and setting up that in them which is a discerner of their thoughts and of the intents of their hearts who therefore is held forth in that parable first as he sows his seed by the wayside or high waies interpreted by himself Mat. 22. 9. to be the visits and communications of light and life sowen by him among the Gentiles For so he saith when he would intimate Gods intention upon the Jews rejection of him to bring the Gentiles into the knowledge of himself Go ye therefore into the High waies or unto the Gentiles and as many as you shall find bid them unto the marriage shewing evidently that by the high-waies on which the seed fals he means the Gentiles as appears Luke 8. 12. where it is said that in this state the devil comes or may come and take away the Word out of their hearts lest they should believe and be saved that is before it come up to the birth of faith in them so much as of a temporary faith for oommon salvation which appertains to the second sort properly represented by the second and third the stony thorny groud much less a saving one being only a seed of light or work of Christ in the conscience teaching to feel after faith and salvation but not actually entring them into it and so is a most lively description of the subjects of Christ and hearers of the word under the first dispensation Now that which remains is to shew how the children of the first covenant and earthly Jerusalem under the Gospel are also held forth in this parable who are temporary believers arriving at and attaining through the power of the WORD a state of common salvation with those of the Church of Laodicea Rev. 3. who thereby became rich and increased with goods needing nothing being ignorant that they were miserable and poor and blind and naked in a condition that would abide trials no more then those represented by the stony and thorny ground who when they heard received the Word with joy and for a while believed but in time of temptation fell away as unable to resist and avoid the abuse of lawfull comforts and enjoyments vouchsafed unto them by God in the first convenant but ready every moment to over-charge their hearts with surfeiting drunkenness and good things of this world the sweet whereof was relished and esteemed by them in such excess as to work in them an undervalue and disrellish of Christ in his heavenly glory to
cutting them again off from his living body as unprofitable branches fit to be cast into the fire Joh. 15. 6. These are they considered in the exercise of this kind of life and holy operations that are as the fruitful married wife unto Christ under the first Covenant and over whom the Law hath dominion while they are in this life short of and unacquainted with an implantation into Christs dead body not having the similitude and conformity unto his death so much as in the seed of it brought forth in them The answer which these have of a good conscience towards God under the Law is particularly stated Rom. 7. where they are in Pauls own person represented as having that workmanship set up in their hearts and minds which stands in an exact conformity to the Law or image of Christs natural righteousness and perfection which is holy righteous spiritual and good and so having that heart-work in them whereby they adhere to and approve the Law and the goodness and righteousness thereof in opposition to the contrary body of sin and death which is still in being and exercise in them and with them ready upon all occasions to return with prevalency whilst they are but upon this tenure of the Covenant of works and in the wavering unconstant principles thereof by reason of which they find by experience no good thing dwelling in their flesh that is abiding and of a continuing residence with them but such as comes to them as a stranger or a sojourner for a night or short duration and is ready upon their miscarriage to be gone and leave them again estating them but in such a wavering condition as whilst with their mind they serve the Law of God they are ready with their flesh to serve the law of sin and the good that they would do that they do not and the evil which they would not do that they do By all which uncertainty and slipperiness of this their state Christ would teach them to see the need of following the Lamb whither soever he goes and to experience themselves to be most miserable if they advance no further but abide here thinking themselves rich and encreased with goods and wanting nothing whilst they are ignorant that they are miserable and poor and blind and naked as wanting that top-stone which must compleat the whole building And therefore the right frame of spirit in the faithful subjects of Christ under this dispensation is to find no Rest here but to see that this Earthly Jerusalem is no abiding City and to cry out miserable man that I am who shall deliver me from the body of this death wherein is not only comprehended the corrupted but the corruptible state of mans nature after that he hath been renewed in this life of COMMON SALVATION by vertue of the blood of Christ From this experimental sense God would teach us patiently to lie down under the power of the cross of Christ whose saying then we shall acknowledge to be most faithful and true that if we die with him we shall also live with him and if we suffer with him we shall also reign with him our fellowship with him in his death being the only means by him appointed to translate us out of all death into life eternal and to bring us under that Law of the spirit of life Rom. 8. 2. which hath power absolutely to free us from the law of sin and of death in all the branches of it This is the spirit and conscience and these the principles of the children of the first covenant under the Dominion of the law in which while they continue using of it lawfully they are knit unto Christ by his taking unto him his two staves BEAUTY and BANDS Zach. 11. 7. signifying the fruits of his presence with them and amongst them as he is their husband by this covenant until by slighting his greater glory and selling him for thirty pieces of silver they come to discover themselves to be the flock of slaughter and such as he at last departs from and leaves to draw back unto perdition whilst he carries on the poor of the flock that bear him company in his sufferings unto the saving of their souls keeping them through the power of faith unto his Heavenly Kingdom This generation of men are witnessed unto by the Scriptures under a twofold consideration First as they were under the Law as the Law was the figure and shadaw of the good things to come consisting in meats and drinks and divers washings and fleshly rites ceremonies and divine Ordinances under Moses his ministry imposed until the time of reformation or to the coming of Christ in the flesh who in that sense was the end of the Law and of the observance of it as considered in that fleshly commandment and Mosaical administration that pointed at the very image itself that was to be manifested in the flesh of Christ where the same Law was to begin again and become the holy commandment spoken and delivered unto men by the son himself requiring a conformity in and from all men unto the natural righteousness and perfection of man shining forth in his flesh who was made like unto us in all things sin only excepted In this second sense as the Law is now given by Christ the true MINISTER OF CIRCUMCISION Rom. 15. 8. Issued forth by his first appearance immediately written in the fleshly tables of the heart by his spirit whereby the children of it are taken into marriage-union and made one flesh with himself branches of this vine Joh. 15 are we to understand the subjects of this kingdom of Christ that live under this dispensation in the times of the Gospel since his coming in the flesh and putting down the Temple-worship and Service Acts 7. that was in force before his incarnation introducing in the room thereof a spiritual Temple-worship and Service in the conformity which he takes them into with himself in his flesh and living body making them his own Temple house and habitation the first Tabernacle or worldly Sanctuary built up together with him in his natural righteousness and perfection Such principles and such a birth as this of holy and righteous operations and actings are required in him and of him that is made by Christ under the law or a child of the first covenant which Deut. 32. Jer. 3. 21. compared with Chap. 11. 15. and Isa 5. and Ezek. 16. do in express terms testifie shewing how perfect they are as they come out of his hands to whom he is a Father and Redeemer in this covenant planting them wholly a right seed and that together with the choisest vine causing them to grow together for a while in himself the true vine John 15. and thereby renewing in them and upon them a state of holy flesh natural righteousness and holiness and as thus qualified taking them into his own house as his beloved spouse and married wife who yet after all this
to a more safe and un-erring intuition into the whole Fabrick If the newness of many things thou meetest with offend thee consider with thy self what unsearchable riches are to be found in the WORD of God whose best wine is kept for the last when Christ shall be admired in all those that do believe amongst whom he that is feeble at that day shall be as David and the house of David shall be as God as the Angel of the Lord before them Zach. 12. 8. and this by the means of the WORD who as a mysterie has lain hid in God from the foundation of the world and is no new Commandment but that which was in and from the beginning the old Commandment appearing only new because the darkness in which it hath been a long time veiled is passing away and far spent so as the true light now shines in Iesus Christ according to the revelation of the mysterie which was kept secret since the world began but is now made manifest and by the Scriptures of the Prophets according to the Commandment of the everlasting God made known to all Nations for the obedience of Faith Rom 16. 25 26. Again if thou findest the language rough tedious and unapt to convey the discovery of such excellent glory as is shining forth in the face of this living WORD of God quarrel not with the treasure for the earthliness of the vessel through which it passes but allow something as remembring that thy self also art in the body and confined and be ready and willing in thy place to supply what is deficient my design having been more to intend the knowledge of things then the elegancy of words Lastly if in the opening of mystical and dark prophesies that which principally is aimed at and applied throughout in this Discourse be the inward and spiritual meaning of them Know that it is not to exclude thereby their literal and historical sense but to shew how well both may stand together In which case such Essays deserve to be born with considering how much of the one sort is made extant by many pens already and how little of the other Farewel I am thine in the love and service of the truth H. V. From Belleau April 20. 1655. A TABLE OF THE Chapters Chap. I. Wherein is shewed that the foundation and first Rule of all true and right knowledge of God is seated in Christ the living WORD as the blessed Trinity by their own immediate operations do make themselves personally visible therein Chap. II. Concerning the holy Scriptures their authority and use with the harmony and analogy which they hold with the living WORD Chap. III. Concerning the creation of all things by Jesus Christ who is the mystery that lay hid in God from the beginning and makes himself manifest as well by the works of creation as of redemption Chap. IV. Concerning the creation nature and ministry of Angels Chap. V. Concerning the creation of man on the sixth day Chap. VI. Concerning the fall of man the steps and degrees to it with the bitter fruits and consequents thereof Chap. VII Shewing that God on the seventh day ended the works which he had made and produced the Rest and fixed state appointed to the first creation which Christ the Medidiator as he is the minister of Gods second appearance is the Author and accomplisher of Chap. VIII Shewing the conviction and judgement that came upon men and Angels for their sin and disobedience by the shining forth of the al-searching light of Gods second appearance in the WORD before which every creature stands naked and discovered Chap. IX Concerning the WORDS being made flesh for the performance of the whole will of God in reference to mans redemption and salvation Chap. X. Concerning the benefits that do inseparably accompany Christs person where he is received either by the first or second Covenant according to the tenour of both which there is vertue in his blood to reconcile and bring men to God Chap. XI Shewing the subordinate use that the elect Angels are of unto Christ in his bearing up the pillars of the creation that else had been dissolved through the fall and the place which they have in the threefold general administration of his mediatorial Kingdome set up in the world Chap. XII Shewing wherein the three rules and formes of administration in Christs mediatorial Kingdome do differ one from another and maintaine an entire jurisdiction within themselves but in due subordination and subserviency still of the lower to the higher over the respective subjects that live under them Chap. XIII Shewing the fixed enmity and warre that is maintained and kept up by Satan against the Rule and Kingdome of the Mediator in the world in order to make of none effect unto men the inestimable price and usefulnesse of Christs blood in their fallen state Chap. XIV Shewing the continuance and progresse of the war between the subjects of Christ and Antichrist and the terms and issues upon which they joyn Chap. XV. Shewing more particularly the bounds of that Rule and Government which is set up by Christ in the natural conscience together with the answer of a good conscience thereunto in those that are under this first dispensation Chap. XVI Concerning the Rule and Dominion which by the Law Christ exerciseth in the minde of those that are made children of the first Covenant together with the answer of a good conscience thereunto in such as are subjects unto Christ under this second dispensation Chap. XVII Shewing the nature of that Kingdome and Rule of Christ in the Saints which consists not in word and in the forme of godlinesse only but in power and in the life of saving faith the first fruits whereof appear in those that are made conformable to Christ in his death Chap. XVIII Concerning the Saints conformity with Christ in his death particularly opened and cleared from those mistakes which the enemies to the Crosse of Christ are apt to brand it with Chap. XIX Giving a general view of the counterworkings of Satan to the Government of Christ in all the forementioned administrations thereof Chap. XX. Concerning death to sin and life to righteousnesse considered as well in the distinct Branches and parts thereof as in the full extent and comprehensivenesse together with the discovery thereby of that which is counterfeit hypocritical or otherwise defective Chap. XXI Shewing particularly the evil seed that is sowen in the natural conscience by Satan through which he works men off from their subjection to Christ in his first dispensation and fixes them in rebellion against him Chap. XXII Shewing in particular the workings of the mystery of iniquity in the consciences of the children of the first Covenant to the ripening of them unto perdition and finall falling away from God Chap. XXIII Concerning the common interest wherein the Devils subjects meet and correspond under both the dispensations before mentioned which yet by the wisdome and power of Christ
four living creatures from its four faces signifying Christ himself thereby as his life is in the WORD and as in that life he comprehends the very form of the son of man and is the root to the whole first creation unto which through the Ministry of Gods first appearance he gives life being motion in the exercise of this his creating power he is the head of Angels and they are the body to him that he makes use of in his service Ezek. 10. 11. Whose voice they hearken unto as ready to execute all his commands and pleasure in this his first dominion The spirituality of motion in the head and body is such that they are said to run and return like a flash of lightning and to the place whither the head is to go they go and turn not and their likeness or appearance was like burning coals of fire and the workmanship of this body was like a wheel within a wheel four wheels Chap. 10. 9. that were but one wheel ver 13. Chap. 1. 15. answerable to the four living creatures that were but one living creature and the rings of the wheels were so high that they were dreadful and were full of eyes in which wheels was the spirit or WORD of life riding as in his Chariot Psal 68. These chariots of the Lord are twenty thousand even thousands of Angels the Lord is among them as in Sinai in the holy place In a like representation they were beheld by Elishaes servant 2 Kings 6. 17. when he saw the mountain full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha as the invisible guard and protection which were with them to defend them from the Syrians By what hath been said we have a little view into the nature and use of Angels in the hand of Christ from the beginning of these sons of the morning that shouted for joy at the beholding of Christ when he was revealed to them to be the corner-stone of stability and fixedness even to the very first creation In general then we may perceive that the office and use of Angels is to be ministring spirits principally sent forth to Minister unto them that shall be heirs of salvation in which ministry they are perfected by being made immutable and brought into the best and highest rank of servants transformed into a likeness in life and principles with that which is found in the glorified natural man of the Saint whose service and subjection is made perfect in love as the tongue that readily confesses and the knee that willingly bows to the glory of the Father in the Sons new name in which glory the Saints are co-heirs and so obtain by inheritance a more excellent name then the Angels Heb. 1. 4. who therefore confess that they are not the Son nor the true Bridegroom or Bride but servants and friends to the marriage union esteeming it a posture becoming them to hide their faces before the unveiled glory of the Son to stand still in silence and to let down their wings Ezek. 1. 24. that the glory of the Son sitting on the Throne may shine forth from the firmament that is above over their heads and the heavenly voice of his second appearance may be heard obeyed accounting it their blessedness to be neer the Bridegroom and to be servants and friends to the marriage of the Lamb as a guard of fire round about the Throne on which the Lamb and his Bride sits swift executioners of vengeance 2 Thess 1. 7 8. upon all those which shall endeavour to put those asunder whom God hath thus joyned together These are described Rev. 4. 8. to be they that rest not day and night saying Holy holy holy Lord God almighty which was and is and is to come giving glory and honour and thanks to him that sitteth on the Throne and lives for ever and ever As thus they are this heavenly building they are the first heavens the Tabernacle and clouds of heaven or the air for the day-break and glorious sun of Gods first appearance to run his race and finish his course in whereby to enlighten the ends of the earth and all things under heaven These sons of this morning are the first light-bearers to the Inhabitants of the first world therein are covering Cherubs unto the Son in his own proper glory that they may be enabled to bear light or the similitude of Christ in his first appearance unto others they are first the receivers of that light in themselves in a spirituality of being and form fitted and suited thereunto which accommodates them with the exercise of senses meerly spiritual and inward exceeding high intuitive and comprehensive a manner of life shadowing out the divine life in the name of the Father whose voice is net heard at any time nor shape seen but is like a consuming fire to burn up and slay whatever natural Organ is coversant about it or stands before the beams and raies of its most pure and invisible glory In a shadowy imitation of this the angelical spirits when they come forth in the nakedness of their own invisible substance and glory of their own being they are flames of fire consuming and dissolving all objects of outward sense to the very disinabling as to the exercise of all such life of sense any living creatures whose life consists therein whereof the whole fabrick of this visible world in all the parts of it which is reserved to be destroyed by the flames of this fire will be a most undeniable demonstration and death it self is a daily witness hereof in every man who no sooner is deprived of the exercise of his bodily life and departs this world but is brought into a state of life wherein he is an equal and associate to Angels good or bad for in the world to come they neither marry nor are given in marriage saith our Saviour but are equal with the Angels And as thus Christ by the angelieal ministry doth gather in mans breath and leave his body to the dust whilst they return with his spirit to God that gave it in which service they are employed by Christ at mans dissolution Luke 16. 22. so also they have service to perform in their place under Christ in bringing in and continuing the exercise of all bodily life throughout the whole fabrick of the first creation yea even in man himself the abridgement thereof in which operation of theirs they seem not unfitly to be compared to the influence and generating power of the Sun that is it self but a creature and yet effectually co-operates to the production and conservation of bodily life in pursuance of those orders and laws of second causes established by God himself respecting his creation and continuance of the first world The Angels then in their receivings of light and life from Christ have for object the brightness of Gods first appearance shining forth through him as the root of all natural perfection and so
