it may be they are fallen into a form of Communion with Christians others are such as are only state Reformers and the time-Reformers Now both of them although there may be graduall difference yet both of them discover themselves that they are of the earth by this they are to be known by their conceits of themselves by their magnifying their duties and their forms they are in As a Christian ceaseth to be soe doe all things cease to be anything to him and he doth no more admire an high form in Religion then he doth admire himself all things are crucified to him as wel as he is crucified to them But many are like the multitude that Christ spake to in the 5. of Mat. They wil be very Zealous Jealous lest others should destroy the Law who preach the Gospel purely in the spirit and why are They zealous of the Law but because they think they can keep the Law they know only some lower formes of the Law but if they knew the Highest formes of the Law it were all one for they are censorious of others and wil persecute others if they will not come up to their form whereas you shall hear a broken-hearted Paul say that Circumcision it nothing c. Paul saw that a man might be a circumcised Jew yet ly down in hel with an uncircumcised Gentile but others by their censoriousnes of others manifest that they are not ceased to be in the flesh the truth is he that doth know God and doth worship God in spirit hath such low thoughts of all manner of outward forms that he doth neither judg himself nor others in the least kind by them for he sees that which is so much beyond and he is pressing towards that stil he takes heed how he riseth up in the morning and blesseth himself or his neighbour in his form for he sees much uncircumcision of heart in the best form The next is a Use of direction to poore creatures that see and subscribe to the truth That true Christianity begins in self-denyall and are saying what may we do that we may be after this manner that we may not be in our selves that the next word wil tell you God took him Enoch had been as other men but that God took him he had been in the flesh and had confidence in the flesh and had been some body in his owne eyes if so be God had not tooke him so that this you are to wait for till God take you up you cannot bring down the spirit a man cannot make an hair of his head white or black a man cannot make a thought a man cannot mould one desire or affection in him it is beyond his power this is according to that I spake in the opening of the point somewhat toward this namely that it is God revealing himself and his owne glory to the soule that engageth the soule to forget his owne kindred and his fathers house Come faith God thou shalt be marryed honorably I wil marry thee my self forget thy self forget thy sins so indeed the death of a Christian is a sweet death and as the Psalmist saith Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his Saints God comes and takes that place that before Self had and therefore you have the death of a Saint expressed in this manner Into thy hands O Lord I commend my spirit God is there to receive the soul or else the soul would never be content to go out of the body and so it is here spiritually And the 3. and last Use is this A Hint or Discovery to what end death is ordained that formall death that we looke upon with so much fear and with such a sad reflection upon our selves when we think of our selves I must ere long dye and be among the dead This is our Ignorance what is death What is it for It is but an outward forme and signification of that work that God in the spirit of a Saint doth every day for what is the life of a Saint but a continual dying into the hands of God his Righteousness expires into the Righteousness of God God increaseth in him and himself decreaseth he hath less thoughts of himself and his own strength and hath higher thoughts of God he doth less know himself after the flesh and according to outward appearances and he more judgeth of himself as he is in God and as in Christ Jesus so that a Beleever dyes dayly and when God hath finished his whole worke upon Mount Sion then he will withdraw the form of death when he hath brought his people to dye to themselves and to the world as he wil in the latter days then death shal be swallowed up for as we see how men are when they are dead they mind no more relations a Child no longer observes his Father when he is dead ceaseth to act to the relation and ceaseth to act to the objects of this world strew fine sweet flowers before a dead corps the corps smels them not and bring good chear before dead corps the corps tasts it not so shal Saints be to sin and this world And thus I am perswaded God would not have continued death in the world since he hath reconciled the world but to teach the world And what are all these changes when a soul is gone to God before is it any terrible thing for such an one to dye It was the speech of one of precious memory in this City when he was dying saith he I shal but change my place not my company he walked as Enoch did So it is with us in all our changes that befal us they are but the outward formes and significations of that which is doing every day therefore we are not to judge according to the sight of our eyes not reckon our selves by our duties and our graces and performances not reckon by that power we see in our selves to resist sin or act in duties but look to an invisible presence of the spirit in oursouls that can never be taken from us which Mothes cannot corrupt and where Thieves cannot break through and steal SOMETHING OF THE MYSTERY OF THE FATHER AND OF CHRIST JOHN 16. 