Adversaries term it of the Soul 's being able to act after the death of the Body from the Philosophy of Plato it had been even impossible for them to forgoe the latter part concerning the Pre-existent life of the Soul before she comes into these Bodies which is the thing I have all this while driven at CHAP. IX 1. Proofs out of Scripture That the Soul does not sleep after death as 1 Peter 3. with the explication thereof 2. The Authors Paraphrase compared with Calvin's Interpretation 3. That Calvin needed not to suppose the Apostle to have writ false Greek 4. Two waies of interpreting the Apostle so as both Grammatical Soloecisme and Purgatory may be declined 5. The second way of Interpretation 6. A second proof out of Scripture 7. A third of like nature with the former 8. A further enforcement and explication thereof 9. A fourth place 10. A fifth from Hebr. 12. where God is called the Father of Spirits c. 11. A sixth testimony from our Saviours words Matth. 20.28 1. BUT that this so Usefull and Comfortable a Doctrine of the Soul 's living and subsisting after the shipwrack of this Body may be firmly established I shall further adde what plain Evidences there are in Scripture for the proof thereof For as for those of Reason I shall refer you again to my above-named Treatise Book 2. ch 16 17 and 18. And I conceive that of 1 Pet. 3. v. 18 19 20. is none of the meanest if Prejudice and Violence wrest it not out of its genuine sense which any man may easily apprehend to be this For Christ also has once suffered for sins the just for the unjust that he might bring us to God being put to death as to his Body or Flesh but yet safe and alive as to his Soul and Spirit By which also he went and preached unto the separated Souls and Spirits in prison which sometimes were disobedient viz. in the days of Noe. 2. That solid interpreter of Scripture Iohn Calvin expounds it in the main according to this Paraphrase only for being alive as to his Soul or Spirit he reads it vivificatus Spiritu meaning by Spirit the Spirit of God But it is plain that the Antithesis is more patt and punctual as we have rendred it and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is as warrantably interpreted to be alive as to be made alive as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is to be grave not to be made grave Beside 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as well as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Greek Septuagint signifies not only to revive one dead but to save alive according to which sense we have translated 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 There is also another slight difference betwixt us in that he had rather have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 translated a watch-tower then a prison Which we should easily admit who alledge this place against the Sleep of the Soul but he acknowledging also that the other sense is good we have not varied from the common Translation The greatest discrepancy is that he conceives that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is put for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Dative for a Genitive absolute but I leave him there to compound that controversie with the Grammarians The truth is the learned and pious Interpreter thought it more tolerable to admit that the Apostle writ false Syntax then unsound Doctrine the fond opinion of the Papistical Purgatory being a worse Soloecisme in Religion then to Latinize in Greek or put a false Case is in Grammar 3. But this being too loose a Principle wholy unsatisfactory to our Adversaries to phansie the Holy Writers to soloecize in their language when we do not like the sense he had better have taken some other course more allowable to save us from the peril of Purgatory and in my judgment there are two either of which will suffice to fence us from the Assaults of the Romanists 4. The first is By observing a latitude of sense in the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For as Aristotle notes in his Metaphys lib. 4. cap. 12. the particle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in composition does not only signifie perfect privation but also 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from whence we may well translate 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 who in times past were not so obedient or so believing as they should be and who were so bad that they might be punished in their bodies and perish in the Deluge but yet so good that at length they must attain to an higher degree of eternal life by Christ's preaching to the dead as is also intimated in the following chapter of this Epistle ver 6. Wherefore acknowledging but Two states viz. of either Hell or Paradise we say that these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 were in the very lowest degree of Paradise in which they were kept as in an inferior Mansion which was as a kind of prison or close custody unto them their desires aspiring higher till there was made a great accession unto their happiness upon Christ's appearing and preaching unto them And this is the very sense that Calvin aims at in his Commentarie upon this place 5. But there is yet another Interpretation which we will propound in the second place as free from the fear of any Purgatory as the former and requires no immutation at all in our foregoing Paraphrase We 'll admit therefore that these Disobedient Souls were in Hell not in the lowest Region but in the more tolerable parts thereof It does not at all from hence follow because Christ in his Spirit exhibited himself to these preached to them and prepared them by the glad tidings of the Gospel after carryed them to Heaven with him in Triumph as a glorious spoil taken out of the jaws of the Devil that there is any Redemption out of Hell now much less any Purgatorie For there were two notable occasions for this such as will never happen again For it respects the Souls of them that were suddenly swept away in the Deluge and the Solemnity of our Saviours Crucifixion and Ascension He even in the midst of Death undermining the Prince of Death and at his Ascension victoriously carrying away these First-fruits of his Suffering and presenting them to his Father in the highest Heaven But to expect from this that there should be still continued a daily or yearly releasment out of Hell or Purgatory is as groundlesly concluded as if because at the solemn Coronation of some great Prince all the prison-doors in some City were flung open Malefactors should infer that they will ever stand open all his whole Reign Thus we see how safe also the easy and obvious sense of this place is which I thought fit to rescue from the torture of other more learned and curious Expositors that it might be able to give its free suffrage for the Confirmation of a Point so usefull as this we have in hand For it is plain that if Christ preached to the dead they
would be which would signifie then at large only the adding of further clothing whether within or without but is to be expounded as circumstances require 4. Being thus fitted for the purpose we shall now briefly paraphrase the six first verses of the 15. chap. which they alledge against us thus 1. For we know that if this Earthly and Mortal Body of ours were destroyed that yet we have an Heavenly one whose Author and Maker is God 2. And for this cause is it that we groan so earnestly to be clothed also with our Heavenly Body within this Earthly 3. Because we being thus clothed when we put off our Earthly Body we shall not be found naked nor our Souls left to float in the crude Air. 4. For we that are in these Earthly Bodies groan earnestly being burdened not as if we had a desire to be stript naked of all Corporeity or that we should be presently rid of these Earthly Bodies before God see fit but that we may have a more Heavenly and Spiritual clothing within that mortality may be swallowed up of life 5. Nor do we arrive to this pitch by our own power but it is God who works upon us as I said both Body and Soul and frames us into this condition by the operation of his holy Spirit which he has given as a pledge of our Eternal Happiness 6. And therefore we are alwaies of a good courage not discontented at any thing For whether we be in this Earthly Body it is tolerable as being our usual and natural home or whether we go out of it which is most desirable we shall then go to the Lord our inward man being so fitly clad for the journey 5. That this is the genuine sense of these verses the 16 verse of the Chapter immediately going before will further confirm where the Apostle saith That though his outward man perish yet his inward man is renewed day by day which is Though his Earthly Body be in a perishing and decaying condition yet his Spiritual and Heavenly gets strength and flourisheth every day more and more Now the Resurrection and Attainment of the Heavenly Body being all one it were worth the while to enquire into the meaning of the Apostle Philipp 3. v. 11. where he professes his unwearied endeavours to attain to the Resurrection of the dead where presently it follows Not as if I had already attained it or as if I were already perfected For if he meant not this Inward Spiritual body inveloped in the Earthly he need not tell the Philippians that he had not yet attain'd it But the Point in hand is sufficiently plain already 6. We have seen what weak Demonstrators the Psychopannychites are against the Life and Operation of Souls out of the Body in their appeals to Scripture We shall now see how improbable their aspersion is of the Opinion being a Pagan or Heathenish invention derived as they say merely from the School of Pythagoras and Plato and from thence introduced into the Church CHAP. VIII 1. That the Opinion of the Soul 's living and acting immediately after Death was not fetched out of Plato by the Fathers because they left out Preexistence an Opinion very rational in it self 2. And such as seems plausible from sundry places of Scripture as those alledged by Menasseh Ben Israel out of Deuteronomy Jeremy and Job 3. as also God's resting on the seventh day 4. That their proclivity to think that the Angel that appeared to the Patriarchs so often was Christ might have been a further inducement 5. Other places of the New Testament which seem to imply the Preexistence of Christ's Soul 6. More of the same kinde out of S. John 7. Force added to the last proofs from the opinion of the Socinians 8. That our Saviour did admit or at least not disapprove the opinion of Preexistence 9. The main scope intended from the preceding allegations namely That the Soul 's living and acting after death is no Pagan opinion out of Plato but a Christian Truth evidenced out of the Scriptures 1. AND I think it is not hard for a man to prove that this sinister conceit of theirs is almost impossible to be true For if the ancient Fathers by vertue of their conversing so much with Plato's writings had brought this opinion of the Souls living and subsisting after death into the Christian Religion they could by no means have omitted the Preexistence of it afore which is so explicite and frequent a Doctrine of the Platonists especially that Tenet being a Key for some main Mysteries of Providence which no other can so handsomly unlock and having so plausible Reasons for it and nothing considerable to be alledged against it For is it not plain that the Soul being an Indivisible and Immaterial Substance can not be generated Now if it be created by God at every effectual act of Venery besides that in general it is harsh that God should precipitate immaculate Souls into defiled Bodies it seems abominable that by so special an act of his as Creation he should be thought to assist Adultery Incest and Buggery Of this see more at large in my Trestise Of the Immortality of the Soul Book 2. chap. 12 13. But they 'l still urge That it was not the Unreasonableness of the Opinion but the Uncompliableness of it with Scripture that made them forgoe the Preexistency of the Soul though they retained her Subsistency Life and Activity after death 2. But it had assuredly been no hard matter for them to have made their Cause plausible even out of Scripture it self The Jewes would have contributed something out of the Old Testament Menasseh Ben Israel cites several places to this purpose as Deuteronomy 29.14 15. insinuating there that God making his covenant with the absent and the present that the Souls of the posterity of the Jewes were then in Being though not there present at the Publication of the Law For the division of the Covenanters into absent and present naturally implies that they Both are though some here some in other places This Text is seriously alledged by the generality of the Jewes for the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of Souls as Grotius has noted upon the place Also Jeremy 1. verse 5. The forenamed Rabbi renders it Antequam formassem te in ventre indidi tibi sapientiam reading 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Piel not in Cal. Before I formed thee in the belly I had made thee of a wise ingenie fitted thee to all holy Knowledge c. We will add a third place Job 38. He renders it Nosti te jam tum natum fuisse Knowest thou that thou wast then born and that the number of thy daies are many Then viz. from the beginning of the Creation or when the Light was made a symbol of Intellectual or Immaterial Beings The Seventy also plainly render it to that sense 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I know that thou wast formed then and that the number
were not asleep at so concerning a Sermon 6. Again 2 Cor. 5. v. 8. We are confident I say and willing rather to be absent from the Body and to be present with the Lord. Here 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 plainly intimates a going out of this Mortal Body not a change of it into an Immortal one therefore we may safely conclude that this courage and willingness of the Apostle to die implies an enjoyment of the presence of Christ after death before the general Resurrection Else why should he rather desire to die then to live but that he expects that Faith should be presently perfected by Sight as he insinuates in the foregoing verse But assuredly better is that enjoyment which is onely by Faith then to have no enjoyment at all as it must be if the Soul cannot operate out of this Body 7. A like Proof to this and further Confirmation of the Truth is that of Philipp 1.21 22 23 24. where the Apostle again professing his courage and forwardness to magnifie Christ in his body whether by life or by death uses the like Argument as before For to me to live is Christ and to die is gain But if I live in the flesh it will be worth my labour yet what I should chuse I wote not For I am in a strife betwixt two having a desire to depart and to be with Christ which is far better Nevertheless to abide in the flesh is more needfull for you 8. The genuine sense of which Place is questionless this That while he lived his life was like Christ's upon Earth innocent but encumbred with much hardship and affliction bearing about in his body the marks of the Lord Jesus but if he died he should then once for all seal to the Truth of his Martyrdome and not onely scape all future troubles which yet the love of Christ his Assistance and Hope of Reward did ever sustain him in but which was his great gain and advantage arrive to an higher fruition of him after whom he had so longing a desire But if to be with Christ were to sleep in his bosome and not so much as to be sensible he is there it were impossible the Apostles affections should be carried so strongly to that state or his judgement should determine it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so exceedingly much better especially his stay in the flesh being so necessary to the Philippians and the rest of the Church and what he suffered and might further suffer in his life no less a Testimony to the Truth then Death it self 9. Fourthly Those phrases of S. Peter 2 Pet. 1.13 Yea I think it meet so long as I am in this Tabernacle to stir you up and put you in remembrance Knowing that I must shortly put off this Tabernacle c. And so vers 15. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in all likelyhood alludes to the same as if his Soul went out of the Body as out of a Tabernacle All these Phrases I say seem to me manifestly to indicate that there is no such necessary Union betwixt the Soul and the Body but she may act as freely out of it as in it as men are nothing the more dull sleepy or senseless by putting off their cloaths and going out of the house but rather more awakened active and sensible 10. Fifthly Hebr. 12. There God is called the Father of Spirits the Corrector and Chastiser of our Souls in contradistinction to our Flesh or Bodies and then vers 22. lifting us up quite above the consideration of our Corporeal condition he brings us to the Mystical mount Sion the City of the living God the Heavenly Jerusalem and to an innumerable company of Angels to the Universal assembly and Church of the first-born which are inrolled in heaven and to God the Iudge of all and to the Spirits of just men made perfect Now I demand what Perfection can be in the Spirits of these just men to be overwhelmed in a senseless Sleep or what a disproportionable and unsutable representation is it of this throng Theatre in Heaven made up of Saints and Angels that so great a part of them as the Souls of the Holy men deceased should be found drooping or quite drown'd in an unactive Lethargie Certainly as it is incongruous in it self so it is altogether inconsistent with the magnificency of the representation which this Author intends in this place 11. Sixthly Matth. 10.28 The life of the Soul separate from the Body is there plainly asserted by our Saviour Fear not them that kill the Body but are not able to kill the Soul but rather fear him who is able to destroy both Body and Soul in Hell i. e. able if he will to destroy the life both of Body and Soul in Hell-fire according to the conceit of those whose opinions I have recited in my Treatise Of the Immortality of the Soul Book 3. chap. 18. or else miserably to punish or afflict both Body and Soul in Hell the torments whereof are worse then Death it self For as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and perire signifie to be excessively miserable so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and perdere may very well signifie to make excessively miserable But now for the former part of the verse but are not able to kill the Soul it is evident that they were able if the Soul could not live separate from the Body For killing of the Body what is it but depriving it of life wherefore if the Soul by the death of the Body be also deprived of life it is manifest that she can be killed which is contrary to our Saviour's Assertion CHAP. X. 1. A pregnant Argument from the State of the Soul of Christ and of the Thief after death 2. Grotius his explication of Christ's promise to the Thief 3. The meaning of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 4. How Christ with the Thief could be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and in Paradise at once 5. That the Parables of Dives and Lazarus and of the unjust Steward implie That the Soul hath life and sense immediately after death 1. WE have yet one more notable Testimony against our Adversaries Our Saviour Christ's Soul and the Thief 's upon the Cross did subsist and live immediately upon the death of the Body as appears from Luke 23.42 43. And he said unto Iesus Lord remember me when thou comest into thy Kingdome And Iesus said unto him Verily I say unto thee This day shalt thou be with me in Paradise As if he should thus answer Thou indeed beggest of me that I would be mindfull of thee when I come into my Kingdome but I will not deferre thee so long onely distrust not the unexpected riches of my goodness to thee For verily I say unto thee That this very day shalt thou be with me in Paradise And there is no evasion from this Interpretation the Syriack as Grotius noteth interpointing betwixt I say unto thee and Today and all the Greek copies as Beza affirmes joyning
their polluted Vehicles less of Heaven then the meanest Regenerate Soul that dwels in these Tabernacles of Earth and that of the Prophet is most true of them that their Sun is gone down at mid-day 3. Sixthly That the Destruction of these Aethereal Vehicles was not an utter Extinction of life to them but onely an Exclusion from the life and pleasures of that Supernal Paradise which they enjoyed in those Heavenly Vehicles For that they now live and move and act is manifest in that the whole World rings of their exploits and villanies 4. Seventhly That the Souls of men which are as much Immortall they being Spirits as those of the faln Angels are are not devoid of life after the death of this Body For as the Souls of the fallen Angels descended from thinner to thicker without the loss of Sense and Life so do our Souls ascend from thicker to thinner habitations with the like if not greater security of acting and living after the Death of the Body 5. Which we shall the easilier believe if we consider how contemptible and homely a thing that Organ is which is the ultimate and immediate conveigher of whatever we perceive in the outward world and which is most remarkable in which alone the Soul has any Sense at all of any thing that arrives to her cognoscence Which if it be not the Animal Spirits within the Brain which makes most of all for us I confess with Cartesius I think it most probable to be the Conarion then which nor Water nor Air nor Aether nor any other Element else seems more Simple and Homogeneal So that the advantage seems not to be in the nature of that Organ but it is because the Soul by those lawes that brought her into the Body has placed her Centre of Perception there 6. Which little Pavilion of the Soul's Centre of Perception being of so gross consistence as it is and becoming thereby less Passive and Alterable it was very requisite that there should be that curious frame of the external Organs of the Eye the Ear the Nose and other parts to strengthen those motions and impressions that they transmit so that they may be able forcibly enough to strike upon the Conarion or at least strike through the Organs and penetrate to the Animal Spirits in the Brain supposing them the most inward and immediate Organ of Perception And that the Conformation of the external Organs of Sense is such that they are to admiration fitted to this end is a thing so well known amongst the Anatomists that I need not insist on the proof of it as it is also among Physitians That none of the external Organs have any Sense at all in them no more then an Acousticon or a Dioptrick glass From whence is discovered the Unreasonableness of their Despair that conceit that when the Soul is devested of her Organical Body she can have no Sense nor Perception of any thing For this curious Organization tends to nothing else but the proportionating the vigour of Motion to the difficulty of its passage through the Nerves or to the grossness of the consistency of the Conarion Which Organical contrivance therefore may not be at all needfull in the Soul separate from the Body the Centre of Perception being placed bare in a more tender and passive Element such as Air Aether and the like So that it will be the greatest wonder in the world that the Soul should sleep after death so small a thing being able to waken her 7. Besides it is not Unreasonable but that She and other Spirits though they have no set Organs yet for more distinct and full perception of Objects may frame the Element they are in into temporary Organization and that with as much ease and swiftness as we can dilate and contract the pupil of our Eye and bring back or put forward the Crystalline humor 8. And not only to respect the Natures of Humane Souls but also the Will and Purpose of God there was never any yet that pretended to knowledge in Philosophy that denied the Immortality of the Soul in this sense which we contend for but they deni'd first a Particular Divine Providence which for my own part I think it is impossible for any one to deny that will diligently and indifferently search into the matter And therefore this Seventh Assertion may very well stand That the Souls of men are Immortal and act and live after Death Of this Subject I have wrote more lately and more fully in my Treatise Of the Immortality of the Soul to which the Reader may have recourse CHAP. V. 1. The Eighth Assertion That there is a Polity amongst the Angels and Souls separate both Good and Bad and therefore Two distinct Kingdomes one of Light and the other of Darkness 2. And a perpetual fewd and conflict betwixt them 3. The Ninth That there are infinite swarms of Atheistical Spirits as well Aereal as Terrestrial in an utter ignorance or hatred of all true Religion THE Eighth Assertion is That every Angel Good or Bad is as truly a Person as a man being endued also with Life Sense and Understanding whence they are likewise capable of Ioy and Pain and therefore coercible by Laws And mutual Helps being able to procure what Solitude cannot they must of necessity be Sociable and hold together in Bodies Politick and obey for either hope of advantage or fear of mischief Out of the whole masse therefore of the Angelical Nature taking in also according to Philo the Souls of men be they in what Vehicles they will there arise since their Fall two distinct Kingdoms the one of Darkness whose Laws reach no further then to the Interest of the Animal life the other of Light which is the true Kingdom of God and here the Animal life is in subjection and the Divine life bears rule as the Divine life is trodden down in the other Kingdom and the Animal life has the sole Jurisdiction 2. Now the inward life and spring of Motion in each Kingdom being so different it follows that these two Kingdoms must alwaies be at odds and that there must be a perpetual conflict till victory Which we shall still more easily conceive if we admit what is very reasonable That the Kingdom of Light reaches from Heaven to Earth that is That as there are found on the same surface of the Earth Animals both wilde and gentle harmless and poisonous and men good and bad pious and impious so likewise even in the same Regions of the Air that there are scatter'd Spirits of both Kindes good and evil Subjects of the Kingdom of Darkness and the Kingdom of Light In the order of those Aereal Angels the ancient Philosophers ranked the Souls of men deceased whether Vertuous or Wicked unless they had reached to an extraordinary and Heroical degree of Purity and Perfection for then they conceited that they were carried up to those more high and Aethereal Regions 3. Ninthly That there
The three Branches from this Root Humility Charity and Purity and why they are called Divine 3. A Description of Humility 4. A Description of Charity and how Civil Justice or Moral Honesty is eminently contained therein 5. A Description of Purity and how it eminently contains in it what ever Moral Temperance or Fortitude pretend to 6. A Description of the truest Fortitude 7. And how transcendent an Example thereof our Saviour was 8. A further representation of the stupendious Fortitude of our Saviour 9. That Moral Prudence also is necessarily comprized in the Divine life 10. That the Divine life is the truest Key to the Mystery of Christianity but the excellency thereof unconceivable to those that do not partake of it 1. AND now I have advanced the Animal life so high by adding this Middle Nature to it that you may perhaps marvail upon what I shall pitch that may seem more precious and desirable unless it be some wonder-working Faith whereby a man might cast out Devils and command mountains to remove and be carried into the midst of the Sea But it is so far from proving any such like priviledge that the Tumour of the natural Spirit of man would please it self in that I am afraid when I shall describe it he will have no relish at all of it scarce understand what I mean and if he do yet he will look upon it as a dry insipid Notion without any fruit or pleasure therein But however I will declare it to him as well as I can and that nothing may be wanting I shall First give a short glance at the Root of this Divine life also which is an Obediential Faith and Affiance in the true God the Maker and Original of all things From this Faith Apostate Angels and lapsed Mankind are fallen but the Soul of the Messias ever stood upright wading through the deepest Temptations that humane Nature could be encumbred with 2. But this Holy and Divine life to such as have an eye to see will be most perceptible in the Branches thereof though to the Natural man they will look very witheredly and contemptibly These Branches are Three whose names though trivial and vulgar yet if rightly understood they bear such a sense with them that nothing more weighty can be pronounced by the tongue of men or Seraphims and in brief they are these Charity Humility and Purity which where-ever they are found are the sure and infallible marks or signes of either an unfallen Angel or a Regenerate Soul These we call Divine Vertues not so much because they imitate in some things the Holy Attributes of the Eternal Deity but because they are such as are proper to a Creature to whom God communicates his own nature so far forth as it is capable of receiving it whether that Creature be Man or Angel and so becomes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For such a Creature as this and Christ was such a Creature in the highest manner conceivable has conspicuously in it these three Divine Vertues namely Humility Charity and Purity 3. By Humility I understand such a Spirit or gracious property in the Soul of man or any Intellectual Creature as that hereby he does sensibly and affectionately attribute all that he has or is or can do to God the Author and Giver of every good and perfect gift This is the highest piece of Holiness and the truest and most acceptable sacrifice we can offer to God thus lively and freely to acknowledge that all we have is from him From whence we do not arrogate any thing to our selves nor contemptuously lord it over others In this Grace is comprehended an ingenuous Gratitude which is the freest and most Noble kind of Iustice that is A full renouncing of all Self-dependency a firm and profound Submission to the Will of God in all things and a Disgust or at least a Deadness to the glory of the World and the applause of men 4. By Charity I understand an Intellectual Love by which we are enamoured of the Divine Perfections such as his Goodness Equity Benignity his Wisdome also his Iustice and his Power as they are graciously actuated and modified by the forenamed Attributes And I say that to be truly transformed into these Divine Perfections so far forth as they are communicable to Humane nature and out of the real sense of them in our selves to love and admire God in whom they infinitely and unmeasurably reside is the truest and highest kind of Adoration and the most grateful Praising and Glorifying God that the Soul of man can exhibit to her Maker But in being thus transformed into this Divine image of Intellectual Love our Mindes are not onely raised in holy Devotions towards God but descend also in very full and free streams of dearest Affection to our fellow-Creatures rejoycing in their good as if it were our own and compassionating their misery as if it were our selves did suffer and according to our best judgement and power ever endeavoring to promote the one and to remove the other And this most eminently conteins in it whatever good is driven at by Civil Iustice or Moral Honesty For how should we injure those for whose real welfare we could be content to die 5. By Purity I understand a due moderation and rule over all the Joyes and Pleasures of the Flesh bearing so strict an hand and having so watchful an eye over their subtil enticements allurements and so firme and loyal affection to that Idea of Celestial Beauty set up in our Mindes that neither the Pains of the Body nor the Pleasures of the Animal life shall ever work us below our Spiritual Happiness and all the competible enjoyments of that life that is truly Divine And in this conspicuously is contain'd whatever either Moral Temperance or Fortitude can pretend to For ordinarily he is held Temperate enough that can but save his brains from gross sottishness and his Body from diseases but this Purity respects the Divine life it self and requires such a Moderation in all the affairs of the Flesh that our Bodies may still remain unpolluted Temples and meet Habitations for the Spirit of God to dwell in and act in whether by way of Illumination or Sanctification and Animation to interiour duties of Holiness And as for Fortitude it is plain that this Purity of the Soul having mortified and tamed the exorbitant lusts and pleasures of the Body Death will seem less formidable by far and this mortal Life of lesser value 6. But the greatest Fortitude of all is when Love proves stronger then Death it self even in the deepest and most bitter sense of it and not so much the weakness and insensibleness of the Body nor yet the full carreer or furious heat and hurry of the naturall Spirits makes Pain and Death more tolerable but the pure courage of the Soul her self animated onely by an unrelinquishable