8. This was that which Christ told the young man was yet wanting to him that had kept the commandments from his youth and is the strait gate that all must enter at that come into the true Rest This is effected only by believing and partaking with Christ in conformity with him in his death and is a making of us weak with Christ amounting in the end to a perfect disenabling of the mind wherein this spiritual and blessed change is wrought to exercise that arbitrary independent free and proper motion of its own before mentioned in the single light and life of the creature-excellency and perfection communicated and enjoyed by the ministry of Gods first appearance under the first covenant which is apt to puff up and lead the creature to an unwarrantable boasting and glorying in the first light and voice of God Isai 40. 3. the word of the BEGINNING Heb. 6. 1. without staying for the glory of the word that comes in the end and is to follow by the ministry of his second appearance which second voice cries Isa 40. 6 7 8. All flesh is grass and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field The grass withereth the flower fadeth because the spirit of the Lord bloweth upon it surely the people is grass The grass withereth the flower fadeth but the word of our God shall stand for ever Through this puffing up and heightning property that is incident to the natural frame of mind in Angels and men so soon as they come to the use of this shadow of divine soveraignty set up in them by the exercise of their own free-will their lust presently finds something to work upon and is ready to conceive and bring forth sin whereas the contrary poor and needy frame of spirit is set up by God in Christ for the cure and remedy hereunto by reason whereof as we may find John 14. 30. when the Prince of this world came he found nothing in him The effects then of Christs second appearance caused by the dawning light of that day upon the natural beings of Angels are First the hiding and covering of their faces as those with whom God might justly find fault if they should by any thing they had received glory in his sight and Secondly the sense of the weakness and fickleness of their first estate and thereupon a waxing weary of the burthen they were under whilst they were left by God to such an arbitrary independent exercise of mind as they were intrusted with in their operations under the first Covenant and therefore Thirdly it did cause them to sing and shout for joy to see the remedy and cure which was brought hereunto by God through the power of the Cross of Christ when they came to discern that upon this corner stone the foundations of the first creation were fastned and the instability thereof healed and helped This they found to be the Lords doing and it was marvellous in their eyes the sight whereof they obtained on the seventh day the day which the Lord made in which they did rejoyce and were glad Psal 118. 22 23 24. Here was the joy of the good Angels when by the manifestation of the true Rest revealed in the face of the Mediator the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world they came with a holy curiosity to pry into the sufferings of Christ and glory that was to follow who though he were not yet exhibited but in promise seen by them as subsisting in his head the word of life yet by a discerning agreeable to that of faith in man they had a sight of him as the seed of the woman that was to come and knew him to be the Son by whom God made the worlds and who was the brightness of Gods glory and express image of his substance who upheld all things by the word of his power and through the sacrifice of himself was to sit down on the right hand of the majestie on high and thereby obtain a more excellent inheritance then they concerning whom as the first-begotten they had received this charge from God Let all the Angels of God worship him So then through faith in the death and Resurrection of Christ as the Mediator set up from everlasting the Angels by the power of Christs second appearance came to the sight of the heavenly Image and perfection of the last Adam unto which they were in their places to bear a conformity in the true Mount Sion and heavenly Jerusalem where the Elect and holy Angels are to have their residence howbeit in station inferiour to the Church or general assembly of the first-born whose names are written in heaven and who are the Lambs Bride and wife whilst the Angels are but friends of the Bridegroom and admitted into the secrets of the Bride-chamber whose conformity to Christ in this his spiritual body or heavenly Image changes their natural frame of minde into the like spiritual heavenly-mindedness with their head whereby there is consumed taken away wholly removed and abolished the power and exercise of their first arbitrary and self-disposing property of mind which now being quitted through voluntary resignation they have in the room and place thereof by a translation and engrafture into the spiritual life will and mind of their head the life and motion of all their natural powers more excellently then before in a state of life incorruptible and unchangeable being now throughout partaking and co-operating in a joynt way of life with their head who before stood single and alone in their natural motions and operations Through the refusal and want of this change to have been wrought out in them the wicked angels fell and set up for themselves in a fixed enmity and opposition of spirit hereunto And this shall suffice to have been spoken in reference to the change that is wrought out in the good and Elect Angels In the next place we are to consider the change that is hereby wrought upon the natural being of man considered as a living soul which Adam should have experienced without falling this being appointed by God as the only effectual means to bring him into a fixed and durable state which stability is said Rom. 11. 20. to come by faith through the operation whereof man ceases from the power of standing on his own bottom for the ordering and directing of his steps by the motions of his natural mind which he is enabled to by the first Covenant considered either as it was first given at his creation or as since renewed by the blood of Christ and is made the subject in his understanding and will now crucified and resigned wherein God himself joyns in the exercise of this power with him working in him both to will and to do of his own good pleasure in stead of leaving it to the good pleasure of man who nevertheless is a free and willing co-worker with God in this day of Gods power whence it appears that
and so agreeing with the pure natural heart of man In the exercise of this second and new-covenant-life Christ was enabled to offer up himself in the flesh through the eternal spirit as a Lamb without spot and guile unto God to bring in everlasting righteousness and that subjection of heart and brokenness of spirit in man which God requires by the law of faith or tenor of the second and new-covenant answering to the law of the new-creature-being and life whose original pattern was hereby set up in Christ as the first fruits in that image of the first-born from the dead wrought out in him unto whom all the rest of the adopted children whose names are written in the Lambs book of life from the beginning of the world were predestinated to be made conformable Jesus being thus qualified in the same nature and person even as the son of man to be as well a high-Priest as a sacrifice proceeds to fulfill the will of his father that is herein given him to do even to perform that obedience that is required of him as Surety and Mediator of both Testaments standing in force by vertue of his death This obedience is the second general particular which we have propounded to treat of consisting in the right use and mannaging of those powers and senses of mind that by the WORD were formed and set up in Christ for the performance of the will of God as to all that he required from man in and by the Rule and law of the first and second covenants the righteousness of both which laws he was to fulsil even all righteousness which accordingly he did as himself declares Heb. 10. 7 9. where he saith Lo I come in the volume of the book it is written of me to do thy will O God and this by taking away what was faulty in the first covenant and establishing the good and righteousness of both in the second For he came not to destroy the Law but to fulfil it so as the very righteousness of the Law which as upon its first bottom passeth away as a morning dew and waxeth old is fulfilled in the new-covenant-obedience by those who walk not after the flesh but after the spirit and was so fulfilled to the utmost in and by the man Christ Jesus who as the second Adam did all that was needful and which God required to be done for the remission of sin and the utter abolishing and removal of it out of mans nature with an absolute incapacity of ever returning more upon the true and right heirs of salvation In respect whereof it is said Rom. 5. 19. That as by one mans disobedience many that is all were made sinners so by the obedience of one many that is all shall be made righteous Having that ransom paid and means provided in him to make them righteous so that there shall be no necessity remaining upon any to perish forasmuch as sufficient provision is made to bring all men to repentance and to the knowledge of the truth that as in Adam all died so in this sense all again in Christ are made alive that is capable of receiving life from God upon the terms of one of the two Covenants For if through the offence of one many be dead and judgement was by one to condemnation much more the grace of God and gift by grace which is by one man Jesus Christ hath abounded unto many to the justification of many offences v. 15 16. God esteeming it just that by the righteousness and obedience which is performed according to his will by one man Jesus Christ the free gift should come upon all men unto justification of life as well as that by one mans offence and disobedience death should raign over all This one righteousness and obedience performed by Christ is that which not only answers by way of satisfaction unto all that was occasioned and brought forth by the offence and disobedience of Adam but where sin hath abounded grace hath abounded much more that as sin raigned unto death grace might raign through righteousness unto eternal life by Iesus Christ the second Adam Which eternal life sin shewed it self able to hinder the first Adams attainment of upon his first principles The obedience then which Christ performed we are to consider under a twofold respect First that which is usually called his active obedience whereby he was in his own person legally righteous and perfectly holy according to the tenor of the first covenant as made under the Law and rendred in the natural powers of his mind exactly conformable thereunto This conformity in Christ to the righteousness of the Law qualified him to be the Lamb without spot or blemish which God required to be offered up and slain as a sacrifice for sin which conformity may be considered either as inherent in him qualifying him thus for sacrifice or Secondly as coming into actual exercise by the proper activity of his living soul or natural man if left alone therein or Thirdly as being brought into exercise by the Fathers indwelling presence teachings not suffering him to speak or do any thing of himself or in the single activity of his natural principles as himself saith Ioh. 14. 10. The words that I speak unto you I speak not of my self but the Father that dwelleth in me doth the works In which third and last consideration Christ was made active through the exercise of a newness of life and operation set up in him in the way of faith flowing from that second seed and union begotten in him by the WORD as we have already shewed In which activity he did not only perform the righteousness and obedience required of man by the Law or first covenant but that also which is required of him by the new second covenant Without which second branch of his active obedience there could have been no sacrifice nor shedding of blood no Lamb slain nor feast of passover as it is written 1 Cor. 5. 7. Christ is our passover who was slain for us for there would have wanted the priest or sacrificing power to offer up the same according to the will of God declared in the new and second covenant Heb. 10. 9. For though it be most true that Christ through the righteousness of the Law and this considered chiefly as inherent in him is thereby the pure and spotless Lamb of God the male of the flock without blemish which it was needful for him to be as prepared for sacrifice and to be offered up it being requisite not only to be but to continue Holy harmless and separate from sinners throughout the whole course of his life and sufferings in the flesh yea and in the grave iâ—self not to see corruption otherwise he had not answered and fulfilled the righteousness of the Law nor been in his own person legally righteous such an one as justice it self upon that account could take no exception against yet this made him not high Priest
gainer experimentally finding that when thus he is weakest then he is strongest as brought into such a frame of spirit wherein he is disabled to do any thing against the truth and thereby qualified to do all things for the truth This profitable weakness and disability came not all at once upon Christs natural man but gradually growing up at last into the perfect Rest and Cessation from his own works wherein the true sabbathism consists and in which Christ sets forth himself a pattern for his Saints imitation Heb. 4. 10. This made him say Joh. 8. 28. when ye have lift up the son of man then ye shall know that I am he and that I do nothing of my self but as my Father hath taught me I speak these things and he that hath sent me is with me the Father hath not left me alone but is ever bringing the natural powers and senses of my mind into perfect subserviency and subjection to my spiritual which through faith are alwaies exercised in unity with my Fathers will so that I do alwaies those things that please him In this blessed association consists the life of the new creature when of twain there is made one new man by the blood of this sacrifice In this new frame of spirit and newness of life and operation Christ delights to be taken notice of Joh. 7. 28. where he saith ye both know me and whence I am I am not come of my self but he that sent me is true whom ye know not but I know him for I am from him and my doctrine is not mine but his that sent me under the power of whose teachings I am so absolutely and intirely brought that I do not so much as speak of my self much less think or act for he that speaks of himself seeks his own glory but he that seeks the glory of him that sent him the same is true and there is no unrighteousness in him And he it is Joh. 5. 20. whom the Father loves and sheweth all things that himself doth and who will shew him greater works then these that ye may marvel for as the Father raiseth up the dead and quickneth them by his immediate witness in the Son so the Son quickens whom he will even the whole spiritual seed by making them one with him as he and the Father are one Thus in this first part of Christs passive obedience he through the law becomes dead unto the law through the law of the spirit of life in the second Adam becomes dead unto the law and life of the first fulfilling the whole law of righteousness by being rendred utterly unable to perform one tittle of it in mans first activity and sufficiency or as left alone to the grace and strength received by the first-covenant principles Thus we have seen Christ not only as the Lamb prepared without spot and blemish in order to be offered up but as he became our passover actually sacrificed for us being in one person as well the priest as the sacrifice fulfilling the righteousness and conditions of both covenants in that newness of life and operation which sprang up in him through faith or the unity of operation he was begotten into with the Father Through this twofold obedience of Christ which in him strictly considered is but one as the obedience of one man or last Adam set up in ballance against the disobedience of the first he was that and did that in his own person wherein after a peculiar manner he is made of God wisdom righteousness sanctification and redemption unto the right heirs of salvation and is become the ransom and propitiation for all sinners not for those only who so believe as that they shall be eternally saved but for the whole world as upon the terms of the first covenant renewed in the blood of Christ they are reconciled unto God and admitted again into converse and fellowship with him that by doing the things therein required they may live and so be put upon a new proof and trial whether they will live unto themselves or unto Christ that died for them and rose again Righteousness is hereby capable to be derived yea is more or less derived upon all the seed as well those which are of the law as those which are of the faith of Abraham respectively who is the father of us all or the type and shadow of Christ as he is the common parent unto both by his incarnation through which he had a twofold union wrought out in him becomming therein the head and root unto both these seeds and so to all mankind whatsoever who in one of these two respects are all made alive again in the last Adam that died in the first and this by the law of the first-fruits and root unto which the Olive branches do respectively refer for so it is said Rom 11. 16. if the first fruits be holy so is the lump and if the root be holy so are the branches where the branches are described as of two sorts the one such as may be broken off after they are engraffed in as also John 15. 1. c. having their union by the first covenant only the other those that stand by faith never to be cut off as having their union by the second and new covenant Now the first sort of these branches in right of their union and relation unto their head Christs natural man or living body unbroken and uncrucified have one sort of benefit by Christs sacrifice which is conditional and may be lost The second sort in right of their union and relation to their head Christs crucified natural man or dead body have all that the other have and over and above an additional benefit by the same sacrifice of Christ which the others have not and so the full and whole benefit of his death and that absolutely and without conditions This benefit unto each of the seeds from Christ their head is twofold either such as by way of imputation is their justification or such as by way of inherency is their sanctification respectively there is derived to the one such a justification and sanctification as answers in kind to what is required by the first covenant from him who doth those things thereby to live in them to the other there doth flow such a justification and sanctification as answers exactly to the Law of faith or second covenant unto whom faith is imputed without the works of the Law singly considered and in whom faith is operative to the purifying of the conscience in conformity to the purity and poverty of spirit found in Christs crucified and broken natural man They only that are justified and sanctified in this latter sense shall eternally be saved it being out of the power either of life or death or Angels or principalities or powers or things present or things to come or height or depth or any other creature to be able to separate them from this love of God in Christ