25. Hitherto have I spoken to you in Parables the time cometh when I wil speak to you no more in Parables but I wil shew you plainly of the Father THese are the words of our Saviour a little before his suffering when he spake not upon his own life but upon the life and comfort of his Disciples whose hearts were ful of heaviness and much ado he had to keep them up from sinking therefore no question but Jesus Christ did grone in Spirit and did go down deep that he might bring up something from the bottom to refresh their hearts tobear them up against that houre that was coming upon him their Lord and Master and upon them in being deprived of him therefore we finde him here very
by the glory of God appearing in the soul that the soul is crucified and turned out of it self even as it was with Christ he knew if he dyed and went away in the flesh he should come again in the spirit and that he saith himself and discourseth of it in the Gospel according to St. John 12. 24. If the seed fall into the ground c. He that loveth this life shal lose it but he that hateth this life shal have life eternal Upon this accompt did Christ yield up himself cheerfully to death Therefore it is said that Jesus Christ by the eternal spirit offered up himself it was by the eternal spirit that reveals the glorious design of the Father in his death that Christ was brought to yield himself unto death Now the degrees by which this death of self is accomplished are these three First God doth make a discovery to the soul of the rotteness of old self and of the bitterness of that self that is tendered to us of Gods self this discovery is made to us and God doth together therewith reveal himself in us he reveals himself in us and shews himself to be our Righteousness and our Strength The soul sees it self possessed of God and sees God dwelling in him now the soul knows it cannot be found naked Now saith the soul I may part with my self when I will for I have a better self And secondly Hereupon the soul hath all its life in God and his heart is set upon God he sees God within him and now his eyes are turned to this Emanuell God dwelling in his flesh and now he admires not the things he did before he did admire other men and their enlargements and abilities he admired their affections and expressions in prayer he admired such and such acts of piety and charity which a man may do and seek himself all this while he admired the flesh but now he hath no confidence or delight in the flesh he looks wholly upon God and admires him and admires that ever God should dwel with man that God whom the Heaven of Heavens cannot contain that he should take up such an heart that he should become the righteousness of such a creature 3. Hereupon follows passion action 1. The soul hereupon hath all its comforts from God and directs all his courses to God and he saith now Ashur shal not save us we will not ride upon Horses we have made mention of other names and other Lords but now by thee only we will make mention of thy name even thine so he hath sweet delight and acquiescence in God 2. The soul doth all to the glory of God if a man live in the flesh he will be acting in the flesh but if a man live in God and live in the spirit and live in that unseen righteousness and upon that invisible strength then all his application of himself is unto God and so he walks not after the flesh but after the spirit and all his waiting will be for this God if at any time he is insensible of his presence he waits upon God he saith not if it werethus withme I should behappy as Martha said if thou hadst â—â—n here my Brother had not dyed she considered not that Christ in the spirit had power now to recover from death as well as keep from death but the soule saith if God wil shine upon me I shal be comforted if he hide his face I am troubled it is not I will do this and I will do that but God wil do this and that and it is not if I had such means I should have power and get ground over my corruptions but if God arise his enemies shall be scattered And such a soul is dead to the Law and the Righteousness of the Law and dead to the workings of it and sees that the Law cannot give strength it is God that of his grace is strength to the poor soul and thus the soul hath entertained God as his guest and let the Sodomites come and compass about Lots House he minds them not the soul sees nothing in comparison but his soule pants as the Hart after the water brook and this is the condition of a soule that is not Now if you ask me the reason of this why a true Christian is one that is not I answer this is the reason of it because God is all and he will be known to be all he will have his people to know so and will have it held