a Specimen of a wonderfull power residing in him in his Transfiguration on the Mount and that he carried that about him then that was able to swallow up mortality into life though it was usually restreined as a light in a dark lanthorn His Divinity therefore with his inward exalted Humanity I mean his Soul took hold again of His Body and did vitally irradiate it so that he was as naturally united with it as any Angel is with his own Vehicle or any Soul of man or any other Animal with their Bodies Nor was it any greater wonder that Christ should rarifie his Body into a disappearing Tenuity then that Angels and Spirits condensate their Vehicles into the visibility and palpability of a Terrestrial Body the same Numerical Matter still remaining in both CHAP. III. 1. The Ascension of Christ and what a sure pledge it is of the Soul's activity in a thinner Vehicle 2. That the Soul's activity in this Earthly Body is no just measure of what she can doe out of it 3. That the Life of the Soul here is as a Dream in comparison of that life she is awakened unto in her Celestial Vehicle 4. The activity of the separate Soul upon the Vehicle argued from her moving of the Spirits in the Body and that no advantage accrews therefrom to the wicked after death 1. THere is no reasonable allegation therefore against the Resurrection of Christ And as Usefull and Intelligible a Mystery is his Ascension For we are not less assured by his ascending into Heaven of the life and activity of the Soul out of an organical terrestrial Body then by his Resurrection of her Immortality For the body of Christ in his Ascension though it left the earth in all likelihood organiz'd and terrestrially modified yet passing through the subtil Air and purer Aether it cannot be conceived but that it assimilated it self to the Regions through which it passed and became at last perfectly Celestial and Aethereal whatsoever was Earthly or Feculent being absorp't or swallowed up into pure Light and Glory 2. Nor can it seem harsh to any that has well considered these things that the Soul freed from this Terrestrial dungeon should have so great power and activity over a thinner Vehicle the subtiltie thereof in all likelihood contributing much to this activity and vigour Of which though she have but a small spark at first yet the power of the Minde being kindled therewith may as she pleases convert her whole Vehicle into an Aethereal flame For we are no more to measure what she can doe being rid of the fatall Entanglements of this Earthly prison by what she does in it then we can of the prowess and activity of some Captive Champion when he is set free by what he does in fetters and hard bondage or of her own agility reason and perspicacitie when she is awake by her stupidity and inconsistency of thoughts while she is asleep 3. For the whole life of man upon Earth day and night is but a Slumber and a Dream in comparison of that awaking of the Soul that happens in the recovery of her Aethereal or Celestial body Which though it be unless it please her occasionally to mould it into any organiz'd shape one Simple and Uniform Light which we may call an Aethereal star as Ficinus calls those of less purity stellas aereas yet all the more noble functions of life are better performed in this Heavenly Body then in the Earthly such as Intellection Volition Imagination Seeing Hearing and the like The same may be said of the Passions of the Mind they being more pure more pleasing and more delicate then can possibly happen or at least for any time continue with us in this life 4. What I have affirmed of this Aethereal Body this Uniform and Homogeneal Orbe of Light cannot seem rashly spoken to them that understand the immediate Organ of Sense in those Bodies we are now united with Which I have already intimated to be either the Animal Spirits or the Conarion as unlikely a seat of Sense as the Air or Aether and either of these as unlikely to be disobedient to the power of the Soul as the Animal Spirits now are in the state of conjunction And therefore it being undeniable but that the Soul does move them some way in the Body I see no difficulty but in her releasement from the Body she may be able to act upon her Vehicle of like Tenuity with them so as to mould and transfigure it even as she pleases that natural charm that lull'd her Active powers asleep while she was in the Body loosing its force now she is out of it Which notwithstanding will prove no advantage to the wicked they being thereby awakened into a more eagre and sharp torment and more restless Hell CHAP. IV. 1. Christ's Session at the Right hand of God interpreted either figuratively or properly 2. That the proper sense implies no humane shape in the Deity 3. That though God be Infinite and every where yet there may be a Special presence of him in Heaven 4. And that Christ may be conceived to sit at the Right hand of that Presence or Divine Shechina 1. TO the Ascension of Christ we are to add his Session at the Right hand of God his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and his Intercession with God for his Church And for the First there is no difficultie therein whether we understand the phrase Figuratively as Calvin seems to doe For then by his Sitting at the Right hand of God nothing else is signified but that he is next to God in the administration of his Kingdome that he is as his Right hand to sway his Scepter over men and Angels to bruise the wicked as with a rod of Iron and to receive the righteous into favour or whether we understand it Properly as some others would have it to be understood For there is no inconvenience to acknowledge the Glorified body of Christ to be in humane shape and that this organized light will sit as steadily on an Aethereal throne as a Body of flesh and bones on a throne of Wood or Ivory 2. Nor does that expression of the Right hand of God implie any absurdity in it as if God himself were an Essence also in Humane shape and that he had a Left hand as well as a Right and the rest of the parts of the Body of a man For from the words of the Text 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a man may as well prove that he has many Right hands as any at all which shews plainly that the Anthropomorphites have no ground for their fond conceit from such passages of Scripture as these 3. But yet though God be Infinite and consequently every where at once nothing hinders but that there may be some special presence of him in one place more then another whither if a man had access he may be truly said to converse with God face to face We will
an Aereal Body in which if Stories be true they have sometimes appeared after their decease And that they may act think and understand in these Aiery vehicles as well as other Spirits doe is not at all incredible nor improbable the Faculties of an humane Soul being not inferiour to the Faculties of some Orders of Spirits whose Understandings are not so clear but that they are divided in their judgments some being of one Sect of Philosophers some of another as those that appeared to Cardan's father professed themselves Avenroists 2. But secondly if it were granted that the Souls of the deceased were stript of all Corporeity and yet could act we may nothwithstanding very well conceive that that which once had so intimate union with the grossest of Bodies has certainly a very strong propension natural complacency or essential aptitude alwaies to join with some Body or other Which power if we may not infallibly affirm to be so catching that the Soul is never disappointed of some kinde of Vehicle yet we may safely pronounce that when that natural capacity is satisfied there accrues a greater accomplishment and more vigorous enjoiment to the Soul her Operations thereby being made more sensible and vivid And therefore that great Reward of an Heavenly Aethereal or Immortal body which shall be given at the last day is of very high concernment for the compleating of the happiness of the Souls of the faithfull whether we suppose them in the mean time to live without Bodies or to be alive only in Aiery vehicles the latter whereof if examined to the bottome will appear the most unexceptionable opinion and least liable to the Cavils of Gainsaiers But whether of them be most true I leave to the grave and wise to determine 3. This Rub being thus removed out of the way we now proceed to the special significations of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The former of which is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Resurrection to Condemnation the latter 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and simply 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Resurrection to life the Resurrection of the just and simply the Resurrection as it is 1 Cor. 15. and elsewhere Wherefore 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as they belong to the wicked have no further sense of Revivification then in that general way we have explained 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 implying that they were raised and made to appear at this day of general Summons merely to receive the sentence of Eternal Death Goe ye accursed into everlasting fire c. But now 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as it is appropriated to the Resurrection of the just and is termed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 implies in it a further and more peculiar Revivification or Re-enlivening viz. into that life which was lost by the first Fall that Paradisiacal life that Aethereal and Heavenly life which is unrecoverable unless we recover those Heavenly glorified bodies which are promised to us by Christ at his coming 4. For this muddy Earth and vaporous polluted Air which is the very Region of Death wherein all the Pleasures Joyes and Triumphs of this Present Life are but like the grinning laughter of Ghosts or the dance of dead men these foul Elements I say can afford no such commodious habitation for the Soul as to arrive any thing near to the height of that Happiness which she shall be possessed of when Christ shall be pleased to change these our vile bodies into the similitude of his glorious bodie and so to recover us into the enjoiment of that Heavenly Life which we unhappily forfeited by our first Fall For which purpose he came into the world as himself professes John 6. v. 40. This is the will of him that sent me that whosoever sees me and believes in me should have everlasting life and that I should raise him up at the last day 5. And so certainly it will be at his coming to Judgment that they that then see him and firmly believe on him ardently loved him and vehemently desired his Appearing shall find such a warming change in themselves partly by the glorious approach of his Person and Lustre of his numerous Retinue partly by the wonderfull secret workings of the Divine Presence in their very Bodies and Souls that at last there will be kindled such an irresistible Faith so rapturous a Joy and transportant Love that breaking out upon the Body be it what it will it will turn all into a pure Aethereal flame and so Elias-like in those Celestial chariots shall they ascend up to Christ and meet him in the Air and join with his Armie whereever it moves as becoming then 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 their Vehicles being transformed by the power and presence of Christ and the working of his Divinity into a pure Paradisiacal and Angelical nature 6. And thus shall he make his word good of raising us up at the last day in that he does re-enliven us and restore us to that Life and Joy which we had fallen from re-enthrone us into that Glory we had defaced in our selves and was lost in these dark Bodies of ours and raise us up to that pristine state of Happiness and that superiour Paradise which we could not re-enter into or be re-estated in but by becoming wholly Aethereal or Celestial CHAP. VI. 1. That he has freed the Mysterie of the Resurrection from all Exceptions of either Atheists or Enthusiasts 2. That the Soul is not uncapable of the Happiness of an Heavenly Body 3. And that it is the highest and most sutable Reward that can be conferr'd upon her 4. That this Reward is not above the power of Christ to confer proved by what he did upon Earth 5. That all Iudgment is given to him by the Father 6. Further arguings to the same purpose 1. AND now I think we have so disentangled the Mystery of the Resurrection from all the Prejudices and conceived Difficulties that it was involved in that I may challenge all the World the Atheist Infidel and new-fangled Enthusiast if they can frame any solid Exception against it which they can manage by Reason and is not a mere sullen dictate of their own dark and dull minds 2. For this precious Crown of Immortality which Christ shall then crown us withall is neither beyond his power to give nor our capacity to receive For the offers and fluskerings as I may so say of the Faculties of the Soul of man even in this state of Death and Imprisonment are so High so Noble and Divine as well in Speculation as Devotion especially when our Spirits are more then ordinarily pure and come nearer to an Aethereal kind of defecacy that they that have the experience thereof cannot distrust but that if she had the advantage of an Angelical Bodie her operations would prove little inferiour to theirs Which is a demonstration that she is as well capable of such Bodies as they As
this was in stead of all other Righteousness to him and that he was reputed as righteous all over now although he were not so at all in any other things 7. Now for Iustification we shall best understand the meaning of the word from the Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 First therefore besides the forensal acception 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies to be just Gen. 38.26 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Thamar is more righteous then I. So Eccles. 31.5 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He that loves gold will not be just Secondly it signifies to appear just Psa. 51.4 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is that thou maist plainly appear or approve thy self to be just And Psal. 143. â— For in thy sight no man living 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 shall appear just Thirdly and lastly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies to make just and pure to free from vice and sinfulness Psalm 73. v. 13. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Therefore have I cleansed my heart in vain And Eccles. 18.22 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Nec tuam probitatem usque ad mortem differas saies the Translation And Rom. 6.7 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He that is dead is freed from sin Also Act. 13.39 And by him all they that believe are justified from all things from which ye could not be justified by the Law of Moses i. e. Ye are more throughly cleansed and purged from sin and wickedness then you could be ever under the Law of Moses Which is consonant to other passages in Scripture as That the Law makes nothing perfect and again If there had been a Law that could have given life then verily righteousness might have been of the Law And now we have found out a warrantable sense of these words we shall be able more expeditely to discover the sense of the foregoing places of Scripture alledged for this pernicious conceit of a Christians being righteous without any real Righteousness in him 8. Wherefore to that in the 4. to the Romans whose force will be the greater if we adde that also which is written a little before in the 3 chap. v. 28. Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the Law and what he inferrs also vers 9. That Iews and Gentiles and all are under sin Wherein the meaning of the Apostle is to magnifie as was most fit the ministration of the Gospel and so he signifies to the world that whatsoever is discovered hitherto is imperfect lapsed and ruinous all but weak and sinful before the coming in of Christ even the works of the Law themselves and that smooth external Righteousness of mere Morality and Ceremony So that all the world are found guilty before God and by the deeds of the Law there shall be no flesh justified in his sight For by the Law is but the knowledge of sin vers 20. it gives no strength to perform Wherefore now reckoning nothing upon all these things we are as it were to begin the world again and to endeavour after such a Righteousness as is by Faith in Christ Jesus and not to rest in any thing that may be done by the ordinary power of the flesh but to aspire after that Righteousness which is communicable to us by that Spirit which raised Jesus Christ from the dead But neither Abraham nor any one else can be justified by any carnal righteousness of their own but that highly-spiritual act of Abraham reaching beyond the common rode of Nature who against hope believed in hope that was that which commended Abraham so much to God And thus from the Example of Abraham would the Apostle commend the Christian faith to the world and in particular to the Jews the Offspring of Abraham For at the end of the fourth chapter he makes this use of Abraham's faith being imputed to him for Righteousness that is reputed by God as a very excellent good act as it indeed was that we might also be brought off to believe on him that raised up â—esus our Lord from the dead who was delivered for our offences and raised again for our justification In which verse are contained the two grand priviledges of the Gospel that is the forgiveness of sins upon the satisfaction of Christs death and the justifying of us that is the making of us just and holy through a sound faith in him that raised Jesus from the dead Which interpretation the 11 verse of the 8 Chapter doth sufficiently countenance But if the Spirit of him that raised up Iesus from the dead dwell in you he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortall bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you viz. to Righteousness as is plain out of the foregoing verse And if Christ be in you the body is dead because of sin but the Spirit is life because of righteousnesse that is The body of death which we desire to be delivered from as the Apostle speaks appears by the presence of Christ in us to be thus deadly a body by reason of sin we feeling for the present nothing but an heavy indisposition to all holinesse and goodnesse in the body and its affections and all sinfulnesse and unclean Atheisticall suggestions from the flesh which is death to the Soul For to be carnally-minded is death So that by reason of the sinfulnesse of our body and the sad heavinesse thereof it appears as deadly and ghastly a thing to us as Mezentius his tying the living and the dead together when once Christ is in us but our Life is then that Righteousnesse which is of the Spirit we finding a comfortable warmth and pleasure in the gratefull arrivals of that holy and Divine sensation But he that raised Christ from the dead will in due time even quicken these our mortall bodies or these dead bodies of ours and make them conspire and come along with ease and chearfulnesse and be ready and active complying Instruments in all things with the Spirit of Righteousness Which belief is a chief Point in the Christian Faith and most of all parallel to that of Abraham's who believing in the Goodness and Power and Faithfulness of God had when both himself and his wife Sara were dry and dead as to natural generation and so hopeless of ever seeing any fruit of her womb who had I say Isaac born to him who bears Ioy and Laughter in the very Name of him and was undoubtedly a Type of Christ according to the Spirit For Isaac is the Wisedom Power and Righteousness of God flowing out and effectually branching it self so through all the Faculties both of mans Soul and Body that the whole man is carried away with joy and triumph to the acting all whatsoever is really and substantially good even with as much satisfaction and pleasure as he eats when he is hungry and drinks when he is dry And thus by our entrance and progress in so holy a
Dispensation are we well approved of by God and being justified thus by faith we have peace with him through our Lord Iesus Christ Rom. 5.1 So that this Iustification is not a mere belief that Christ died for us in particular or that he was raised from the dead whereby anothers Righteousness is imputed to us but a believing in God that he has accepted the bloud of Christ as a Sacrifice for sin and that he is able through the power of the Spirit to raise us up to newness of life whereby we are encouraged to breath and aspire after this more inward and perfect righteousnesse Which advantages God propounds to all the hearers of the Gospel without any respect of works or former demurenesse of life if so be they will but now come in and close with this high and rich dispensation and be carried on with couragious resolutions to fight against and pull down the man of sin within themselves that this living and new way of real Divine righteousnesse may be set up and rule in their hearts I say if they be encouraged to this holy enterprise by Faith in Christ for the remission of sins and for the power of his Spirit to utterly eradicate and extirpate all inward corruption and wickednesse this Faith is presently imputed to them for Righteousnesse that is they are and are approved by God as dear children of his and as good men and are of the seed of the Promise For they are born now not of the will of man nor of the will of the flesh but of the will of God and their will is wholly set upon righteousnesse and true holinesse which they hunger and thirst after as sincerely and eagerly as ever they did after their natural meat and drink and God who feeds the young Ravens is not so cruell as to deny them this celestial food which food they reach at and as it were wrest out of his hands by Faith in the power of his Spirit whereby they account themselves able to doe all things 9. And this is the only warrantable notion that I can finde of being justified by faith Nor do those places above recited prove any other then this For that which seems to make most of all for another viz. Rom. 4.5 But to him that worketh not but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly his faith is counted for righteousness may very well be interpreted according to that tenour of sense I have already declared For that is the great and comfortable priviledge of the Gospel that without any respect of former works if so be we do but now believe remission of sins in Christ and believe in his power that justifies the ungodly i. e. that makes just the ungodly and purifies and purges them from all sin and iniquity from which by their own naturall power they could not purged and restores them to inward reall righteousnesse by the working of his Spirit this Faith is imputed for Righteousnesse For they that do thus believe are good and righteous men for matter of sincerity so that they have peace with God through the bloud of Christ and by the power of that Spirit that is now working in them are renewed daily more and more into that glorious image and desirable liberty which arises in the further conquest of the Divine life in them and makes them righteous even as Christ was righteous And now the hardest is satisfied the other places alledged will easily fall of themselves by the application of what has been said concerning this nature of Faith and Iustification 10. As for those places of Scripture that seem to attribute the Righteousness of Christ to us as where he is said to be made unto us wisedom righteousness sanctification and redemption the sense is only this that he works in us wisedom righteousness c. Otherwise it might be inferred that we shall have only an imputative Redemption and that we shall not be really saved and redeemed As for that other As by the disobedience of one man many were made sinners so by the obedience of one man many shall be made righteous I say it is a place against themselves For by Adam we became really sinners and sinful contracting original corruption from his loins therefore by Christ we are to be made really righteous And this was the end of his obedience that was obedient even to the death of the crosse that we being buried with him by baptisme into death like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father even so we also should walk in newness of life Rom. 6. Wherefore there really being no ground in Scripture for this childish mistake and it being as unreasonable that one Soul should be righteous for another as that one Body should be in health for another if I shew that the Scripture it self does expresly require of us that we be righteous and holy in our own persons there is then nothing wanting to the full discovery of this childish and ungrounded conceit of being righteous without any Righteousness residing in us 11. And in my apprehension this very Text of S. Iohn is a clear eviction of this Truth it plainly declaring that they are mistaken who ever conceit themselves righteous without doing righteousnesse or without being righteous in such a sense as Christ himself was righteous There are also several other Testimonies of the Apostles to the same purpose some whereof I have noted already as where he saith That Christ was manifested to take away our sins and that he came to destroy the works of the Devil and that he that is born of God sinneth not because the seed of God abideth in him that is a permanent Principle of Divine life and sense whereby he seeth and abhorreth whatsoever is wicked and unholy And again 1 Ioh. â— Hereby we know that we know him if we keep his commandements He that saith I know him and keepeth not his commandements is a lyar and the truth is not in him but whose keepeth his word in him verily is the love of God perfected Hereby know we that we are in him He that saith he abideth in him ought himself also to walk even as he walked Like that 2 Tim. 2.19 Let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity CHAP. VI. 1. Their alledgement of Gal. 2.16 as also of the whole drift of that Epistle 2. What the Righteousnesse of faith is according to the Apostle 3. In what sense those that are in Christ are said not to be under the Law 4. That the Righteousness of faith is no figment but a reality in us 5. That this Righteousnesse is the New Creature and what this new Creature is according to Scripture 6. That the new Creature consists in Wisedom Righteousness and true Holiness 7. The Righteousnesse of the new Creature 8. His Wisedom and Holinesse 9. That the Righteousness of faith excludes not good Works The wicked treachery of those