Jesus our Lord. But the justification and sanctification received upon the terms of the first covenant which are conditional and depending upon the creatures continuance are subject in a time of tryal to fail the persons concerned therein unto whom through the common relation which all mankind is taken into with Christ as he is flesh of our flesh bone of our bone like unto us in all things sin only excepted there is given as in a way of common grace and salvation first a relative holiness and righteousness in ballance to the relative unholiness and unrighteousness derived to the first Adams posterity as they stood related to him their common parent in his fallen state which is freely conferred upon them with offer and promise to bring them out of the bondage of corruption they are in by nature if they will hear and obey Secondly there is an actual exercise of long-suffering and patience put forth towards them freely on Gods part by vertue of the satisfaction he hath received on their behalf in the sacrifice of Christ by reason whereof he declares himself willing not to impute unto them sins past or present if through obeying Christs voice they shall render themselves capable of such benefit and shall not by their wilful personal sinning against the grace offered them and persisting therein so far abuse the benefit of Christs sacrifice as wholly to render themselves unworthy thereof Thirdly there is an actual imputation of Christs legal righteousness to all such as obeying his call in the first-covenant are thereby made the seed which is of the Law born after the flesh and become actual members of his natural body From what then hath been said concerning Christs active and passive obedience we may discern how far Christ therein wrought out mans redemption as he stood in the relation of a common person and parent to both seeds and as their surety undertook on their behalf to fulfill the righteousness of both Covenants in himself and this after such a manner as to be able to derive and communicate the benefit thereof unto them in a way of the Justification and Sanctification required by either of the two covenants respectively and this either singly and apart each from other or joyntly and together to the rendring those righteous in him that were helpless sinners and wretched ones in themselves Christs obedience then hitherto treated of in the two forementioned branches of his active and the first branch of his passive though it doth procure all that which is needful to make man righteous and holy according to what is required by both covenants yet it is not that properly which expiates the guilt of sin already committed nor frees from the curse of the Law in order to which Christ was made a Curse for us and did bear the punishment due to our sins which without blood could not receive remission at the hands of Gods Justice Heb. 9. There is then yet remaining a second part of Christs passive obedience to be opened wherein this did consist and in respect of which it behoved Christ to suffer as a Malefactor without the Gate a reproachful accursed bodily death with all the heightning circumstances accompanying the same from God Angels and men to the bruising of his heel in which also the Scriptures are very plain and express saying that upon him God laid the iniquity of us all Isa 53. who were as sheep gone astray and 1 Pet. 2. 24. he himself bare our sins in his own body on the tree and chap. 3. 18. it is said that he being put to death in the flesh but quickned in the spirit hath once suffered for sins the just for the unjust and 1 Tim. 2. 4 6. Who gave himself a ransom for all as willing to have all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth Christ by being made thus a curse for us redeemed us from the curse of the Law or did that in way of satisfaction to Gods Justice by reason whereof God thinks fit and finds it just to acquit and discharge sinners from the curse and wrath of God due unto them by the Law Which benefit is either renewed to us conditionally and in reference to the first Covenant-obedience by us engaged in to live and be tryed by or is given unto us absolutely and in reference to the second Covenant-obedience as living by faith and interested in the sure mercies of David that never fail Those that partake of this benefit in the first sense are spoken of Heb. 10. unto whom having been once enlightned and then sinning willfully after the knowledge of the truth to the treadding underfoot the Son of God accounting the blood of the Covenant wherewith they were sanctified an unholy thing and doing despight to the Spirit of Grace there remains no more sacrifice for sin but they fall again not only under the first curse but the second death or final ministry of Gods fiery vengeance which no sacrifice of Christ will be admitted to atone on their behalf for ever Psal 49. 8. but like sheep they are laid in the grave for death to feed on they go to the Generation of their Fathers and never see light But those that partake of this benefit of Christs sacrifice in the latter sense have at once a perfect and absolute remission of all sins vouchsafed to them never to be recalled more as it is written Their sins and their iniquities I will remember no more This being laid down we shall now proceed to shew first the particulars wherein Christ did undergo Gods wrath and was made a curse on our behalf by way of satisfaction and ransome for the sins of all mankind which properly was our due to have undergone in our own persons and secondly to open the nature of that wrath from God which Christ was capable of undergoing and that was thought meet and required by God to be executed upon him and undergone by him in the work of our Redemption For the particulars wherein Christ underwent the wrath of God and did bear the punishment which was due only unto sinners the Scriptures declare them to be these First Christ was exposed as a mark which was aimed and shot at all the daies of his flesh by the rage and malice of wicked Angels and men and as a spectacle of open scorn and reproach to be trampled upon by his insulting adversaries as if he had been a worm and no man unto all which God was thus far contributing as to suffer it and sit silent as a Spectator yea by his providences and outward dispensations rather furthering then hindring it and this in persuance of his declared mind herein even unto the Serpent himself Gen. 3. 15. when he told him speaking of Christ the seed of the woman he shall bruise thy head and thou shalt bruise his heel For the exercise of all this rage of Devils and men against him did bring to pass no other thing but
body is hereby quickned and brought forth as into its maturity and ripe age in a fulness of stature agreeable to this his raised and exalted state his corruptible having put on incorruption and his mortal having put on immortality to the bringing to pass in himself the saying that is written death is swallowed up in victory O death where is thy sting O grave where is thy victory And now the same Jesus that was crucified and slain by vertue of the compleat exercise of his spiritual senses enters within the veil converses with him that is invisible and sits down at Gods right hand retaining withal in perfect use the exercise of his natural senses powers and faculties of soul and body in a glorified state as being in one and the same person the fulness of Jew and Gentile the perfection of the spiritual and of the natural man joyning them both together in one sheepfold whereof himself is the one great shepheard and overseer This reconciliation Christ hath wrought through the blood of the Cross making in himself of twain one new man having slain the enmity thereby broken down the partition wall and removed that which else would have letted the bringing of life and immortality to light This is the form or fashion of Christs heavenly manhood wherein is to be found the perfection of both seeds built up together in perfect love usefulness and peace and this heavenly image thus wrought out in Christ is the law that shall go forth out of Sion prophesied of Isa 2. 3. and the word of the Lord out of Jerusalem that shall establish the mountain of the Lords house in the top of the mountains and exalt it above the hils causing all nations to flow unto it This is the pattern of the house spoken of also Ezek. 43. ver 7. and 10. wherein was the place of Gods Throne and the place of the soles of his feet to dwell in the midst of his people which was to be measured by the house of Israel to make them ashamed of their iniquities and Idols And v. 12. this is the law of the house upon the top of the mountain the whole limit thereof round about shall be most holy CHAP. X. Concerning the benefits that do inseparably accompany Christs person where he is received either by the first or second Covenant according to the tenor of both which there is vertue in his blood to reconcile and bring men to God CHrist in the 42. and 49. Chapt. of Isaiah is called The Covenant said to be him that God gives to be a COVENANT to the People to establish the earth and cause to inherit the desolate heritages to say to the prisoners go forth and to them that sit in darkness shew your selves The way wherein Christ given as a COVENANT to any soul is by becoming the received Lord and Christ in that heart ministring a participation and fellowship with him in spirit by the power and presence of himself there either in his first or second appearance and changing that soul into the likeness of himself more or less in one of those his appearances Thus according to the first Covenant he visited the Children of Israel in Egypt brought them out of the house of bondage and baptized them unto Moses in the cloud and in the red Sea causing them to eat the same spiritual meat and to drink the same spiritual drink for they drank of the ROCK which followed them which ROCK was Christ yet with many of them God was not well pleased but as he saith Jer. 31. 32. That my COVENANT they brake though I was an HUSBAND unto them and Isa 63. 8 9 10. he saith Surely they are my people children that will not lye and so upon that condition he was their Saviour admitting them to the benefit of his sacrifice In all their affliction he was afflicted and the Angel of his presence saved them in his love and in his pitty he redeemed them out of the house of bondage and carried them all the daies of old but they rebelled and vexed his holy spirit therefore he was turned from the way of love and pitty he exercised towards them before became their enemy and fought against them Thus also Ezek. 16. he ministers life to them decks them with excellent ornaments yea with his own comeliness and spreads his skirt over them After all which they provoke him with greater abominations then ever before and then he and they part again and he becomes their enemy It is evident then that upon such conditional terms as are comprehended in the tenor of the first Covenant Christ can and doth cause his own reception in the hearts and consciences of men and that there are inseparable benefits attending and accompanying this manner of reception of or believing in Christ which is begotten and held but upon the wavering principles of the first Covenant which in respect of its uncertainty is found fault with by God Heb. 8. 7 8. First they that are thus made receivers of Christ are called out of the world to come out of that heathenish state wherein men live as without God and Christ in the world and so are made of the number of those many that are called whereof there are but few chosen and endued with the wisdom from above which will make their calling sure Secondly Christ is made unto such RIGHTEOUSNES in a way of Justification who having made himself a sinoffering for fallen man is pleased even upon the tenor of this Covenant to make them the RIGHTEOUSNES of God in him that is to afford unto them the benefit of his legal righteousness whereby he satisfied the Law so that the Law hath nothing to say against such yea to make them that in him which God in righteousness imputing the benefit of his sacrifice unto them doth accept and is the justifier of them by in declaring Christs righteousness unto them as a propitiation for all their past sins and so to be continued to them as long as they shall do well In which sense God argued with Cain Gen. 4. 7. Whilst thou dost well shalt thou not be accepted and if thou dost not well sin lieth at the door Through this Propitiatory-covering of Christs blood they are under SANTCUARY and in a City of refuge from Gods wrath and the avenger of blood kept unto the faith to be revealed till by their wilfull sinning and making themselves unworthy of further or more grace there remains no more sacrifice for sin This Justification the world hath in common with true believers as well as the first faith and calling before mentioned Thus t is said 1 Tim. 2. 3 4. that God our saviour will have all men to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth who ver 6. gave himself a ransome for all to be testified in due time The third benefit inseparably accompanying this kind of Christs giving himself by the first convenant is that which we call
an union between the Word and Christs manhood as we have already shewed in the precedent Chapter that in a threefold respect according to one of w th his manhood is found in the form of God and as the son of man he accounts it not robbery to be acknowledged equal with God the man that is his fellow Thirdly there is a union between the manhood of Christ who in the sense before declared is made Gods equal and fellow and the whole spiritual seed in general and each of them in particular who are as the Bride and wife to this Lamb and so in a sense are his fellows and consorts heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ where the Spirit and the Bride say come living together in this unity as Bride and Bridegroom and so intimated Eph. 5. 32. where the natural marriage is made a type of it and the Apostle saith this is a great mysterie But I speak concerning Christ and the Church And now what is more evident then that the Saints by this union with Christ are not deifyed nor Christed but have the place only of his Bride and spouse as the Queen who is all glorious within and who is one the only of her mother To be therefore a member of this Heavenly City a living stone in this divine building is that which we are to understand by this second sort of calling wherein our Election is made sure to us and a new name given us that none can read but those that have it Secondly through this unity of the faith of the Son of God whereby those that are called are placed in the relation of members to Christ as he is the Head of the Church and the first-born from the dead they are for ever justified receiving this further benefit as they stand related to Christ in this his second Headship beyond those that are singly related to his first and obtain thereby but the common and conditional justification For this everlasting justification extends to sins past present and to come absolutely and at once discharging from all sin that their iniquities may be remembred no more and presents them faultless and without guile before the Throne of God as the objects of his eternal love and favour unto which they are entitled in right of their being made his first-born from the dead whose names are written in heaven adopted into his own line family and descent by this their marriage-union with Christ who according to his heavenly manhood is the immediate off-spring of the WORD and eternal Son of God without Father without mother without descent other then that of the very Son of God into which he is adopted and taken by marriage-union which dignity and grace he freely bestows and conveys in a secondary way upon his whole spiritual seed and in this neer union keeps them from ever departing from him Thirdly these unto whom Christ is thus made their righteousness and justification he is made also their sanctification to the purifying of their hearts through believing and cleansing them from all evil conscience as well that which consists in the filthiness of the flesh as that which lies in the filthiness of spirit renewing them in their minds through the putting on of the new man to the exercising as well their spiritual senses in likeness and conformity to Christs actings and life in that unity wherein he and his Father are one whereby he crucified and kept under his natural man as to the exercising of their natural powers and faculties in likeness and conformity to the actings of Christs natural man making them herein subject to the Father of spirits and to live acceptably and work holiness in his sight as renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created them or according to the pattern of the new man in the holy and righteous actings thereof set up in the person of Christ where Christ is all and in all which good works the Saints are fore-ordained of God to walk in as their true Evangelical and new-covenant obedience Fourthly and lastly those unto whom Christ is thus made sanctification he is made also redemption or glorification to the changing them throughout in spirit soul and body into a likeness with his spirit soul and body as he is declared the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead at such time as our vile bodies shall be made like unto his most glorious bodie by that mighty power of his whereby he is able to subdue all things unto himself which is to be brought to light in his times when he shall be admired in all them that believe and answer the expectation of the creature in delivering it from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the sons of God at their manifestation and the compleating of their adoption by this redemption of their bodies These are the benefits in short and in general that inseparably accompany the guift of Christs person to the soul as he ministers himself in the two Covenants respectively and are the fruits of his presence there Which will serve as a key to open many things in the following discourse when we come to speak of the practical conscientious part that is begotten in and exercised by the subjects of Christ as they live under his Rule and dominion in the world and are therein contesting and warfaring with the adversary the devil and his instruments CHAP. XI Shewing the subordinate use that the elect Angels are of unto Christ in his bearing up the pillars of the creation that else had been dissolved through the fall and the place which they have in the threefold general administration of his mediatoriall kingdom set up in the world THough sin entred upon all men and death by sin through the act of one mans disobedience and judgement came upon all men because in one man all had sinned yet by the obedience of one and his righteousness the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life Rom. 5. and where sin abounded grace did abound much more by reason whereof the whole first creation in all the parts of it is made Christs by the price of his blood which was made Sathans and sins by the fall that as the soul of the Father is Christs so also is the soul of the Son and he only that personally transgresses shall die Ezek. 18. 4. God having been pleased to find a ransom in Christ for atonement and propitiation to the forbearance of sins that are past and to the admitting of man to a new treaty of reconciliation and trial by vertue of the first covenant renewed in and through the blood of Christ whereunto the ministry of the good Angels serves and is made use of by Christ the KING OF RIGHTEOUSNESS who employs these his ministers of justice as the higher powers over the world committed by him to their charge to mannage order and govern in all the affairs thereof under him
threefold nature and spirit proper to each of them In one of which all the nations of the world live and walk as they are distinguished from the earthly Jerusalem the children of Mount Sinai or the first convenant In the second the fleshly seed of Israel or the worldly Church lives and walks distinguished both from the nations of the world and from the heavenly Jerusalem or the true Mount-Sion And in the third the spiritual seed or children of the Jerusalem that is above do live and walk distinguished from both the former each of them therefore are placed by God under a several Rule and law according to which their lives and actions are to be fashioned and conformed and by which they are to be tried and judged at the last day when the secrets of men of all sorts shall be judged by Christ Jesus according to the Gospel which is of that large comprehension as to take in all the three dispensations First for the nations of the world they have judgements given them by God Ezek. 5. 6 7. with which Israel is reproched as having walked short of them so that the uncircumcision did out-doe the circumcision in the righteousness the effect whereof was contained in the law as in a much superiour and more excellent administration These the Apostle cals Rom. 2. 12. such as sin without law and perish without law but yet are acknowledged as such that though they have not the law as it was given to the Jews yet have a law given them from God the work and effect of which sheweth it self in their consciences accusing or excusing them as they walk up to it or short of it even the law of nature in which they are a law unto themselves having that within them that shall witness for them or against them before the Throne and judgement seat of Christ that is to say the law of natural right and just exhibited to them through the ministry of Angels that are invisible Thrones Dominions Principalities and powers set up by God for this very end as his ministers for terrour unto evil works and as encouragers and Protectors of them that do well as will presently more fully be evinced The second Rule or law containing the judgements and ordinances of God given unto the fleshly seed or children of the first covenant is the WORD of God coming forth in his first appearance or the law proceeding from Mount Sinai witnessed unto by the Scriptures of truth and Oracles of God that were committed to the Jews first and afterwards to the Gentiles which in all the degrees and steps of its administration answers the true measure and proportion of Christs natural righteousness and perfection as he is and so hath been here described the head and root thereof to Angels and men being that holy commandment that either may be turned aside from leaving them that have been under it to a far worse state then it found them in and rendring their latter end worse then their beginning as 2 Pet. 2. 