forth that he is all and therefore there must be a dying thus and a withering and decaying and a going out of a mans self I know no other reason but this why God did ordaine that same state of nature before the state of grace why he revealed Adam before Christ but only this that so God might make it knwon to us that he is all in all For howsoever God was all in all and would have been all in all and could not be otherwise for was there any thing before God or is there any thing whereof it may be said it is besides God But yet God had not been manifested to be all in all so as he is by causing the Creature to dye to its self as if God had created light and never created darkness light had been light but light is known by darkness So God would have been all howsoever but he is known to be all by this same forme of the creature dying in himself dying in those abilities which are Gods for we have nothing but what is Gods and what he gives us and is to us but God hereby holds forth himself to be all to us after lower and darker forms when removed and corrupted we see still another and higher blessedness in God and it is likewise for to give us our taste he that hath tasted the sower is fit to taste the sweet he that hath seen the fading of the flower is better prepared to see a living activity so we have known God in nature we are hereby prepared to admire Gods discovery in the Gospel Now before the Use of this point there is only one thing more I will mention and that is this That the death of a Beleever is into God as I may so say even as the seed that dyes as a seed but it dyes into a flower that is better then the seed so doth a Beleever do that is the tearm of his death So now I have explained all that I think of to you now the Use is this 1. It serves to discover and disgrace the Religion of most men that are not acquainted with this same dying to themselves you have many especially in these times that do come under this search and tryall and will be found too light and there are two sorts some who have advanced a Reformation from that same knowledg which is come abroad in these times they have set up a form of Religion in their Families and
mēbers to bring forthfruit unto death Rom. 7. I will give you one more Scripture to prove this and that is Eph. 1. 17. where the Apostle prays thus for the Ephesians That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ the Father of Glory may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledg of him the eyes of your understandings being inlightened that ye may see what is the hope of his calling And at the 19. verse That you may know what is the exceeding greatness of his power which he wrought in Christ Jesus when he raised him from the dead Pray mark it The Apostle doth directly and expresly assert that there is the working of the same mighty power in Beleevers that wrought in Christ when God raised him from the dead And the Apostle Rom. 8. saith in general That as many as God did foreknow he did predestinate to be conformed to the Image of his Son That is God did predestinate them to be carryed on the same way that Christ was and so the same things to be done in them that were done in him Object There is only one Objection that I shal answer before I come to the Application of the point and that is in Col. 2. 11. In whom also ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands in putting off the body of sins of the flesh by the Circumcision of Christ Here lyes the Objection if so be we are circumcised in Christ If all Beleevers are circumcised in him at once as this Scripture seems to hold forth by the putting off of that same body of his by that very circumcision of his Why then you will say our Sanctification tarries not for the appearance of the like things in us I confess this Objection lies plain in appearance against what hath been spoken But I shall answer to you thus and shew you how we are circumcised in Christ by his circumcision and how it is that notwithstanding we are actually and personally circumcised by the circumcision of the Spirit and by reall circumcision 1. First then we are circumcised in Christ foederally as in our root and common person we are unto God circumcised in Christ as in a Figure Pray mark it it is I say as in a Figure for thus we are to look upon Jesus Christ not as one that came to excuse the Old man from dying or to set us up in a state of salvation without working any thing within us Nay he came to reveal the Kingdom of God within us and to set it up within us but he first gave us a pattern of the Kingdom and first transacted all our salvation in a Figure before he transacted it within us by the Spirit and this transacting our salvation without us in a Figure bears its use and proportion towards the effecting of the work of Sanctification within us by the Spirit For thus God hath hereby caught us by guil as I may so speak even as when we stood in Adam Adam falling cast us all down So now God he comes and reveals a second Adam and this same second Adam God sets up as our common root representing us all and this is that Covenant that God proclaims from heaven Look what is the fat◠of the second Adam