shun the breath of such a Seducer as of one that is infected with the pestilence and whose converse is death and the eternal ruin of our very Souls 2. The Second Principle that he is closely to keep to is That I had almost said Omnipotent Faith in God through Christ I mean the belief of the assistance of his holy Spirit to overcome all manner of sin in us For if we keep up duely to this nothing will be able to withstand us but by patience and perseverance we shall be able to beat out Satan out of his strongest holds According to thy faith so be it unto thee is true as well in Christs healing our Souls as in his curing the bodies of the sick when he was upon earth This is a prime branch of that saving Faith and the greatest strength and sustentation we have to keep us from sinking back into sin and from being drown'd and carried away with the flouds of ungodliness If we let this hold go all is gone For they that doe not believe that they have power to resist sin must of necessity give up themselves captives to it And this is that which makes S. Paul so affectionately devout in the behalf of the Ephesians that God would be pleased to give them this special gift of Faith for their strength and corroboration of the inward man chap. 3. For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Iesus Christ That he would grant you according to the riches of his glory to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man That Christ may dwell in your hearts by Faith that ye being rooted and grounded in love c. according as I have elswhere rehearsed And in the Doxologie immediately following this prayer of what unconceivable efficacy the operations of the Spirit are in us the Apostle again does intimate in a very high strain Now unto him that is able to doe exceeding abundantly above what we ask or think according to the power that worketh in us unto him be glory in the Church by Christ Iesus throughout all ages world without end Which words plainly imply that such is the inexhaustible richness of Grace and Assistance from the Spirit of God that the effect of its inward workings in us is for the present not imaginable much less expressible Wherefore our Faith cannot be too great in this supernatural Principle and the greater it is the greater courage and the more speedy and more absolute victory 3. And yet there is still another Principle that will further actuate our Faith and make us still more lively resolute and invincible and that is The Love of Christ which every young Christian is to warme himself with and inflame his courage more and more which he will best do by frequent Meditations upon Christs Passion what shame what sorrow and pain he underwent to gain the love of Souls and so to try them to himself in those sweet and inviolable bands of sincere love and friendship that by this golden chain he may pull them up after him from Earth to Heaven Let therefore our new-Covenanter as often as he reflects upon the exceeding great love of his Saviour and finds his heart begin to grow hot being touch'd with a ray from that celestial Flame that bright Sun of righteousness that now shines at the right hand of God let him be sure to remember what compensation he requires for all that dear affection he has shewn to us The lesson is but short and therefore must not be forgotten If you love me keep my Commandements CHAP. XI 1. The diligent search this new-Covenanter ought to make to finde out whatsoever is corrupt and sinful 2. That the truly regenerate cannot be quiet till all corruption be wrought out 3. The most importunate devotions of a living Christian. 4. The difference betwixt a Son of the Second Covenant and a Slave under the First 5. The Mystical completion of a Prophecy of Esay touching this state 1. THE young Christian being thus armed with Faith and Love and an unwavering sense of his duty in becoming holy even as he that called him is holy he will be then both willing and ready to look his enemies in the face and to seek them out if he cannot at first sight finde them and to pull them out of every hiding-place of Hypocrisy and bring them into the open light and slay them And if after diligent search he can finde none yet he will be so modest as to distrust the measure of his skill and will be earnest in Prayer to God to discover what inward hidden wickedness there may lurk yet in him to the end that the old Leven may be utterly cast out and that there may be nothing left that is contrary to the Scepter of Christ and the Kingdome of God in his heart 2. For indeed it is impossible that one is truely regenerate and has the seed of God and the life of his Spirit actually in him should be quiet till all that which is unholy and corrupt be wrought out But the case is much-what as in the natural body that is sick either death or health will in a competent time possess the body If the morbifick matter be not carried away by sweating purging or some evacuation or other Life it self will be carried away but if that which is contrary to life be remov'd Health must certainly take place 3. And so it is in the Divine life it self when it has taken root and growth whatever is contrary to it is burdensome to it like that tyrannick project of tying the living and the dead together Wherefore the true Christian can never be at ease and rest till he has cast off that heavy load the body of sin the old man that stinks earthily and unsavourly if he be perceived at all and indeed so unsufferably that the divine life and sense in a man cannot endure it Nor can endure to be in a condition so sensless that there should be any of that â—our Leven left and yet there be no perception of it And therefore the most importunate address to the throne of Grace in a living Christian is that God would be pleased to discover whatever ugliness or deformity there is in him in either practise or principle Which God of his mercy does by degrees not all at once that there may not arise overmuch distraction and confusion But if we be not wanting to our selves the work will be accomplish'd in due time and the Kingdom of heaven as well within as without will be as a grain of Mustard-seed The Crisis of the disease will be in a competent time as I said before and our whole man re-enlivened with the Spirit of God and restored to the state of righteousness peace and joy in the Holy Ghost 4. For verily to be quiet upon any other terms but these is not to be a Son of the Second Covenant but a careless
to him and from his being a Sacrifice for sin 5. That to deny the Trinity and Divinity of Christ or to make the Union of our selves with the Godhead of the same nature with that of Christ's subverts Christianity 6. The uselesness and sauciness of the pretended Deification of Enthusiasts and how destructive it is of Christian Religion 7. The Providence of God in preparing of the Nations by Platonisme for the easier reception of Christianity 11 CAAP. VI. 1. The danger and disconsolateness of the Opinion of the Psychopannychites 2. What they alledge out of 1 Cor. 15. set down 3. A Preparation to an Answer advertising First of the nature of Prophetick Schemes of speech 4. Secondly of the various vibration of an inspired Phansie 5. Thirdly of the ambiguity of words in Scripture and particularly of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 6. And lastly of the Corinthians being sunk into an Unbelief of any Reward after this life 7. The Answer out of the last and foregoing Premisse 8. A further Answer out of the first 9. As also out of the second and third where their Objection from verse 32. is fully satisfied 10. Their Argument answered which they urge from our Saviours citation to the Sadducees I am the God of Abraham c. 15 CHAP. VII 1. A General Answer to the last sort of places they alledge that imply no enjoyment before the Resurrection 2. A Particular Answer to that of 2 Cor 5. out of Hugo Grotius 3. A preparation to an Answer of the Author 's own by explaining what the Greek word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 may signifie 4. His Paraphrase of the six first Verses of the forecited Chapter 5. A further confirmation of his Paraphrase 6. The weakness of the Reasons of the Psychopannychites noted 19 CHAP. VIII 1. That the Opinion of the Soul 's living and acting immediately after Death was not fetched out of Plato by the Fathers because they left out Preexistence an Opinion very rational in it self 2. And such as seems plausible from sundry places of Scripture as those alledged by Menasseh Ben Israel out of Deuteronomy Jeremy and Job 3. As also God's resting on the seventh day 4. That their proclivity to think that the Angel that appeared to the Patriarchs so often was Christ might have been a further inducement 5. Other places of the New Testament which seem to imply the Preexistence of Christ's Soul 6. More of the same kinde out of S. John 7. Force added to the last proofs from the opinion of the Socinians 8. That our Saviour did admit or at least not disapprove the opinion of Preexistence 9. The main scope intended from the preceding allegations namely That the Soul 's living and acting after death is no Pagan opinion out of Plato but a Christian Truth evidenced out of the Scriptures 21 CHAP. IX 1. Proofs out of Scripture That the Soul does not sleep after death as 1 Peter 3. with the explication thereof 2. The Authors Paraphrase compared with Calvin's Interpretation 3. That Calvin needed not to suppose the Apostle to have writ false Greek 4. Two waies of interpreting the Apostle so as both Grammatical Soloecisme and Purgatory may be declined 5. The Second way of Interpretation 6. A second proof out of Scripture 7. A third of like nature with the former 8. A further enforcement and explication thereof 9. A fourth place 10. A fifth from Hebr. 12. where God is called the Father of Spirits c. 11. A sixth testimony from our Saviours words Matth. 20.28 25 CHAP. X. 1. A pregnant Argument from the State of the Soul of Christ and of the Thief after death 2. Grotius his explication of Christ's promise to the Thief 3. The meaning of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 4. How Christ with the Thief could be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and in Paradise at once 5. That the Parables of Dives and Lazarus and of the unjust Steward imply That the Soul hath life and sense immediately after death 28 BOOK II. CHAP. I. HE passes to the more Intelligible parts of Christianity for the understanding whereof certain preparative Propositions are to be laid down 2. As That there is a God 3. A brief account of the Assertion from his Idea 4. A further Confirmation from its ordinary concatenation with the Rational account of all other Beings as first of the Existence of the disjoynt and independent particles of Matter 31 CHAP. II. 1. That the wise contrivances in the works of Nature prove the Being of a God 2. And have extorted an acknowledgement of a General Providence even from irreligious Naturalists 3. That there is a Particular Providence or Inspection of God upon every individual person Which is his Second Assertion 32 CHAP. III. 1. His Third Assertion That there are Particular Spirits or Immaterial Substances and of their Kinds 2. The Proof of their Existence and especially of theirs which in a more large sense be called Souls 3. The Difference betwixt the Souls or Spirits of Men and Angels and how that Pagan Idolatry and the Ceremonies of Witches prove the Existence of Devils 4. And that the Existence of Devils proves the Existence of Good Angels 34 CHAP. IV. 1. His Fourth Assertion That the Fall of the Angels was their giving up themselves to the Animal Life and forsaking the Divine 2. The Fifth That this fall of theirs changed their purest Vehicles into more gross and feculent 3. The Sixth That the change of their Vehicles was no extinction of life 4. The Seventh That the Souls of Men are immortal and act and live after death The inducements to which belief are the Activity of fallen Angels 5. The Homogeneity of the inmost Organ of Perception 6. The scope and meaning of External Organs of Sense in this Earthly Body 7. The Soul's power of Organizing her Vehicle 8. And lastly The accuracy of Divine Providence 35 CHAP. V. 1. The Eighth Assertion That there is a Polity amongst the Angels and Souls separate both Good and Bad and therefore Two distinct Kingdomes one of Light and the other of Darkness 2. And a perpetual fewd and conflict betwixt them 3. The Ninth That there are infinite swarms of Atheistical Spirits as well Aereal as Terrestrial in an utter ignorance or hatred of all true Religion 37 CHAP. VI. 1. His Tenth Assertion That there will be a final Overthrow of the Dark Kingdome and that in a supernatural manner and upon their external persons 2. The Eleventh That the Generations of men had a beginning and will also have an end 3. To which also the Conflagration of the world gives witness 39 CHAP. VII 1. His Twelfth Assertion That there will be a Visible and Supernatural deliverance of the Children of the Kingdome of Light at the Conflagration of the World 2. The Reason of the Assertion 3. His Thirteenth Assertion That the last vengeance and deliverance shall be so contrived as may be best fit for the Triumph of the
cannot better be done then by shewing the Reasonableness and important Usefulness of Christian Religion in the Historical sense thereof and in reference to the very Person of Christ our Saviour which I have I hope abundantly performed in this present Treatise and by discovering the Natural Causes and imposturous Consequences of Enthusiasme which I had done before in Enthusiasmus Triumphatus Which two Treatises I hope will prove two invincible Fortresses against all the force and fury of the Fanatical spirit 7. After this the bold impiety of this present Age engaged my Thoughts in a Subject of no less moment then the former For I saw that other abhorred monster Atheisme proudly strutting with a lofty gate and impudent forehead boasting himself the onely genuine offspring of true Wisdome and Philosophy namely of that which makes Matter alone the Substance of all things in the world This misshapen Creature was first nourished up in the stie of Epicurus and fancied it self afterward grown more tall and stout by further strength it seemed to have received from some new Principles of the French Philosophy misinterpreted and perverted by certain impure and unskilful pens Which unexpected confidence of those blind boasters made me with all anxiety and care imaginable search into the power of Matter and mere Mechanical motion and consider how far they might go of themselves in the production of the Phaenomena of the World But as for the Philosophy of Epicurus it seemed to me at the very first sight such a foolery that I was much amazed that a person of so commendable parts as P. Gassendus could ever have the patience to rake out such old course rags out of that rotten dunghill to stuffe his large Volumes withall But I must confess I did as much admire Des-Cartes Philosophy as I did despise the Epicurean who has carried on the power of Matter for the production of the Phaenomena of Nature with that neatness and coherence that if he had been as ignorant in other things as skilful in Mechanicks he could not but have fancied himself to have wone that crown that many wits have striven for that is the honour of being accounted the most subtil and able Atheist of both the present and past Ages This made me peruse his Writings with still more and more diligence and the more I read the more I admired his Wit but at last grew the more confirmed That it was utterly impossible that Matter should be the onely essential Principle of things as I have in several places of my Writings demonstrated And therefore having clearly vanquished this difficulty I betook my self with greater alacrity to the writing of my Antidote against Atheisme To which presently after I added my Threefold Cabbala as an Appendix to the same design being well advised what a homely conceit our high Wits have of the Three first Chapters of Genesis though they do betray their own ignorance by their mean opinion of them 8. And possibly then I had left off had not a dangerous Sickness that made me suspect that the time did near approach of quitting this my earthly Tabernacle urged me more carefully to bethink my self what reception I might have in the other world And praised be God such was the condition of my Soul though then much overrun with Melancholy that my presages concerning my future state were very favourable and comfortable and my desire was to be gathered to that body of which Iesus Christ is Head even he who was crucified at Ierusalem and felt the pangs of death for a Propitiation of the sins of the world who was then represented to me as visible a Prince and as distinct a person and head Politick as any King or Potentate upon earth And therefore being thus fully convinced with my self that He whose Life was ever to me the most sweet and lovely of any thing I could see or taste was indeed even in his Humane nature made a King and Priest for ever and constituted Soveraign over men and Angels my Heart was full of Ioy but withall accompanied with a just measure of shame that I had spoken hitherto so sparingly of his Royal Office and of the homage due to so Divine a Potentate whose Subject to my great satisfaction I found my self to be and whose presence I did not at all despair of approaching in due time to my eternal comfort and honour Which sense of things made me conceive a solemn Vow with my self if God gave me life to write this present Treatise Which occasion I thought fit not to conceal though I be much averse from speaking any thing over-particularly of my self that the high-flown Fanaticks of this Age may consider more carefully what I have writ and take heed how they either slight or revolt from their Celestial Soveraign But I thought it very convenient before I put in execution this great design to take again into consideration that other weighty Subject The Immortality of the Soul being better appointed and provided for the clearing of that Truth then I was when I first adventured upon the Theory And thus having fully convinced my self and I hope as many else as are capable of judging of the more choice and subtile Conclusions of Reason and Philosophy That there is a God and That the Soul of man is immortal which are the two main pillars upon which all Religion stands I advanced forward with courage having left no Enemy behind and betook my self with great confidence to the finishing and publishing of this present Treatise Of the Mystery of Christianity Which I look upon as the most precious and the most concerning piece of Wisdome that is communicable to the Soul of Man the very chief and top bough of that Tree of Knowledge whose fruit has neither poison nor bitterness And therefore being come to my journeys end I will here sit down with thanks and enjoy my self under this comfortable shade and do assure thee Reader that I am not likely to weary thy eyes with the descriptions of any further discoveries by my pen. 9. Onely that thou mayest view this with the better ease and satisfaction I shall according to my usual manner endeavour to remove all rubs of offence out of thy way by giving thee an account aforehand of whatever may seem to thee a considerable either Superfluity Defect or Aberration in my Performance not omitting to impart to thee the right and proper meaning of the very Title of my Discourse Thou must therefore expect from my terming of it An Explanation of the Mystery of Godliness not a mere verbal Exposition or Declaration what is signified therein but such an orderly Exhibition of the Truths thereof that the Scope of the Whole being understood the Reasonableness of the Particulars thereunto tending may clearly appear And the End to which all Parts of the Christian Mystery point at is the Advancement and Triumph of the Divine Life In the exaltation whereof God is the most
own Prejudice Of which violence they do thereto they cannot well be sensible they thinking they have full commission to distort it into any posture rather then to let it alone in that which so plainly points to a Mystery which they hold impossible and self-contradictious For so has their bold and blind reasoning concluded aforehand concerning the Trinity and Divinity of Christ. But to those that are indifferent this Text bears such evidence with it that it cannot but settle their belief 2. For why should the Euangelist omit the manner of Christ's Birth as he was Man but that he was intent upon his Eternal Generation as he was God Or why should he not call him by that name that was given him at his Circumcision or by the name of Crist or the Messias who was a Person expected in time but that his thoughts were carried back to that of him which was from all Eternity Nor is it imaginable that he should be here called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 instead of Iesus or Christ unless there were some valuable Mystery in it which the learned easily unriddle from Iewish Interpreters they speaking often of The Word of the Lord as an Hypostasis distinguishable from God and yet that by which he created Adam and the rest of the Creatures And for my own part I make no question but that the Greek Philosophers as Pythagoras and Plato had not onely their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but the whole Mystery of their Trinity from the Divine Traditions amongst the Jews Philo the Jew speaks often of this Principle in the Godhead calling it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or sometimes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 other sometimes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and attributes unto it the Creation of the World as also the Healing of the diseases of our Mindes and the Purging of our Souls from sins insomuch that this Author might be a good Commentator upon this first Chapter of S. Iohn 3. Wherefore there being this Notion of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 amongst the Jews to which the Creation and Government of the World is attributed the same also being done here what can be more likely then that S. Iohn means the very same 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is Creator and Governor of all Which the very Phrase and Posture of things will yet further confirme For assuredly this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Gospel is the same with that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the first Epistle of S. Iohn and what 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies the same Epistle will explicate chap. 2.14 I write unto you Fathers 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because you have known the Eternal and Christ by the Prophet Esay is call'd 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Eternal Father For that is the most proper meaning of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as appears Esay 57.15 Thus saith the high and lofty one who inhabits Eternity 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 inhabiting Eternity Nor is it incongruous for the same Being to be the Son of God and the Father and Governour of all the Creatures And the Prophet Micah chap. 5. prophesying of Christ describes him thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 His emanations are from the Beginning from the dayes of Eternity Which agrees well with what Christ professes of himself Iohn 8. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for if he was before Abraham there is little question but he was before all things and that of the Psalmist is but his due attribute 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Before the mountains were brought forth or the Earth was formed even from everlasting to everlasting Thou art God And now for the Posture of things after the Evangelist has twice asserted That he was from the beginning that you may not mistake and think he means the beginning of his Ministry as the Messiah he tells you according to the Doctrine of the Jews That all things were created by him and at the tenth verse that you may have no subterfuge he sayes That even that world that was made by him knew him not which excludes all Moral and Mystical interpretations and shews plainly that wicked men though not their wickedness are his Creation and consequently all the world besides And the Author to the Hebrews is a farther witness of this Truth citing that of the Psalmist concerning the Son of God Thou Lord in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the Earth and the Heavens are the work of thy hands There is yet another argument of the Divinity of Christ which I need not prove it being acknowledged even by our Adversaries and it is Religious worship due to him which I conceive is due to none but God 4. The Holy Trinity and Divinity of Christ we have hitherto proved out of the Scriptures and might adde many places more but the Reason and Nature of the thing it self shall be the last Confirmation That Christ is to be worshipped is acknowledged of all hands But to worship one that is not God is to relapse into the ancient rites of the Pagans who were Men-worshippers and eaters of the sacrifices of the dead For Iupiter Belus Bacchus Vulcan Mercurius Osiris and Isis and the rest of the Gods of the Heathen what were they but mere men whose Benefactions extorted divine honours from Superstitious posterity after their Death Wherefore Christ ought not to be a mere man but God that is he ought to be really and physically united to the Deity it being present not by Assistance onely but by Information that as Body and Soul are one Man so God and Man may be one Christ. But if there were no Trinity but One Hypostasis in the Deity and the Humanity of Christ thus joyn'd with it How could he be a Sacrifice for sin there being none beside himself to whom he should be offer'd or How could he be sent by another when there is none other to send him and the Son of God out of the bosome of his Father could not be said to suffer but he that is offended to be sacrificed to pacifie himself which things are very absurd and incongruous But you 'l say the Absurdity still remains in the Second Hypostasis For was not Sin as contrary to Him as to the First and Third and consequently He as much offended and therefore He dying in our nature was sacrificed to pacify Himself In answer to this I admit that all Three Hypostases were alike offended at Sin and withall alike compassionate to Sinners Which Compassion was in the Deity towards Mankind before the Incarnation and Death of Christ. But the formal Declaration and visible Consignation of this Reconcilement was by Christ according as he is revealed in the Gospel whose Transactions in our behalf are nothing else but a sweet and kind Condescension of the Wisdome of God in this Mystery accommodating himself to our humane capacities and properties to win us off in a kindly was to Love and Obedience And
Reason who pretend not to dictate but demonstrate out of Scripture the Sleep of the Soul confidently suggesting to the better gaining Proselytes to their own that the contrary opinion is not Christian but Heathenish derived from the Philosophy of Plato which the Greek Fathers had imbibed and thence introduced into the Church of Christ. To the First of which I answer That our Adversaries Demonstrations for the Sleep of the Soul are but their own Imaginations and Dreams upon the mistaken Text. It is beside my scope to insist long on this matter I shall onely give you a tast of the weakness of the rest of their Arguments by proposing and refuting of those that seem the strongest Their main proof is from the whole tenor of the 15 of the 1 Cor. and more particularly from the 32 verse If after the manner of men I have fought with beasts at Ephesus what advantageth it me if the dead rise not Hence they think may certainly be concluded That the Soul before the Resurrection of the Body has not the Perception or Enjoyment of any thing otherwise the very Remembrance of those sufferings for Christ might be a solace for Paul when he was out of the Body 3. But to answer this Difficulty with the fuller satisfaction let us premise some few things to prepare the way to it As first That the Schemes of speech in Prophets and men inspired are usually such as most powerfully strike the Phansie and most strongly beat upon the Imagination they describing things in the most sensible palpable and particular representations that can be According to which Figure the General Resurrection is set off by mens awaking out of the dust of the Earth and coming out of the Graves when as yet many thousands have wanted Burial their bones rotting on the surface of the Earth and as many thousands have had their intombement in the Waters 4. Secondly That the Holy Writers do not pen down their Conceptions in so strict a Scholastick Method that they keep precisely and punctually to one Title but by a free vibration of Phansie give a touch here and a touch there according as they were moved and actuated by that Spirit that exhibits more to their Minds at once then their Tongue has leasure orderly and distinctly to utter and are more earnestly taken up in making good the main and most usefull scope of their discourse then to satisfie mens Curiosities in particular Niceties 5. Thirdly That many Words in Scripture have a lax and ambiguous sense and that therefore they are to be understood according as Circumstances and Likelyhood of Truth determine and that these Termes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are of that nature they sometimes signifying the raising up again of a Body out of the grave sometimes merely vivificating of the Body or recovering a Person to life other sometimes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is the very same with the Jewes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Grotius observes which signifies nothing else but Eternal life or a Blessed Immortality Others enlarge the Signification further and make 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the same that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Conservation in Being And Death seeming to us so dangerous a passage as if we were in hazard of either falling asleep or sliding into a Non-subsistence Divine Conservation because we begin then a new state of life is not unfitly termed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as giving us as it were a new Subsistence setting us upon our feet again and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as keeping us awake when we seemed in danger of letting go all functions of life Which meaning of the words a late Interpreter handsomely makes good comparing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Rom. 9.17 with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Exod. 9.16 which the Seventy render 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The manner of which 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Conservation is excellently set out by this word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which may imply a kinde of jogging or stirring up which is used to recover or prevent ones falling into a swoon and God is the grand Author of Life and Motion as the Apostle speaks 6. Fourthly and lastly That the Corinthians being a people given notoriously to the pleasures of the Flesh there is no question to be made but the Temptations of the place had also drawn away some Members of the Church there at Corinth and made them also 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Now there being nothing that does so much extinguish all Hopes and Apprehensions of a Life to come as Carnal and Sensual pleasures it is very likely that those corrupted members fell away in their own judgments from the belief of any Reward after this life and so with Himeneus and Philetus or with the David-Georgians and our modern Nicolaitans allegorized away the real meaning of the Resurrection or the Blessed Immortality into a mere moral sense under pretence whereof they might ostentate themselves more Spiritual and knowing Christians then the rest and yet with less fear and remorse of conscience indulge to themselves all loosness and liberty of enjoying every tempting pleasure of this mortall life 7. Wherefore to the present Argument I answer in general out of this last and the foregoing Premiss That the purpose of the Apostle in this 15 to the Corinthians is to shew That there is a Life after the death of this Body and a Blessed Immortality to be expected A palpable pledge whereof was God's raising of Christs body out of the grave and exhibiting him alive to his Disciples Which was a Sign very significant and expressive of the thing this Blessed Immortality mainly consisting in being clothed with those Heavenly Ethereal and Paradisiacal bodies which Christ will bestow upon those that belong to him at the last day 8. Out of the First I answer That though S. Paul speak in such a Phrase as fixes our Imagination on the Earth only as is plain from that comparison of seed sown and rotting in the ground for men sow not seed upon the Water yet in whatsoever Element the Souls or Bodies of the Saints be found Earth Water or Air nay though we should grant with some that sundry Souls of holy men act in Aery vehicles in this interval betwixt their Death and the Day of Judgment yet it is no more prejudice to them then to those that are found alive in the flesh For none are excluded from the enjoyment of their glorified bodies 9. Out of the Second and Third I answer That S. Paul might very well have Three conceptions vibrating in his minde while he wrote concerning this Mystery the one more Simple and General of the Life and Subsistency of the Soul out of this Earthly Body the other more Special of a Blessed Immortality and the Third most Determinate of all which represented the manner of this Blessedness in being invested with glorified bodies And out of this General I shall direct a
