of our souls we are readie to think of Christ Jesus as a stranger to us as one aloof off in another world apprehended onely by fits in a kind of ineffectuall speculation without any lively feeling of our own interesse in him whereas we ought by the powerfull operation of this grace in our hearts to finde so heavenly an appropriation of Christ to our souls as that every beleever may truly say I am one with Christ Christ is one with me Had we not good warrant for so high a challenge it could bee no lesse then a blasphemous arrogance to lay claim to the royall bloud of heaven but since it hath pleased the God of heaven so far to dignifie our unworthinesse as in the multitudes of his mercies to admit and allow us to be partakers of the divine nature it were no other then an unthankfull stupidity not to lay hold on so glorious a priviledge and to goe for lesse then God hath made us Know now my son that thou art upon the ground of all consolation to thy soul which consists in this beatificall union with thy God and Saviour think not therefore to passe over this important mystery with some transient and perfunctory glances but let thy heart dwell upon it as that which must stick by thee in all extremities and chear thee up when thou art forsaken of all worldly comforts Doe not then conceive of this union as some imaginary thing that hath no other beeing but in the braine whose faculties have power to apprehend and bring home to it self far remote substances possessing it self in a sort of whatsoever it conceives Doe not think it an union meerly virtuall by the participation of those spirituall gifts and graces which God worketh in the soul as the comfortable effects of our happy conjunction with Christ Doe not think it an accidentall union in respect of some circumstances and qualities wherein we communicate with him who is God and man nor yet a metaphoricall union by way of figurative resemblance but know that this is a true reall essentiall substantiall union whereby the person of the beleever is indissolubly united to the glorious person of the Son of God know that this union is not more mysticall then certain that in naturall unions there may bee more evidence there cannot be more truth neither is there so firm and close an union betwixt the soul body as there is betwixt Christ and the beleeving soul for as much as that may be severed by death but this never Away yet with all grosse carnality of conceit this union is true and really existent but yet spirituall and if some of the Ancients have tearm'd it naturall and bodily it hath been in respect of the subject united our humanity to the two blessed natures of the Son of God met in one most glorious person not in respect of the manner of the uniting Neither is it the lesse reall because spirituall Spirituall agents neither have nor put forth any whit lesse vertue because sense cannot discern their manner of working Even the Loadstone though an earthen substance yet when it is out of sight whether under the Table or behinde a solid partition stirreth the needle as effectually as if it were within view shall not hee contradict his senses that will say it cannot work because I see it not Oh Saviour thou art more mine then my body is mine my sense feels that present but so as that I must lose it my faith sees and feels thee so present with mee that I shall never be parted from thee There is no resemblance whereby the Spirit of God more delights to set forth the heavenly union betwixt Christ and the beleever then that of the head and the body The head gives sense and motion to all the members of the body And the body is one not onely by the continuity of all the parts held together with the same naturall ligaments and covered with one and the same skin but much more by the animation of the same soul quickning that whole frame in the acting whereof it is not the large extent of the stature and distance of the lims from each other that can make any difference The body of a child that is but a span long cannot bee said to be more united then the vast body of a giantly son of Anak whose height is as the Cedars and if we could suppose such a body as high as heaven it self that one soul which dwels in it and is diffused through all the parts of it would make it but one entire body Right so it is with Christ and his Church That one Spirit of his which dwels in and enlives every beleever unites all those far-distant members both to each other and to their head and makes them up into one true mysticall body So as now every true beleever may without presumption but with all holy reverence and all humble thankfulnesse say to his God and Saviour Behold Lord I am how unworthy soever one of the lims of thy body and therefore have a right to all that thou hast to all that thou doest Thine eye sees for me thine ear hears for me thine hand acts for me Thy life thy grace thy happinesse is mine Oh the wonder of the two blessed unions In the personall union it pleased God to assume and unite our humane nature the Deitie In the spirituall and mysticall it pleases God to unite the person of every beleever to the person of the Son of God Our souls are too narrow to blesse God enough for these incomprehensible mercies Mercies wherein he hath preferred us be it spoken with all godly lowlinesse to the blessed Angels of heaven For