that shal be the fate of all the seed if he stand al shal stand if he fal they shal al fal Now Iesus Christ comes stands in our stead and was made under the Law and he dyes and suffers goes away in the flesh suffers in the flesh and is not overcome of death or Hell or the pains of death but rises again Here 's our salvation transacted in a Figure and set before us As it did fare with Christ so it shall fare with us we shall as certainly come to glory as he did Here is the Type here is the Original Pattern here is the fore-runner here is the draught or copy of the Covenant written in broad Characters upon the person of Iesus Christ This is the use of Christs dying and suffering and sanctifying himself and so we are said to be sanctifyed in him as our root representing us What proportion this bears to the transacting of our salvation within us is this Hereby we are brought to God hereby our weak hands are lifted up and our feeble knees are strengthned Hereby we are caught as it were with guil and God doth hold forth our salvation as in a Parable to us But if so be the work rest here let us suppose an impossibility we are but in an ill condition if we be not circumcised also together with Christ really by the spirit as well as circumcised in Christ foederally and typically and representatively it wil go but ill with us We may see what is to be done by looking upon the History of Christ but til we find the same things done in us in the mystery in some measure we can have little comfort We may see the end of the Lord with us even the same end he made with Christ Jesus but we must follow his steps also as the Apostle Peter saith He hath left us an example that we should follow his steps 1. Now the use I shall make of this is to confirm that Doctrine I have formerly delivered to you that Doctrine that needs confirming again and that need be whetted upon us because we are exceeeding dull of hearing spirituall truths the Doctrine is this namely That the whole History of Christ wil profit you nothing nor all that you know except you find experimentally the same things done in you by the Spirit I desire to commend this Doctrine to you again and again That the History of the Gospell is but a Parable as it were that holds forth to us the story of things done and not only so but holds forth a glass of things to be done by the spirit within us I beseech you therefore be not offended when as we say that Christ according to the History of him only and according to his Ministration in the flesh is but a form in which God doth appear to us and in which God doth give us a Map of our salvation Thou knowest it not to be thy reall salvation except it be revealed within thee in the Spirit Jesus Christ is called the Image of the Invisible God God comes forth to be seen in the flesh of Christ as in an Image as in a Representation it is not the naked appearance of God but it is an Image of God Now we know the Image serves in the absence of the lively face of the living Person and so do all these same transactions of Jesus Christ they serve untill the Kingdome of God be come to us in the Spirit A Map serves untill a man knows the Country and so do these same Transactions of Iesus Christ they serve as constant Monuments unto us Monuments I say and Pillars and Memorials and Types of that same salvation that is to be
seed and principle of the spirituall appearance and genders it by dying God that commanded light to shine out of darkness God brings forth glory to his people by affliction tribulation and dying Their comforts go away in the flesh ere they come in the Spirit While the flesh lasts upon them the Spirit is not broken forth While the form or fleshly appearance is any thing to us and we promise our selves any thing from it God is not all in all while God is not all in all our comforts are not brought forth in the Spirit and so are not made perfect In all fleshly appearances there is Enmity to God therefore God is Enmity to them and is the death of them This Enmity is discovered in the disputes that we have about faith Whether it justify as a Condition or as an Instrument only and about the Spirit whether the Spirit be in us by presence or by influence only which are mists that arise out of the bottomless pit and argue God is not all in all there and so that soul is not perfected The Scripture in 1 Zeph. 2. c. paralels the dispensation Christians are under I wil utterly consume all things from off the Land saith the Lord. I will consume man and beast I will consume the fowls of the Heaven and the fishes of the Sea and the stumbling blocks with the wicked and I will cut off man c. and v. 4. I will stretch my hand upon the Inhabitants of Jerusalem c. upon Professors And I will cut off ver 5. them that worship and swear by the Lord and Malcham This is the condition of our times light is broken in upon us and we see that Ordinances are nothing without the Lord every one will confess that that the Letter is a dead Letter without the Spirit and the Ordinances are meer forms without Gods Appearance in them and therefore our design is to couple the Lord and Ordinances together and we cannot endure to hear of the parting of