more Particular answer to that of the 32 of this Chapter where 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 may be either interpreted if the Souls of just men deceased obtain not their glorified or heavenly Bodies For though it were granted that they did in the mean time live and act in Aery vehicles yet that State and Region as the Earth being common to good and bad they had yet obtained no peculiar reward for their hardship and toil here Or else which is the more safe sense by far it may be interpreted at large of the life and subsistency of the Soul after its departure according to the last signification of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the third Premiss And thus is the strength of the main proof of the Psychopannychites utterly enervated 10. But there are other places of Scripture which they misapply to the same purpose as the Answer of our Saviour to the Sadducees question concerning the Resurrection I am the God of Abraham the God of Isaac and the God of Iacob God is not the God of the dead but of the living Hence our Adversaries would conclude That the Souls of the departed do not live because if they did our Saviour's argument would be invalid for the Resurrection For if Abraham's Spirit were now alive God might be his God though his Body never rise But this is easily satisfied out of the second Premiss By Resurrection there being understood a Life hereafter and the Opinion of the Sadducees being That there is neither Angel nor Spirit nor Life to come he does not exactly tie himself to that particular circumstance of a blessed Immortality that consists in the enjoyment of glorified Bodies but answers more at large concerning the subsistence of Souls of men departed that they are and live and that therefore there are Spirits and so handsomly confutes the whole Doctrine of the Sadducees by that citation out of their own Pentateuch and a skilful application thereof CHAP. VII 1. A General Answer to the last sort of places they alledge that imply no enjoyment before the Resurrection 2. A Particular answer to that of 2 Cor. 5. out of Hugo Grotius 3. A preparation to an Answer of the Author 's own by explaining what the Greek word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 may signifie 4. His Paraphrase of the six first Verses of the forecited Chapter 5. A further confirmation of his Paraphrase 6. The weakness of the Reasons of the Psychopannychites noted 1. THE third and last way of proving the Sleep of the Soul is from such Passages in Scripture as seem to joyn the Hour of our Death immediately with the Day of our Resurrection as in 2 Cor. 5. Where the Apostle seems to intimate that there does nothing intercede betwixt the solution of our Earthly Tabernacle and being clothed with the Heavenly which not being till the Day of Judgment it is a sign that the Soul is in no condition unless that of Sleep till then So likewise in 2 Tim. chap. 1. and chap. 4. In the former he speaks of his Depositum which he intrusts God with till that Day and prays that Onesiphorus may finde mercy at that Day and in the latter he speaks of a Crown of righteousness that the Lord the righteous Judge will give him at that day as if all were defer'd till then But in my conceit it is a weak kinde of Argument Because the Souls of the Saints receive not their great reward till the Day of Iudgment that therefore they receive nothing at all nay that they are in a worse state then in this life as having lost all Sense of Existence or Being Their opinion to me seems more tolerable then this who though they do not presently mount them up in their Ethereal Chariots to Heaven yet permit them to move and to act in their Aereal Vehicles at a less distance from the Earth But that Last day being a day of that high Solemnity dreadful Glory and Majesty it is no wonder that for the better moving of the Minds of men he so often mentions that time without taking any notice of the interceding Space For thereby it also seems more nigh as a distant Object does to the sight no visible thing coming between 2. Now for the second to the Cor. 5. chap. There be two waies of clearing that difficulty there The one of Hugo Grotius in which a late learned Interpreter of our own does also insist expounding as they may well the third verse 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 thus If so be we shall be found in the number of those that are still clothed with these Earthly bodies not stript naked of them by death This Interpretation the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 going afore makes still the more warrantable as also that following phrase 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is used by the Apostle in a parallel case This Exposition utterly destroys all the force of the Psychopannychites Argument taken from this place For whereas the Apostle seems to speak as if immediately upon the solution of this Earthly they were to be invested with a Heavenly Tabernacle which is mainly to be gathered out of the second and fourth verses it is only upon the supposition that the day of the Lord might come while they were yet clothed with flesh 3. But because this Interpretation may seem to be something derogatory to the Apostle's Knowledge as if he were pendulous and uncertain whether the day of Iudgment might not be in his time which some men will not bear I shall propound another that they may take their choice The former seems to have a special advantage in the proper sense of those two words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and if we can but come off well here we shall carry on the rest handsmooth We premise therefore thus much concerning the meaning of those two words That as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies simply to put on a garment so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 may well signifie to put on an inward garment For 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 will signifie within in composition as the Latine word In does in Inducula Inducium and Interula all which signifie an inward Garment and the two former they ordinarily derive from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in this proper signification of the word And as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 may signifie to put on an inward garment so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 may signifie an addition of an inward garment to an outward for so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 will signifie in composition as if the sense were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not to be content to wear an upper garment only but to put on also an inward as we do in winter add an half-shirt or a wastcoat Or if this look like too curious a Criticism let 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 be the same with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the same that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one of them also having 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 betwixt 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so that all subterfuge is quite taken away 2. Grotius his Commentary upon this place is very ingenious wherein he supposes Christ to speak to the Thief being a Jew according to the Doctrine of the Hebrews who called the state of the piously-deceased 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the garden of Pleasure or Paradise where though they enjoyed not that consummate Happiness which they were in expectation of at the Resurrection yet they were at the present in a great deal of Joy and Pleasure so much indeed that they held none to arrive to it after their death but such as had their Souls well purified before they departed their Bodies whom he parallells to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 above mentioned out of the Author to the Hebrews chap. 12. and therefore there was great cause saith he that our Saviour said This day thereby signifying that he should not be any longer deferred according to the Doctrine of their Rabbins notwithstanding the vainness of his life but upon this his Repentance should immediately be with Christ in Paradise even that very day he spoke unto him 3. Nor need we with S. Austin sweat much in labouring to make that Article of the Apostles Creed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 agree with his being in Paradise in the Intervall betwixt his Death and Resurrection For 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in general as this Expositour makes good signifies nothing else but the invisible state of Souls separate from the Body nor does 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 restrain it to a descent into Hell For as for this phrase 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because it is spoken of the whole Person of Christ as it is also of others that enter into the state of the dead by the defixion of our Phansy upon what is most gross and sensible viz. the going down of the body into the grave we are easily drawn to make use of it to express the whole business both of the Bodie 's and the Soul 's receding from amongst the number of the living as Iacob does Genes 37.35 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 when notwithstanding his Son was not buried but torn in pieces with wild beasts as he thought Wherefore the sense is my Body descending into the Grave with my Soul shall I go unto my Son into the Region of the dead 4. Again Though 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 usually signifies to descend or go downwards yet it signifies sometimes merely to vanish or go out of sight and very often as in other words so in this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 has no signification at all but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is all one with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to go of which it were easie to give plenty of Examples out of the Septuagint but that I account it needless Wherefore 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 may very well be rendred not that he descended into hell but that he went into the Region of Souls separate or of the Spirits of men departed this life And that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 bears this General sense Grotius makes good not only from the forecited place of Genesis but from the use of the word in sundry Greek Authors as Diphilus Sophocles Diodorus Siculus Iosephus Plato and others That of Plutarch is very remarkable where he expounds that verse of Homer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is saith he 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And the same Author elsewhere To 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 intimating that the Air is that Invisible Region of the dead into which the Spirits of dying men depart And it is confessed of all sides that whereas those other Elements Fire Water Earth are visible that the Air and Aether are utterly invisible and therefore 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 may very well contain in it both Hell and Paradise Whence it is plain that Christ might be at the same time both 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and in Paradise as a man may be both in England and in London at once And his Promise to the Thief of the immediate enjoyment of that Bliss was as it were a Proclamation from the Cross to all the World That the Souls of men live and subsist out of their Bodies Which he further demonstrated by reassuming his own and ascending with it up to Heaven in the sight of his Disciples 5. Which Truth he seems to me also plainly to suppose in the Parable of Dives and Lazarus as also of the Unjust Steward For Dives his desiring Abraham to send Lazarus to his brethren to inform them of his sad condition in what trouble and torment he was does manifestly imply That the Souls of the Wicked are in Torment and in Trouble before the Day of Judgment yea immediately upon their Death and That the Souls of the Godly are forthwith in Joy after their departure out of this life as is intimated by the Transportation of Lazarus his Soul into Abraham's bosome and our Saviour's application of the Parable of the Steward exhorting us to be liberal of these worldly goods that when this life and the pleasures thereof fail we may be received into joy everlasting But we need not insist upon what is more obnoxious to the Cavils and Evasions of our slippery Adversaries we having produced already so many and unexceptionable Testimonies of Scripture for the Confirmation of the present Truth viz. That it is no Paganism but sound and warrantable Christianity to assert That the Souls of the deceased do not sleep but do live understand and perceive what condition they are in after death be it good or evil BOOK II. CHAP. I. 1. He passes to the more Intelligible parts of Christianity for the understanding whereof certain preparative Propositions are to be laid down 2. As That there is a God 3. A brief account of the Assertion from his Idea 4. A further Confirmation from its ordinary concatenation with the Rational account of all other Beings as first of the Existence of the disjoynt and independent particles of Matter 1. WE have at length passed through the most dark and doubtful part of our journey and have given what Account we were able of the most Obscure and Abstruse points in Christianity We begin now to enter into a more lightsome Region and easier prospect of Truth the day breaking upon us and the morning-light tinging the tops of the mountains from whence we are ascertain'd of a further and a more full discovery of that Grand Mystery we seek after which the Spirit of God in the plain Records of Scripture will afterward so ratifie and confirm that to those that have a judgment to discern it will be secured from all future controversie But in the mean time we are to contemplate the Reasonableness and Intelligibleness thereof from some chief Heads or
reaching to every Individual thing or Person in the world It being as easie for God to see all things as to see any one thing his Perception being Infinite and therefore Undistractable and Indefatigable Now his Goodness and Power being no less immense it will necessarily follow That there is not any thing that befalls the meanest Creature in the whole Creation but that it was suitable to the Goodness of God either to cause it or permit it For though it may seem at the present harsh to that particular Being yet at the length it may prove for its greater Advantage at least it may be deemed good for the Universe as Marcus Aurelius solidly and judiciously ever and anon does suggest and I think he is but a shallow Philosopher that cannot maintain this Cause against all Atheistical surmises and cavills whatsoever CHAP. III. 1. His Third Assertion That there are Particular Spirits or Immaterial Substances and of their Kinds 2. The Proof of their Existence and especially of theirs which in a more large sense be called Souls 3. The Difference betwixt the Souls or Spirits of Men and Angels and how that Pagan Idolatry and the Ceremonies of Witches prove the Existence of Devils 4. And that the Existence of Devils proves the Existence of Good Angels 1. MY Third Assertion is That there are Particular Spirits or Immaterial Substances Which will easily flow from what is so firmly proved already That there is one Omnipotent Omniscient and infinitely-Benign Spirit which we call GOD who therefore acting according to his nature we cannot doubt but that he has created innumerable companies of Spirits to enjoy themselves and their Creatour Which are either purely Immaterial having no communion at all with Matter with the Greeks again divide into 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 into pure Intellects or Minds and simple Unities or else such as although according to their very Substance or Essence they be Immaterial yet have a propertie of being vitally united with and also affected by the Matter To these Spirits for want of a better term I must take the boldness to abuse a known word to a greater latitude of sense and give the name of Souls to them all because they do vitally actuate the Matter be it Aethereal Aereal or Terrestrial Whether there be not also a middle sort betwixt these Souls and pure Intellects a man may well doubt which differ from Intellect in having an immediate power of moving the Matter and from Souls in not being vitally joined therewith but acting merely as Assistent Formes such as the Aristoteleans phansie their Intelligencies to be 2. For the Existence of the Three first Orders we have intimated already a considerable Argument which reaches all the Orders of Spirits indifferently The last Order falls not only under the knowledge of more abstracted Reason but also under Experience it self For that there is a Spirit in the Body of Man is evident to us because we find such Operations in us as are incompetible to Matter if we more closely and considerately examine them This Spirit that thus acts in us is called a Soul But that there is some such analogical Principle in the Aereal or Aethereal Genii the actions and conditions of some of them do confirm For if their Nature were not such as we have described that is if they did not inhabit and vitally actuate corporeal Vehicles how could they ever sin or fall For it is out of the conjunction of these two Principles Spirit and Vehicle that there ever could be brought in any inward Temptation Distraction or Confusion in any of the Orders of the Genii or Angels But Pure and Simple Abstract Beings seem utterly Impassible and therefore Impeccable Wherefore it is very highly probable That all fallen Angels which we ordinarily call Devils are of the Fourth Order of Spirits which we have described 3. Which Spirits of the Genii fallen or not fallen notoriously differ from these Spirits of men in that they are not capable of informing an Humane or Terrestrial Body and therefore bear themselves above them as a Superior Being and out of their pride and scorn have ever since their fall either by fraud or force universally entangled poor contemptible Mankinde in sundry performances of Idolatrous worship unto them which they could not have done if men were not lapsed as well as they Wherefore the Pagans Superstitions and the History of Witches will make good that there are Devils and that they are of that nature we speak of 4. And I think this being evinced no man will question but that there are also Good Angels to conflict with and moderate the Bad. For God will not let the great Automaton of the Universe be so imperfect as to be forced to step out perpetually himself to do that which some Noble part of his Creation might perform nor set those things one against another that are quite of another kinde Besides those Philosophers that have wrote of these things with most judgment do not easily conclude That there are any other created Intellectual Beings but such as are capable of being vitally united with some Vehicle or other Which if it were true is nothing prejudicial to us the admission of the Three First Orders being little or nothing serviceable to our design And lastly it is improbable but that the Fall of the Angels being from a Free principle as some fell so others stood and that there has ever been since their fall both Good and Bad Angels in the world in that sense as I have explained the Nature of the Angels or Genii whether Good or Bad. CHAP. IV. 1. His Fourth Assertion That the Fall of the Angels was their giving up themselves to the Animal life and forsaking the Divine 2. The Fifth That this fall of theirs changed their purest Vehicles into more gross and feculent 3. The Sixth That the change of their Vehicles was no extinction of life 4. The Seventh That the Souls of Men are immortal and act and live after death The inducements to which belief are the Activity of fallen Angels 5. The Homogeneity of the inmost Organ of Perception 6. The scope and meaning of External Organs of Sense in this Earthly Body 7. The Soul's power of Organizing her Vehicle 8. And lastly The accuracy of Divine Providence 1. WE add Fourthly That these Angels before their Fall had a twofold Principle of Life in them Divine and Animal and that their Fall consisted in this In leaving their obedience to the DIVINE LIFE and wholy betaking themselves to the ANIMAL LIFE without rule or measure 2. Fifthly That this Rebellion had an effect upon their Vehicles and changed their pure Aethereal Bodies into more Feculent and Terrestrial understanding Terrestrial in as large a sense as Cartesius does which will take in the whole Atmosphere They have forfeited therefore these more resplendent mansions for this obscure and caliginous Air they wander in and have now in
others out of the captivity of the Kingdome of darkness and Tyranny of Devil 5. Wherefore if any man start up and pretend an Equality with Christ he is ipso facto convinced of ignorance in the Mystery of Godliness and deprehended to be an Impostour and a Lyar or he is haply a Beast and an Epicure denying the Immortality of the Soul and thereupon building all his slights and contempts of the Personal knowledge of our Saviour he deeming him as all men else wholly Mortal and therefore utterly to have perished above sixteen hundred years agoe CHAP. VI. 1. An objection against Christ's Soveraignty over Men and Angels from the meanness of the rank of Humane Spirits in comparison of the Angelical Orders 2. An Answer to the objection so far as it concerns the fallen Angels 3. A further inforcement of the Objection concerning the unfallen Angels with an Answer thereto 4. A further Answer from the incapacitie of an Angels being a Sacrifice for the Sins of the World 5. And of being a fit Example of life to men in the flesh 6. That the capacities of Christ were so universal that he was the fittest to be made the Head or Soveraign over all the Intellectual Orders 7. Christ's Intercession his fitness for that Office 8. What things in the Pagan Religion are rectified and compleated in the Birth Passion Ascension and Intercession of Christ. 1. BUT it may be further objected That although it be very Reasonable that the Angels and the Spirits of men whether in the body or out of the body be reduced under some Political form of Government yet it seems very incongruous and disproportionable that some one of the lowest rank of all the Orders of Rational Creatures should be made the Soveraign over all over Angels and Archangels and all Principalities and Powers whatsoever whether in Heaven or in Earth 2. But to this I answer That though the Superiour Orders of Intellectual Beings may have far more strength and natural Understanding in them then Man yet the Humanity of Christ may not be inferiour to them in Humility and an holy adhesion to God in Self-resignation and Faith in him who is the Root of all things in Love also and dear Compassion over the whole Creation and in a word in whatever appertains to the Divine life But as for the lapsed Angels let them be otherwise as cunning and knowing in all Arts and Subtilties of Nature let them be as powerfull as Gigantick as they will even to the overturning mountains and striking down steeples at a blow yet Christ has infinitely the preeminence of them in those Divine accomplishments I have recited nay he has a Principle beyond them removed above their Sphere as man has a Principle beyond Beasts And therefore it is no more wonder that God has constituted him Lord over these rebellious Titans then that Man is made superiour to Lions Elephants Whales and other mighty and monstrous Creatures 3. But you 'l say Though it seem just that the usurped Empire of the Devil be taken from him and given to Christ yet there is no reason that the unfallen Angels should be brought under his sceptre they being naturally of an higher order then himself and having forfeited nothing by rebellion or disobedience to God And therefore it had been more Reasonable for God to have united himself Hypostatically as they call it with some Angel then with Humane nature But what art thou O man that pretendest to be so wise as to give laws to God may not he dispose of his own and of himself as he pleases Besides there being so great a Revolt in the Angelical Orders who tempted also Mankind into their lapse the pretermission of them all in the conferring of so great an Honour as was conferred upon Christ was but a just check and slight cast upon all their Orders at once the Angelical bloud as I may so say being tainted with Treason Again the revolt and rebellion of the Apostate Angels being nothing else but a wilde and boundless giving themselves up to the pleasures and suggestions of the Animal life and Christianity as I have already defined it nothing else but a Triumph of the Divine life over the Animal this Triumph Scorn and Insultation over the Animal life is more exactly pursued by how much in every place those things that seem of most value to it are left out as slighted and disregarded and the whole Mystery of the Recovery of the lapsed Creation to God performed by him who undertook it without the false pomp of those needless circumtances of highness of Order Nobleness of Birth worldly Authority Strength and Beauty of body Subtilty of Wit Knowledge of Nature Plausibility of Eloquence or whatsoever else seems precious to the mere Natural or Animal Spirit So that upon this very account the Angels were to be excluded from this function 4. But fourthly and lastly If any Angel would have been competitour with our Saviour in this Honour that question put to Zebedee's Children might well have dash'd him out of countenance in his competition You know not what you ask can you drink of the cup that I am to drink of and be baptized with the Baptisme that I am to be baptized with that is Can you undergoe that shamefull and scornfull death of the Cross Certainly an Angel cannot For if he could be born into the World in Humane flesh and suffer those agonies the Soul of the Messias did this Angel were no Angel but an Humane Soul But perhaps you 'l replie that though an Angel cannot suffer death in an Humane body yet he is so capable of torment and punishment that he may be made an Expiation for the Sinnes of the World But I demand how we that are so much concerned in it shall know of that suffering For the Transactions of men are a spectacle to the Angels but the Transactions of Angels are not discerned by men by reason of the Tenuity of their Vehicles But this suffering Angel would have appeared on purpose Yet how unsatisfactory and phantastical would this have been conceived in comparison of the real and assured Passion of our Saviour Christ. 5. Besides If an Angel had undertaken this office he could not have been so fit an Example of life to us as Christ who was a man subject to the same infirmities with our selves and who really felt what belong'd to the imbecillity of our natures For the Passions of his Minde were no more abated nor destroyed by his union with the Deity then the Passibility of Matter is by being united with a Soul Wherefore Christ wading thus faithfully without sin or blame throughout all the incumbrances of the Flesh which are greater then those that the Angelical Orders are liable unto is a very concerning spectacle of both Men and Angels But what an Angel could do would but very little concern us men 6. Wherefore he who was of so universal a capacity as to be an