verily he took not upon him the nature of Angels but he took on him the seed of Abraham Neither hath he made those glorious spirits members of his mysticall body but his saints whom he hath as it were so incorporated that they are become his body and he theirs according to that of the divine Apostle For as the body is one and hath many members and all the members of that one body being many are one body so also is Christ. Next hereunto there is no resemblance of this mystery either more frequent or more full of lively expression then that of the conjugall union betwixt the husband and wife Christ is as the head so the husband of the Church The Church and every beleeving soul is the Spouse of this heavenly Bridegroom whom hee marrieth unto himselfe for ever in righteousnesse and in judgement and in loving kindnesse and in mercies and this match thus made up fulfils that decretive word of the Almighty They twain shal be one flesh O happy conjunction of the second Adam with her which was taken out of his most precious side Oh heavenly and compleat marriage wherein God the Father brings and gives the Bride All that the Father giveth me shall come
to me saith Christ wherein God the Son receives the Bride as mutually partaking of the same nature and can say This now is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh wherein God the holy Ghost knits our wils in a full and glad consent to the full consummation of this blessed wedlock And those whom God hath thus joyned together let no man no Devill can put asunder What is there then which an affectionate husband can withhold from a dear wife He that hath given himself to her what can be deny to impart He that hath made himself one with her how can he be divided from his other-self Some wilde fancies there are that have framed the linkes of marriage of so brittle stuffe as that they may be knapt in sunder upon every sleight occasion but he that ordained it in Paradise for an earthly representation of this heavenly union betwixt Christ and his Church hath made that and his own indissoluble Here is no contract in the future which upon some intervenient accidents may be remitted but I am my welbeloveds and my welbeloved is mine And therefore each is so others that neither of them is their own Oh the comfortable mystery of our uniting to the Son of God! The wife hath not the power of her own body but the husband We are at thy disposing ô Saviour we are not our own Neither art thou so absolutely thine as that we may not through thine infinite mercy claim an interesse in thee Thou hast given us such a right in thy self as that wee are bold to lay challenge to all that is thine to thy love to thy merits to thy blessings to thy glory It was wont of old to be the plea of the Roman wives to their husbands Where thou art Caius I am Caia and now in our present marriages we have not stuck to say With all my worldly goods I thee endow And if it be thus in our imperfect conjunctions here upon earth how much more in that exquisite one-nesse which is betwixt thee ô blessed Saviour and thy dearest Spouse the Church What is it then that can hinder us from a sweet and heavenly fruition of thee Is it the loathsome condition of our nature Thou sawst this before and yet couldst say when we were yet in our bloud Live Had we not been so vile thy mercy had not been so glorious thy free grace did all for us Thou washedst us with water and anointedst us with oyle and cloathedst us with broidered work and girdedst us about with fine linnen and coveredst us with silk and deckedst us with ornaments and didst put bracelets upon our hands and a chain on our neck and jewels on our fore-heads and eare-rings on our ears and a beautifull crown on our heads What we had not thou gavest what thou didst not find thou madest that we might be a not-unmeet match for the Lord of life Is it want of beauty Behold I am black but comely what ever our hiew be in our own or others eyes it is enough that we are lovely in thine Behold thou art fair my beloved behold thou art faire yea pleasant Thou art beautifull O my love as Tirzah comely as Jerusalem How fair and how pleasant art thou O Love for delights But oh Saviour if thou take contentment in this poor unperfect beauty of thy Spouse the Church how infinite pleasure should thy Spouse take in that absolute perfection that is in thee who art all lovelinesse and glory And if she have ravished thy heart with one of her eyes how much more reason hath her heart to be wholly ravished with both thine which are so full of grace and amiablenesse and in this mutuall fruition what can there be other then perfect blessednesse The Spirit of God well knowing how much it imports us both to know and feel this blessed union whereof himself is the onely worker labours to set it forth to us by the representations of many of our familiar concernments which we daily finde in our meats and drinks in our houses in our gardens and orchards That which is nearest to us is our nourishment What can bee more evident then that the bread the meat the drinke that we receive is incorporated into us and becomes part of the substance whereof we consist so as after perfect digestion there can be no distinction betwixt what we are and what wee took Whiles that bread was in the bing and that meat in the shambles and that drink in the vessell