20. c. or else be kept without spot and blameless through the power of faith by the true Saint or spiritual seed The third law and Rule is the law of the spirit of life in Christ Iesus the WORD of God in his second appearance which comes forth from Mount Sion the heavenly Jerusalem consisting not in meats and drinks and worldly rudiments but in the power of an endless life and an everlasting righteousness written out in fair characters in the death and resurrection of Christ when he ceased from his own works and became the beginning and author of life from the dead as the first-born among the many brethren whose names are written in heaven and upon whom God hath written his new name and the name of the new Ierusalem The perfection and righteousness of which second appearance is brought to light fully by the brightness of Christs comming the second time the first-fruits whereof are already given and set up in the hearts and spirits of the children of promise and of the free-woman being the hidden Manna which they feed on the new name which they can read and the holy anointing whereby they judge all things whilst themselves are judged of no man CHAP. XII Shewing wherein the three Rules and forms of administration in Christs mediatorial Kingdom do differ one from another and maintain an entire jurisdiction within themselves but in due subordination and subserviency still of the lower to the higher over the respective subjects that live under them THE first of these is the law and Rule which is given by God to all nations even to the whole world in their corrupt degenerate and fallen state occasioned by the entrance which sin made by Adam overrunning his whole posterity like a spreading leprosie whereby man that by his creation was made a temple of God became a habitation for Dragons a court for owls or birds of the night a hold for every foul spirit and a cage for every unclean and hateful bird so that although there was a natural being life and motion left unto man it was in the next degree to no being at all if not in some respects far worse Yet how great soever this desolation was and how thick soever the darkness be in this howling and barren wilderness-condition of mankind the blood of Christ is of vertue to make the heart of man again rejoyce and blessom as the Rose and the voice of the Mediator can make it self to be heard in the remotest and darkest corners of the world to the opening of the eyes of the blind and unstopping the ears of the deaf to the making the lame to leap and the dumb to sing to the causing the waters of his manifestation to break forth and stream in this desert in one word to the letting in the sound of the Gospel it-self in the shadowy dark appearances thereof upon the very ends of the world in pursuance of the extent of the reconciliation made through the blood of his Cross by whom all things are reconciled unto God whether they be things in earth or things in heaven so as the very creation it self is made capable to serve unto the ministry of the Gospel the heavens to declare the glory of God the firmament to shew his handy work day unto day to utter speech and night unto night to shew knowledge by means whereof there is no speech nor language where Christs voice is not heard their sound going into all the earth and their words unto the end of the world as Psal 19. 1 2 3 4. compared with Rom. 10. 18. doth evidence Thus the invisible things of God even his eternal power and Godhead shining forth in the face of the Mediator may be seen by the things that are made Rom. 1. and that either inwardly by the influence and operations of the holy Angels maintaining and keeping up the witness of Christ in the manifestation of natural justice
the natural will or judgement in all the power and light thereof at best whilst unregenerate have no skil in nor know how to set about but as fools and little châ—ldren men must be found at the feet of Christ that he may give them a new birth and so teach and enable them thereunto But now these that thus have a right litteral knowledge of the Gospel are necessitated as to the life and power of their inward principles to fall in with and agree upon the same natural righteousness holiness and perfection in kind with their opposers and make use of their weapons to fix the truth of their witness taken up by them from theletter of the Scripture in such expressions as belong to the new-covenant-life in the second Adam upon those principles of the first Adams purity and perfection or the life of the covenant of Works as restored in and by the blood of Christ which the Scripture never intends if rightly understood but indeed on this account doth undeniably cast the cause upon those that are for the common and general Redemption who are not to be blamed for what they assert as to the extent of the benefit of Christs death to all men but for denying the truth of that witness held forth by the other which ought to have its due place and to be owned by them as consistent with theirs if they understood it yea as that which alone can give perfection and stability thereunto which therefore if rightly stated and acknowledged by them would return shame sufficient upon their adversaries discovering them to be self-condemners as opposing that very thing in the spirit and truth of it the grace faith and principles of the second-covenant-life which they do so zealously contend for in the Letter as to the peculiarity and durableness of the benefit which the true Saint receives by the death of Christ and as agreeing with that in spirit and truth the single activity and life of first-covenant-principles which they implacably oppose in the letter These are the contradictions that with great confidence and censoriousness are maintained on both sides in this our age whilst truth it self suffers every way and is unacceptable to either none being more ready then these to lay Heresie Blasphemy and high Notions at the wrong door of others in hopes to make themselves appear the sound and good Physitians Thus we see under the shadow and letter of the covenant of Grace the truth and spirit of it opposed and kept out and those that do it miserably tearing out their own bowels and pleasing themselves with names for things Whence it is that none are more confident of their being within the covenant of Grace freed from any danger of the covenant of Works then this latter sort of men who do that honour and right to the covenant of Grace as to be for it in their mouths but remove their heart far from it and hug in their bosoms the principles and life of the covenant of Works as that which they will not part with by any means but in such case will rather as with weeping may be said of them become enemies to the Cross of Christ whose God is their belly whose glory is in their shame who mind earthly things Phil. 3. 19. And herein they are hardned also two waies First by considering those that are behind them who maintain the doctrine of works against the litteral witness which they give unto the covenant of grace whence they conclude themselves free from any danger of being comprehended under a covenant of works Secondly by the consideration of their witness that pretend to be above them and to hold forth a Kingdom that consists not in word only but in power who under pretence of spirit and power do either with those called Ranters set up the doctrine and inspiration of devils in opposition to the truth of their witness that is but in the letter introducing again the filthiness of the flesh whereby to destroy the righteousness and holiness of the natural man which is not done away as some falsly and scandalously affirm we say by conformity with Christ in his death but is thereby fulfilled for that garment is made yet more pure and white by the blood of the Lamb and is kept spotless by this means to the second appearance of Christ or else they do annihilate the creature-being and assert perfection to consist in a swallowing up thereof into the pure being of God even in that glory wherein he is in communicable and saith I am and there is none besides me as the Familist and such who gather up all at last into a state of eternal salvation or rather into no state of creature-being at all and so in effect making neither heaven nor hell The contrary unto both these opinions is freely and fully asserted in this treatise in the believers conformity to Christs death and resurrection a doctrine which nevertheless in the true and full extent of it is accounted very offensive and scandalous in these daies of ours even amongst those that are most zealous for it in the letter who possibly may oppose it ignorantly for a season but when it comes to wilful sinning in this case it carries its own fire about with it whereby to devour the adversaries This little excursion I judged not unuseful for the cleerer and fuller asserting of the doctrine of the cross and death of Christ as it operates upon and is mis-judged by those that are yet under the first covenant considered as dispensed by the Son himself in his first appearance wherein he is a minister of the circumcision in the truth of it the righteousness and holiness of his flesh or natural man being the law or covenant of works in its highest and most glorious administration In this respect Christ is said himself to be made under the Law who also doth effectually teach those that follow him in the power of his death and resurrection how the Law may be used lawfully and according to the true intent of the giving of it So that Christ by coming in the flesh and considered as giving himself singly in and by the means of his first appearance doth beget unto himself children of the law or first covenant whose knowledge of him is only after the flesh and who though they be taken by him in to his house and built up with him in his flesh as one Tabernacle and habitation unto God yet attain no higher thereby then to be in the holy place and to minister and serve before the Lord there in a state figured out by the charge of the Levites under the Law who notwithstanding their officiating and performing service unto God in the Temple are capable of being for ever excluded from coming into the holiest of all there to do the office of a Priest or to come neer to any of those holy things which are within the veil in the most holy place and to be made
for ever to bear their shame and their abominations though yet for a season made keepers of the charge of the Temple for all the service thereof and for all that shall be done therein Ezek. 44. 13 14. Nevertheless the true Saints by being built up one Royal Priesthood with Christ shall be admitted into the most holy place This the Apostles well understood that were the first ministers under Christ of this dispensation unto the Gentiles which considered singly as the ministry of Christs first appearance is acknowledged by them to be but the building up again of the Tabernacle of David that was fallen and brought down to the grave with Christ in his death which thus he had power to rear up again amongst the Gentiles notwithstanding its fall among the Jews Acts 15. 14. when he did visit the Gentiles to take out of them a People for his name that was now ceased or ceasing amongst the Jews In this sense Paul understands the mercy of God shewed unto the Gentiles Rom. 11. upon the rejection of the Jews confessing it to be but such an implantation of the Gentiles into Christ the good Olive tree which the Jews had before and from which state they might again be broken off as the Jews were already which can therefore be no other state but that which Christ doth communicate as he is the minister of circumcision or of the covenant of works by the means of those gifts and distributions of the Holy Ghost which he gives forth amongst them after his ascention dividing to every one under this first covenant severally and a part according to his good pleasure till thereby his whole flesh or natural body be built up also among the Gentiles and compleated With this agrees fully the exposition which Peter gives Acts 2. of that which was spoken by the Prophet Joel It shall come to pass in those daies saith God I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh and your sons and your daughters shall prophesie and your young men shall see visions and your old men shall dream dreams and it shall come to pass that whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved ver 16 17 21. From the right consideration hereof we may discern that this dispensation was no other then that of Christs first appearance wherein he was the perfection of the first covenant the giver forth of common salvation and Redemption the minister of circumcision and the setter up of the truth of God in his own flesh which was promised unto the fathers and whereof the whole ministry of Moses was but the type and figure as appears Acts 7. 37. where Moses is brought in saying a Prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren like unto me him shall ye hear Christ as thus the true Tabernacle and sanctuary in his flesh which God pitched and not man was also to suffer that so he might bring down the first standing thereof into the grave whereby to make way into the holiest of all whereinto he entered by his own blood and did build up the Tabernacle of David thus fallen in and by his death into the power of an endless life wherein he sate down at the right hand of God exalted far above all heavens having all principalities and powers made subject to him who in his fleshly man was made lower then Angels for the suffering of death We are therefore to understand the TABERNACLE OF DAVID by the means of the eternal words being made flesh to have had a twofold being and building up given unto it First in the natural and fleshly man of Christ wherein he was the perfection of the first Adam bearing that image and made in all things like unto him as he was made a living soul and enjoyed a sinless spotless nature before the fall In this natural perfection singly considered Christ as meer man was inferiour to the Angels as having that life of man in him which was lower then theirs which was the heel which the Serpent had permission to bruise the Lamb without spot and blemish the body that was prepared him to offer up in sacrifice to God as he had received commandment In this building he became Emanuel God with us according to the first covenant and was a new head unto all the sons of Adam in the first Adams image which all that are planted into are taken out of the wild and engraffed anew into the good Olive tree to partake in the fatness and goodnes thereof as it is the root and spring whence proceeds that restauration and renewal of mans first nature given to Adam by creation and corrupted by the fall which renewal as it flows from the flesh of Christ is the fruit and benefit of his death and where-ever it is wrought by Christ in any sons or daughters of Adam it makes them to become members of his body flesh of his flesh and bone of his bone baptizing them all whether Jews or Gentiles into the same living body with himself the first Sanctuary and building making them all to drink intothe same spirit and seed upon the same natural perfection and purity which flows forth from his own flesh or natural man typed out by the Manna given from heaven which is said to be Angels food and is interpreted by Christ himself to signifie his flesh which he was to give for the life of the world or for the renewing of life unto the world from himself as head of the first Adams perfection and purity This flesh of Christ is spiritual meat such as the Angels themselves feed upon in heaven as on the incorruptible food which is prepared for them by the quickning given unto Christs natural manhood through the resurrection from the dead which flesh considered as given to men in this world may be received and eaten of by them either worthily or unworthily either in the lawful use thereof for which it was ordained and given by God as the Angels in heaven feed on it and true believers here in this world or in the unlawful use of it as it is fed upon by those that discern not nor distinguish between Christs living body and his crucified body between a being made one living soul with him and a being made one quickning spirit with him in a life springing up out of the ruines of this first Tabernacle the fall whereof in this Lamb slain and the true followers of this Lamb whithersoever he goeth is in order to its being built up anew in him and in them by the resurrection from the dead This second sort of building is that which we mean by that second being which is given to the Tabernacle of David in the person of Christ in which he is exalted above the Heavens and is the Temple opened in heaven Rev. 11. where also is seen the Ark of the Testament and so is Emanuel God with us in and by the New and everlasting Covenant having
a Name given him above every name either in this world or in the world to come according to that description we find of him Isaiah 4. 2. c. where Christ the BRANCH is held forth in both these capacities called also Zach. 4. the two olive trees or sons of oyl that stand by the Lord of the whole earth by means of the one emptying out the golden oyl of all natural perfection as he is the Son of man singly considered Christ according to the flesh Head and Root of the renewal of natural purity and perfection by vertue of his blood unto Adams fallen posterity and by means of the other emptying forth the oyl of Gods new Name and of all Spiritual perfection as he is the beginning and first born from the dead made Head to the Heavenly body the Church that general Assembly of the first-born whose names are written in Heaven In both these respects this BRANCH of the Lord is to be made beautifull and glorious so as the very fruit of the earth or the earthly Adam shall be excellent and comely for them that are escaped of Israel Isa 4. 2. For in them the very being of the first Adams perfection considered as built up again in fellowship and harmony with the second Adams perfection through the Resurrection of the dead is as the Ark of the Testament which is to be seen in this Temple whereby the Song of Moses shall be sung as perfectly as the Song of the Lamb as the musick and harmony requisite to be made by the inhabitants of the NEW JERUS ALEM those that are left in Zion and that remain in Jerusalem when God shall have cleansed them and purged them by the spirit of Judgement and burning by the baptism of the fire of the sacrifice of Christs death wherby they are written among the living in Jerusalem that is do become a Heavenly Tabernacle as built up into a life from the dead for a shadow in the day time from the heat and for a place of refuge and for a covert from storm and from rain in which dwelling places of Mount Zion and upon her Assemblies the Lord will create a cloud and a smoke by day and the shining of a flaming fire by night for upon all the glory shall be a defence ver 3 4 5 6. From this Scripture it appears that after men have had that work pass upon them which baptizeth them into one living Body with Christ making them living Members of his fleshly Manhood and enabling them to bring forth the excellent comely fruits of the renewed earthly Adam ver 2. unless they yet further abide the trial of fire which is to pass upon them by the Spirit of Judgement and burning of the day of Christs second appearance they will not continue long in ZION nor remain members of this earthly Jerusalem but will defile and pollute the Temple and Tabernacle of God set up in them in conformity to the flesh of Christ and so make themselves fit subjects for God to destroy and to swear in his wrath that even this Generation thus far advanced out of Egypt toward the Land of Promise shall never enter into his Rest as those that are but after such a manner Christs house as is intimated Heb. 3. 6. whose house are we if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoycing of the hope firm unto the end And as those Paul speaks of amongst the Corinthians that walked like men 1 Cor. 3. 3 17. If any man defile the Temple of God him shall God destroy for the Temple of God is holy which Temple ye are Those then are the Children of the first Covenant who are Christs seed and off-spring as he is the Head of the first Adams natural perfection and doth renew the Spirit and power of that perfection in the purity thereof as a seed in fallen man that shall grow up and prosper even into a Kingdom in the soul so as to be the prevailing principle there and carry the Rule and sway over the corrupt and prophane part causing men clean to escape the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of him after the flesh only and with this flesh as the true Manna and bread given them from heaven nourishing them up in the beauty and strength of his natural life The character of this sort of Christs children by the first covenant is lively set down by the Prophet Ezekiel instancing in the children of Israel whom God took by the hand and led out of Aegypt under the ministry of the first covenant wherein he was a husband unto them as appears Jer. 31 32. and had made them beautiful and of great renown in the sight of the Heathens round about them from whom they were separated as made perfect through his comliness which he had put upon them Ezek. 16. 13 14. which sort of Gods children Paul ranks those Galatians amongst that still desired to be under the Law in the time of the Gospel Gal. 4. calling them children of that covenant given from Sinai gendring to bondage or of the Ierusalem that now is to wit the earthly Jerusalem in distinction from the children of the other covenant or of the Jerusalem that is above viz. the heavenly For we must not think that this generation of men passeth away through the coming in of the Gospel but is rather much more improved and compleated forasmuch as by the means of Christ death the Holy commandment is now spoken by the Son himself delivered more immediately by the dawning of the light of Christs first appearance in the heart which was in the time of the ministry of the Law the word only spoken by Angels as committed unto them to mannage through whose ministry or disposition Acts 7. 53. the circumcised seed of Abraham Isaac and Jacob received it who were as figures of this circumcision to be made immediately by Christ himself among the Gentiles without hands by the pouring forth of his spirit upon all flesh and building them up with him into one living body as the true Israel of God after the flesh all which amounts but to the compleating of Christs living body through this first-covenant-work of his set up in the heart and conscience called in Scripture the FIRST FAITH which may be departed from and prove a faith that fails as being held upon wavering and uncertain principles until it be fixed by the baptism of fire and have that brought forth in fellowship with it which accompanies salvation to wit the incorruptible and immortal seed of the perfection of the second Adam causing them to dwell on high and placing them upon the munitions of Rocks where bread is given to them and waters that do not fail The Rule that is given unto this fleshly seed or children of the first covenant is the pattern of Christs natural life and perfection as he appeareth in the fashion of a man and form of a servant like unto us in all