likely that at the very last gasp of the power of the Beast the truest and most Apostolick Christians should be in worse plight then ever before But to this I answer That the truth of Mr. Mede's Synchronisms does not at all depend upon this nor is his conjecture so impossible to be true But I must confess I think there is still a better way of answering namely That these Three days and an half are the same that a time and times and half a time that is three times and an half For it is unquestionable but that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 often signifies no more then 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Now that it should signifie so here besides the improbability of an Effect answerable to the other interpretation or that the Witnesses should be otherwise slain then they have been often or for a long time together that mention of half a day answering to half a time fairly invites us to believe it being also unlikely that Providence would affect the curiosity of counting by half a year a thing not to be sampled in all Divine Prophecies These Three days and an half therefore are first to be changed into Three times and an half and then these Three times and a half into Three years and an half and these Three years and an half into 1260 Prophetick days Which ambages and circuits are not at all improbable if we consider what studied concealments and obscurities there are in this Book of the Apocalypse as particularly in the number of the Beast and of the new Ierusalem upon which we shall touch a little anon To say nothing of a main usefulness of these Three days and an half to determine the true number of a time and times For how can we be assured how many times are designed thereby especially it being 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Daniel which is the plural number not the dual and therefore bids fair to be more then two times at least three Whence it would be four times and an half But these Three days and an half correct or prevent the mistake by fixing these Time and Times and half a Time to Three Times and an half Which I confess I do little doubt but that it is the true meaning of the Mystery Nor does their being slain 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 at all prejudice our Interpretation For it is not well rendred when they shall have finished nor yet need be rendred while they are making an end of their witnessings as if this should happen at the latter end of it but may very warrantably be expounded dum peragunt while they are performing this office of witnessing from the beginning of the 1260 days to the end thereof Nor yet is that a real but seeming absurdity that this Interpretation brings along with it as if the Witnesses could prophesy while their carcasses lie dead in the streets For it is plain that in that sense they are said to be dead they may prophesy in sackcloth nay they will necessarily do so I mean perform their witnessing with sadness and mourning For their death is nothing else but a Political death their want of power and rule in the World For such is their Resurrection namely Political they being raised to honour and government as Mr. Mede himself acknowledgeth Wherefore there is no absurdity neither in the inward meaning nor outward Cortex of this Prophecy For the inward meaning is such as I have told you And the outward Cortex framed with very graceful artifice like that in the Image of Nebuchadnezar where merely for the decorum of the Type the whole Image is represented as standing and struck upon the legs whenas yet that which was signified by the head by the breast and armes and by the belly and thighs to wit the Babylonian Persian and Greek Monarchies were passed away So for the like decorum in this Type of the Witnesses if not for necessity to avoid a seeming gross incongruity that the Witnesses might not be said to prophesy while their bodies lay dead in the streets the time of their death which really pervades the whole 1260 days is concealed under and contracted into these Three days and an half and made not to appear where in the things signified it is as those parts of the Image were represented as standing when the things that they signified ceased to be Which Scheme is not at all more hard in the one then in the other and in this Type of the Witnesses more useful and necessary 5. Concerning the Sameness of the Beast out of the Sea with the Beast out of the bottomless pit there could have been no scruple if Translators had interpreted 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 out of the Sea as it is very well capable 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifying the same very often in Scripture as Iob 38.30 and chap. 41.23 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Psalm 105. v. 10. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 As also Isay 63.13 Ion. 2.6 and other places Wherefore the Wisdome of God thought good to vary the phrase here onely for concealment as this whole Book of Prophecies is beset with many purposed though not invincible obscurities and difficulties to keep this treasure hid till the time appointed Or it may be the using of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 here in stead of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 might be not to determine the sense to the ten-horned Beast but to give at least a liberty of interpreting it also of the two-horned contemporary with him 6. But in no aspect does this Book of the Apocalypse look so hopeless and discouraging as in that of the First Resurrection Chap. 20. But withall it is to be noted there is no difficulty here but such as will at least equally urge those that begin the Millennium at Constantine's time So that this can be no prejudice to Mr. Mede's Interpretations and Synchronisms For whether we will go the Allegorical way with some and understand this First Resurrection in a Political sense like that of the Witnesses this way is better accommodated to Mr. Mede's Synchronisms then to the other Hypothesis Nor were it any great inconvenience to admit it as true those phrases which at last will have a Literal fulfilling being often used in a Figurative as we may observe in the lake of fire some descriptions of God's coming to particular judgments the six thunders and the like all which expressions will have at last a Literal and Physical completion But though the Figurative sense of Resurrection may be passable and tolerable in this place yet I must confess I dare not avouch it to be wholy true My Reasons shall be suggested in the exposition of the Text which runs thus And I saw Thrones and they sate upon them and judgment was given unto them and I saw the Souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Iesus and for the word of
God and which had not worshipped the Beast neither his Image neither had received his mark upon their foreheads or in their hands and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years But the rest of the dead lived not again untill the thousand years were finished This is the First Resurrection Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the First Resurrection on such the second death hath no power but they shall be priests of God and of Christ and shall reign with him a thousand years There was never any Book penned with that artifice as this of the Apocalypse as if every word were weighed in a balance before it was set down which is manifest out of other places as well as this In which I conceive a double design is aimed at a prediction of a proper Resurrection of the Witnesses to the Truth by their deaths and of a Political Resurrection to the true and Apostolical Church that does survive upon Earth The former are the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the latter those that worshipped not the Beast c. which if they were not distinct from the other it had been better to have omitted 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and to have read 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Wherefore this is the first intimation that there are two Orders of men there set down The one that suffered death for the cause of the Gospel The other that are still alive but resolute Opposers of the Beast But there is also a second hint in the following words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They lived and reigned The Spirit of God seems on set purpose to make choice of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 rather then 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that he might not bear too hard toward the sense of a literal Resurrection and so urge the Reader too forcibly to understand both these Orders above distinguished to be Candidates of a real and literal Resurrection at this time And therefore he uses 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which in reference to the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 will naturally implie a literal Resurrection and in reference to the other no literal Resurrection they being not supposed naturally dead but merely a living upon Earth and reigning there with Christ which is their Moral and Political Life and Resurrection The 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 shall reign with Christ in Heaven and those other with Christ on Earth he being universal Prince over both Churches and therefore neither Heaven nor Earth is here mentioned that the sense may be accommodated to either the reigning with Christ in Heaven or in Earth according to the distinct capacities of the persons And the like caution is used in the prefiguration of the time of which there is no necessity to conceit that it signifies just a thousand years literally but that it signifies at least a thousand years and certainly not more then there are daies in that thousand nor in likelihood near so many But the signification is rather Symbolical as the ten daies are chap. 2. v. 10. And ye shall have the tribulation of ten daies that is the utmost extent of tribulation beyond which there is nothing further as there is no number beyond Ten by which therefore must be meant death And that is the reason why presently is added Be thou faithfull unto death and I will give thee the Crown of life So this thousand years upon earth is a symbol of the Churches stable duration to the end of the world that there shall no Politie flourish beyond it it being a Cube whose root is Ten. And the application of it to the reigning of the children of the Resurrection with Christ in heaven discovers the unshaken stability and endless duration of that celestial Kingdome also beyond which absolutely there is nothing at all But the rest of the dead 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 lived not again The using of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 here and not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 has plainly respect to the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and intimates that their Resurrection was real and literal to which others should not attain till after the Thousand years upon earth After which it is plainly said that there is a general Resurrection and that all the dead do rise ver 12 13 14. Wherefore this general Resurrection being literal and real it is too too harsh and violent to understand this First Resurrection mentioned in this fifth verse to be only Figurative and Mystical But understanding it literally that which follows has a wonderfull natural and easie sense Blessed and holy is he that has part in the first Resurrection which he speaks thus in the singular number one would think on purpose to keep men off from conceiting he means it of the successive body of the Church during the thousand years 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 upon these the second death has no power namely The lake of fire ver 14. into which Hades or the whole region of mortality is cast the Earth being all on fire But blessed are those that have part in the First Resurrection for they are sped already safe having obtained those celestial bodies that do certainly exempt them from this Fate For these and all such as God shall afterward make partakers of this blessed kind of Resurrection are naturally free from the reach of the second death But they shall be priests of God and of Christ and reign with him not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but for sureness and for distinction sake simply 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is They shall be holy sacred and divine persons and live with Christ in his immutable and everlasting Kingdome in Heaven for ever and ever This I conceive to be the most easie and natural sense of this place and that the Personal Reign of Christ upon Earth and of his holy Martyrs is a very rash and groundless and unsafe conceit fit for nothing but heat and tumult both of phansie and action Nor do I think it necessary that the Sons of this first Resurrection should at all appear to us their celestial bodies into which they are vivificated being naturally invisible and therefore a kind of miracle for us to see them and no more necessary then the exhibiting those Souls to view which Christ carried to Heaven in triumph after his Resurrection which yet he did not exhibit to the sight of the world And if he doe here I can imagine no better end then that of Mr. Mede's that it may be for a sign or beckening to the Jews to help on their Conversion but I can affirm nothing of these things Only I am well assured that if Christendome were once well purged of all her Idolatries foolish and contradictious opinions and wicked practices it would be a very great Miracle if the Jews could be kept off from being converted 7. Wherefore in brief to conclude seeing the truth of Mr. Mede's Synchronisms as far as respects this present subject is
soul out of the Grave after he had lien there four daies together But that universal expression of mens rising out of the Grave is but a Prophetical Scheme of Speech the more strongly to strike our senses as I have already intimated in my exposition of the 15 of 1 Cor. against the Psychopannychites And therefore the greater accumulation of absurdities that can be made against that circumstance it will the more confirm that usefull Interpretation of mine 3. This succour we have against the Atheists out of Philosophy but I answer further as concerning the Scripture it self which is the only certain measure of the truth of our Religion and to which alone I dare finally stand not thinking my self bound to make good every conceit that either the Pride Precipitancie Inadvertencie or Ignorance of fallible Teachers have obtruded upon the World That I dare challenge him to produce any place of Scripture out of which he can make it appear That the Mysterie of the Resurrection implies the resuscitation of the same numerical body The most pregnant of all is Job 19 which later Interpreters are now so wise as not to understand at all of the Resurrection The 1 Cor. 15. that Chapter is so far from asserting this curiosity that it plainly saies it is not the same body but that as God gives to the blades of corn grains quite distinct from that which was sown so at the Resurrection he will give the Soul a Body quite different from that which was buried Now if it be not the same Body that was buried what need it run into the Earth to come out again Wherefore it is plain that the Apostle there writes as I said before in a Prophetical and Symbolical style 4. But the Atheist will still hang on and object further That the very term Resurrectio implies that the same body shall rise again for that only that falls can be said properly to rise again But the Answer will be easie the Objection being grounded merely upon a mistake of the sense of the word which is to be interpreted out of those higher Originals the Greek and Hebrew and not out of the Latine though the word in Latin does not alwaies implie an individual Restitution of what is gone or fallen as in that verse in Ovid Victa tamen vinces subversaque Troja resurges But this is not so near to our purpose let us rather consider the Greek word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which Resurrectio supplies in Latin and therefore must be made to be of as large a sense as it Now 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is so far from signifying in some places the Reproduction or Recuperation of the same thing that was before that it bears no sense at all of Reiteration in it As Matth. 22.24 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Genes 7. there 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifie merely a living subsistence and therefore 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in an active signification according to this sense will be nothing else but a giving or continuing life and subsistence to a thing The word in the Hebrew that answers to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which Translators interpret a Living substance whence 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 according to this analogie may very well bear the same latitude of sense that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they being both words that are rendred Resurrectio but simply of themselves signifie only Vivification or erection unto life or the being made a living Creature But seeing that men are Creatures that have been once alive and are to be made alive again and to become sensible and visible 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 at the day of Judgment therefore 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are ordinarily translated Revivificatio and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are to be understood in the same sense that implies a Recuperation of life 5. Now the Iewish Rabbins as Buxtorf has noted are very critical in these words appropriating 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to the Resurrection of the just but the other to the Revivification of the wicked though they sometimes again confound them But that which is nearest to our purpose is to consider in what signification of the words the thing signified is competible to the unjust as well as to the just And I conceive it is that which the Apostle Paul speaks 2 Cor. 5.10 For we must all appear before the Tribunal of Christ that every man may receive according to what he has done in his body whether good or evil But as well the wicked as the just before they thus appear are really in life and Being though to us they be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 dead vanisht and invisible 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Luke 20. But all are alive and visible to God even the bad as well as the good Therefore the Resurrection or Revivification for the word signifies no more then so that is common to both is this That they become palpable and visible 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and appear at that general Assizes at the last Day For then all the World good and bad shall not only be alive to God but also alive and visible to one another And this is that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Revivificatio that is common to all And that this notion is solid appears from hence in that Luke by saying For they all live to God implies that they are dead in reference to men Wherefore so far forth as they are said to be dead so far forth may they be said to be revived or to be raised from the dead as the Ghosts of men are said to be by art Magick because they are made to appear But the Devil is not said to be raised from the dead because he was never properly said to be alive amongst us or to live amongst us CHAP. V. 1. An Objection against the Resurrection from the Activity of the Soul out of her Body with the first Answer thereto 2. The second Answer 3. The special significations of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the first belonging to the unjust the latter to the just 4. That the life that is led on the Earth or in this lower Region of the Air is more truly a Death then a Life 5. The manner of our recovering our Celestial Body at the last Day 6. And of the accomplishment of the Promise of Christ therein 1. I Should proceed but that I must be contented to be interrupted by one Objection more which is this If the Souls of men live and act out of their Bodies before the Resurrection what need is there of any Resurrection of the Body For what want have they of any Bodies at all if their Soul can live and act without them But I answer First That we are not infallibly assured but that the Souls as well of the Good as the Bad after Death have
the Divine Wisdome that does not act according to absolute Power but according to the Congruity of the nature of things is to wind off Mankind from the slavery of the Devil and reclaim them from the irregularities of the Animal life to the embracement of the Divine by such a way as is most accommodate to the humane Faculties and Capacities 12. And what do we think could work more kindly upon the Nature of man to disenslave him from the bondage of Satan and to make him close with the Divine life which he had forsaken then to exhibit a very visible Example thereof in some venerable Person who should earnestly exhort mankind to follow his steps and practices and whose Doctrine should be confirmed with sensible Testimonies from Heaven in approbation and exaltation of his person shewing that he is the only Beloved the Darling and Delight of the Eternal God with some such Expression as this from the very clouds This is my beloved Son hear him In brief That his Birth Life and Death should be adorned with such miraculous and supernatural Circumstances that it may be visible to all men that are not willingly blinde that this man was a true and infallible Messenger sent from God Which would be a very forcible battery laid against their outward senses 13. But being that this had been the sadder message by how much more they had been ascertain'd it had been true That they must forsake the exorbitant pleasures of the Animal Life and keep close up to the Divine it was also requisite that they might be assured of a proportionable Reward for so great an Agony as they were to undergoe in mortifying castigating their natural or habitual desires and betaking themselves to the streighter way And therefore it is fit that that Truth that is so obscure and incredible to the generality of men should be made grosly manifest to the meanest capacities I mean the Reward of a blessed Immortality after this Life and the regaining of Heaven or Paradise which lapsed Mankind had lost The Certainty whereof I cannot tell how it may be better assured to them then by the witness of one whom we are sure is infallible and who saies expressly that he came from thence and after Death is to go thither again and does not only tell the World so but proves it to outward sight he being raise out of his Grave after he was perfectly dead and ascending into the Heavens where flesh and bloud cannot inhabit Which is a visible Demonstration of the Soul's Immortality and as feelingly accommodate to the slowest apprehension as if some man of whose honesty the people were indubitably assured should descend from some high Hill where none of the Country had had the hap to have been as yet and should tell them what pleasant Woods and Groves there were there full of all manner of delicious Fruit a true terrestrial Paradise and that it was not so steep or inaccessible as they imagined and therewith should return thither in the very sight of those that questioned the Matter This consideration would reach their very inward Reason and indispensable Interest For they that are the lowest lapsed are not fallen from the sense of their own good and from a desire of everlasting happiness if they find it possible 14. This were enough to make mankinde weary of the Devil 's Tyrannical yoke But in all revolts there ought to be some Head and no person is so fit for such a purpose as he who is able to reward his followers whose Vertues are eminently opposite to the Vices of the Tyrant and whose Rule when he is installed will as little thwart the usual or natural and innocent propensions of the People as may be Wherefore whereas the Devil's Government is notorious for unspeakable Pride Insolency and Cruelty to Mankind as has been at large discovered in those bloudy sacrificings and despightfully misusings of men in a way of Superstition which no man can doubt to have any better Author then Satan himself the Head of this warrantable Revolt must be singularly kind and tenderly and affectionately loving and compassionate to the Generations of men as also very humble and lowly and be so far from requiring such abominable and bloudy homages as the sacrificing of men to him that he would willingly lay down his life for their sake Which must needs prove an unspeakable endearment of the affections of his followers to him and raise in them a more vehement detestation of the Devil's Tyranny But because Love is ineffectual that has no power of doing good this Head becomes the more perfectly compleat if he be found not only so Kind as to be willing to lay down his life for his Subjects but also to be able to save them from all the inconveniences that opposite Power intangled them in whose wages were no better then Eternal death and therefore it was fitting that he should have a power from God of giving Everlasting Life and crowning them with a blessed Immortality at the last day and of saving them from that general Destruction that will in time seize as well on the rebellious Angels as the unreclaimed Souls of men 15. Lastly Those natural innocent Propensions of Mankind are gratified in this Head we speak of if there be such Properties in him as are sutable to their Opinions Practices and Desires in matters of Religion And we know by History that the Heathen were very prone to suspect those that were their eminent Benefactors to have been born of more then humane Race and that they had so high sense of Gratitude toward them that they Deified them after their Deaths and did them divine Honour Adde to this their conceit of the necessity of their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for the appeasing the Wrath of the Gods and of the convenience of their Dii Medioxumi Wherefore if Divine Providence add these Gratifications also in the choice of the Head she shall appoint for the opposing and beating down the Kingdome of Satan the matter is still more completely fitted and accommodated to the humane Faculties which having been long abused by idle mistakes cannot but be highly transported with joy upon the discovering their true and warrantable Object and so the Nations will finde such a Prince and Leader as the more they behold him and eye him the more they must become enravished by him Divine Wisdome condescending by this contrivance to the utmost curiosity of Courtship to win off poor lapsed Mankind from the Tyranny of Satan to the Kingdome of God 16. This is a short Review of the more Intelligible part of Christianity the Reasonableness whereof I take to be such that I dare appeal to the judgment of any if it be not so worthy of the Divine Wisdome and Goodness and so fitly suited unto the nature and condition of things and the state of men upon earth that it is indispensable but that Providence