it had no relation to us nor we to it yea whiles all these were on the Table yea in our mouths yea newly let down into our stomacks they are not fully ours for upon some nauseating dislike of nature they may yet go the same way they came but if the concoction be once fully finished now they are so turned into our blood and flesh that they can be no more distinguished from our former substance then that could be divided from it self now they are dispersed into the veins and concorporated to the flesh and no part of our flesh and blood is more ours then that which was lately the bloud of the grapes and the flesh of this fowl or that beast Oh Saviour thou who art truth it selfe hast said I am the living bread that came down from heaven My flesh is meat indeed and my blood is drink indeed and thereupon hast most justly inferred He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood dwelleth in mee and I in him and as a necessary consequent of this spirituall manducation Whoso eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath eternall life Lo thou art bread indeed not the common bread but Manna not the Israelitish Manna alas that fell from no higher then the region of clouds and they that ate it died with it in their mouths but thou art the living bread that came down from the heaven of heavens of whom whosoever eats lives for ever Thy flesh is meat not for our stomacks but for our souls our faith receives and digests thee and makes thee ours and us thine our materiall food in these corruptible bodies runs into corruption thy spirituall food nourisheth purely and strengthens us to a blessed immortality As for this materiall food many a one longs for it that cannot get it many a one hath it that cannot eat it many eat it that cannot digest it many digest it into noxious and corrupt humours all that receive it do but maintain a perishing life if not a languishing death but this flesh of thine as it was never withheld from any true appetite so it never yeelds but wholesome and comfortable sustenance to the soul never hath any other issue then an everlasting life and happinesse O Saviour whensoever I sit at mine own Table let mee think of thine whensoever I feed on the bread and meat that is set before mee and feel
make our breasts the Temples of thy holy Ghost When thine holy mother came to visit the partner of her joy thy fore-runner then in the womb of his mother sprang for the joy of thy presence though distermined by a second womb how should we be affected with a ravishment of spirit whom thou hast pleased to visit in so much mercy as to come down into us and to be spiritually conceived in the womb of our hearts and thereby to give a new and spirituall life to our poore souls a life of thine own yet made ours a life begun in grace and ending in eternall glory Never did the holy God give a priviledge where he did not expect a duty hee hath more respect to his glory then to throw away his favours The life that ariseth from this blessed union of our souls with Christ as it is the height of all his mercies so it cals for our most zealous affections and most effectuall improvement Art thou then thus happily united to Christ and thus enlived by Christ how entire must thou needs be with him how dear must thy valuations be of him how heartily must thou be devoted to him The spirit of man saith wise Solomon is the candle of the Lord searching all the inward parts of the belly and therefore cannot but be acquainted with his own inmates and finding so heavenly a guest as the Spirit of Christ in the secret lodgings of his soul applyes it self to him in all things so as these two spirits agree in all their spirituall concernments The Spirit it self saith the holy Apostle beareth witnesse with our spirit that we are the children of God and not in this case onely but upon whatsoever occasion the faithfull man hath this Urim in his breast may coÌ„sult with this inward Oracle of his God for direction and resolution in all his doubts neither can he according to the counsell of the Psalmist commune with his own heart but that Christ who lives there is ready to give him an answer Shortly our souls and we are one and the soul and life are so near one that the one is commonly taken for the other Christ therefore who is the life and soul of our souls is and needs must be so intrinsecall to us that we cannot so much as conceive of our spirituall beeing without him Thou needest not be told my son how much thou valuest life Besides thine own sense Satan himself can tell thee and in this case thou maist beleeve him Skin for skin and all that a man hath will he give for his life What ransome can be set upon it that a man would stick to give though mountains of gold though thousands of â—â—ms or ten thousand rivers of oyl Yea how readily doe we expose our dear lims not to hazard onely but to losse for the preservation of it Now alas what is our life It is even a vapor that appeareth for a little time and then vanisheth away And if we doe thus value a perishing life that is going out every moment what price shall we set upon eternity If Christ be our life how precious is that life which neither inward distempers nor outward violences can bereave us of which neither can be decayed by time nor altered with crosse events Hear the chosen Vessel What things were gain to me