abundantly confirm and make good the justification which is not of works but of grace according to Gods purpose The very nature and kinde of this faith may suffice to all unbyassed judgements to shew that those that are justified by it are not justified by works since in its principles and seed it is quite differing from that which is by the Law or born after the flesh which is of works so as the one is differenced from the other in the very kind of perfection and life both as to principles and works the seed and the fruit of each yea and this faith of the right kind considered as abiding in Christ not in us is that that properly justifies the believer For if it be by grace it is no more of works otherwise grace is no more grace But if it be of works then it is no more grace otherwise work is no more work And besides the Spiritual Seed are beloved as they are chosen in Christ before the world began and are distinguished as so accepted in him from the fleshly seed before they have done either good or evil This chusing in Christ is not the justification by faith inasmuch as that act of God never passes upon us till we be actually believers For though we have being in our head who is blessed and beloved before the world began Ephes 1. Yet we are not made to be in our own persons of that Spiritual Seed untill we have the righteousness of our head actually imputed to us and so are made to stand without guile or spot before the throne of God whilst as yet we are ungodly and bear about with us a body of sin and death unsubdued and unabolished which nevertheless in the end by faith is overcome and wholly done away The working power then which is put forth by faith in the heart and conscience of him that is the true Believer is to be distinguished from faith in the first act singly considered as the new birth and reception of Christ to inhabite and dwell there as the root and author of all spiritual life and perfection which indeed is rather itself the work or workmanship of Christ as the suitable reception that he makes for his indwelling presence in the heart then any effect of the power of faith working patience and experience there in pursuance of the end for which it is given which is to work the spirit of man either under the first or second dispensation to a compleat and full resignation of its understanding will and desire unto the teachings light and life of this faith evidencing him that is invisible and giving entrance into the glory that is within the veil shewing what is the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the Saints and what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward that believe Which glory is not seen all that while to the natural senses and discerning but the life and workings of faith wherein the spiritual part of the believer does exceedingly rejoyce the fleshly or natural man in the Saint unsubdued cannot bear but hath its reluctancy against lusting to envy ready to oppose resist and contradict the same to the utmost and is all the season of the trial of faith in great heaviness grief and despondency through manifold temptations whilst the believing part is exercising love on him whom the natural senses cannot reach nor come to the sight of In whom though now we see him not yet believing we rejoyce with joy unspeakable and glorious girding up the loyns of our minds in sobriety and hope For the power of faith is such in its operation that it overcomes the world and all the powers of flesh and blood in us at the best which serve but to be made conquest of and triumphed over by faith in order to be nailed to the cross of Christ for the slaying of the enmity which thereby would be springing up to the choaking of the spirtual seed the crucifying afresh the Son of God and trampling under foot the blood of the everlasting Covenant as an unholy thing This power of flesh and blood that ends and expires at last under the conquering and triumphing power of faith causes for a long time a sore and fiery trial in the soul through the sharp contest and dispute that arises between the heavenly powers and spiritual senses on the one hand and the fleshly and natural powers in the same Saint on the other by reason of which the soul is often inclining and falling back into the life of the flesh and workings of the natural will instead of being strengthned in the inward man and fixed there in love and true Rest against all contradicting whatsoever made by flesh and blood whether pure and holy flesh or sinful and corrupt So that oft the party which faith by its power makes for it self in the heart and conscience of the believer is deserted and in a manner given off through the prevalent reasonings and desires of flesh and blood which make resistance in this warfare to their last breath or activity that remains in them And first when faith cals the heart to leave its natural state its kindred and relations in the heathenish world the morality and civility whereof seems to have much to say for it self after the corrupt part in it is cast off the natural powers and faculties of the mind in that state rebel and resist a long season not knowing how to submit though upon hopes of a land of promise specially when they must not know or cannot be made acquainted whither the soul is going and are therefore constantly representing all discouragements imaginable to hinder its obedience to this call of faith till at last they be over-ruled and brought under But secondly when through faiths workings by the power of the Law or Ministry of Christs first appearance the soul is brought out of the corrupt degenerate state of nature hath turned its back upon the land of its nativity and is come to the earthly Canaan to the circumcision of the flesh not in the letter only but in the spirit for the righteousness of works by the first Covenant then hath faith another Call or second voice to the soul causing it to sojourn as a stranger even in the land of promise and to look upon this earthly Jerusalem as no abiding City but that out of which it must also pass into a heavenly Country the Jerusalem that is above forgetting the things that are behind or unto which it hath already attained and pressing forwards to the mark for the price of its high calling to be clothed upon as with its house from heaven Through the call of this last voice of faith all flesh and the glory thereof is blown upon and made as nothing Isa 40. 6. the voice said cry and he said what shall I cry All flesh is grass and the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field perishing and fading in a moment
integrity of Jobs spirit herein the Devil hath leave granted from God to bruise Jobs heele or to be the executioner of Gods wrath upon Job in all manner of appearances and evidences thereof as could render it real and credible to flesh and blood either in Job himself or in the minds and apprehensions of his three friends having for this purpose a permissive Commssion from God to spolle and deprive Job of all gainfull things to him as to this world his life onely excepted Secondly this being obtained and also put into execution he doth his utmost to disquiet Jobs spirit outwardly from the sense of this hard usage and dealing thus received from the Lord to see if he could move him to an impatient murmuring mutining heart against God as a severe Master at best to a faithful servant or else as an unjust dealer according to Covenant who promiseth good dayes to them that do eschew evil and do good which Job having been most diligent and sincere in is neverthelesse thus rewarded as to be numbred amongst the vilest transgressors and malefactors in Gods outward dispensation towards him and yet put upon it to bear it patiently as becoming a broken contrite spirit before the Lord who as he gives freely the good things he bestowes so may also take them away againe without giving account why Thirdly when this takes not he incenses his nearest relations against him imputing the cause of all this wrath to his sincere walking and stedfast cleaving unto God in a singular way from all the rest of the world representing the sad and suffering state hereby brought upon himself and them which he might remedy by letting go his integrity and falling into a fawning compliance with the corrupt interest of the times helived in Fourthly as a backing and seconding of this he moves his three friends against him that probably were all the comfortable society he had in the middest of a heathenish and wicked world round about him and they being professors of the fear and worship of the true and living God and exceeding strict and exact in their walkings as appears by all their arguments and endeavours to perswade Job against the faithful witnesse of his own conscience within that all this is befallen him as a just reward from God of some secret hypocrisie of heart that is in him and unfaithfulnesse to God in his walkings which God hath now found out and punished and which they urge him to acknowledge and give glory to God by repenting and returning from it that so the rod may be removed hereby discovering their great ignorance of Gods designe in this manner of chastening and afflicting his Saints which is done by God for a farre other and higher end then they were aware of that is to say to traine them up unto the obedience of faith consisting in that which God accounts thankworthy in servants to their masters when a man for conscience towards God endures grief suffering wrongfully or without giving cause for it For what glory is it if when ye be buffeted for your faults ye take it patiently but if when ye do well and suffer for it ye take it patiently this is acceptable with God for even hereunto were ye called because Christ also thus suffered for us leaving us an example that we should follow his steps who did no sinne neither was guile found in his month who when he was reviled reviled not againe when he suffered he threatened not but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously This kind of obedience was God intending to teach Job who in and with all his former wel-doings is taught by God not only to want the reward of them for the present but to have the contrary reward executed upon him as the bruising of his heele for the triall of his patience under it and for the practising another kind of obedience and sort of good works then any worldly professour or bastard that is not the true son would ever bear or endure Heb. 12. and which all that are sons must be trained up in as the singular thing which is to be done by them in obeying Gods will in a way of patience which shall not be found in any that are enemies to the Crosse of Christ Fifthly and lastly Satan improves the result of all these appearances of wrath from God perswasions and mistakes of friends and relations together with the inward sense which by all this is ministred to the workings of unsubdued flesh and blood in him to make Job faile and despond in his minde towards God and to conclude himself amongst those that are free amongst the dead to whom the Lord hath forgotten to be gracious ready to cry out My God my God why hast thou for saken me This is the second maine particular of the fulfilling in us a conformity to Christ in his death by Satans bruising of the heele in this manner represented in the example of Job The third is in respect of the workings of unsubdued flesh and blood abiding and remaining in a Saint as the body of sin and death he carries about with him whether from the corrupt or pure old Adam set up in him both which are equally to feele the weight of the crosse of Christ unto which they are to be nailed to the causing of all enmity and sin to cease out of them and be for ever abolished and taken away For which purpose that is to be taken from them and offered up in sacrifice without spot unto God which the natural man in whatever capacity he is whether at his best or at his worst hath no minde to part with upon any termes and therefore doth resist and oppose as long as his ability serves or until a perfect disability and weaknesse be brought upon him rendering it impossible for him to hold out or keep any longer the selfish power to do his own will to speak his own words to think his own thoughts to finde his own desire or exercise his own lust either unto good or evil as living upon his natural root which exercise of free will is essential unto mans natural constitution or first make as hath been shewed in an arbitrary and independant course of motion and action conferred upon him by his participation of Gods first image or the Ministery to him of Gods first appearance single And which so long as that Ministery lasts as its husband or object of converse is kept up in man as a principle of acting by his own free choice and disposal of himself in the use of fit means allowed him by God to induce and perswade him to the good God requires of him This power in the natural man thus to act and live is his joy and delight the desire and lust of his soul and this is revived and strengthened by the Law or the Ministery of Christ in the perfection of the first Covenant which man makes use of to the emboldening and hardening of himself in a
way of natural good works and well-doing pretending to keep up his natural lust and desire in the life exercise and power thereof as Saul did the best of the goods of the Amalekites and their King for Sacrifice to God And therefore the natural man in the Saint in all the powers and faculties thereof stands it out long against the workings of faith in him and fights hard upon this principle of self-preservation deriding with the brothers of Joseph that dreamer which the New-Covenant-Faith in the life language and obedience thereof appears to be to the judgement of flesh and blood when it perswades us to become weak with Christ to suffer our selves to be disarmed and despoyled of this first power and the free exercise thereof upon its single natural root as keeping up a covetousnesse in us that is Idolatry and the root of all evill and does assure us that Gods strength shall be made perfect in us through this weaknesse so as we may rejoyce and glory in such infirmities through which the strength of Christ shall come to be ever resting on us whereby at last we shall be made to take pleasure in these infirmities reproaches necessities persecutions and distresses for Christs sake which at first are grievous but in conclusion we find by experience that when we in our selves are thus most weak then are we in the Spirit of Christ made most strong In this weaknesse then which is brought upon the naturall man of the Saint in which he is made to bear about in his body the marks of the dying of the Lord Jesus consisting in infirmities reproaches necessities persecutions and distresses inward and outward doth the death of Christ work in the flesh of every Saint untill it be fully crucified brought downe into the grave and formed into one dead body with Christs natural man for ever disenabled and weakened from acting this selfish power or exercising this natural lust or desire though in a way of natural or legal good workings singly considered but to have them brought to their lawful rest in the grave of Christ as a Sabbath-keeping there their reasonable service and sacrifice acceptable unto God by Jesus Christ Whence it comes to passe that we no longer live but Christ lives in us and in and through this weaknesse brought upon us by the Crosse quickens us to a more excellent way of working with God and for God then ever we were acquainted with before to the fulfilling and establishing the righteousnesse required by the Law to the highest so that against these weakened Saints and poor broken-spirited children of God there is no Law but the death of Christ that thus works in them doth condemne sinne in the flesh and never leave till it quite abolish it there and bring in the everlasting righteousnesse of God in the roome of that righteousnesse of man which was but as a morning dew Thus we come to bear about in our body the dying of the Lord Jesus that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal or crucified flesh which work of mortification is unto the old Adam most bitter and grievous it being that which bruises him and puts him to grief beyond all that can be imagined and which therefore he fights against and resists to the last drop of blood till he can no longer stand upon his feet but doth fall down amongst the slaine in the blood of Christ whose rest is blessed thus dying with or in the Lord and his works follow him This is the third particular wherein our conformity to Christs death doth consist The fourth and last does respect the workings of faith as they maintaine the good part of this fight in the Saints and gaine the victory over the world and the fleshly seed and principles in them In the managing of which faith doth at first whilest the spiritual senses are not come into use nor strength undergo many a sore brunt and is hard put to it by the workings of unsubdued flesh and blood in them as in the renewed principles thereof they abide in their vigour and flourishing of youth under the first Covenant having through the power of the Law and life of Christs fleshly perfection brought forth in them overcome the wicked one and by the knowledge of Jesus Christ after the flesh cleane escaped the pollutions of the world respecting the filth of the flesh in the confidence and strength whereof these young ones in the experiences of the Gospel think nothing too hard for them to break through and get the mastery of and therefore despise the workings of faith and seed of the promise as a barren desolate widowhood in comparison of their flourishing youth and would be putting in for the inheritance as obteined by the perfection of the Law and Christs first appearance esteeming that to be the Kingdome that is to abide and continue the holy City whose Tabernacle must never be taken down But against all these fierce encounters from pure flesh and blood in the Saint armed with conquests over the wicked one and many fruitful evidences of Christs presence and communion as a Bridegroome and Husband according to the flesh faith armes the soul putting on it the whole armour of light and evidencing to it things unseene the hidden Manna the new name the Jerusalem that is above that which neither eye hath seene nor eare heard nor hath entred into the natural mans heart and conception with which it puts forward and advances bringing in that which is enduring substance an inheritance undefiled and which fades not away in opposition to a failing decaying corruptible Crowne and Rest which flesh and blood glories in And in this more excellent way of worshipping and serving God it comes forth and gains ground in the heart to the stopping the high careere that flesh and blood was in before to the utter silencing it at last and casting down its lofty imaginations and every high thing that exalts it self against the knowledge of God bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ Through this powerful operation of faith the youth of flesh and blood in the Saint is weakened and grey heirs now begin to appear here and there upon him in this his captivity to the obedience of faith which state is very honourable and is the qualification that renders Saints the true Elders in the Church of God who being old men in Christian experiences ought to be in great esteeme for the use and advantage they are of and the great benefit they may bring to true Church-fellowship and Christian Societie how despicable soever this frame of spirit be in the eyes of the worldly Church and of the youthful visible Churches of Saints flourishing with their fair shewes in the flesh whereby they are puffed up and have life working in them whilest death works in Paul the aged and such Elders in spiritual growth that walk as he walked yea these are full and rich and would