and more answerable to the very Phrase of Scripture he is accompanied with Angels as well as Saints some of his Elders being adorned with the glittering title of Seraphims as is to be seen in the Legend of his life entituled Mirabilia Dei as also in his Glass of Righteousness CHAP. XIII 1. An Examination of all possible Grounds of this fanatick Boaster's magnifying himself thus highly 2. That there are no Grounds thereof from either the Matter he delivers or from his Scriptural Eloquence Raptures and Allegories 3. The unspeakable Power and Profit of the Letter above that of the Allegorie instanced in the Crucifixion Resurrection Ascension of our Saviour and his coming again to Iudgement 4. That Allegorizing the Scripture is no special Divine gift but the fruit of either our Natural Phansie or Education 5. That he had no grounds of magnifying himself from any Miracles he did 6. Nor from being any Special Preacher of Perfection or Practiser thereof 7. Of that Imperfection that is seated in the impurity of the Astral Spirit and ungovernable tumult of Phansy in Fanatick Persons 1. BUT enough has been related to shew that transcendent esteem this Enthusiast had both of himself and also would insinuate into others of his own Person and Doctrine Let us now consider what Right or Ground he had to assume so much to himself or others may have to attribute so much unto him And to bring all the Inducements imaginable into view This high conceit of his of being so supereminent a Person must arise either from the Matter he does deliver or his Eloquence or the Raptures he was in when he penn'd down his Revelations as he would have them thought or from the Mysteriousness of his Allegories or from his Evangelizing the Perfection or lastly for that he was prophesied of in the Scriptures as he in whom all things should be fulfilled 2. Now for the main Matter he delivers plainly and above-bord it is the excellency of Love Which is so Essential a Truth to Christianity and plainly inculcated in the Gospel and so effectually recommended that there is no true Christian can miss of it So that we need no new Instructer in that divine Grace much less any inspired Prophet to teach us what is so plain to us already And therefore if there be any thing new in this doctrine of Love it must be such a kind of Love that is new to Christians I mean to true Christians but not to the Gnosticks nor the School of Simon Magus who spoke as magnificently of himself as this Impostor can do possibly And for his Scriptural Eloquence his Raptures and Transportations in the penning down his Writings how that such things arise frequently from Nature and Complexion is abundantly declared in my Enthusiasmus Triumphatus to say nothing of worser Assistences then mere Complexion as also the dexterity of Allegorizing which yet how distortedly he performs I shall note anon 3. In the mean time I hold it well worth our observation how giddy and injudicious those persons are that are so mightily taken with the Mystical sense of such parts of the History of Christ as are most profitable in the belief of the mere Letter such as his Passion Resurrection Ascension his Session at the right hand of God and his coming again to Iudgement when he will change these vile bodies of ours into the similitude of his Heavenly body For making this a mere Representation of something to be performed within us namely his Crucifixion of our mortifying of the old man his Resurrection of our rising to newness of life his Ascension into Heaven and sitting at the right hand of God of our entrance into and rule and reign in the Heavenly Being with Christ in the Spirit and his Returning to Iudgement the judging and governing our natural and earthly man with Righteousness and Equity which Allegories or rather not so good is the deepest Wisdome and divinest Revelation that is to be found in this admired Prophet such Allusions I say and Similitudes as these have no more force nor efficacy to urge us or help us on to those Accomplishments they represent then if the History of Christ were a mere Fable But if in stead of making them Resemblances we should use them as Arguments from a true History they have a power unspeakable for the making us good For thus any ingenuous Spirit would melt into remorse when he considers how the Son of God out of mere love and compassion to him was crucified for him and thereby will willingly submit to all the pain of Mortification in a kindly Gratitude to his Saviour And from the belief of the Resurrection of Christ from the dead will be the further animated in his pursuance of the Resurrection to an holy life being assured of Eternal enjoyment of his labours by a blessed Immortality of which also His Ascension into Heaven is a further pledge and his sitting at the right hand of God the greater motive to take off his mind from earthly desires and to think of those things that are above And lastly his certain hope of obtaining that crown of glory which Christ the righteous Judge shall give unto him at the last day I mean that glorified and Heavenly Body will be the greatest ingagement imaginable to spend the strength of his natural body in his service to expose it to all hardships yea to death it self if need so require for the honour of his Saviour and in the mean time to possess it in all Sanctity possible in a gratefull observance of his commands from whom we expect the Redemption of our Bodies 4. Wherefore the Literal meaning of the History of Christ being so powerful and effectual to the making of us good it is a sign of a great deal of folly and levity to dote upon mere Allegories and Allusions that have no force at all in them to move us to Godliness and Vertue or to surmise that there is any thing Spiritual or Divine in the mere allegorizing of the Scripture For there is nothing Divine saving our full assurance of the holy Truths themselves that are delivered in the Gospel whether they be Life or History for this is a spiritual gift indeed But that we conceive that one may represent the other that is only the natural Nimbleness of our Phansy or a Dexterity accruing to us from Use and Education such as I question not but was in Saint Paul who was brought up a Pharisee theâ—efore was well versed in their Midrash or Mystical meaning of the History of the Old Testament which made him so prone to such applications in the New But this was no such special Inspiration or peculiar spiritual Attainment in him above the rest of the Apostles but merely a Cast of his Office a Specimen of his former Education which accustomed him to Allusions and Allegories in the interpreting of the Law So that I much pity those poor souls
the Love sect 3. and 7. See him also upon the Beatitudes sect 6. And it is no wonder we hear nothing of that Reconciliation made by the Cross of Christ for he does plainly aver sect 34. That the true being in the Love is that peace with God and man mentioned Ephes. 2.14 and the true Testament that standeth fast for ever And Exhortation chap. 12.44 Remission of sins is gained only by submitting to the House of the Love The same that David George boasted of his doctrine Therefore my beloved children change ye not nor turn away your selves from the House of Love For there is in the same the stool of grace to an everlasting remission of sins over all such as cleave thereon and to a peace and rest of the life to all such as humble them there-under By such slips and omissions as these those that are not very dull of perception may easily spel out his meaning Which yet is more clear by other places of his Evangely chap. 13. Where he setleth the Everlasting Priesthood not upon Christ's person but makes this Kingly Priest no person at all but a thing a state or condition of him and his followers here upon earth And therefore he calls there this mystical Christ The Lords Sabbath The seventh day in the Paradise of God The perfection c. And chap. 22. he makes the entrance of Christ into heaven and his visible ascending up thither and sitting at the right hand of God and sending down the holy Ghost at the day of Pentecost which was a real effect of his eternal Priesthood and Intercession with God for his Church nothing but the appearing of him according to the Spirit out of the Heavenly Being in their Minds or Souls upon which he sent down his Spiritual or Heavenly Powers Wherefore this Mystical Christ is the only high Priest that he acknowledgeth and will allow him no otherwise then in this mystical and spiritual sense to be an everlasting and true Christ of God See the place of which you will assure your self I have given the right sense if you compare it with chap. 26. sect 10 11 12. where he more plainly affirms That it is the upright being of the Love Christ after the Spirit which he calls the true light which is that high Priest that abideth for ever at the right hand of God in the Heavenly Being Which phrase Heavenly Being alwaies signifies morally or mystically with him and means something within us And yet he has the impudence to alledge Acts 1. v. 11. where Christ is said to ascend into Heaven literally and naturally so called his disciples gazing upon him as he went up Thus you see how industriously nay how madly and rashly he shuffles out the Humane person of Christ from his Priestly Office every where And as he will have the Heaven or most Holy within us so will he have his Sacrifice and Passion within us too Introduct chap. 8.38 Where doe any now saith he keep the Supper of Christ where they break distribute and eat the bread which is the true Body of Christ to a remembrance of Christ that he hath suffered in us for the sins cause the death of the Cross and so his death is published till he come in his glory Where it is plain that the Crucifixion of Christ is a mystery in us and it is insinuated a duty too For the Body and the Flesh of Christ is Christ according to the History Which Christ according to the Flesh is to be slain in us if we celebrate the Passeover aright and thus we must publish his death till he come in glory that is in the Spirit 4. And truely no other is his glorious coming to judgment with this Sect then this Mystical and Spiritual coming which was the second part I intended to pursue which I question not but I shall make as clear as noon-day Of this there are so many Testimonies and so pregnant that the only fear is of being too copious in the proof of this matter Revel Dei cap. 7. There his illuminate Elders together with his Family of Love are the Heavens in which Christ the Son of God comes gloriously and triumphantly to judgment to reign with God and his righteousness everlasting upon earth Which plainly excludes the ending of the World and that coming of Christ that all Christians expect And chap. 15. sect 6. he affirms that in this Eighth day which is the day of the Spirit of Love all the dead that are deceased in the Lord Iesus Christ do rise from the death and all Generations of Heaven and Earth do become judged in the judgement of God with equity Again in his Introduct Chap. 1. he saith That now the true glorious God who is the Resurrection and the Life revealeth his Saints out of his bosome where since the time they fel asleep they have rested untill this day of the Love because they should now in these last times in the resurrection of the righteous be manifested with Christ in glory to a righteous judgement of God on the earth And chap. 12. he there also affirms That in this day of the Love there appear and come to us livingly and gloriously all God's Saints which in times past died and fell asleep in God And chap. 22. there he also tells us how that in sure and firm hope of everlasting life the upright believers have rested in the Lord Iesus Christ till the appearing of his coming which is now in this day of the Love revealed out of the heavenly Being with which Iesus Christ the former Believers of Christ who were fallen asleep rested or died in him are now also manifested in glory being raised from the dead to the intent that they should reign alive with him over all his enemies To which you may add what he has wrote chap. 16. in his Prophecy of the Spirit of Love Make you to flight make you to flight yea get you now all out of the way ye enemies of the Lord and of his service of the Love and give the Lord with his holy ones the roome yet shall ye not escape the vengeance of God For he saith the Lord cometh to judge betwixt the Family of the Love and the rest of the world where-through the Earth is now moved the Heavens troubled the Elements melt with heat and the token of the coming of the Son of man appears in Heaven with which rumour or rushing noise of the power of God and his holy ones the last trumpet doth also presently give forth her sound through whose blast of her vehement sound and through the appearing of the coming of Christ the dead shall stand up and arise unto the judgement of God who having revenged the bloud of his holy ones that the sinners have spilt and shed upon the earth he puts this pure Family in peaceable Possession thereof that they may reign there-over or judge the same with righteousness from henceforth world without
describe So that according to this Supposition we will of our own accord acknowledge that several and those of the most eminent Prophecies that characterize the Person of Christ did first touch upon some other Person which was but a fainter Resemblance of him But that after this glance they are carried to their main scope they drive at where they pierce and are fixt as an arrow stuck in the mark 3. Now this Reference is of two sorts either a Perfect Allegorie or Mixt. That I call a Perfect Allegorie when all the expressions concerning the Person first spoke of do very well and naturally fit him but may be interpreted and that more exquisitely it may be of some more illustrious Person that comes after Such Allusions as these are used by the Apostles and Evangelists to the great confirmation of our Faith however the Iews are scandalized at it For there can be no other sense of it then this viz. That either these Interpretations which they put upon the Prophets were the known Interpretations of the Iews and therefore very accommodate to perswade the Iews by and it was a sign they were right Interpretations they being made before prejudice had blinded them Or else that these Expositions were their own that is that they arose in their own minds first which was impossible they should they being but Allusions unless the certain knowledge of what hapned to our Saviour Christ had put them upon it So that those allusive Proofs are to us strong Confirmations that the History of the Gospel in those things that seem most incredible is certainly true I will content my self with that one instance though I might alledge many others of Christ's being born of a Virgin Certainly unless they had known that de facto he was so or that their wise men had interpreted that of Isaiah Chap. 7. to that sense it is incredible that they should ever alledge that place for it and they making no use of any other but this which is only allusory it is plain the certainty of the Event was that which cast them upon the Interpretation 4. I call a Mixt Allegorie that which is partly allusoric as being applicable first to some more inferiour Person whether King Prophet or Priest and then to the Messiah and partly simple and express not applicable to any but the Messiah himself the Prophet being so actuated by the Spirit of God that in the sublimity of that divine Heat he is in his sense and expressions reach out further then the Person that is the Type and strike into such Circumstances that are not at all true but in the Antitype And these Predictions of this nature concerning the Messiah are as Demonstrative to those that are not intolerable Cavillers as if the Prophecie had been wholly carried to the Messiah without glancing or touching upon any other Person 5. These things being premised let us return to Isaiah and peruse his whole Prophecie that we may the more accurately judge thereof Chap. 53. 1. Who hath believed our report and to whom is the arme of the Lord revealed 2. For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant and as a root out of a dry ground he hath no form nor comeliness and when we shall see him there is no beauty that we should desire him 3. He is despised and rejected of men a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief and we hid as it were our faces from him he was despised and we esteemed him not 4. Surely he hath born our griefs and carried our sorrows yet we did esteem him stricken smitten of God and afflicted 5. But he was wounded for our transgressions he was bruised for our iniquities the chastisement of our peace was upon him and with his stripes we are healed 6. All we like sheep have gone astray we have turned every one to his own way and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all 7. He was oppressed and he was afflicted yet he opened not his mouth he is brought as a Lamb to the slaughter and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb so he opened not his mouth 8. He was taken from prison and from judgement and who shall declare his generation for he was cut off out of the land of the living for the transgressions of my people was he stricken 9. And he made his grave with the wicked and with the rich in his death because he had done no violence neither was deceit in his mouth 10. Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him he hath put him to grief when thou shalt make his Soul an offering for sinne he shall see his seed he shall prolong his daies and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand 11. He shall see of the travel of his Soul and shall be satisfied by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justifie many for he shall bear their iniquities 12. Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great and he shall divide the spoile with the strong because he hath poured out his Soul unto death and he was numbred with the transgressours and he bare the sinne of many and made intercession for the transgressours 6. The ancient and wisest of the Iews ever interpreted this Chapter of their Messiah And the later Rabbins being convinced of the clearness of the Prophecie and respecting the Authority of those wise Interpreters before them have been some of them forced to acknowledge two Messiahs the one the Son of Ioseph the other of David The former a suffering Messiah the other victorious and triumphant rather then to deny the evidence of this Prophecie Out of which there is also a special Tradition set down in an ancient Book amongst the Iews which is called Pesikta which further confirms our assertion of their interpreting of it concerning the Sufferings of the Messiah How that the Soul of the Messiah was ordained and did gladly accept the condition to suffer from the beginning of the World The Tradition runs thus That when God created the World he put forth his hand under his Throne of Glory and brought forth the Soul of the Messiah and all his Attendants and said unto him Wilt thou heal and redeem my sons after six thousand years He answered he would God said again unto him Wilt thou undergoe the chastisements to purge away their iniquities according as it written it is the Rabbins own application Certè morbos nostros tulit The Soul of the Messiah answered I will undergoe them and that right gladly 7. This is enough to confirm that it was the Opinion of the ancient and unprejudiced Iews That this Prophecie was meant of their Messiah and as I said there is not any one Prophecie so full of Characteristicals of his Person as this though not all of the like Clearness But I dare say no less then these nine are in some sort or other included in it 1. His being rejected by the Jews 2. And
being made a Sacrifice for sin 3. His Resurrection 4. His Ascension 5. His Apotheosis 6. The excellency of his Doctrine 7. His Reception by the Gentiles 8. The Destruction of their Superstition and of that divine Honour done to unwarrantable Persons 9. And the Eternity of His Kingdome 8. I shall briefly intimate in what verses of the Prophecie every of these are hinted His Rejection by his own is plainly intimated vers 1 2 3. His Suffering and being a sacrifice for sinne ver 4 5 6 7 10. His Ascension and Resurrection vers 8 10. His 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ver 9. He made his grave with the wicked and with the rich in his death that is with the wicked rich men that is great Potentates of the Earth who were rich powerfull and injurious those many Nimrods in the World whose Sepulchres and Monuments were after magnificent Temples and themselves deified as Gods Because he had done no violence The reason is incomparably solid For if the Princes and Emperours of the World had divine honours done to them after their death who were but Magnifici Latrones as one calleth them much rather should the Messiah who did no violence but was so faithfull and good in all things be exalted unto this Honour have Temples built to him and be worshipped as a God The 12 verse does further confirm this sense Wherefore I will divide him a portion with the great and he shall divide the spoil with the strong because he hath poured out his soul unto death Which spoil cannot be so aptly understood of any thing as this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it being mentioned so upon these terms after his pouring out his Soul unto death One verse illustrates another so that I think there can be no doubt of the sense The excellency of his Doctrine is understood vers 11. which sets out the success of the Gospel His Reception by the Gentiles vers 10 11. For if the Gentiles had not come in there had been small satisfaction the Jews being excluded or rather they excluding him The Destruction of their Superstition and unwarrantable Worship they did to unworthy Persons this is included in their Reception of Christ. The long Duration of his Kingdome v. 8. And who shall declare his generation that is the permanency of his own royal Person and the succession of his Church that will adhere to him for ever 9. This is a punctual and very reasonable account of this Prophecie but be it how it will yet this is out of question That the Suffering and Glorification of the Messiah is here prefigured and that if that in the general be not understood there is no good sense to be made of this Prophecie For to distort it to the affliction of the Jewish people is very harsh nay impossible as appears from vers 8. For the transgression of my people was he stricken Wherefore it was not the People of God that are here stricken but some person struck by reason of them The most tolerable application of the Prophecie is to the afflictions of Ieremie of whom Grotius has expounded it though not excluding Christ and has made sense of it in so many places that I do not deny but that it may be understood of Ieremie in the first and less-considerable meaning but that withall the application to Christ is not merely allusory but that such things are spoke in this Prophecie as cannot but with an exceeding deal of lameness and ineptness be applied to Ieremie 10. And truly the very beginning of the Prophecie is too magnificent by far for the affairs of Ieremie Who has believed our report c. for there is nothing so incredible in all those transactions concerning him Again vers 5. With his stripes we are healed It is ridiculous to attempt an application of these words to Ieremie For he was no Sin-Offering to appease the wrath of God but what he suffered was rather for their mischief And that is as foolishly applied to him vers 8. And who shall declare his Generation as if it were understood of Ieremie's Longevity then whom far less considerable men have lived much longer So frigid and frivolous is this Interpretation Neither without violence can that Phrase For he was cut off out of the land of the living especially considering the mention of the grave in the next verse be understood otherwise then of the inflicting of Death Which was not Ieremie's case So verse 20. when thou shalt make his Soul an offering for sinne To interpret that of Ieremie is plainly to dote For 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies a Sin-Offering or Sin it self but God made Ieremy neither Sin nor Sin-Offering for his People And lastly to say nothing of the unfitness of that expression I will divide him a portion with the great and he shall divide the spoil with the strong to be applied to that petty business of Ieremie chap. 40. v. 5. where the Captain of the Guard is said to give him Victuals and a Reward 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is he accommodated him for his Journey the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 shewing what the whole gift was only a Viaticum and it had been the greatest reproach imaginable for the Prophet to have received any thing more to have made himself rich with the spoils of his own country-men I say to say nothing of the unfitness of that expression to be applied to so small a matter the words following are so full and home because he hath poured out his soul unto death that they cannot signifie less then an actual dying nor is there any example that they signifie otherwise And therefore the division of the spoil with the strong must be after death and denote his Apotheosis It is plain therefore as well out of the confession of the Rabbins themselves as out of the words of the Prophecie that it is not merely an allusorie Prefiguration of the Messiah but a down-right Description of him in such Circumstances as are incompetible to any besides him and therefore as I said is as valid as if it had all been meant of him alone But because all the Characters of him here included are not so full and clear as in other places and those that are the clearest are of so much importance that it will not be any loss of labour to adde other confirmations to them I shall evidence every one of them more fully from other Prophecies CHAP. VIII 1. Further Proofs out of the Prophets That the Messiah was to be a Sacrifice for sinne 2. That he was to rise from the dead 3. That he was to ascend into Heaven 4. That he was to be worshipped as God 5. That he was to be an eminent Light to the Nations 6. And welcomely received by them What is meant by His Rest shall be glorious 7. That he was to abolish the Superstition of the Gentiles 8. And that his Kingdome shall have no end 9. That all these Characters
Peace and Concord no not in Christendome it self neither in the Church nor State nor is Idolatry extirpated nor the Israelites replanted and setled in their own land all which things notwithstanding are foretold to come to pass in the dayes of the Messiah Whence say they it is plain he is not yet come But I briefly answer 1. That the Prophetical Promises of the coming of the Messiah were absolute as I have already noted the Extent of the Effect of his coming conditional men being free Agents and not fatal Actors in all things as the Iews themselves cannot deny 2. That the nature of the Gospel tends altogether to the accomplishing of those Promises of universal Peace and Righteousness and did begin fair in the first times of the Church as much as respects the Church it self 3. That whatever Relapse or Stop there has been things are not so hopeless but in time they may be amended and that they in those days when they are true Converts to Christ may if they will then desire it return to their own Land But after this serious conversion and real renovation of their Spirits into a true Christian state I cannot believe they will continue so childish as to value such things but will find themselves in the Spiritual Canaan already and on their march to that Ierusalem which is above the Mother of us all and that it will not be in the power of any but themselves to turn them out of the way 2. The other Objection or rather Evasion of that wholesome use that may be made of the Truth of the History of Christ is from that sort of Atheists that love to be thought Aristoteleans For there are two chief kinds of Atheisme Epicurean and Aristotelean The former denies all Incorporeal substance whatsoever and all Apparitions Miracles and Prophecies that imply the same Who are sufficiently confuted already by this undeniable declaration we have made The other are not against all Substances Incorporeal nor against Prophecies Apparitions and Miracles though of the highest nature insomuch that they will allow the History of Christ his Resurrection and Appearance after death the Prophecies concerning him and what not But they have forsooth this witty Subterfuge to save themselves from receiving any good therefrom in imagining that there is no such Particular Providence as we would inferre from hence because all this may be done by the Influence of the Celestial Bodies actuated by the Intelligences appertaining to each Sphere and deriving in a natural way from him that sits on the highest of the Orbs such influences as according to certain Periodical courses of Nature will produce new Law-givers induing them with a power of working Miracles assisting them by Apparitions and Visions of Angels making them seem to be where they are not and appear after they cease to be namely after their death when in the mean-time there be neither Angels nor Souls separate but all these things are the transient Effects of the power of the Heavens and Configuration of the Celestial bodies which slacks by degrees and so the Influence of the Starres failing one Religion decaies and another gets up Thus Iudaisme has given place to Christianity and Christianity in a great part of the World to Mahometisme being Establishments resulting from the mutable course of Nature not by the immediate finger of God who keeps his throne in the Eighth sphere and intermeddles not with humane Affairs in any particular way but onely aloof off hands down by the help and mediation of the Celestial Intelligences and power of the Starres some general casts of Providence upon the Generations of the Earth 3. A goodly speculation indeed and well befitting such two witty Fools in Philosophy as Pomponatius and Vaninus the latter of which seems not to give himself up to this fine figment altogether fully and conformably to the ancient doctrine of Aristotle but having a great pique against Incorporeal Beings is desirous to lessen their number as much as he can and seems pleased that he has found out That one only Soul of the Heavens will serve as effectually to do all these things as the Aristotelean Intelligences and therefore ever anon doubts of those and establisheth this as the onely Intellectual or Immaterial Principle and highest Deity but such as acts no otherwise then in a natural way by Periodical Influences of the Heavenly Bodies Where you may observe the craft and subtility of the man what a care he has of his own safety and how he has imprisoned the Divinity in those upper rooms for fear of the worst that he may be as far out of his reach as the Earth is from the Moon So cautious a counseller in these matters is an evil and degenerate Conscience 4. This is the chiefest Arcanum that the Amphitheatrum and famed Dialogues of this stupendious Wit will afford who was so tickled and transported with a conceit of his own parts that in that latter Book he cannot refrain from writing down himself a very Good for wisdome and knowledge Whenas assuredly there was never any mans Pride and Conceitedness exceeded the proportion of his wit and parts so much as his For there is nothing considerable in him but what that odd and crooked Writer Hieronymus Cardanus had though more modestly vented to the world before onely Vaninus added thereto a more express tail of bold Impiety and Prophaneness 5. I have elsewhere intimated how the attributing such noble Events to the Power of the Starres is nothing but a rotten relick of the ancient Pagan Superstition and have in my Book Of the Immortality of the Soul plainly enough demonstrated that there is no such inherent Divinity in the Celestial Bodies as that ancient Superstition has avouched or modern Philosophasters would imagine And I shall here evidently prove against this great Pretender That his removal of the Deity at that distance from the Earth is impossible For there are scarce any now that have the face to profess themselves Philosophers but do as readily acknowledge the Motion of the Earth as they do the reality of the Antipodes or the Circulation of the Bloud I would aske then Vaninus but this one question Whether he will not admit that the Sun is in that Heaven where he imagins his Anima coeliâ— and whether this Heaven be not spred far beyond the Sun and be not also the Residence of this celestial Goddess of his There is none will stick to answer for him that it is doubtlesly so Wherefore I shall forthwith inferre that let his unskilful phansy conceit us at this moment in as low a part of the Universe as he will within the space of six months we shall be as far above or beyond the Sun as we are beneath him now and yet then phansy our selves as much beneath him as before Which plainly implies that our Earth and Moon swim in the liquid Heavens which being every where this Deity of Vaninus must be every
