blessed spirits and all graces all vertues all excellencies they shall display themselves gloriously even out of this seed but at the present they are only here in a confused masse nay a masse I may not call it they are but in a principle not brought forth We have sometimes hints notions apprehensions of great glory but where are the integral parts that should make this an entire piece here is a glimps a glance and eye a little finger as it is said of one of the twinns that put forth his hand and drew it back in the case of Zarez and Pharez So there is a putting forth of the hand but alas the body is yet in the dark and keeps behind all those glorious parts they are but in seed yea 3ly As seed is not only dark and confused but it is dead as our Saviour says and we all know by experience You may take that seed which will sow a whole field and bring forth a plentiful harvest you may lay it up in your garners years and yet you have not one seed more at the years end then when you laid it up for alas the seed is a dead thing unlesse it falls into the earth as our Saviour says so are we we are dead as the Apostle says and our life is hid with Christ in God There is the earth we must fall into there is our mother earth our principle with which we must unite must be in union with it by a mistical death you know that this natural death is but an ordinance to serve in the knowledge and doctrine of this mystical death unto us it was ordained for this end unto believers it came in originally by sin yet being come in God makes use of it for this service to represent to our eyes and sences that we must thus dye out of our selves as the body dyes into its original that so it may be in union with the fulnesse of the whole earth So we must dye out of our particulars into our own source or principle the new Jerusalem that is from above that spirit of which we are from whence we were taken as Adams body was taken from the earth so we are taken from a divine ground and into that must we dye and fall that so I say we may be in union in fellowship with the fulness of that principle I might observe other things from the seed as being course in it's appearance a course covering all of you know that the husk of a seed is but a course thing so is the present form and appearance of the saints I do not speak of the bodily appearance only though that is but a course thing in comparison of the glorious body that we shall have when Christ appears But the body of our works and righteousnesse and all our actings as we are professors or saints it is but a course thing in comparison you know there is if you take off the husk of a kernel there is a fine white kernel within so I say there is a pure thing lyes under a dark and course covering in us it doth not yet appear that is the first argument The Second argument of the glory of this state that we look for is from these words now are we the Sons of God compared with the first words of the 1st vers behold what manner of love hath the father bestowed upon as that we should be called the sons of God my argument from hence is this if we are the sons of God that doth import a greater glory then we indeed can conceive for it doth import a similitude unto God and a bearing his image as the son of a man bears the image of his father and is like unto his father and the Apostle in that Rom. 8.17 builds very high upon this bottom upon this foundation If children then heyres heyres of God and joint-heyres with Christ that if we suffer together we should be also glorifyed too ether and so he goes on he builds all this upon this foundation that we are children that we are sons you know that the father doth communicate not only his worldly substance not only his goods his riches his inheritance but his life his spirit and his nature unto his children now if you would but take in the strength of this consideration we must I say consider the 1st vers behold what manner of love c. Love you know is the principle of propagation in the creature and so is love in God and it is such a kinde of love this propagating love it doth intend the bestowing of the dearest life and joy to the begotten we are said to be born of the will of God Now you know that every mans will is called his pleasure because indeed the will is the very subject and source of all pleasure and in all comparison between the understanding and the will they agree in this that the understanding doth form and draw as I may say the lineaments of truth But the will gives the life touches the life of intellectual creatures is the pleasure of their will in the draught of their understandings so that the saints as born of the will of God are the very pleasure of God they are the very love of God they are the breath of this love the product of his love upon which he doth designe to display all the lovelyness that is in himself and therefore now what think you hath the love of god given that glorious account of it self in the present state of the saints is this all the love which God hath to shed down upon us this that we experience in this present state why if God loves he will love like himself and the effects of this love shall resemble that great love which is the author of it and the fountain of it it must resemble it it is said that they shall say Behold how he hath loved them men and Angels shall say so behold how he hath loved them God will write forth his love in a greater character and in a fairer letter then yet it hath been read in nay then yet it hath been conceived by any saint the prophet tells us no eye besides thee hath seen or conceived the things that he hath prepared for them that love God Esay 64. I may from hence glide very aptly into the evidence of this hope though there are several other arguments of the greatnesse of it I now come to the evidence of it the evidence lyes partly in what God hath done and partly in what he hath declared himself that he will do First in what God hath done God hath already you see loved us and he tels us in the prophets with an everlasting love and that everlasting love is not only to everlasting but was from everlasting now there is more in this then you are aware of God hath set up this glory with himself this glory into which he will bring forth the saints he hath