be reigning as Kings in a fleshly visibility and worldly glory without the true crucified Saint that in the meane time is made a spectacle to men and Angels and judged as the filth of the world and as the off-scouring of all things unto whom neverthelesse Christ speaks after this manner Esay 26. 19. Thy dead men shall live with my dead body shall they arise awake and sing ye that dwell in dust This is the last particular of our conformity to Christs death And now by what hath beene said in these four particulars as the result rising out of them all our eye may receive enlightning if God please in this great and glorious mystery of Christs death and the effect it hath upon us when it conformes us unto its own likenesse and similitude For we see it doth not annihilate the first Adam or natural man in us but it spoils and disrobes him of the power in effect to sin against God which he upon specious pretences would faine keep for sacrifice in bodily exercise though of little value a power to do his own will and to be at his owne disposal in the strength of grace received bearing oile in his Lamp but not in his vessel In the exercise of which power man is perfectly weakened and disabled by the Crosse First through Christs withdrawing the food and nourishment of it in him Secondly through Satans bruising and breaking down his stout-heartednesse as an executioner of Gods wrath upon him in bereaving him of worldly comforts which God sanctifies to a laying low of mans spirit under this rod of God though applied by Satan and his instruments Thirdly through the victory and conquest of faith which never leaves till it captivate all the powers and faculties of the natural man and bring them into obedience and subjection unto Christ to live unto him that is risen from the dead and so to bring forth fruit unto God in newnesse of spirit and of life made at last to take faith in the principles and operations of it for its Lord and best friend and therein to observe the Law of God given on that behalf that the elder should serve the younger that the first Adam should serve the last Adam Esau should serve Jacob or the naturall powers and faculties of the Saints mind should serve the heavenly birth and spiritual senses thereof that the righteousnesse of the Law may be performed in the Spirit of faith by being made one spirit with Christ in the glory of his resurrection from the dead the life whereof doth not yet fully appear but shall do when he shall be seene in that admirable glory and bring his Saints with him in the same likenesse that they may see him as he is as his associates and coheirs of the same incorruptible inheritance having hereby the use of heavenly faculties and powers given unto them whereby Christ will be admired in all those that do beleeve and they are admitted to enter within the veile and are made capable to converse with God in his own similitude apparently face to face as friend converses with friend which no man as a natural man in his best capacity did ever see nor can see and so the true Saints are made such excellent seers and contemplators of God thus influenced and over-ruled in all the powers and faculties of their subdued natural man as fashions them to do the will of God in earth or their earthly natural man thus taught obedience as they see it done and as they are the doers of it in heaven or in their spiritual and heavenly part and have oile in their vessels as well as in their lamps In which heavenly frame of spirit they are beheld by the Prophet Isaiah in the 54 chapter before mentioned when he saith All thy children shall be taught of the Lord and great shall their peace be In righteousnesse shalt thou be established thou shalt be farre from oppression for thou shalt not fear and from terrour it shall not come near thee when thou art made thus to dwell on high and art seated upon this munition of rocks behold they that shall gather together against thee shall not do it by me but whoever shall gather together against thee shall fall for thy sake no weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper and every tongue that shall rise in judgement against thee thou shalt condemne this is the heritage of the servants of the Lord and their righteousnesse is of me saith the Lord. And let me say thus much upon this occasion in one word to the youthful visible and flourishing Saints of these our dayes who with great earnestnesse and zeale are trimming their Lamps with oile to go out to meet the Bridegroome in expectation of the fleshly glory of Christs Kingdome to the keeping up of Absalon against the true David in Spirit of my Lord Esau against the true Jacob or of Isaac in the flesh against Isaac crucified and offered up in sacrifice to God to be received againe in spirit in the life from the dead They are not yet under those promises before mentioned by reason whereof those that gather together against them may prevaile over them and the weapons formed against them may prosper till the power of the holy people be scattered and none shut up or left Whereas if the Lord take down and bruise the youthful spirit that is in them and cause them with David when they have tried the armour of man to put it off againe to go forth in this armour of God which makes the Saint strongest when he is weakest our Goliah shall be slaine that defies the Hosts of the living God and great salvation shall be wrought for Gods people when they shall be little more then standers by the Lord of the whole earth and lookers on By this time we come to see wherein our conformity to Christ in his death consists the place whereof is found under the third administration of the Kingdome of Christ which in the three branches thereof we have endeavoured to describe in the preceding chapters The first of which may be compared to the Moone that rules the night as the weaker and fainter light of Christs first appearance the representation whereof is given by the single Ministery of Angels as the supreme Lords and Rulers under Christ of the natural and first world by the first Covenant considered meerly as the Law of nature receiving its renewal in the blood of Christ The second is likened by the Scripture unto the Sunne which shadowes forth the vigorous light and glory of Christs first appearance as it is ministred singly in and by the first Covenant considered as the Law and perfection of his flesh in the principles and life whereof the sonnes and servants are not differenced one from another but both walk to the house of God as friends the sonnes of God as well as the sonnes of perdition those that are borne after the flesh as well
their own righteousnesse not submitting to the righteousnesse of God and so prove deceived and seduced through an unskilfulnesse of discerning in that which is good to the despising and refusal of that which is a more excellent and enduring substance for the fading glory of flesh and the morning dew of natural righteousnesse wanting that wisdome which teaches to distinguish betweene the lawful and unlawful use that is to be made of the Law and the eating and drinking of the body and blood of Christ worthily or unworthly Behold then the evil desire and lust that may and doth spring up in mans pure holy and righteous nature as by being under the dominion of the Law and living in subjection and conformity thereunto he is striving to separate them whom God has joyned together in Christs second appearance and to uphold competition and opposition betweene those that should dwell together as brethren in unity in the communion of the holy Ghost which counsel of God carries much contrariety in it to mans natural desire and lust which would faine get away with Gods first word the word of the beginning Heb. 6. 1. wherewith God at first visits man refusing to stay to the end and to hear and obey the second word which God is pleased to have with him whereby he finishes and compleats his first operations in him declaring to him his whole counsel whereunto the first dispensation is appointed only as a fore-runner and therefore must needs be short as to that which is the work of the second being no otherwise intended from the beginning but as a messenger or preparer of the way Hence we may see what it is Paul means Rom. 7. and ch 8. when he acknowledges that the Law through the weaknesse of the flesh though it have nothing in it which causes or is the author of sin yet it hath that in it which sinne takes occasion by to set up it self anew and blossome forth againe in mans nature when renewed and restored to a conformity with the Law which is spiritual holy righteous and good for lust is capable to conceive in Adams posterity thus renewed and set up afresh as well as it did in himself at first and lust when it hath thus conceived brings forth sinne or an envying and contesting against the glory of Christs second appearance which sin being perfected or come to its fixing of the mind in an unchangeable and implacable enmity thereunto brings forth death even that death which is spiritual and eternal so Rom. 8. such a carnal mind as this is called death as it stands in such an enmity to the spiritual mind that it is neither subject to that Law of God which is the Law of the Crosse and Spirit of life nor indeed can be Thus saith the Apostle by the coming of the Commandment sin revived and 1 died and what was ordeined for life I found unto me to be unto death sin getting into its vigour and strength thereby assuring the soul that it is here out of all danger being begotten againe into Gods own likenesse wherein man was at first created and having the visible characters thereof shining forth in it written not with inke and on tables of stone but with the Spirit of the living God and on the fleshly tables of the heart shewing it self a right change and a real heart-work above and beyond all that is accounted civility and morality and above all notion and spirituality that is but head-work and fancy What is now to be done sayes the Tempter to this sort of men but to perswade them torest here and praise and blesse Gods Word that by this first visit and beginning hath made so beautiful glorious a change in their hearts nature as this is wherof the experiences are so lively and refreshing especially when reflection is made upon what they are changed from when brought to this and the way and means of attaining it which hath also the approbation and praise of visible Churches and Saints and of the best men so judged by mans day which makes them say Let us tabernacle here with Moses and Elias especially if we be upon the Mount and brought thither by Christ himself transfiguring himself there before us In this earthly building of the renewed natural man let us fix and resist all dawnings and approachings of any higher or better state Let this our Ishmael live was once the voice of Abraham himself that afterwards was perswaded to offer up his Isaac that was but according to the flesh If we be prevailed with to fix here and live after the flesh we shall die Rom. 8. 13. or enter and abide in those wayes of death which make us enemies to the Crosse of Christ and cause him in the end to swear we shall never enter into his Rest As man therefore in the purity and holinesse of his natural will may be using the Law of God lawfully as we have shewed so also he may exercise himself in his own holy and righteous operations of mind and nature in such manner as may be quite contrary to the mind of God and the true end of such conformity wrought in him unto the Law experiencing by this means the evil that is incident unto a pure and uncorrupt state of being and that lust that is to be known only by the coming of the Law Which evil desire or lust of man in this state is a covetousnesse which sets up idolatry in the highest streine endeavouring to oppose Christ in the Spirit by Christ in the flesh by exalting the glory of his first appearance above that of the second Sin in this sense hath for the Mother and Nurse of it mans natural righteousnesse wherein he is apt to glory and be puffed up without cause contrary to the true meaning of the Law which requires him indeed to cherish and maintaine the natural righteousnesse and holinesse therein and thereby ministred whether considered as it shines forth in the flesh of Christ or in their own hearts and consciences in opposition to that which is the filth of the flesh or to the resting in our own personal morality and vertue before the Law came to us but authorizes him not or warrants him to oppose herewith the Crosse of Christ and the excellency of the knowledge of him crucified or to resist upon pretence of keeping that up the coming in of the better and more excellent glory When once therefore such a frame of spirit as a root of gall and bitternesse is springing up in men and that wilfully against manifest conviction and long contestation and patience on Gods part to bring them to another mind at last they are brought by sad experience to find that in their flesh dwells no good thing but such as will be leaking out of this fleshly building of the first Adam at its best if rested in and subject to corrupt So that whilst with the mind they serve the Law of God with the flesh
they serve the Law of sin finding sin so farre from being perfectly overcome and subdued as once they supposed that by degrees it returnes upon them with greater force then ever making them miserable men as abandoned and left to its inroad and violence without any possibility of being delivered from this death and wrath that comes upon such wilful sinning in which case there remains to them no more sacrifice for sinne but an expectation of fiery wrath Howbeit to repair this losse unto them whilst they have their abode in this world the Devil lets them have as their reward the praise of one another and enables them to carry the world clear before them to the oppressing and trampling down the righteous and spiritual seed wringing out waters of a full cup to them These are they who prosper in the world and encrease in riches who have no bands in their death but their strength is firme who are in no trouble nor are plagned like other men but have their eyes standing out with fatnesse enjoying more then their hearts can wish They set their mouths against the heavens and their tongue walks through all the earth under the universal Dominion and Rule which Satan as God of the world hath from one end of the earth unto the other This great City or universal worldly spirit and rule under Satan sits as Queene alone and knows no sorrow but with her fornications and sorceries bewitches the world and the inhabitants thereof exercising her universal Rule and Dominion over them under various formes and administrations of government till he come whose right it is and cast downe these Thrones before him receiving to himself Dominion Glory and a Kingdome that all people Nations and Languages should serve him in a Kingdome that is never to be destroyed The principal means which God uses to bring in his Kingdome and oppose these Counter-workings of Satan is his setting up in the person of Christ a bruised broken crucified man that humbled himself to the death of the Crosse suffering without the gates of Jerusalem as the mighty power of God by which to destroy the power of the Devil and bring to nought the wisdome of the wise and the understanding of the prudent as those foolish and weak things of God in mans eye which he hath chosen to confound the great and mighty things of the world and as those base and despised things that are not which he hath chosen to confound the things that are fairest in shew and appearance Which weapons of Christs warfare though mighty through God yet being despicable and weak in the eye of Satan and to the discerning and judgement of men they are thereby the more harden'd and encouraged to contest it out with Christ till at last they come to be trampled under his feet like mire in the streets CHAP. XX. Concerning death to sinne and life to righteousnesse considered as well in the distinct Branches and Parts thereof as in its full extent and comprehensivenesse together with the discovery thereby of that which is counterfeit hypocritical or otherwise defective THe summe of what we have beene Treating of in the preceding Chapters that concerne the Work and Rule of Christ whether in the Natural Legal or savingly beleeving Conscience as also the Saints conformity with Christ in his death the discovery wherof this chapter had immediately and more orderly succeeded but that I was unexpectedly prevented in it by the Presse may very well be reduced unto the two general termes of Mortification and Vivification or of our dying unto sin and living unto righteousnesse Rom. 6. and this according to the kind and measure of Grace received whether common or special temporary or everlasting For in what ever conscience Christ works and gains so farre reception as to be hearkened unto and obeyed in the Voice or Ministery he holds forth himself by whether upon the termes of the first or second Covenant the necessary consequent thereof is a departing from sin and an eschewing of evil as saith the Scripture Rom. 6. 16. Know ye not that to whom ye yeeld your selves servants to obey his servants ye are to whom ye obey whether of sinne unto death or of obedience unto righteousnesse so as the service and obedience ye yeeld unto the one frees and delivers you from the subjection ye were held in unto the other For those that are servants of sinne are free from righteousnesse or dead to it as on the contrary those that are servants unto righteousnesse obeying from the heart the teachings of Christ in any of his Three-fold dispensations before mentioned are free from sinne and become dead unto it according to the Law they are under or the manner of the working thereof in several measures and degrees experienced in any such conscience Now that which we are to understand by righteousnesse whose servants we ought to be and whereunto we are to yeeld our subjection is the Image of God formed and set up in the second Adam or Person of the Mediator propounding it self to be received and entertained by man since the Fall upon the foundation of a new entercourse and converse betweene God and Men which he hath obtained freely through his owne blood shed as a ransome for all whereby also the natural conscience is purged from dead works and fitted againe for the service of theliving God This Image of God consisting in righteousnesse and true holinesse hath power as it lives and dwells in Christ to dispence and give the communication of it self in part or in whole according to the nature of the Ministery and the manner of administration by which it is conveighed into the heart and conscience So as if this Image of God be but as the Word and Voice of God in the mouth only of servants whether Angels or Men unaccompanied with the personal presence of the Sonne himself it hath one kind of operation and effect intimated Esay 40. 3 4 5. by that Voice of the Lord or Word of God in the mouth of servants only Crying in the Wildernesse-condition of mans corrupt nature and degenerate state as he is dead in trespasses and sinnes Prepare ye the way of the Lord make streight in the desert a high way for our God and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together declaring herein this preparatory dispensation which tends and leads unto Christ in his first appearance as he is God manifested in flesh in which respect it is that all flesh can see him together for as to his second appearance he dwells in that light and immortality which no flesh can approach unto which no man hath seen or can see as he is a meer natural man This forerunning Ministery unto Christ we may also take notice of Luke 10. 1. After these things the Lord appointed other seventy and sent them two by two before his face into every City and place whither he himself would come saying unto