where though his degenerate Spirit was afraid of so holy a Neighbourhood nor could abide the belief of so present a Numen Thus has the Annual Course of the Earth dashed off all that Superstitious power and sanctity that ancient Paganisme has given and the Aristotelean Atheist would now give to the Sun Planets and Starres and we are forced even by the light of Nature and humane Reason to acknowledge the true Principle from whence all miraculous things come that is a God every where present in whom we live and move and have our being 6. Besides this suppose that all Prodigies Apparitions and Prophecies were from the intermediate Influence of the celestial Bodies these Intelligences or that Anima Coeli working thereby upon the persons of men to inspire them and turning the Aire into representations and visions to converse with them This covering is too scant to hide the folly of this sorry Sophist his Supposition plainly ruining it self For he does acknowledge that those Inspirations and Prophecies are true that are thus derived from those â—idereal Powers But it is evident that those that have been the most illustrious Prophets have had converse with Angels and talked with them and have so recorded the matter to the World As for example the Prophet Daniel who discoursed with the Angel Gabriel Christ also discoursed with Moses and Elias on Mount Tabor and Moses with the Angel of God on Mount Sinai Besides Christ who was so highly inspired and assisted from Heaven has over and over again pronounced a future Happiness after this life All which allowing them for a while to be the dictates or representations of the Astral Influences I demand of Vaninus how he comes to be wiser then those that were so miraculously assisted That these Visions of Angels should not be so as they that saw them have related That Moses and Elias should not be the Spirits of Moses and Elias but onely transient Figurations of the Aire raised by the Influence of the Heavens Moreover I would ask of him if he think that that Heavenly assistance that can according to his own acknowledgement inform men of things to come at a thousand years distance for such was the prediction of the death of Iulius Caesar in the Senate though a matter very contingent cannot certainly inform them whom it pleases so wonderfully to assist whether the Souls of men be mortal or immortal which is far more cognoscible to those aethereal Powers then the other Wherefore this wretched Figment of his to excuse himself from the acknowledgement of the Existence of Angels or Daemons and the Subsistence of the Soul after death from which he so much abhors will stand him in no stead but argues him more intoxicated whifling and giddy in admitting the truth of such Narrations and yet denying the genuine consequences of them then they that give no credence to the Narrations themselves 7. That which was objected of Christianity justling out Iudaisme and of Mahometisme in a great part of the World justling out Christianity is partly false and partly nothing to the purpose That Christianity has properly justled out Iudaisme is very false For Iudaisme has rather been ripened into the perfection of Christianity then been stifled and sufflaminated by any Counter-blast of those sidereal Influences he dreams of For we see how things have gone on in one continued design from Abraham to Christ as the Prophecies and the Predictions in Scripture plainly testifie God promised to Abraham that in his seed all the Nations of the Earth should be blessed Iacob foretells on his death-bed that the Jewish Polity and Religion should not fail till the Messiah a Iew and Son of Abraham was come to whom the gathering of the Gentiles should be and so in other Prophecies which we have already recited and applied From whence it is manifest that it is the hand and counsel of God who is constant to himself and whose Wisdome and Providence reaches from end to end that has begun and carried on this matter according to his own will and purpose and not any Bustles or Counter-blasts of various Aspects of the Heavenly bodies that do and undo according to the diversities and contrarieties of their Schematisms and Configurations 8. Nor could any thing but Levity of minde and Vain-glory induce Cardan to pretend the calculating of our Saviours Nativity whenas the year of his Birth is so uncertain amongst the most accurate Chronologers and Astrology it self a thing wholly groundlesse and frivolous as I shall demonstrate anon Nor is it any specimen of his Wit but of his grosse Impiety so boldly to equalize the rise of Mahometisme to that of Iudaisme and Christianity as if Moses Christ and Mahomet were all Astrall Law-givers alike assisted and inspired from the influence of the Stars A conceit that Vaninus is so transported with that he cannot tell what ground to stand upon when he cites the passage out of Cardan he is so tickled with Joy But that this exultation of his is very childish and groundlesse appears both in that he falsly attributes Prophecies Divine Laws and Miracles to the influence of the Stars a superstitious errour that arises only out of the ignorance of the right Systeme of the World and then again if it were true that he imagines Mahomet who was a mere crafty Politician and did neither Miracles nor could prophesie to be a Law-giver set up by the miraculous Power of the Heavens such as enables Divine Law-givers and Prophets to do reall Miracles To which you may adde the ridiculous obstinacy of this perverse Sophist who the more we give him of what he contends for viz. that Mahomet also is a Star-inspired Prophet that is to say illuminated from the Anima coeli which according to his opinion is the highest and most infallible principle of miracles and divine wisedom the more ample testimony we have against his own folly that so peremptorily denies the existence of Daemons and Subsistence of the Soul after Death Which are openly avouched by this third Witnesse of his own introducing and therefore he abhorring so from such Truths as are certainly dictated from the Celestiall Bodies did not excesse of Pride and Conceitednesse blinde his judgement and make him senseless he could not but have found himself stung with that lash of the Satyrist O curvae in terris animae coelestium inanes But I have even tired my self with running the Wilde-goose chase after these fickle and fugitive Wits whose carelesse flirts and subsultorious fancies are as numerous as slight and weak against the firm and immovable foundations of solid Reason and Religion 9. I should now pass to the Fourth Part of my Discourse did not the reflexion upon the insufferable impudence of Cardan in pretending to cast our Saviours Nativity and that villainous insulting of Vaninus thereupon as if all Religion was but an Influence of Nature and transent blast of the Starres invite me nay indeed provoke me
has raised him from the dead thou shalt be saved Which places seem to imply that a mere belief that Christ has done or suffered this or that is our Justification and Salvation I might adde Galat. 2. ver 16. But I shall defer it till its proper place 4. We come now to the second sort of Testimonies of Scripture which seem to impute the righteousness of Christ to us and to teach us that it is that by which we become righteous 1 Cor. 1.30 But of him are ye in Christ Iesus who of God is made unto us Wisedom and Righteousnesse and Sanctification and Redemption And Rom. 5. Therefore as by the offence of one judgement came upon all men to condemnation even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men to justification of life For as by one mans disobedience many were made sinners so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous From these and such like places young and unskilful Christians are prone to infer that they may be righteous by the obedience or righteousness of Christ applied or imputed to them though they have no real righteousness in their own Souls nor care to act righteously And this is the first cause of their proclivity to this unwholsome Errour But there is another behinde without the concurrence of which this former would be ineffectuall For all the passages in holy Scripture are certainly both sound and true but it is the unsoundness and corruptness of our own mindes that draws poison out of these Herbs and Flowers of Paradise 5. I say therefore in the second place That the main cause of the propension of Christian Childehood to this gross Errour is in the very condition it self of those that are but Children in Christianity For this childish state I conceive to be this When a man makes indeed a free open Profession of Christianity and with all possible expressions of thanks to God for his rich mercy in the bloud of Christ for the remission of sins laies fast hold as he thinks on this grace by faith having also some more weak inchoations of the life of Righteousness But the old man is still very strong the body of Sin very little subdued or impaired so that whensoever they are encountred the toyl is very heavy and a world of work still behinde and such ungrateful work and painful that it is no Metaphor nor Hyperbole to say it is a perpetual death a continued crucifixion This being then the condition of one that is but a little young childe in Christianity I appeal to any one if there can chuse but be a very considerable proneness in such persons to be delivered from this toil and torture of Mortification whereby they are to enter into higher degrees of Righteousness and life And now we being very easily drawn to believe those things which make for our own interest and the accomplishment of our desires it must needs be that if any thing sound towards that sense we shall easily make it up with a lusty belief that it is so indeed and it may be thank God to boot for this amabilis insania for these dear mistakes and dreams of ours Wherefore at length to assume The Scripture therefore seeming at first sight something to favour this opinion of being righteous without any reall Righteousness in our selves but by that which is at a wide distance removed from us and placed in another to save the pains of the great anguish and agony that the aspiring to inward real Righteousness will cost in this weak estate of Christian childehood it cannot be but that he that has arrived to no higher condition should very easily close with this so welcome a notion and having once embraced it be angry at the very heart at any one that would rouze him from this so pleasing repose or dissettle him from this false ease and joy The weak and fainting heart of this tender age chusing rather for present avoiding of smart an hasty palliation then a sound cure But that I may not rather confirm then bring off these Younglings from this dangerous Errour by noting their most pregnant places and saying nothing to them I shall endeavour to make it plain that if they please they may understand those places otherwise then they do and then because that their gloss is not so consonant to Reason nor the rest of the Scripture that they ought to relinquish this unwarrantable sense which they have harboured in favour to their own vices and wickednesses 6. And for our better preparation for this designe we will first settle the notion of the terms that so frequently occurre in the Epistles of S. Paul and which so nearly concern our present matter Such as are Faith Righteousness Iustification Imputation and the like And first of Faith which is so highly commended by the Apostle I say it signifies nothing else but this in general viz. An high sense of and confidence in the Power Iustice and Goodness of God and a firm belief that he will assuredly bring to pass whatsoever he has promised seem it never so unlikely and difficult to flesh and bloud And this is that which was so commended in Abraham as it is plain in the fourth to the Romans who against hope believed in hope that he might become the Father of many Nations And being not weak in faith he considered not his own body now dead when he was about an hundred years old nor yet the deadness of Sara's womb being fully perswaded that what God had promised he was able to perform And therefore saies the Apostle it was imputed to him for righteousness That is to say God approved of him for a good and pious man who not consulting with the natural improbability of the thing but giving firm credence to the Promise of God did that which was due to the Goodness and Power of God and becoming a good and righteous man So that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is nothing else but to be approved as a good man or a doer of what is righteous and good and that because he does that which is good and righteous As this act of the Soul exerting her self above the low and sluggish tenour of Nature and winging her self by lively sense of divine Power and Goodness to the assenting to and resting in such things as the present state of Nature can never bring about certainly is and is esteemed and approved of God as a very righteous and good Act and to proceed from a good and holy temper which is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifies any vertue or goodness in a man whatsoever So that act of Phinehas when he so zealously did vengeance on Zimri and Cosbi it is said in the 106 Psalm 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it was looked upon by all succeeding generations as a very noble and eminent act of Righteousness i. e. it was reputed according to its own nature But the meaning is not that
that teach the contrary 1. AS for that Text which we deferred to speak to we shall now take it into consideration It was Gal. 2.16 Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the Law but by the faith of Iesus Christ even we have believed in Iesus Christ that we might be justified by the faith of Christ and not by the works of the Law For by the works of the Law shall no flesh be justified From this place of Scripture also there are some that would inferre a superannuating and annulling of all moral honesty and reall Righteousness whatever pretending that nothing but mere Faith is required to make us approvable before God And indeed they fansy that this whole Epistle administers invincible arguments to maintain this mischievous Conclusion though there be not to any indifferent Judge any solid reason of so full a confidence Which we shall easily understand if we take notice that the designe of this Epistle is only to reduce those Galatians again to the truth of Christianity that were almost apostatizing to Iudaisme and the Ceremonial Law of Moses Ye observe dayes and moneths and times and years I am afraid of you lest I have bestowed labour on you in vain Chap. 4.10 11. But the main scope of the Apostle is against Circumcision as is plain upon the very first perusall of the Epistle which he beating down together with the Law of Moses and extolling the Faith in Christ seems sometimes to excuse a man from walking according to the moral Law under the pretence of Faith in Christ. But as S. Peter hath well observed there be many things in S. Pauls Epistles hard to be understood which foolish men pervert to their own destruction But that we be not led into the same errour and mischief it will be of no small concernment to trace the footsteps of S. Paul that so we may wind our selves out of this dangerous Maze or Labyrinth 2. Whereas then he seems to nullifie or vilifie at least the Law in the advancing of that Righteousnesse that is by faith let us see what this Righteousnesse that is by faith and what that of the Law is Chap. 2.19 For I through the Law am dead to the Law that I might live unto God I am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless I live yet not I but Christ liveth in me I through the Law am dead unto the Law what a riddle is this that the Law should deprive it self of its disciples And yet it doth so For it is a Schoolmaster to Christ or rather an Usher which when it hath well tutour'd us and castigated us removes us up higher to be made in Christ perfect who is the perfection of the Law But the Law it self makes nothing perfect and this is the reason that Righteousness is not of the Law And to this purpose speaks the Apostle in this very Epistle at the 21 verse of the 3. Chapter Is the Law then against the promises of God God forbid For if there had been a law given which could have given life verily righteousnesse should have been by the Law 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A law that could enliven and enquicken us But that is beyond the power of the Law That 's the title and prerogative of Christ who is the Way the Truth and the Life I am the Resurrection and the Life he that believeth in me though he were dead yet shall he live and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die Joh. 11. This therefore is the Righteousness of Faith or belief far above the Righteousness of the Law or killing letter 3. Wherefore when this Faith is come that worketh us up to a living frame of Righteousness within us we are no longer under the servility of the Law of Moses but are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus Now none are the children of God but those that are led by the Spirit of God as the Apostle elsewhere witnesseth in his Epistle to the Romans And those that have the Spirit of God what fruits they bring forth is amply set out by the Apostle in this to the Galatians chap. 5. v. 22. The fruit of the Spirit is love joy peace long-suffering gentlenesse goodnesse faith meeknesse temperance against such there is no law For indeed there is no need of it they being a law unto themselves So we see how those that are in Christ are not under the Law because that inward fountain of obedience or living law in their hearts is above it They do really and truly fulfill it through the Spirit that is by faith For that Spirit is the begetter of Love and Love is the fulfilling of the Law For all the Law is fulfilled in one word even in this Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thy self Gal. 5.14 This I say then walk in the Spirit and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh and these are contrary one to another that ye may not do the things ye would Which certainly is the true and genuine sense of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Grotius also has noted And these are contrary that is to say oppose one the other namely the Spirit the flesh 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to the end you may not do those things that your own corrupt will or carnall minde inclines you to which naturally coheres with what follows But if you be led by the Spirit you are not under the Law For against such there is no law as was said before Which implyes if they be not led by the Spirit they are liable to the curse of the Law to death hell and damnation For so also speaks the Apostle when he hath reckoned up the works of the flesh That they that do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God ver 21. And v. 25. he openly declares That they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with its passions and lusts 4. So we see plainly that the Righteousnesse that is of faith is not a mere Chimaera or phansie but a more excellent Righteousness then that of the Law For the Law is no quickening spirit but a dead letter But Christ is the Resurrection and the Life And he is God our righteousness mighty to save and can with ease destroy the powers of death darkness and the Devil out of the Soul of man but we must have the patience to endure the work wrought in us by him I live yet not I but Christ liveth in me And if we will still cloak and cover our foul corrupt hearts with forged conceits of Hypocrisie's own making and excuse our selves from being good to one another or to our selves because God in Christ is so good to us hear what the Apostle speaks in the sixth and last Chapter of this Epistle at the seventh verse Be not deceived God is not mocked For whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also
our love and loyalty to him If you love me keep my commandements Of which a principal one is That as I have loved you ye love also one another So he gives his disciples an Example of being humble one to another in that he washed their feet If I then your Lord and Master have washed your feet ye ought also to wash one anothers feet For I have given you an Example that you should doe as I have done to you John 13. And Matth. 11. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me for I am meek and lowly in heart and ye shall find rest unto your souls 8. But I need not insist much upon this subject I having amply enough shewn in the Second part of my Discourse how the whole History of Christ all his actions and deportments of himself tend to the most effectual recommending of the Divine Life unto us We shall only take the opportunity here to wipe off such stains as the foul and unsound breath of some blasphemous mouths have of old or of late endeavoured to stain this bright Mirrour of Divine perfection withall Which will be not only a piece of indispensable duty and loyalty to the Person of our Saviour but also the better encouragement to his sincere followers especially when I have added the Parallel of such accusations and imputations as bear very close analogie with those of our Saviours himself For he has foretold of old what would come of it That the disciple should not be above his Master nor the servant above his Lord. And if they have called the master of the house Beelzebub how much more shall they call them of the houshold But how just the calumnies are against the one and the other we shall now see CHAP. XIII 1. That Christ was no Blasphemer in declaring himself to be the Son of God 2. Nor Conjurer in casting out Devils 3. That he was unjustly accused of Prophaneness 4. That there was nothing detestable in his Neutrality toward Political Factions 5. Nor any Injustice nor Partiality found in him 6. Nor could his sharp Rebukes of the Pharisees be rightly termed Railing 7. Nor his whipping the Buyers and Sellers out of the Temple tumultuary Zeal 8. Nor his crying out so dreadfully in his Passion be imputed to Impatience or Despair 9. The suspicion of Distractedness and Madness cleared 10. His vindication from their aspersions of Looseness and Prodigality 11. The crooked and perverse nature of the Pharisees noted with our Saviours own Apology for his frequenting all companies 12. That Christ was no Self-seeker in undergoing the Death of the Cross for that joy that was set before him 1. THE former part of which Task though it may seem needless if not ridiculous amongst Christians who cannot entertain any evil thoughts of that Person whom they deservedly worship yet because all that live in Christian Commonwealths are not cordially such in no manner at all for the convincing of them if it were possible of the Excellency of Christ or at least for the better stopping of vain mouths from rash and unskilfull censures I hold it not improper to recite to you a Charge or Bill of Inditement exhibited against that innocent and immaculate Lamb Christ Iesus by malicious and ignorant men to the intent that he whom they have so unworthily charged may be as honourably dismissed and acquitted That his righteousness may be brought forth as the morning and his judgement as the noon day And here that they may fly high enough at first and strike deep enough even to a deserved taking away of life Blasphemy must stand in the front to give countenance and strength to the rest of their following accusations 2. Then Conjuring and dealing with the Devil 3. Prophanation of the Sabbath 4. Neutrality or cold indifferency in publick Controversies 5. Injustice 6. Railings 7. Tumultuary and injurious Zeal 7. Impatience and Despair 9. Phrensy or Madness 10. Debauchery and Looseness of Life 11. Lavishment and Prodigality 12. And lastly Ambition and Self-interest These are the several dunghills from whence wicked and perverse men would industriously dig out dirt to cast in the face of him who was the perfect Pattern of divine Purity and Righteousness But let them ply themselves as fast as they can in these several foul pits it will not be hard to find wherewith to wipe it off as fast as their impious diligence shall be able to cast it on And first let us consider what work they make in the first place as concerning Blasphemy John 10. For declaring God his Father and that He and his Father was one he is there furiously accused of Blasphemy and ready to be stoned And John 8. They are also there ready to stone him for saying He was before Abraham And Matth. 9.3 He is there also accused of Blasphemy for saying Son be of good cheer thy sins are forgiven thee And here in this first accusation de facto constat Christ confesses That he is one with God That he is the Son of God and that he has power to forgive sins That he was before Abraham but it is utterly denied that in any of all this Christ did blaspheme For first consider the very words of Christ I and my Father are one How unreasonably and inconsequently did these dull and peevish Perverters of the words of him whom they so entirely hated for his good life and doctrine deduce from that saying I and my Father are one that he being a man made himself God For it is as childishly and ineptly inferred from thence by them That he made himself God as if they should conclude That the Body is the very Soul because the Body and the Soul are one that is one man And it is no more Falshood much lesse Blasphemy for the Humanity of Christ who was so really and lively actuated informed and united with God as the Body is with the Soul to pronounce of himself as if he were very God then it is for the Tongue to say I understand I believe I perceive when neither the Body nor it believes perceives or understands any thing but only the Soul with which it is so intimately united and of which that which the Tongue speaks in such cases is to be understood And if this be duely considered and taken in Christs saying also That he was before Abraham will not prove any Blasphemy For Christ by reason of his so near union and essential conjunction with God which Athanasius well resembles to that of the Body and Soul may as properly and naturally professe himself to be before Abraham yea to have been before the world was made as the Tongue of man may utter I shall survive after the death of this my body in which there is no ill sense nor incongruity in the judgement of most sober men But besides this that which the blinde Jews understood not being hoodwinked with the thicknesse of their own particular Religion
to it for his cure as the Israelites in the Wildernesse as often as they were bit with the fiery flying Serpents were to look up unto the Brazen Serpent which Moses had erected in their Camp And those that make no use of the benefit thereof I should suspect them to be no Israelites but a genâ—ration of Vipers or Serpents themselves to whom the poison of Sin is so congenerous that it is their nature and pleasure no pain at all to them so that they desire no cure but flee from the Crosse as Scorpions do quit the place where a Telesme is erected against them 7. But our Saviour Christ knew the power and efficacy of his Passion so well that he made a speciall provision for the Commemoration of that often which it was fit he should suffer but once This we usually call the Eucharist or the holy Communion A Solemnity never to be antiquated till our Saviour return again to judgement visibly in the clouds of Heaven as S. Paul intimateth 1 Cor. 11.26 For as often as you eat this bread or drink this cup you do shew the Lords death till he come For the solid use of it cannot cease till then when all is accomplished For so long as men are to have any growth in Godlinesse or are to animate themselves to any holy designes or sin is to be encountred with or thanks to be given for the victories of the Cross the holy Eucharist cannot possibly cease For the most proper Preparation for the receiving of the Sacrament is a serious Meditation on the Passion of Christ which is commemorated therein The consideration whereof what mighty power and efficacy it has for the vanquishing and subduing of all manner of sins and corruptions I have given sufficient intimation So that every Celebration of the Communion should be as it were a repeated Resolution and corroborated Conspiracy in the bloud of the New Covenant to do our utmost against all the Powers of Sin of Darkness and of the Devil and this upon the sense of that great Love and Loialty we owe to our dear Saviour and Soveraign Iesus Christ who died for us and poured out his own bloud to glue and cement us to himself and to one another So that the Mystery of Christian Religion is a Mystery of the deepest and dearest Friendship and of the most indissoluble Union of Affection that can possibly be excogitated Wherein neither Distance of Place nor Time can make any division but it holds together Heaven and Earth and bindes what is past to what is present and actuates and invigorates what is present to a prosperous and successful bringing on that which is to come Thus it is with all those that are true Christians and do really communicate in the bloud of Christ They have one Minde and one Heart they have one Vote and one Interest which is the Advancement of the Kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ in the world in Truth and Holiness and that Christian Peace Faith and Love may flourish even to the ends of the Earth CHAP. XVII 1. The sixth Gospel-Power is the Resurrection and Ascension of Christ. The priviledge of this Demonstration of the Soul's Immortality above that from the Subtilty of Reason and Philosophy 2. The great power this consideration of the Soul's Immortality has to urge men to a Godly life 3. To wean themselves from worldly pleasures and learn to delight in those that are everlasting 4. To have our Conversation in Heaven 5. The Conditions of the Everlasting Inheritance 6. Further enforcements of duty from the Soul's Immortality 1. THe sixth Gospel-Power is the Contemplation of the Resurrection and Ascension of Christ in respect of which stupendious event the Apostle has declared how it is Christ Jesus that has abolished death and brought Life and Immortality to light through the Gospel For truly whatsoever Traditions there were amongst the Iewish Rabbins whatever Disquisitions or Conclusions amongst the Philosophers whether Platonists or Aristoteleans concerning the Soul's Immortality they were either so uncertain and fallacious in themselves or so subtil and unintelligible to the People that they could not satisfie the World concerning this so important a matter And if a man should write never so accurately and Apodictically of this point the use thereof would reach but to a few namely such as are of a very patient and comprehensive Spirit that have leisure and take delight in perusing of subtil and close-wrought contextures of Reason which to most men is a toilsome and tedious thing And when a man has writ and read all he can of this Subject and has met with the very best and most Demonstrative arguments for the Conclusion yet for use and service the Recollection of them is voluminous and cumbersome as well as the Collections from them doubtful and fallible at least to them that are not fully masters of their Reason But as the Resurrection and Ascension of our Saviour is certain as known to be de facto by abundance of Witnesses so is the Remembrance and Representation of it to our mindes at once and strikes strong upon our Phansie and reaches our Reason with that powerful conviction that believing this we cannot any longer doubt of either the Existence of God or our own Immortality And if we once be but well assured of the Existence of God and of our own Immortall state after this Life methinks this alone should be able to lift us above all the Snares that Satan has laid in this World to entangle us 2. Mortality one would think if well considered might give us some check from too eager pursuit of Honours and Riches from worldly Plots and Designes as also for fear of diseases that accelerate death from over-lavish Indulgence to Sensuality and Intemperance But the Certainty of a Life to come the condition whereof shall be such as our Demeanour here layes the seeds of whether for Happinesse or Misery and that in a measure unspeakably above what happens or can happen in this life this consideration must have such virtue in it if we duly meditate upon it that it should win us with all willingnesse to forsake all the unlawful Pleasures and Projects of this transient World to get some sure Interest in that which is to come and not to trust all in one bottom if any thing at all I mean in the leaking vessel of this mortal Body which is ever and anon ready to sink or topple over and so to drown all the hopes we placed in it Wherefore as ye heard out of Saint Peter we are like Strangers and Pilgrims in this life to abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the Soul that our Minds going out impolluted of the Foulness and Contagion of this defiled Earth they sojourn in may be received into the happy Society of just men made perfect as the Author to the Hebrews speaks Whenas if they go out foul and impure their Reception must be accordingly