those I counted losse for Christ Yea doubtless I count all things but losse for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord for whom I have suffered the losse of all things and doe count them but dung that I may win Christ and as one that did not esteem his own life dear to him in respect of that better always saith he bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body How chearfully have the noble and conquering armies of holy Martyrs given away these momentany lives that they might hold fast their Jesus the life of their souls and who can be otherwise affected that knows and feels the infinite happinesse that offers it self to be enjoyed by him in the Lord Jesus Lastly if Christ bee thy life then thou art so devoted to him that thou livest as in him and by him so to him also aiming onely at his service and glory and framing thy self wholly to his will and directions Thou canst not so much as eat or drink but with respect to him Oh the gracious resolution of him that was rapt into the third heaven worthy to be the pattern of all faithfull hearts According to my earnest expectation and my hope that in nothing I shall be ashamed but that with all boldnesse as always so now also Christ shall be magnified in my body whether it be by life or by death For to me to live is Christ and to dye is gain Our naturall life is not worthy to be its own scope we doe not live meerly that we may live our spirituall life Christ is the utmost and most perfect end of all our living without the intuition whereof we would not live or if we should our naturall life were no other then a spirituall death Oh Saviour let me not live longer then I shall be enlived by thee or then thou shalt be glorified by me And what rule should I follow in all the carriage of my life but thine thy precepts thine examples that so I may live thee as well as preach thee and in both may finde thee as thou hast truly laid forth thy self the way the truth and the life the way wherein I shall walk the truth which I shall beleeve and professe and the life which I shall enjoy In all my morall actions therefore teach me to square my self by thee what ever I am about to doe or speak or affect let me think If my Saviour were now upon earth would he doe this that I am now putting my hand unto would he speak these words that I am now uttering would he be thus disposed as I now feel my self Let me not yeeld my self to any thought word or action which my Saviour would be ashamed to own Let him be pleased so to manage his own life in me that all the interesse he hath given me in my self may bee wholly surrendred to him that I may be as it were dead in my self whiles he lives and moves in me By vertue of this blessed union as Christ is become our life so that which is the highest improvement not onely of the rationall but the supernaturall and spirituall life is he thereby also made unto us of God Wisdome Righteousnesse Sanctification and Redemption Not that he onely workes these great things in and for us this were too cold a construction of the divine bounty but that he really becomes all these to us who are true partakers of him Even of the wisest men that ever nature could boast
his sacrifices unto God his faith listens and looks in at the door of heaven to know how they are taken Every man shows fair in prosperity but the main triall of the Christian is in suffering any man may steer in a good gale and clear sea but the Mariners skill will be seen in a tempest Herein the Christian goes beond the Pagans not practise onely but admiration We rejoyce in tribulation saith the chosen Vessel Lo here a point transcending all the affectatiō of Heathenism Perhaps some resolute spirit whether out of a naturall fortitude or out of an ambition of fame or earthly glory may set a face upon a patient enduring of losse or pain but never any of those heroick Gentils durst pretend to a joy in suffering Hither can Christian courage reach knowing that tribulation worketh patience and patience experience and experience hope and hope maketh not ashamed Is he bereaved of his goods and worldly estate he comforts himself in the conscience of a better treasure that can never be lost Is he afflicted with sicknesse his comfort is that the inward man is so much more renued daily as the outward perisheth Is he slandered and unjustly disgraced his comfort is that there is a blessing which will more then make him amends Is he banished he knows he is on his way home-ward Is he imprisoned his spirit cannot be lockt in God and his Angels cannot be lockt out Is he dying To him to live is Christ and to dye is gain Is he dead He rests from his labours and is crowned with glory Shortly he is perfect gold that comes more pure out of the fire then it went in neither had ever been so great a Saint in heaven if he had not passed through the flames of his triall here upon earth He knows himself never out of danger and therefore stands ever upon his guard neither of his hands are empty the one holds out the shield of faith the other manageth the sword of the spirit both of them are employed in his perpetuall conflict He cannot be weary of resisting but resolves to dye fighting He hath a ward for every blow and as his eye is quick to discern temptations so is his hand and foot nimble to avoid them He cannot be discouraged with either