them Swear by the Lord and by Malcham even as you see men now adays do so we may have but Ordinances we are well This is that which I was speaking of before that we do promise our selves something from the fleshly form and appearance and so like the Israelites we are hankering after the flesh-pots of Aegypt though they had as good meat in the Wilderness yet the flesh-pots ran in their minds So though God offer himself and though Christians tell you for what they tell you God tells you they tell you they cannot find God in such and such forms but find him abundantly good in the Spirit and they find that he recompences the want of all forms in the Spirit though he be gone out of the Temple yet they find him in their hearts they press you to wait till God appear to you in the Spirit Oh say you I can never beleeve it that God should do it without an Ordinance or that God should strengthen you without an Ordinance God think you with an Ordinance can strengthen me and deliver me and save me out of a temptation not otherwise this is to say that the Ordinance or fleshly form doth add something to God If you will confess God to be all in an Ordinance you must confess him to be all without an Ordinance to be sufficient of himself I desire not to be mistaken I do not judg those that find God in Ordinances and outward forms Let them wait upon God and let them receive and partake of the benefit of the Ordinance and let them bless God for it and be faithfull to their own principles and let them be sweet to others but when we do find God in a form and in an Ordinance to say he is not to be found and enjoyed any other way this is not a right Spirit Nay when we find not God in an Ordinance yet we will keep to it as if God were not to be enjoyed any other way This is the greatest unreasonableness that can be to put no worse a name upon it Now I have done with the Reason of the point I should shew now who are the living Christians and how they are in a more living condition that are free from the bondage of outward observances that do not depend upon any fleshly appearance or administration but see a fulness and sufficiency of God in the Spirit and enjoy the same for else for men to have a notion and principle of it and not to enjoy God in the Spirit they may come from a sad outward Religion and forms to no Religion nay to Atheism and God will judg the free as well as the bond They may be free from Ordinances and yet may be as fleshly to God as if they were under the Jewish observances But the Use that I would make of what hath bin delivered is first a Use of Admonition unto those that are still in forms and secondly a word of Instruction to us all 1. It is for Admonition to those that are in forms We say not that the Lord is not within you nor that which you do you do not to the Lord but the holy Ghost saith of you you are dying Christians While thou canst only see God in a fleshy Image and Representation thou art in a dying condition For it is a sign thou seest not God in his glorious and Spirituall Appearance for if thou didst thou wouldst say as they in the Mount at Christs transfiâ—uration Oh it is good for us to be here Let us look no more for God in forms and fleshly administrations at least you would desire to have your portion in fleshly Representations not but that that man who hath God broken forth in him in spirit and power may suffer others in those forms and not lose his own enjoyments You are Christs and you are Christians but you are in a fleshly and dying estate and you may be put shrewdly to it that do depend upon a form and fleshly administration When it cannot be had what wilt thou do Thy case is much as a mans that is kept up by Cordials and by means that the Physitian uses to him and not to be compared with him that is in a way of recovery that is past the danger of his disease in whom nature is growing strong and is overcoming the malignity of the disease by little and little When the other wants the Physitian it is as much as his life is worth and the Cordiall if it be long a fetching the man begins to faint he hath not his strength within him but without in Cordials So is the cases between him that lives upon Ordinances and him that lives upon Christ in the Spirit Christ is never in a journey or to fetch a great way off therefore I say you are in a dying condition that depend upon forms 2. Use is of Instruction to give us light in what the Lord is now doing and in the consequence thereof