the Earth and Air when once that Final Vengeance has seised upon the Wicked 5. This is the sad Evening-close of that terrible Day of the Lord and the Morning-Appearance thereof will not be much more chearful to either the Hypocrite or Prophane person For the hopes of the Hypocrite cannot but fail and his heart sink like a stone while he sees the righteous Judge that tries the heart and reins coming in the clouds of Heaven to execute vengeance on the wicked and to deliver the godly from that imminent fate that attends the Earth And the proud scoffing Epicurean that laugh'd at Religion as a piece of weakness and foolery and impudently denied there was either God or Providence in the world he will then to his utter shame and confusion acknowledge his own Philosophy which he thought such an high piece of wit before the most unhappy Folly and Madnesse he could have light upon For he shall be confuted to his very outward Senses when he shall see Christ himself appear with all his Heavenly Host attending him when he shall hear the sound of the Trump and see forthwith the whole Air filled with his glittering Legions consisting of Saints and Angels For the Trump shall sound saith the Apostle and then those that have already departed this life shall immediatly appear in their celestial Harness in their glorified bodies For those that are alive shall not prevent those that are dead but rather the contrary For those that sleep in Jesus will God bring with him and harness them with the bright Armour of Life and Immortality whereby they become part of that glorious Angelical Host wherewith our dread Soveraign and blessed Saviour Jesus Christ will face the Earth a while to the exceeding great astonishment and terrour os the wicked World 6. Out of which by the Ministry of his Angelical Troops will he gather his Saints that are found alive in the flesh from all the corners of the Earth as the Angels plucked Lot out of Sodom when the City was to be destroyed with Fire and Brimstone from Heaven a Type questionless of this Final Judgement And whether it be by the quick descent of fiery Chariots like that of Elias who was safely thereby conveighed to Heaven and about a thousand years after conversed with our Saviour on the Mount or bright shining clouds glistering with the glory and lustre of their celestial guides be made foot-stools for them to get up on for there is no fear that the weight of their Bodies should break through their Earth and Flesh being of a sudden changed into pure Aether or whatever other pomp and solemnity there may be in their transportation from the rest of the World unto that glorious Company that strikes all mens eyes with amazement while they look up into the sky This visible Selection of the Good from the Bad must needs fill the hearts of the Wicked with unspeakable Dread and Horrour And that partly by reason of the present wonders of this unexpected supernatural Visitation which thus suddenly has surprised them through unbelief and partly from the sad presage of what will follow even that horrid and dismal Tempest which we have already described that endless Night of Thunders and Lightnings and Earthquakes of roarings and howlings and utter confusion and destruction for ever 7. Which direful vengeance having once entred upon that execrable crue forsaken of God and given up to the merciless Rage of the incensed Elements the victorious Church of Christ retreats with the rest of the Angelical Hosts marching up the Ethereal Regions in goodly Order and lovely Equipage filling as they go along the re-echoing sky with Songs of Joy and Triumph For this is the greatest day of Solemnity the highest Festival that can be celebrated in the Heavens whose Inhabitants if they rejoice at the conversion of one sinner what Joy and Rejoicing must they express at the complete Redemption of the whole Church when Jesus Christ the Prince of our Salvation who is able to save to the utmost has perfectly redeemed us body and soul and leading Captivity captive rescuing us from the power of Hell Death and the Devil does resettle us again in our own Land and reestablish us into the ancient Liberties of the Sons of God making us fellow-citizens with the pure and unpolluted Angels and free Partakers of all the Rights and Immunities of the celestial Kingdom even of that Kingdom where there is Order and Government without Envy and Oppression Devotion without Superstition Beauty without Blemish Love without Lust Sweetness without Satiety where there is outward Splendidness without Pride Musick without Harshness Friendship without Designe Wisedom without Wrinkles and Wit without Vain-glory where there is Kindnesse without Craft Activity without Weariness Health without Sickness and Pleasure without Pain and lastly where there is the Vision of God the Society of Christ the Familiarity of Angels and Communion of Saints where there is Love and Joy and Peace and Life for evermore Upon the consideration of which ineffable Happiness what inference can be more genuine then what S. Paul has made already on the same Subject Wherefore my beloved Brethren be stedfast unmoveable alwayes abounding in the work of the Lord forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord. CHAP. XIX 1. That there can be no Religion more powerful for the promoting of the Divine Life then Christianity is 2. The external Triumph of the Divine Life in the person of Christ how throughly warranted and how fully performed 3. The Religious Splendour of Christendom 4. The Spirit of Religion stifled with the load of Formalities 5. The satisfaction that the faithfully-devoted Servants of Christ have from that Divine homage done to his Person though by the wicked 1. I Have now sufficiently exposed to your view the Nature and Use of this seven-fold Engine these Seven Powers of the Gospel how potent they are to beat down every strong hold of sin and to raise up the Divine Life and Spirit of Righteousness in us That they have done so little execution in Christendom hitherto that disquisition I shall deferre till its due place In the mean time I appeal to all the World if there can be invented a Religion more powerful for this purpose then the Christian Religion is 2. But for the external Triumphs of the Divine Life in reference to the Person of Christ the Usefulness of our Religion in that point is demonstrable not only from the Frame thereof in it self but from the long and constant Effects it has had in the Christian World For as for the Frame of our Religion we have therein a full warrant to do the highest Divine homage to Christ that we can express He being so clearly therein declared The true Son of God not only by several Testimonies from Heaven but also by that supernatural manner of his generation in the womb of the Virgin by the overshadowing of the Holy
any external inconvenience but naturally as I may so speak that is from a Divine nature and power in him and therefore with as much chearfulnesse and willingnesse as the natural man does eat and drink And of this Isaac was born Iacob who was called Israel which Philo the Jew interprets one that sees God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but you may be remembred that Ismael in the first signification of his name noted one that did onely know God by hear-say which is quite contrary to the seeing of God For that priviledge is proper to the true Christian to whom Isaac is born and from him Israel but he is quite out of the line of Ismael having now nothing to do with hear-saies and conjectures and fruitlesse disputacity upon the mistaken letter and Polemical Divinity and vain and ridiculous altercations and janglings for he is now a Citizen of that New Ierusalem from above and the onely true Ierusalem according to the notation of the name which they will have to signifie The vision of Peace He is a living stone of the Temple of Him that is greater then Solomon where there is not heard the noise of any axe or hammer Thirdly and lastly This Isaac was not born according to the flesh but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. Per eam vim extraordinariam quam Deus promiserat for it is a Metonymy as the Interpreter rightly has noted Isaac was not born according to the power of Nature for that Natural power of begetting and bearing Children was then extinct in Abraham and Sarah by reason of old age as the Text tells us but he was born by the power of God working extraordinarily in Nature which power Abraham having a faith in and believing the promise he at the appointed time saw and enjoied the effect of it And this is the precious Christian Faith so mainly necessary and yet so little spoken of by them that spake much in matters of Divinity For without this Faith in the power of God Isaac will not be born in us and if he be not born in us I know no warrant we have to conclude our selves Christians or men under the Second Covenant Wherefore it is a point mainly necessary to be insisted upon that we may at length be really that which we pretend to be that is Sons of the Free-woman and not of the Bond-woman that the true Isaac may be in us which is Christ according to the Spirit the Wisdome and Power of God a Divine vigor and life whereby we are inabled with joy and chearfulnesse to walk in the waies of God 6. And verily it was this so necessary and useful Faith that was so commended in Abraham that it was imputed to him for righteousnesse as I have above noted viz. his believing the Promise of God in things above the ordinary power of Nature For it is the nature of men that make large professions of God and Divine Providence yet never to believe him further then in Natural Causes and humane probabilities But this is not so much to believe God as Nature nor to depend on him but on our own cold and ineffectual Reason concluding from accustomary probabilities Which if Abraham had done it might well have forfeited the birth of his Son Isaac And it will be very reasonable to examine our selves if we do not now hinder the birth of the spiritual Isaac by reason of our unbelief For we finding the generality of men so evil as they are and being conscious to our selves of abundance of corruption and all manner of weaknesse and proclivity to what is bad and finding it so common a thing for men to continue in their evil wayes and not to put off their wonted habits and that in our own attempts and resolutions we have been often baffled and cast back again we are likely through a spirit of Infidelity to conclude that that which is so hard to flesh and bloud and is so seldome seen in the course of the World will not be at all effected in us and therefore either live as it happens or at least make very small progresse in matters of true Religion and Piety I am sure fall short of that high calling whereunto we are called viz. that glorious liberty of the Sons of God from the slavish inveiglements of all uselesse Ceremonies and real sins And this is for want of Abraham's Faith who believed contrary to all probability of Nature that for all his decaied body and Sarah's barren womb yet God would raise up seed to him and that they should have a Son in their old age We are therefore to imitate Abraham the Father of the faithful and what we finde our selves weak in not to distrust but that God in his good time can make it out to us and therefore with patience and perseverance to presse forward and by Faith in the power of God who raised Christ from the dead to expect that after we have been made conformable to his death we shall also partake of the Resurrection from the dead For Christ in our Souls wading through the death with us that is supporting and strengthening us in our greatest Agonies brings up himself and us into a glorious Resurrection from the dead which you may call a Birth if you please as well as a Resurrection using but the same liberty that is already in the Scripture where speaking of his Resurrection the Apostle cites that in the second Psalm Thou art my Son this day have I begotten thee And this is the Son who as he professes of himself if he make us free we are then free indeed For he is the Son of Sarah the Free-woman and we being of one Spirit with him do ipso facto become free 7. And if we would compendiously declare the grand difference betwixt the First and Second Covenant it does consist mainly in these two points we are upon First That a true Christian or one attained to the End and Scope of the Second Covenant is what he is by Faith in a supernatural power working him to it Secondly That that condition he has attained to is a condition of true and perfect Freedome properly so called But he that is under the First Covenant is what he is by the power of Nature onely and by applying himself as well as he can to the external Rule he has set before him And verily he that does no more then thus in Christianity it self that is outwardly apply himself to the Letter of the Gospel has not arrived to the End of the Gospel nor is Isaac yet born in him but is under an outward legal Form in stead of the Law of the Spirit of Life And he cannot be born of the Free-woman forasmuch as the Law of the Spirit of Life is wanting in him which does really free us from the Law of Sin and Death But now by reason that a true Christian arrives to that happy condition he is in by a Supernatural power
Celestial Vehicle 4. The activity of the separate Soul upon the Vehicle argued from her moving of the Spirits in the Body and that no advantage accrews therefrom to the wicked after death 141 CHAP. IV. 1. Christ's Session at the Right hand of God interpreted either figuratively or properly 2. That the proper sense implies no humane shape in the Deity 3. That though God be Infinite and every where yet there may be a Special presence of him in Heaven 4. And that Christ may be conceived to sit at the Right hand of that Presence or Divine Shechina 143 CHAP. V. 1. The Apotheosis of Christ or his Receiving of Divine Honour freed from all suspicion of Idolatry forasmuch as Christ is God properly so called by his Real and Physicall union with God 2. The Real and Physical union of the Soul of Christ with God being possible sundry Reasons alledged to prove that God did actually bring it to pass 3. The vain Evasions of superficial Allegorists noted 4. Their ignorance evinced and the Apotheosis of Christ confirmed from the Immortality of the Soul and the political Government of the other World 5. That he that equalizes himself to Christ is ipso facto discovered an Impostour and Lier 144 CHAP. VI. 1. An Objection against Christ's Soveraignty over Men and Angels from the meanness of the rank of Humane Spirits in comparison of the Angelical Orders 2. An Answer to the Objection so far as it concerns the fallen Angels 3. A further inforcement of the Objection concerning the unfallen Angels with an Answer thereto 4. A further Answer from the incapacitie of an Angels being a Sacrifice for the Sins of the World 5. And of being a fit Example of life to men in the flesh 6. That the capacities of Christ were so universal that he was the fittest to be made the Head or Soveraign over all the Intellectuall Orders 7. Christ's Intercession his fitness for that Office 8. What things in the Pagan Religion are rectified and compleated in the Birth Passion Ascension and Inercession of Christ. 146 CHAP. VII 1. That there is nothing in the History of Apollonius that can properly answer to Christs Resurrection from the dead 2. And that his passage out of this life must go for his Ascension concerning which reports are various but in general that it was likely he died not in his bed 3. His reception at the Temple of Diana Dictynna in Crete and of his being called up into Heaven by a Quire of Virgins singing in the Aire 4. The uncertainty of the manner of Apollonius his leaving the World argued out of Philostratus his own Confession 5. That if that at the Temple of Diana Dictynna was true yet it is no demonstration of any great worth in his Person 6. That the Secrecy of his departure out of this world might beget a suspicion in his admirers that he went Body and Soul into Heaven 7. Of a Statue of Apollonius that spake and of his dictating verses to a young Philosopher at Tyana concerning the Immortality of the Soul 8. Of his Ghost appearing to Aurelian the Emperour 9. Of Christ's appearing to Stephen at his martyrdome and to Saul when he was going to Damascus 149 CHAP. VIII 1. The use of this parallel hitherto of Christ and Apollonius 2. Mahomet David George H. Nicolas high-pretending Prophets brought upon the stage and the Author's Apology for so doing 3. That a misbelief of the History of Christ and a dexterity in a moral Mythology thereof are the greatest excellencies in David George and H. Nicolas 4. That if they believed there were any Miracles ever in the world they ought to have given their reasons why they believe not those that are recorded of Christ and to have undeceiv'd the world by doing Miracles themselves to ratifie their doctrine 5. If they believed there never were nor ever will be any Miracles they do plainly betray themselves to be mere Atheists or Epicures 6. The wicked plot of Satan in this Sect in clothing their style with Scripture-language though they were worse Infidels then the very Heathen 7. That the gross Infidelity of these two Impostours would make a man suspect them rather to have been crafty prophane Cheats then honest through-crackt Enthusiasts 8. That where Faith is extinct all the rapturous Exhortations to Vertue are justly suspected to proceed rather from Complexion then any Divine principle 152 CHAP. IX 1. Mahomet far more orthodox in the main points of Religion then the above named Impostours 2. The high pitch this pretended Prophet sets himself at His journey to Heaven being waited upon by the Angel Gabriel His Beast Alborach and of his being called to by two Women by the way with the Angels interpretation thereof 3. His arrival at the Temple at Jerusalem and the reverence done to him there by all the Prophets and holy Messengers of God that ever had been in the world 4. The crafty political meaning of the Vision hitherto 5. Mahomet bearing himself upon the Angel Gabriel's hand climbes up to Heaven on a Ladder of Divine light His passing through seven Heavens and his commâ—nding of himself to Christ in the Seventh 6. His salutation of his Creatour with the stupendious circumstances thereof 7. Five special favours he received from God at that congress 8. Of the natural wilyness in Enthusiasts and of their subtile pride where they would seem most humble The strange advantage of Enthusiasme with the rude Multitude 9. And the wonderfull success thereof in Mahomet Other Enthusiasts as proud as Mohamet but not so successful and why 155 CHAP. X. 1. That Mahomet was no true Prophet discovered from his cruel and bloudy Precepts 2. From his insatiable Lust. 3. From his wildeness of Phansy and Ignorance in things What may possibly be the meaning of the black speck taken out of his Heart by the Angel Gabriel 4. His pretence to Miracles as his being overshadowed with a cloud when he drove his Masters Mules 5. A stock of a Tree cleaving it self to give way to the stumbling Prophet The cluttering of Trees together to keep off the Sun from him as also his dividing of the Moon 6. The matters hitherto recited concerning Mahomet taken out of Johannes Andreas the Son of Abdalla a Mahometane Priest a grave person and serious Christian. 158 CHAP. XI 1. Three main Consequences of Christ's Apotheosis 2. Of the Mission of the Holy Ghost and the Apostles power of doing Miracles 3. The manner of the descent of the Holy Ghost upon them at the day of Pentecost 4. The substantial Reasonableness of the circumstances of this Miracle 5. The Symbolical meaning of them 6. What was meant by the rushing winde that filled the whole house 7. What by the fiery cloven tongues 8. A recital of several other Miracles done by or happening to the Apostles 9. The Congruity and Coherence of the whole History of the Miracles of Christ and his Apostles argued from the Success 161 CHAP. XII 1.
Nature 7. The fourth Gospel-Power The Example of Christ. 8. His purpose of vindicating the Example of Christ from aspersions with the reasons thereof 408 CHAP. XIII 1. That Christ was no Blasphemer in declaring himself to be the Son of God 2. Nor Conjurer in casting out Devils 3. That he was unjustly accused of Prophaneness 4. That there was nothing detestable in his Neutrality toward Political Factions 5. Nor any Injustice nor Partiality found in him 6. Nor could his sharp Rebukes of the Pharisâ—es be rightly termed Railing 7. Nor his whipping the Buyers and Sellers out of the Temple tumultâ—ary Zeal 8. Nor his crying out so dreadfully in his Passion be imputed to Impatience or Despair 9. The suspicion of Distractedness and Madness cleared 10. His vindication from their aspersions of Looseness and Prodigality 11. The câ—oâ—ked and perverse nature of the Pharisees noted with our Saviours own Apology for his frequenting all companies 12. That Christ was no Self-seeker in undergoing the Death of the Cross for that joy that was set before him 412 CHAP. XIV 1. The reason of his having insisted so long on the vindicating of the Life of Christ from the aspersions of the Malevolent 2. The true Character of a real Christian. 3. The true Character of a false or Pharisaical Christian. 4. How easily the true members of Christ are accused of Blasphemy by the Pharisaical Christians 5. And the working of their Graces imputed to some vicious Principle 6. Their censuring them prophane that are not superstitious 7. The Parisees great dislike of coldness in fruitless Controversies of Religion 8. Their Ignorance of the law of Equity and Love 9. How prone it is for the sincere Christian to be accounted a Railer for speaking the truth 10. That the least Opposition against Pharisaical Rottenness will easily be interpreted bitter and tumultuous Zeal 11. How the solid Knowledge of the perfectest Christians may be accounted Madness by the formal Pharisee 12. his Proneness to judge the true Christian according to the motions of his own untamed corruptions 13. His prudent choice of the vice of Covetousness 14. The Unreasonableness of his censure of those that endeavour after Perfection 15. His ignorant surmise that no man liveth vertuously for the love of Vertue it self 16. The Usefulness of this Parallelisme betwixt the Reproach of Christ and his true Members 422 CHAP. XV. 1. The Passion of Christ the fifth Gospel-Power the Virtue whereof is in a special manner noted by our Saviour himself 2. That the Brazen Serpent in the Wilderness was a prophetick Type of Christ and cured not by Art but by Divine Power 3. That Telesmatical Preparations are superstitious manifest out of their Collections that write of them 4. Particularly out of Gaffarel and Gregory 5. That the Effects of Telesmes are beyond the laws of Nature 6. That if there be any natural power in Telesmes it is from Similitude with a confutation of this ground also 7. A further confutation of that ground 8. In what sense the Brazâ—n Serpent was a Telesme and that it must needs be a Typical Prophecie of Christ. 9. The accurate and punctual Prefiguration therein 10. The wicked Pride and Conceitedness of those that are not touched with this admirable contrivance of Divine Providence 11. The insufferable balsphemy of them that reproach the Son of God for crying out in his dreadful Agony on the Cross wherein is discovered the Unloveliness of the Family of Love 429 CHAP. XVI 1. The End of Christs Sufferings not onely to pacifie Conscience but to root out Sin witnessed out of the Scripture 2. Further Testimonies to the same purpose 3. The Faintness and Uselesness of the Allegory of Chrâ—sts Passion in comparison of the Application of the History thereof 4 The Application of Christs Sufferings against Pride and Covetousness 5. As also against Envy Hâ—â—red Revenge vain Mirth the Pangs of Deaâ—h and unwarrantable Love 6. A General Application of the Death of Christ to the mortifying of all Sin whatsoever 7. The celebrating the Lords Supper the use and meaning thereof 436 CHAP. XVII 1. The sixth Gospel-Power is the Resurrection and Ascension of Christ. The priviledge of this Demonstration of the Soul's Immortality above that from the Subtilty of Reason and Philosophy 2. The great power this consideration of the Soul's Immortality has to urge men to a Godly life 3. To â—ean themselves from worldly pleasures and learn to delight in those that are everlasting 4. To have our Conversation in Heaven 5. The Conditions of the Everlasting Inheritance 6. Further enforcements of duty from the Soul's Immortality 440 CHAP. XVIII 1. The Day of Judgement the seventh and last Gospel-power fit as well for the regenerate as the unregenerate to think upon 2. The Uncertainty of that Day and that it will surprize the wicked unawares 3. That those that wilfully reject the offers of Grace here shall be in no better condition after Death then the Devils themselves are 4. A Description of the sad Evening-close of that terrible Day of the Lord. 5. The Affrightment of the Morning-appearance thereof to the wicked 6. A further Description thereof 7. The Translation of the Church of Christ to their Aethereal Mansions with a brief Description of their Heavenly Happiness 443 CHAP. XIX 1. That there can be no Religion more powerful for the promoting of the Divine Life then Christianity is 2. The external Triumph of the Divine Life in the person of Christ how throughly warranted and how fully performed 3. The Religious Splendour of Christendome 4. The Spirit of Religion stifled with the load of Formalities 5. The satisfaction that the faithfully-devoted Servants of Christ have from that Divine homage done to his Person though by the wicked 447 CHAP. XX. 1. The Usefulness of Christianity for the good of this life witnessed by our Saviour and S. Paul 2. The proof thereof from the Nature of the thing it self 3. Objections against Christianity as if it were an unfit Religion for States Politick 4. A Concession that the primary intention of the Gospel was not Government Political with the advantage of that Concession 5. That there is nothing in Christianity but what is highly advantageous to a State-Politick 6. That those very things they object against it are such as do most effectually reach the chief end of Political Government as doth Charity for example 7. Humility Patience and Mortification of inordinate desires 8. The invincible Valour that the love of Christ and their fellow-members inspires the Christian Souldiery withall 449 BOOK IX CHAP. I. THe four Derivative Properties of the Mystery of Godliness 2. That a measure of Obscurity begets Veneration suggested from our very senses 3. Confirmed also by the common suffrage of all Religions and the nature of Reservedness amongst men 4. The rudeness and ignorance of those that expect that every Divine Truth of Scripture should be a comprehensible Object of their understanding even in the very modes and