pieces of silver stumbling at that stumbling stone and going about in the meane time to establish and keep up their owne righteousnesse in its credit and authority not only against the filthinesse of the flesh which lawfully they may but in opposition also unto the righteousnesse of faith which is highly displeasing to the Father who calls for this Isaac to be offered up and warns that this earthly Canaan is only to be sojourned in and that therefore a more heavenly Countrey should be in our eye and desire even a City that hath foundations and immutability in it whose builder and maker is God From this legal or first-Covenant frame of spirit as exalting it self in opposition to the life of faith do arise and spring forth the sinnes of unbelief to the resisting of the Ministery of Faith or the new Covenant endeavouring either to keep out the life and light of the Righteousnesse of Faith or if the dawnings thereof break in upon them whether they will or no to crucifie and trample it under foot as an unholy thing and to oppose to the utmost the life and power of Christs second coming though by so much as is witnessed in the first they may discerne as in a Type and Figure that glory that excels and is to follow and that this second dispensation or first appearance of Christ in its proper use and tendency is ordained as a preparatory and forerunning help and furtherance thereunto This sort of sins are properly sins of unbelief or against the life of Faith called the hidden works of darknesse 1 Cor. 4. 5. that may lie undiscovered and unsuspected under the purest forms of godlinesse and a very fair shew in the flesh of a Practical blamelesse Righteousnesse according to the Law By the very good works and consolations such consciences experience under the Law sinne works death in them more easily even a fixed enmity against the righteousnesse of Faith becoming thereby exceeding sinful Of this sort are the sins that revive and get strength by the coming of the Commandment and die not till we become dead to the Law by being crucified with Christ which till the Law come are unknown as to any experimental discerning of them by those that remaine under the first Ministery who in the utmost of their transgressings do sinne only against the Sonne of man or Christ in his first appearance but these sinne against the Holy Ghost or Christ in his second appearance and by such sinning forfeit the benefit of all their enjoyments The third and last Ministery then in and by which everlasting righteousnesse is conveighed and the Image of God set up in the heart in an immutable and incorruptible state is that wherein is exhibited to us the glory that follows that is to be beheld with open face the seed of Promise borne of the free-woman which is the younger and comes after both the former dispensations as the end for which they were given and are kept on foot This Ministery is exercised by the mouth of the Sonne himself speaking from heaven to the shaking and removing of the former heavens and earth as of things that are made that this Kingdome that cannot be shaken may remaine into which Christ is ascended as received up into glory made higher then the Heavens and set downe on the right hand of the Majesty on high in that light and immortality which no man hath seene or can see but those only who are admitted to enter within the veile through their conformity with him in his death Those that are under this Ministery do stand possessed of farre higher and richer benefits and priviledges then any do arrive unto under the first Covenant having also all that they have under that Ministery being joyned so near unto the Lord that they two are but one spirit 1 Cor. 6. 17. or heavenly manhood the one in the Relation of the Husband the other of the Bride the Lambs wife who hath made her garments the sine linnen which is the righteousnesse of the Saints white in the blood of the Lamb which Robes are neither given unto nor put on by any but the hundred fourty four thousand Rev. 14. that are the true Virgins and followers of the Lamb whither soever he goes leading the true immaculate unchangeable life of righteousnesse which is peculiar unto them from all the world besides The benefit of these Robes they have in a twofold consideration first as they are worne by Christ in his owne person made white by himself in his owne blood when he offered up himself without spot unto God by the eternal Spirit which is imputed to them for justification irrevocable and never to be blotted out over and besides the benefit of his legal righteousnesse for their justification upon the tenour of the first Covenant and secondly as they are worne by themselves for their owne personal inherent righteousnesse and sanctification as washed againe in the blood of Christ by a sprinkling thereof upon every one of their hearts to purge them from all evil conscience as they become planted into a likenesse with him in his death over and beyond the washing of their bodies with pure water from the filthinesse of the flesh which is the first-Covenant-sanctification purging them only from the evil conscience opposite to that Ministery This then is the Righteousnesse of Faith or of the second and New Govenant consisting as we have shewed in that newnesse of life and operation which never leaves untill it hath brought downe mans first activity or way of acting by himself alone into the very grave of Christ And we are farther to consider that this Righteousnesse of Faith may have a hidden and relative Being only in the heart of the Elect separating them unto God from the womb and not yet bring them into reall and actuall union with Christ in his spiritual headship nor appear for a long while in its own proper manifestation or be so much as an operative seed of life taking the soul in any active way into co-operation with it self but at most is only comprehending and preserving it from the evil of falling into the GREAT TRANSGEESSION or sinning the sin unto death So then whilst this holy seed thus lies at the bottome as it were the person in whom it is may be carried forth in the life of other Principles to the exercise of all good conscience from first to last under all the three Ministeries as it was with Paul whether considered as in those Principles wherein he was alive before the Law came or those wherein he lived under the Law in a conformity to it or those wherein he lived by Faith in newnesse of life and operation after he became dead to the Law counting all things lesse and drosse and dung Phil. 3. which he had till then experienced how great and glorious soever his receivings and attainments had beene as fit to be left behind that he might presse forward through a
the one hand and the other upon distinct accounts are to be reputed enemies to the TRUTH in the Spirit and Power thereof as is at large set forth 1 Tim. 1. the first of which are also meant and described 1 Tim. 4. 1. where they are said to be those that are departed from the Faith through giving heed unto seducing spirits and to inspirations of devils in those transformed Ministers of Satan 2 Cor. 11. 15. who labour to vent the doctrines of devils such as devils either are authors or objects of through whose Ministery they come to have itching ears formed in them 2 Tim. 4. 3. ready to hearken to all that the Serpent transformed into an Angel of light presents to them by way of instruction and under colour of divine inspiration as taking upon him the Prophetical office of Christ and thereby undertaking to carry them forward to what is more spiritual and to heighten them in their experiences of what SPIRIT and POWER is In this very way he offered to impose upon and deceive if it had been possible Christ himself when perceiving that all the literal Religion and legal worship of the Jewes would not hold him but lay short of his light he shewed him all the Kingdomes of the world and the glory of them the utmost creaturely perfection or natural glory which he was able to give the prospect and representation of in his own Angelical nature being of that highest rank of creatures in the whole first Creation and that in a moment or the twinkling of an eye saying All these will I give thee or make thee to live in if thou wilt fall down and worship me This temptation then which Christ resisted these seduced ones fall under and are snared and taken with to the making of them love and believe a lie and to yield up themselves in a fixednesse of service duty and love unto this false spirit as unto Christ the true Prophet And the better to induce them hereunto and strengthen them in the beliefe of a lie Satan in this his coming as an Angel of light is accompanied with power with signes and lying wonders acting the part of a great friend and favourer of all that is spiritual heavenly and high not opposing at all their having the understanding of all mysteries and all knowledge yea or their having of all faith to the working of miracles or removing of mountaines their speaking with the tongues of men and Angels but unto all these attainments he is conducing as much as in him lies in all deceivablenesse of unrighteousnesse to serve his designes by gaining the greater credit and authority hereby in their hearts and affections and so the more unperceivably beguiling and winding them over into the belief of a lie and that in a point of highest concernment unto them prevailing with them to receive him in their love and affection even that adulterous spirit and deceiver of the Nations in this his Angelical brightnesse instead of Christ himselfe THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH and SON OF THE LIVING GOD and that considered as shining forth in the glory of his SECOND COMING In consequence hereof he makes them to resigne up all the powers and operations of their minde absolutely into his hands in obedience to his dictates and inspirations upon which they hold themselves obliged to be alwayes waiting in the posture of passive silence in a Counterfeit imitation of the true conformity unto Christ in his death and resurrection So then by this meanes the Devill is found sitting in the Temple of God as God to the apprehension of those who thus possesse him or if you will whom he thus possesses as also to the imagination of others their deluded proselytes where he is opposing and Exalting himselfe above all that is called God And as in former times by JANNES and JAMBRES he withstood Moses through a lively and skilful imitation of his works and miracles so in the latter dayes by such instruments of his as these he shall resist the TRUTH to the causing of many to stumble and be offended thereat for the resemblance sake which this false spirit is able to forme of it Which false and counterfeit appearance of his as we have said the Scripture sets forth and describes under these two heads MORTIFICATION and VIVIFICATION with a Character of Condemnation upon them in the very description made of them Such mortification is spoken of 2 Tim 2. 17. in the case of HYMENEUS and PHILETUS whose word is there said to eate like a canker Intimating what kinde of mortification the word by them ministered did produce even such a one as is caused in the body by cancerous humors carrying certaine mortality in it if not timely prevented not being a mortification in order to health and life but unto unsoundnesse and death These teachers with their followers are men of corrupt and unchast mindes towards the true Lord and husband under all their abstinence and seeming mortification Againe 1 Tim. 4. 2. this mortification is called the searing of the conscience with a hot iron importing the dead and insensible frame which thereby is brought upon the minde to any other delight love or desire save only towards this false spirit with whom it is as it were bewitched to the contracting a spiritual benummednesse and coldnesse to all other lovers whatsoever to the world and all seen things or bodily objects answering unto the lust of the flesh the lust of the eye and the pride of sensual life yea and also to Christ himself the true and living God so as to become past feeling in the case of any checks accusations or reproofs from the SPIRIT OF TRUTH in order to a totall and full resignation of themselves up to the dictates inspirations and commands of this false and seducing spirit In this sense and on this account we may finde men giving their bodies to be burned 1 Cor 13. 3. yielding up themselves to be deprived of all their natural or sensual comforts yea many times the most lawful of them thereby offering themselves up as in sacrifice unto these satanical flames wherein they are in danger to be everlastingly burning as in a fire that can never be quenched For this searing of their conscience as with a hot yron is but the first fruits in these SONS OF PERDITION of that resurrection into everlasting contempt designed unto such VESSELS OF DISHONOUR as on the other hand the true mortification and resigning up of the natural will and desire to Christ is the first fruits in the true SONS OF GOD of their resurrection into everlasting life This sinne of their under the Gospel as it is more spiritual seems to be pointed out to us by that sinne under the Law committed by those that offered up their children to Molech causing their sons and their daughters to passe through that material fire and to yield up their very bodies in the most literal outward sense and acceptation to be burned in
bodies shall be found in the streets of the holy City spiritually called Sodome and Egypt kept for three dayes and an half unburied signifying that they must in all things submit to the bruising of their outward man in conformity unto Christ and be slaine as their brethren have beene from the beginning of the world which is to be their lot in the latter end This prophetical and powerful spirit of Eliah shall be poured forth in those dayes upon the witnesses of Christ that keep the WORD OF HIS PATIENCE and endure the fiery triall of those times not thinking it a strange thing that thereby happens unto them and shall fill them with exceeding joy under all the reproaches which they beare for the Name of Christ as the Spirit of glory and of God that is resting upon them and fitting them for such a season that as John Baptist by his Ministery ushered in Christs coming in the flesh or in his first appearance so this same prophetical spirit of Eliah shall be the fore-running dispensation given forth by the witnesses of Christ in those dayes unto Christs second appearance or coming from heaven as hath beene foretold by all the Prophets since the world began for the restitution of all things as the fruit of his personal presence in the world exercising Rule and Dominion there for a thousand years with his Saints and then carrying them up with him to his Father and their Father into the same Kingdome as continued in glory in heaven for evermore What this prophetical spirit of Eliah is that shall be thus poured out upon the Witnesses of Christ in those dayes is to be understood by what it was in Eliah's person who was but the type and therefore certainly had this spirit in a much inferiour degree to what it shall be in them The spirit of glory and power therefore which he had they shall have and much more as indeed is expressed when it is said if any man will hurt them he must in this manner be killed fire proceedeth out of their mouth and devours their enemies These have power by the same way Eliah had which was by the prayer of faith to shut heaven that it raine not in the dayes of their prophecie yea they have power also over waters to turne them into blood and to smite the earth with all plagues as often as they will Yet under all this power and glory they shall remaine exposed in their persons upon the finishing of their TESTIMONY to the rage and power of their enemies who shall then make warre against them overcome them and kill them But notwithstanding on the third day they have power given them to rise from the dead and to ascend up into heaven Rev. 11. 11 12. after a more glorious manner then Eliah did and this in the sight of their very enemies to their terrifying and amazement Thus we see the spirit and power of Eliah what it is that then shall be poured forth and that in a more mystical and spiritual consideration Something we shall also speak to the opening of the state and qualification of the persons that are called the TWO WITNESSES and why they are so called For their state and qualification this is to be known by their names and their apparel They are called the two Olive-trees and the two Candlesticks standing before the God of the whole earth By what hath beene already opened on this subject we are not far to seek what these signifie For the two Olive-trees and two Candlesticks that stand by the Lord of the whole earth must either be Christ in his owne person as he is head to his body the Church and Mediatour betweene God and man shining forth in his first and second appearance as both these perfections of the natural and spiritual man are built up and wrought into a perfect consistency and harmony in him or else these two Olive-trees do signifie the conformity which from him as the head is wrought out in and derived upon his spiritual and heavenly members by his first and second appearance in both those perfections of the first and second Adam as the elder is made to serve the younger and the first is built up into a consistency and harmony with the second by the power of the Crosse making them conformable to him in his death Which conformity is signified by their prophesying in sackcloth testifying the marks which they bear about with them in their mortal bodies of the dying of the Lord Jesus And in this crucified mortal flesh of theirs they are owned by Christ as having the Spirit of God and of glory thus made to rest upon them in a like dispensation unto that of Eliah's prophecy So that when once it shall please God to raise up a seed and generation of Saints in whom these marks of the dying of the Lord Jesus shall be eminent to the slaying and bringing to rest all operating powers and faculties of their natural man as standing in opposition to the Lord of life and glory and subjecting every high imagination in them by the Crosse to the laying of it and all the glory of flesh in a very great measure under the feet of Christ whereby that which lets his glory from appearing unveiled and hath all this time let is taken away then will it be knowne what the TWO WITNESSES are and that they have not hitherto so much as begun their prophecy in the power of Eliah before mentioned so farre are they from being slaine CHAP. XXVI Treating of the time of the manifestation of the sonnes of God their sitting with Christ on his Throne ruling and influencing all things on earth during the space of a thousand years HAving finished what relates to the Saints being made one dead or crucified body with Christ and shewed the opposition which is exercised by the Devil thereunto that which remains to be considered is the gathering also of the Saints together into one glorified body with Christ at his second coming when it shall appear what those shall be that now though they are sons are undistinguished from those that are not who have beene planted into a conformity with Christ in his death and who considered as his dead body having beene exposed to the bruising of their heele by Satan before his being bound up shall be declared the proper subjects and inheritours of this first resurrection in the exercise of the power and glory thereof as KINGS and PRIESTS reigning with Christ a thousand years This time of the manifestation of the sonnes of God is said to be that which is the earnest expectation of the very creature it self Rom. 8. 19. as the season also wherein the whole creation is to be restored to its Primitive purity and to be delivered out of the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the sonnes of God as the benefit which it shall then receive by vertue of the price of Christs blood paid for all for
threatned with destruction the Mystical earthly Jerusalem or worldly Church under the Gentiles is therein comprehended and also meant as that which shall at the end of the world and in the last times be found in a most corrupted declined estate of Apostasie 2 Thes 2. 3. 1 Tim. 4. 12. 2 Tim. 3. 1 c. unto which therefore several characters and signes are appropriated that cannot be understood to be accomplished at the destroying of the material Temple and outward Jerusalem but are necessarily to be meant of this Mystical one as the Heavens that are remaining to be shaken yet once more Heb. 12. signifying the removing of those things that may be shaken as of things that are made that those things that cannot be shaken may remaine This Mystical earthly Ierusalem is that which shall not have one stone left upon another as well as the other Typical Ierusalem not so much as any visibility or forme of worship shall be left to her but she shall be given to the Gentiles or prophane world who shall tread this holy City under foot fourty and two moneths And to make this hour and power of darknesse the more terrible there shall be warres and rumours of warres Nation shall rise up against Nation and Kingdome against Kingdome and there shall be Famines and Pestilences and Earthquakes in divers places yea all these things shall be but the beginning of sorrows For as thus warres and troubles and sorrowes shall be in reference to the outward man so also deceit and errour by false Prophets and false Christs shall arise causing much defilement in reference to the inner man whence will flow great declinings and apostasies from holy and righteous principles for saking of the truth or a waxing cold in the love of it amongst the inhabitants of this Mystical earthly Ierusalem and not only so but there will spring up a root of bitternesse and an implacable persecuting spirit against the faithful WITNESSES of Christ that shall in those dayes be found in her to the afflicting killing or flaying of them and letting their dead bodies lie unburied in the street of this great City which the Nations shall come and destroy for all her whoredomes and apostasies as they did the literal Ierusalem God putting it into their hearts to agree together and burne this Whore with fire And then they themselves that are thus made the rod of Gods anger and executioners of his vengeance on this great City shall not escape but Zach. 14. 3. The Lord shall go forth and fight against those Nations as when he fought in the day of battel For a great tumult from the Lord shall be among them and they shall lay hold every one on the hand of his neighbour and his hand shall rise up against the hand of his neighbour ver 13. So Mat. 24. 29 30. Immediately after the tribulation of those dayes shall the Sunne be darkned and the Moone shall not give her light and the Starres shall fall from Heaven and the powers of the Heavens shall be shaken And then shall appeare the signe of the Sonne of Man in Heaven and then shall all the Tribes of the earth mourne and they shall see the Sonne of man coming in the clouds of Heaven with power and great glory actually entering upon the exercise of his Kingdome and this First by sending forth his Angels and gathering together his Elect from the four winds from one end of Heaven to the other as into one glorified body with himself to the constituting of this GENERAL ASSEMBLY of the FIRST-BORNE which shall be made up partly of those the Lord brings with him and partly of those which shall be found alive and remaing unto the coming of the Lord or shall be in the natural body during the thousand years all which shal be changed in a moment in the twinkling of an eye by way of translation as it was with Enoch and not see death Whereby their mortal shall put on immortality and their corruptible shall put on incorruption and death and the grave shall be swallowed up in victory The first in order then which Christ quickens at his coming shall be his own Mystical dead body for the dead in Christ shall rise first 1 Thes 4. 16. that is those that have beene slaine and have born the marks of the dyings of Jesus upon them who are called Rev. 20. the souls of them that were beheaded for the witnesse of Jesus and for the WORD of God who all of them at this time through the quickning power of their Head shall live and reigne with him the first-fruits who hath already for a long time beene living and reigning at Gods right hand as it is written 1 Cor. 15. Every man in his owne order Christ the first-fruits afterwards they that are Christs at his coming whom he builds or raises up with himself into one spiritual and glorified body v. 44. causing them thereby to bear the image of the heavenly and last Adam as they have borne the image of the earthy or first Adam and this in the utmost perfection thereof as arrived to the measure of the stature of that fulnesse and perfection which declares and manifests it self in Christs heavenly manhood enabled to exercise in copartnership with him the power and glory of a threefold humane life and perfection in which he went before them First when upon the laying down of his natural body he came into the exercise of a life proper to the spirit of a just man made perfect in likenesse and equality with that of the holy Angels who stand in a superiority of life unto the earthly man even of Christ himself Heb. 2. 9. Secondly when he also came forth in the exercise of a humane bodily life raised up in a glorified and incorruptible forme never to die more Rev. 1. 18. in which he conversed with men the fourty dayes betweene his resurrection and ascension Thirdly when yet farther he came forth in the exercise of a divine humane life in which ascending to his God and their God to his Father and their Father he was exalted into a unity and copartnership in life and operation with the ROOT OF DAVID the WORD OF LIFE the first-born of every creature and first-begotten from the dead This is spoken of as the fruit also of his resurrection from the dead Ephes 1. ver 20 21. When through the mightinesse of Gods power that wrought in him he was raised from the dead and set at Gods owne right hand in the Heavenly or in the first and Heavenly Tabernacle that is set up in the WORD treated on by us in the first Chapter farre above all prin ipality and power and might and Dominion and every name or particular nature and being not only in this world but also in that which is to come In which life ver 22. 't is said that to the humane nature of Christ it is given to be the Head over all things or