You have heard that forms cannot dispense to us the spirituall Discoveries of God but by their going away in themselves then God hath sent out the Spirit of Elijah among us and God is contending with flesh and God is come into his Temple to sit there as a Refiners fire and he is bringing down all our forms But how He is destroying them in the flesh that he may give us them again in the Spirit This is that account upon which we may converse together and speak together informs as yet not in the oldness of the Letter but in the newness of the Spirit not accounting the form any thing Ministers not reckoning themselves to be anointed above their fellows and so making themselves Lords over Gods Heritage No it was only Christ Jesus was anointed above his fellows in that Administration wherein he was to be of publique use to the body but the anointing runs down from the head to the skirts of his garment c. The anointing is upon you all Christians it is the divine appearance within us anoints us above the world The Lord hath a quarrell with all flesh and we shall hear God speaking in one another more purely and he will turn to us a pure language when he hath made us a poor people Poverty and Pureness shall go together And then we will go no more forth to Malcham and when God hath silenced and stopt the mouth of all flesh and he alone is exalted then he will give you Judges as at the first and Counsellors as at the beginning and we shall all know the Lord and be able to speak to one another as at the beginning Think not your Religion will not be if the flesh of it be destroyed we shall know it more in the Spirit and see the anointing discovering it self upon the Body of Christ THE Dying and the living CHRISTIAN ROM 14. 8. For whether we live we live unto the Lord or whether we dye we dye unto the Lord. SUch is the Nature of Man such our darkness and blindness such our unacquaintedness with spirituall things that we are even shie and startle at that that is our great interest The Disciples when Jesus Christ came walking unto them on the Sea after he had bin a while absent from them took him for a Spirit and cryed out for fear Jesus Christ the Lord that Spirit that quickning Spirit He hath bin absent from us a while namely during the Apostacy during the raign of Antichrist and he is now visiting us and is comming to us in his own appearance When Christ who is our life shall appear When he shall break forth from under the Vail Now we know him not and are exceedingly afraid yea we cry out for fear we cry out of destroying Religion pulling down Ordinances This is the very case in the Text here There were some in the Apostles days that were still in the flesh I mean that were in that gross flesh that were under that same thick Vail of the Jewish Paedagogy and they were offended at others from whom God had taken that Vail and that did not walk in those Observances they did judg them very like they judged them to be irreligious men What not observe a day that God himself hath instituted Not observe distinction of meats that God himself hath founded What audaciousness is this to throw down the Ordinances of God On the other hand those that did see ground perhaps in the Letter for what they did for the casting off the yoke of these outward Observances yet not walking spiritually in this liberty despised them that were still under these When any thing of a form is received by our nature by our flesh there is a miscarriage in it If God appear in our forms we judg those that are above them If God lead us above them we are ready to despise those that are under them remaining all this while in deed and in truth under a form our selves though we appeare in this distinction from others for uncircumcision is a form as well as Circumcision and it shews it self so to be by this uncircumcised despising of others for forms sake in whom there may be as much or more power then in our selves In this Chapter the Apostle states the Controversie and gives us a Rule to administer towards the one and the other Let not him that eateth despise him that eateth not and let not him that eateth not judg him that eateth for the Lord hath received him Peradventure the one of them is in a better state then the other yet they are both of them in the Lord they are the Lords The one is a Living Christian the other a Dying Christian yet they are both the Lords For saith he Whether we live we live unto the Lord or whether we dye we dye unto the Lord. And so we come to the words whence we have observed That God is not only in different forms but in opposite forms such as are regarding a day and not regarding it We have observed likewise what the difference of Christians doth amount unto those that are in bondage to Forms and those that are set free from those forms the one is a living and the other a dying man For whether we live we live unto the Lord or whether we dye we dye unto the Lord. I spake of the dying Christian the last day and shewed you in what respect he is a dying Christian that is under Ordinances or that depends upon them for every conversing in Ordinances is not a depending upon Ordinances First It is a dying condition for he savours life Carnally they savour their life according to the weakness of the flesh and not according to the power of the spirit according to the carnality of the forme and not according to the spirituality of God Therefore 't is that men do put the Ordinances with God as those that swore by the Lord and Malcham they left not out the Lord but would joyn Malcham with him too they savour life carnally and secondly they fall short of God they fal short of the glory of God ergo they are dying Christians They see God in his weakness but they see him not in his strength and thirdly they must passe through death for every form is raised up that it may dye and not that it should live for ever it is raised up for a Ministration to Minister to some other thing and therefore must have its period Every form is but a way yea the body of Christ is but a way Through the new and living way that is his flesh And I might have added another Reason and that is this That Jesus Christ the end of his appearance in the flesh was death He was manifested in the flesh and brought down the love of God and the glory of God in his flesh he spake the things of God to us in fleshly signs and parables and the end of that State was death and so