the number or power of his enemies knowing that his strength is out of himself in him in whom he can doe all things and that there can be no match to the Almighty He is carefull not to give advantage to his vigilant adversary and therefore warily avoids the occasions of sinne and if at any time he be overtaken with the suddainnesse or subtilty of a temptation he speedily recovers himself by a serious repentance and fights so much the harder because of his foil He hates to take quarter of these spirituall powers nothing lesse then death can put an end to this quarrell nor nothing below victory He is not so carefull to keep his soul within his teeth as to send it forth well addressed for happinesse as knowing therefore the last brunt to be most violent he rouzeth up his holy fortitude to encounter that King of fear his last enemy Death And now after a painfull sicknesse and a resolute expectation of the fiercest assault it fals out with him as in the meeting of the two hostile brothers Jacob and Esau in stead of grapling he findes a courteous salutation for stabs kisses for height of enmity offices of love Life could never befriend him so much as Death offers to doe That tenders him perhaps a rough but a sure hand to lead him to glory and receives a welcome accordingly Neither is there any cause to marvell at the change The Lord of life hath wrought it He having by dying subdued death hath reconciled it to his own and hath as it were beaten it into these fair tearms with all the members of his mysticall body so as whiles unto the enemies of God Death is still no other then a terrible executioner of divine vengeance he is to all that are in Christ a plausible and sure convoy unto blessednesse The Christian therefore now laid upon his last bed when this grim senger comes to fetch him to heaven looks not so much at his dreadfull visage as at his happy errand and is willing not to remember what death is in it self but what it is to us in Christ by whom it is made so usefull and beneficiall that we could not be happy without it Here then comes in the last act and employment of faith for after this brunt passed there is no more use of faith but of vision that heartens the soul in a lively apprehension of that blessed Saviour who both led him the way of suffering and is making way for him to everlasting glory That shews him Jesus the Authour and finisher of our faith who for the joy that was set before him endured the Crosse despising the shame and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God That clings close unto him and lays unremoveable hold upon his person his merits his blessednesse upon the wings of this faith is the soul ready to mount up toward that heaven which is open to receive it and in that act of evolation puts it self into the hands of those blessed Angels who are ready to carry it up to the throne of Glory Sic O sic juvat vivere sic perire FINIS § 1. How to be happy in the apprehending of Christ. 2 Tim. 1. 12. 1 Tim. 2. 5 1 Joh. 2. 1. Joh. 14. 1. Luther in Gal. § 2. The honour and happiness of being united to Christ. Job 17. 14. Gen. 2. 23. Eph. 5. 30. 2 Pet. 1. 4. § 3. The kind and manner of this union with Christ. § 4. The resemblāce of this union by the head body Heb. 2. 16. 1 Cor. 12. 12. § 5. This union set forth by the resemblāce of the husband and wife Esa. 62. 5. Hose 2. 19. Ephe. 5. 31. Gen. 2. 24. Gen. 2. 22. Joh. 6. 37. Joh. 1. 14. Gen. 2. 23. Cant. 6. 3. Cant. 2. 16. 1 Cor. 7. 4. Ezek. 16. 6. 〈…〉 16. 〈…〉 11 Cant. 1. 5. Cant. 1. 16 Cant. 6. 3. Cant. 7. 6. Cant. 5. 16. Cant. 4. 9. § 6. The resemblāce of this union by the nourishment and the body Joh. 6. 51. 55. 56. 54. § 7. This union resēbled by the brāch and the stock the foundation and the building Joh. 15. 5 6 Rom. 11. 1 Pet. 2. 6. 1 Cor. 3. 11 2 Pet. 2. 5. § 8. The certainty indissolublenesse of this union Heb. 13. 8. Jam. 1. 17. Mal. 2. 16. Eph. 5. 29. 1 Joh. 3. 16. Joh. 13. 1. Mal. 2. 16. Rev. 22. 2. Joh. 17. 20 21 22. § 9. The priviledges benefits of this union The first of them Life Col. 3. 4. Phil. 1. 21. Gal. 2. 20. 2 Cor. 13. 5 Gen. 25. 22. Rom. 7. 18 Rom. 7. 22 Col. 3. 1. Gal. 4. 19.
my self nourished by that repast let me mind that better sustenance which my soul receives from thee and finde thee more one with me then that bodily food Look but into thy Garden or Orchard and see the Vine or any other fruit-bearing tree how it grows and fructifies The branches are loaden with increase whence is this but that they are one with the stock and the stock one with the root were either of these severed the plant were barren and dead The branch hath not sap enough to maintain life in it self unlesse it receive it from the body of the tree nor that unlesse it derived it from the root nor that unlesse it were cherished by the earth Lo I am the Vine saith our Saviour Ye are the branches He that abideth in me and I in him the same bringeth forth much fruit If a man abide not in me he is cast forth as a branch and is withered were the branch and the body of the tree of different substances and only closed together in some artificiall contiguity no fruit could be expected from it it is onely the abiding in the tree as a living lim of that plant which yeelds it the benefit and issue of vegetation No otherwise is it betwixt Christ and his Church the bough and the tree are