in a superiority in all things unto the Church or true spiritual seed which is his body the fulnesse of him that filleth all in all built up into a Heavenly conformity in all things as a Wife and Spouse unto this her Head and Husband This excellency of Christs exalted manhood was surely intimated unto Iaceb by that ladder Gen. 28. 12 which in his dream he beheld set upon the earth the top whereof reached to Heaven as also the Angels of God ascending and descending upon it For thus we find it interpreted by himself Iohn 1. 50 51. as that greater sight of his humane perfection then what could be seene in the dayes of his flesh Verily verily sayes he I say unto you hereafter you shall see Heaven open and the Angels of God ascending and descending upon the Sonne of man as if he should have said You shall see the Heavenly Temple of God opened Rev. 11. 19. that is to be found in the WORD OF LIFE and the heavenly discoveries flowing thence or sent forth from the same in their ascents and descents in and upon the manhood of Christ as the means chosen for the making manifest the riches of his glory to men and Angels in their particular beings and persons In these three respects shall the true SONNES AND HEIRS OF SALVATION fitted and adorned as a Bride and Heavenly body to this Husband and Head appeare bearing on them the image of the last Adam made like unto him to the seeing of him as he is and shining forth in this likenesse they will have accomplished upon them that manifestation of the sonnes of God which shall vastly difference them from the naturall or fleshly seed considered in their highest mutable perfection or in the incorruptible forme wherein they shall be raised up to everlasting contempt By vertue then of this conformity in image which the Saints shall be brought into with Christs heavenly manhood they shall come forth in the exercise of this threefold life in kind wherein the manhood of Christ hath beene conversant ever since the laying down of his earthly and natural body First of that life which all the true sonnes and heirs of salvation that have died in the faith have beene exercising ever since their change or falling asleep in the Lord that is to say the life of the spirits of just men made perfect a life like that of the Angels or perfect spirits that can live and act without dependance upon bodily life and motion described by Christ himself where he sayes that they who shall be accounted worthy to obteine that world and the resurrection from the dead as were Abraham Isaac and Jacob who then were and yet are in the possession of it neither marry nor are given in marriage for they are equal unto the Angels and are children of God and of the resurrection Luke 20. 35 36 that is to say are the children of God in their spirits made perfect and thereby are become equals and fit associates for the holy Angels themselves as the souls of wicked men departed this life become equals and fit associates for the evil Angels concerning which state also in the best sense Christ spake unto the thief upon the Crosse when he said This day shalt thou be with me in Paradise The second exercise of life which the Saints as gathered unto Christ their Head at his second coming shall be brought forth in is that of a glorified incorruptible body in fashion made like unto his glorious body Phil. 3. Into the exercise of which life they are not yet entered but reserved for it by the MAN CHRIST IESUS the FIRST-FRUITS who will have the souls of those slaine under the Altar to rest yet for a little season in the single exercise of their Angelical life as spirits of just men made perfect untill the gathering of the GENERAL ASSEMBLY of the first-borne together and setting them who have beene the slaine Witnesses of Christ upon their feet in the exercise of this immortal incorruptible bodily life here in this world wherein they are to continue and abide for a THOUSAND YEARS keeping the true Sabbath of Rest unto the Lord in that seventh part of the time of the worlds duration All worldly strength wisdome and power shall then as the walls of Iericho fall flat before Iesus the true Ioshua and these true Israelites as having beene by them compassed about six dayes and now on the seventh a thousand years being with the Lord as one day 2 Pet. 3. 8. making way for the end mentioned 1 Cor. 15. 24. to come and shew it self at which time the fleshly Rule and Kingdome of Christ in his first appearance till then kept up in the world as the first general Dominion is delivered up unto the Father the Sonnewillingly becoming subject herein with reference to the bringing himself forth in his second appearance to rule and reign in the place of the first that God may be all in all and that all other rule authority and power may hereby be put downe yea death it self as the last enemy may be destroyed and made unable to deteine any under its power that the quickning vertue shining forth in this presence and appearance of Christ shall call forth and give freedome unto The Saints in the exercise of this life with Christ upon earth during this THOUSAND YEARS shall be those in whom Christ will be admired and the Father glorified This state of theirs is the reward spoken of in Scripture where it is said The meek shall inherit the earth and Godlinesse hath not only the promise of the life to come but of this also 1 Tim. 4. 8. So Rom. 4. 13. The Promise to Abraham that he should be heir of the world is declared not to be by the Law or to have its accomplishment under the first Covenant-dispensation but through the righteousnesse of faith that it might be by grace to the end the Promise might be sure to all the seed not to that only which is of the Law but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham who with other beleevers died and received not the making good thereof It therefore remains to be performed in its due time at this manifestation of the Sonnes of God which faith sees and acknowledges Heb. 11. 39. These all having obtained a good report through faith received not the promise to wit this promise of being heirs of the world and of all Nations being blessed in and by the meanes of the spiritual seed which will certainly be fulfilled to them in the times of the NEW HEAVENS AND NEW EARTH Isa 65. 17. c. God having foreseene and reserved some better thing for us saith the Author to the Hebrews that they without us should not be made perfect but that all of us may enjoy that better thing together at once in the keeping of a holy Sabbath unto the Lord at the coming of this day of God in which the Heavens that
preserving of them during the thousand years in this their spotlesse sinlesse nature not suffering the Devil to annoy them or deceive the Nations till the thousand years be fulfilled executing upon the rebellious and disobedient his fiery vengeance and indignation to the cutting them off from the Land of the living as Ananias and Sapphira were dealt with making good that Word of the Lord Act 3. 23. And it shall come to passe that every soul which will not hear that Prophet in these his dayes he shall be destroyed from among the people For all those that shall then discover that they love not the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity shall be Anathema Maranatha or accursed by this coming and from this presence of the Lord. And therefore we are to know that the natural generation of men which shall be in those dayes how pure and spotlesse soever their fleshly nature be yet being but mutable will have either a good or an evil change passe upon them The good we have already spoken to and of the evil we shall say but little here since we have so at large treated of it also as it is the serpentine seed growing up in and under that which is good to the fixing and hardning of men at last in an implacable rage and enmity against Christ in his heavenly and second appearance For this hardning when it is perfected proves an unchangable enmity and brings on the spiritual or SECOND DEATH wrought out in the natural mind which is not subject to the Law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus nor ever can be no place being now left for repentance These vessels of wrath will then be raised to everlasting contempt and will have the perfect exercise of their natural sences in spirit soul and body fitted and prepared for the taking in of the full vials thereof that shall be poured out upon them for ever from the presence of the Lord Yea for this purpose they are also heightned to a partaking with the wicked Angels in the raisednesse of their Angelical beings so as to become of equal capacity with the evil Angels through the power of the resurrection from the dead that raises them up into everlasting contempt and gives them their portion with the Devil and his Angels unto whom they serve as a Temple and habitation in like manner as the Saints in their glorified body are the Tabernacle of God And in this Idols Temple the Devil shall be so able to transforme himself into an Angel of light by the experience he will have gained during the thousand years and so to transform his Ministers also as the Ministers of righteousnesse and Apostles of Christ that he shall have the confidence at the end of the thousand years when he shall again be let loose to embody his party of wicked Angels and men from all quarters and come up in this seeming glorious posture to vie it out at last with the New Jerusalem the City of the living God in this its earthly state gathering Gog and Magog to battel the number of whom is as the sand of the Sea who hoping to carry all before them shall come up on the breadth of the earth and compasse the camp of the Saints about the Beloved City desiring and endeavouring to swallow up that Assembly of true Saints on earth who have not had as yet their finall change brought upon them but are waiting for it universally to be accomplished at the end of the thousand years At which period of time the Devil being let loose and putting forth his last and utmost power doth play his game by transforming his party into the likenesse of the glorified body of Christ and his Saints gathering into one counterfeit spiritual body all his children and servants whose coming then shall be with such power and signes and lying wonders as were never put forth by him before Then Christ in a moment shall finally perfect his glorious change upon all the Elect and carry them all up with him to the mansions provided for them in his Fathers house from whence he sends down fire to devour all their adversaries and the whole visible frame of the creation casting the Devil into the Lake of fire where the BEAST and FALSE PROPHET are and shall be tormented for ever day and night by vertue of the just judgement of God which then shall be revealed against the wicked when the last JUDGEMENT shall be set and there shall appeare a great white Throne and one sitting upon it from whose face the heaven and the earth shall flee away so that there shall be no more place found for them even for that heaven and earth wherein there had beene made a full restitution of all things in those times of refreshing from the presence of the Lord during the reigne of the thousand years Then the great and last universal day of judgement shall be brought forth when the dead small and great shall be made to stand up before God and then the books will be opened and another book will be opened which is the book of life and the dead shall be judged out of those things that are written in the books And the sea shall give up the dead that are in it and death and hell shall deliver up the dead that are in them and they shall be judged every man according to their works To be more particular in describing the state of things as to the change which does respect the whole creature during this thousand years will be needlesse considering that the general expressions are so clear and full that it shall be a glorious pure incorrupt state unto the whole creation which shall then keep a holy Sabbath and Rest unto the Lord a seventh part of the time of the worlds continuance in which there shall be no sowing of the field nor pruning of the vineyard nor exacting any labour from the creature but what in voluntary service it shall performe by way of homage and worship unto Christ for the use of his Saints during the thousand years who are yet in their corruptible natural body expecting their great change Even so come Lord Jesus Come quickly FINIS
that sacrifice Jer. 32. 35. which was expresly prohibited Lev. 18. 21. and they threatned with death that should be found practisers hereof Chap. 20. 2 3. yea if men be found conniving in such case as loth to discover the offender God farther declares that he himself wil come forth in his wrathful appearance or face to do execution as it is written v. 4 5. If the people of the Land do any wayes hide their eyes from the man when he giveth of his seed unto Molech and kill him not or cause not execution to be done upon him then will I set my face against that man and against his family and I will cut him off and all those that go thus a whoring after Molech This just judgement and severity of God in his proceeding against this sin as practised in that lowest and most literal sense under the Law will be found in the issue not to be lessened or mitigated but rather much heightned and raised to appear in a more flaming execution of vengeance upon all such in whom this sin finally takes place in a more sublimated and spiritual way to the offering up of their own living bodies and the sensual comforts thereof in a strange fire to the Devil which they ought by fire from heaven taken off the true Altar Christ to have offered up in sacrifice unto God Rom. 12. 1. Secondly the same Scripture 2 Tim. 2. 17 18. that intimates this way of mortification does also mention the proportionable vivification accompanying it called there the resurrection which such false guides do affirme to be already past in them looking for nothing as future or to come of hell or heaven to the quickning or raising them up into the utmost perfection of life and glory as their attainment whilst herein this life and before that redemption of the body mentioned Rom. 8. 23. which the Saints and the creature it self yet groane after and wait for This resurrection of theirs is called 2 Col. 18. a worshipping of Angels in a voluntary humility intruding into those things which they have not seene as taking it for granted they are hereby made the true spiritual seed and that they are enter'd within the veile as having passed through the STRAIT GATE and undergone the BAPTISME of the HOLY GHOST AND OF FIRE and so that they are also come to be intirely under the teachings of the Father as actual possessors and inheritors of his everlasting Kingdome and glory In all this they are seduced and made through strong delusion to beleeve a lie being vainly puffed up in their fleshly minde to the despising and undervaluing of Christ the Mediatour yea 2 Pet. 2. 1. to the bringing in of damnable heresies privily by cunning sleights and beguiling insinuations even to a denying of the Lord that bought them in the incommunicable properties of his Godhead by esteeming and at length in down-right termes asserting themselves to be God or at least to be as much the Sonnes of God in all respects as Christ himself in his own person who is God blessed for ever in consequence whereof we shall finde them at length owning an everlasting and general salvation of all men and Angels This is that posture of spirit into which that old Serpent called the Devill and Satan swells up those that are thus deceived by him in down-right opposition at length to Christ and God asserting himselfe in them and so causing them to assert and own themselves through his inspirations and indwelling presence in them to be both Christ and God Father and Sonne or another while to affirme that there is no God no Heaven no Hell no Angel or Spirit as the Sadduces for if he can perswade them either that he is God or else that there is no God at all he hath enough And in order to make this witness of theirs to stand and take place against all opposition from the true light when he has cried down the living WORD OF GOD into a meere equality on all accounts with the creature or advanced himselfe and his children into the room and place of God himselfe or partnership at least with the WORD in his incommunicable properties but then findes that the outward Word of God can very difficultly be made use of long to countenance either of these designes by degrees he labours to draw them into a state of alienation to that also rendring even the written Word nauseous and despicable to them and causing them to fall a slighting the Scriptures this outward Word of God which rightly represented gives forth the discovery and pleads for the true interest of the inward and living WORD and so professedly to disown all bodily or outward worship and service whatsoever as carnal and inconsistent with the spiritual service they performe Hereupon some of them also forbid marriage and other lawful creature-comforts as called to abstinence and a Virgin-life by which Rule the spirit they live and walk in judges marriage unlawful and commands to abstaine from meats two signal characters of this spirit held forth undeniably to our view 1 Tim. 4. 3. And in all this they carry a shew of wisdome in wilworship neglecting of the body and all things done in honour or satisfaction thereunto as hath been said To these also belong those characters in Jude and Peter where it is said of such that they count it pleasure to riot in the day-time or under pretence of highest light and spirituality to turne the grace of God into wantonnesse and so at last returne with the dog to the vomit and the washed sow to her wallowing in the mire yea and that avowedly in point of judgement now as a condition they can satisfie their owne consciences in and in which they undertake to justifie themselves against all contradiction These by Peter are called spots and blemishes sporting themselves with their own self-deceivings in their feastings with others having eyes full of adultery beguiling unstable souls and alluring through much wantonnesse them that were cleane escaped from those that live in error Yet all this while they will confidently own themselves as lovers and favorers of the Spirit of TRUTH notwithstanding that they live unto a spirit of falshood in the sight of God even in whoredome and defilement with the father of lies But because many of these may be so meerely deceived as verily to think themselves with a chaste and Spouse-like affection to be embracing of Christ their true Lord and husband and so may be doing what they do ignorantly and not wilfully the Scripture sayes in such case Of some have compassion making a difference and others save with fear pulling them with a holy severity out of the fire lest otherwise they finally perish for this is that kinde of sinning which is unto death and therefore unpardonable when it is done knowingly and wilfully This false seducing spirit is capable of putting forth it self in a greater or lesser degree in and under all