leading them into Canaan Did not they fall back in the wilderness Was it not so in Abraham when Isaac was born and growing up to his Fathers hope Then Isaac must be sacrificed So I conceive it is here the Spirit began to be sprinkled in the primitive times in gifts and since that what an Apostacy hath there bin So that the Spirit is yet to be poured out and now after the Apostacy is to be the harvest And so I am perswaded many Christians enter into Ordinances in the Spirit and fall back into the flesh there remains therefore a Restitution a latter day a latter rain as Job speaks at the latter day I shall see God in my flesh and is not the Lord putting up his head in our Horizon Therefore think not the promises of life and salvation have given down all they have travailed with FINIS A Postscript LEast my meaning in any thing be lockt up from the Readers understanding I thought good to add the key of this distinction 1 There is a two-fold Administration of the Kingdom of God viz. outward and inward the outward in signs the inward in truth 2. As the outward and the inward Administration are contradistinguished the one to the other so they are distinguished and differ gradually in themselves i. e. The outward Aministration or Letter of the Gospel excells that of the Law So likewise in the inward Administration or Revelation in us The first Appearance of Christ in us is swallowed up of his second Appearance in us The Kingdom of the Father excels the Kingdom of the Son and the state of the Resurrection of Christ in us the state or likeness of his death And therefore when it is said that Christ in Spirit dwelling and working in our hearts reveals the Father plainly whom we saw but as in a Parable in his flesh or without us I desire ye should understand also that the first Appearance of Christ within us doth not give a full and perfect testimony and witness of the Father for then the Apostle would not have said of such that they see darkly and there would be no expectation of a second Appearance and upon this account it is that in that discourse on John 16. 25. I speak of Righteousness and Sanctification and Faith and Love being forms or glasses which must all be resolved into God at length that he may be all in all And the same thing I desire may be carryed in mind for the understanding of those discourses on John 17. 19. That as the inward Appearance and Working of Christ is the truth of the Outward and the outward is but a Form serving thereto so the second appearance of Christ in us is the truth of the first appearance and the first appearance is but the way unto the latter And when as in those discourses on Rom. 14. they are held forth as dying Christians that stick in Forms and things outward in the flesh of Christ I desire Saints may be aware that there is the flesh of Christ within them or a fleshly manifestation or appearance of Christ in flesh in them which is that that they are not to satisfie themselves withall but are to waite till they be brought forth with Christ in the glory of the Father till faith and Righteousness and al those Forms Vails be broken up into one single view of the Father or God al in all till childish things thoughts and language be put away and we see God face to face as he is till God himself be a place of broad Rivers and Streams in his own Name and not under another name till he make all things new and bring forth all our injoyments of him in a new light and a new glory So much as we are short of this so much are we under death though we may be past from outward forms and have the life dwelling in us And they that shall deny this to be possible in this life must deny the new Jerusalem to come down from God out of heaven and the expresse letter of Revelations Chapter 22 verses 3 4 5. where it is written And there shall be no more curse but the Throne of God and of the Lamb shal be in it and his servants shall serve him And they shall see his face and his name shall be in their foreheads And there shall be no night there and they need no candle neither light of the Sun for the Lord God giveth them light and they shall raign for ever and ever And they that say this body of ours hinders err not knowing the power of God and what that flesh is that cannot inherit which is not this body which is in its self neither good nor evil but the subject of two Inhabitants two Men and so is good or evil as it is ruled by the one or by the other the old or the new man Self or Christ the old man may be and is destroying in Saints dayly while the body remains These things are hinted in the precedent discourses more generally and obscurely I add this only for explanation FINIS