not more of one piece then we are of one substance with our Saviour and branching out from him and receiving the sap of heavenly vertue from his precious root we cannot but be acceptably fruitfull But if the Analogie seem not to be so full for that the branch issues naturally from the tree and the fruit from the branch wheras we by nature have no part in the Son of God take that clearer resemblance which the Apostle fetches from the stock and the griffe or cion The branches of the wilde olive are cut off and are graffed with choice cions of the good olive those impes grow and are now by this insition no lesse embodyed in that stock then if they had sprouted out by a natural propagation neither can be any more separated from it then the strongest bough that nature puts forth In the mean time that cion alters the nature of that stock and whiles the root gives fatnesse to the stock and the stocke yeelds juice to the cion the cion gives goodnesse to the plant and a specification to the fruit so as whiles the impe is now the same thing with the stock the tree is different from it was So it is betwixt Christ and the beleeving soul Old Adam is our wilde stock what could that have yeelded but either none or sowre fruit we are imped with the new man Christ that is now incorporated into us we are become one with him our nature is not more ours then he is ours by grace now we bear his fruit and not our own our old stock is forgotten all things are become new our naturall life we receive from Adam our spirituall life and growth from Christ from whom after the improvement of this blessed insition we can be no more severed then he can be severed from himself Look but upon thy house that from vegetative creatures thou maist turne thine eyes to those things which have no life if that be uniform the foundation is not of a different matter from the wals both those are but one piece the superstructure is so raised upon the foundation as if all were but one stone Behold Christ is the chiefe corner stone elect and precious neither can there be any other foundation laid then that which is laid on him we are lively stones built up to a spirituall house on that sure and firm foundation some loose stones perhaps that lye unmortered upon the battlements may be easily shaken down but whoever saw a squared marble laid by line and levell in a strong wall upon a well-grounded base flye out of his place by whatsoever violence since both the strength of the foundation below and the weight of the fabrick above have setled it in a posture utterly unmoveable Such is our spirituall condition O Saviour thou art our foundation we are laid upon thee and are therein one with thee we can no more be dis-joyned from thy foundation then the stones of thy foundation can be dis-united from themselves So then to sum up all as the head and members are but one body as the husband and wife are but one flesh as our meat and drink becomes part of our selves as the tree and branches are but one plant as the foundation and wals are but one fabrick so Christ and the beleeving soul are indivisibly one with each other Where are those then that goe about to divide Christ from himself Christ reall from Christ mysticall yeelding Christ one with himself but not one with his Church making the true beleever no lesse separable from his Saviour then from the entirenesse of his own obedience dreaming of the uncomfortable and self-contradicting paradoxes of the totall and finall Apostasie of saints Certainly these men have never thorowly digested the meditation of this blessed union whereof wee treat Can they hold the beleeving soul a lim of that body whereof Christ is the head and yet imagine a possibility of dissolution Can they affain to the Sonne of God a body that is unperfect Can they think that body perfect that hath lost his lims Even in this mysticall body the best joynts may be subject to strains yea perhaps to some painfull and perilous luxations but as it was in the naturall body of Christ when it was in death most exposed to the cruelty of all enemies that upon an over-ruling providence not a bone of it could be broken so it is still and ever with the spirituall some scourgings and blows it may suffer yea perhaps some bruises and gashes but no bone can be shattered in peeces much lesse dissevered from the rest of the body Were we left to our selves or could we be so much as in conceit sundred from the body whereof we are alas we are but as other men subject to the same sinfull infirmities to the same dangerous and deadly miscarriages but since it hath pleased the God of heaven to unite us to himself now it concerns him to maintain the honour of his own body by preserving us entire Can they acknowledge the faithfull soul married in truth and righteousnesse to that celestiall husband and made up into one flesh with the Lord of glory can they think of any Bils of divorce written in heaven can they suppose that which by way of type was done in the earthly Paradise to be really undone in the heavenly What an infinite power hath put together can they imagine that a limited power can disjoyn Can they think sin can be of more prevalence then mercy Can they think the unchangeable God subject to after-thoughts Even the Jewish repudiations never found favour in heaven They were permitted as a lesser evill to avoid