spot in Christ not in himself for if you examine the actions of the best men and take a tryal of them and weigh them they cannot hold weight before the Lord though a saint in his minde hath a more noble principle being renewed after the image of him that created him But if it were so in Christ that he at the very heighth of his legal righteousnesse was only thereby qualifyed and furnished to be a sacrifice to his father it is that which instructs us that in all our attainments in that first image we should look upon it to be only given us for a sacrifice There was you know several offerings under the law some were but a pair of young pigeons yet it was accepted so that I say whether we have more or lesse of that active righteousnesse in the force of our first life and principle restored this is a great shortness in our knowledg not to know that there is in Christ himself a first covenant-life a first covenant-principle this must all be laid down and parted with Christ did so himself and so must all his And this is that that the Lord is carrying on through this life we are dying daily and offering up our bodies and I pray what is that body which is dead because of sin the Apostle speaks of men that were in the body of the flesh therefore this body is the body of the first creation light it is that image of God that was presented in it's perfection by Christ in as great and absolute a perfection as in the first Adam And it is restored in principle in all that believe in Christ there is somthing of that lise whereby they tend to a greater exactnesse and perfection then they can attain unto but this body is dead and all must be broken off from this husband as in Rom. 7. you have it there very plainly declared know ye not brethren for I speak to them that know the law says he how that the law hath dominion over a man as long as he liveth that is as long as the man lives his own life for a believer is crucified with Christ but Christ lives in him what is the husband here it is the law you will say the law is not capable to be a mans husband as it is only a doctrine or as it is a form of words what is that to be ones husband Therefore you must consider herein that it is Christ mark ye that is the husband even under the law for he hath a first covenant wise and first covenant children he is a husband under the law is it not said though I was a husband unto them Ier. 31.32 I beseech you accept of these hints and weigh them I desire not to speak my own words and if I did not think that there was that in these things which doth mainly import our souls I durst not speak them but if you consider you will find that there is a world of professors that have only relation to Christ as a first covenant Lord and husband for it is Christ that is the person in both in law and Gospel Moses was but a typical mediator it was Christ that was the true Mediator There is an appearance in which Christ comes forth which is not to abide but is to go away as he acquaints his disciples with the expedience of it then yet he was a Bridegroom then but he was a Bridegroom in the flesh and that covenant-relation was to be exchanged for a better covenant-relation Rom. 7.4 Do you not see here that Christ is the Bridegroom his flesh was shadowed out by the law what do we mean by his flesh my beloved brethren let us wait upon the Lord for light in these things there hath been a great deal of pudder about the flesh of Christ as if Christ had no body now because the Apostle to the Hebrews reflects on the days of his flesh as past Alas this is not the meaning of Christ flesh for the flesh properly and the law and sin and death all these are relative one to the other so that the flesh as it is considered in us is the free hold of sin now Christ he comes in the flesh and he therein fulfils all rightousnesse and so doth as I may say recover that ground which the first Adam had loâ—t sin was entred upon the flesh Christ he comes and plants righteousnesse in the flesh marke ye it is but in the flesh the flesh is that active sate of first-covenant life and righteousness in conformity to the law and letter which was the state which was restored in Christ though lost in Adam and this is that which believers themselves are brought forth into in order to a passage through it into the righteousness of God the first stone of which building is laid in the dissolution and passing away of this first strength this first activiry and power that the creature finds himself invested withall and in which he thinks himself a gallant peice I say the first stone of this new building is laid by the pulling down of all this ye are dead to the law that ye night be married to another even to him that is raised from the dead there is our new husband that is a believer hath now given up as Christ did when he gave up that first life and righteousnesse to his father When he had done all and the law could require no more from him he had another piece of obedience which was a note above all the law what was that why he must be obedient unto death as much as if God had said unto him canst thou now my son forgo all this glory canst thou strip thy self canst thou put it all off canst thou trust me to raise thee again and bring thee forth in another glory in a heavenly image I can says he there is none but Christ could do it were it not for our captaine we should never have gone through he was marryed as I told you unto the original glory of God he was marryed to his head and he having the presence of eternal life with him he is able to charge through these legions of devils this land of death and darknesse though it was that made him sweat drops of blood and cry out my soul is sorrowful unto death yet he was so enabled and supported that through he goes and had that glorious issue that the Gospel is the report of this is one husband now mark ye he being raised from the dead walked a while with his disciples upon the earth about 40. days then he ascended he was not in that glory where he expected to be while he was on the earth for he would not let Mary touch him saying touch me not for I am not yet ascended to my father as who should say I am not yet where I would be nor where I shall be I am not yet the object of that new converse which thou shalt have
and them that worship therein this was the temple of priests for there was the Altar in the holy place now the other temple which was the most holy there was the Ark and that is the temple which is opened after the 7th trumpet sounded The holy of holies the temple of God was opened and there was seen in his temple the ark of his testament Revel 11. last The ark was not seen in the temple of the Priests where the Altar was but it was seen in the most holy place for thither was the ark carryed and so in that chap. 15. Behold the temple of the tabernacle of testimony in heaven was opened This is not that state of the Church whiles they were under suffering from Antichrist but it is that state that the Church enters into after the expiration of the term of Antichrist when they are just going up into the kingdom that is the temple that is opened at the 7th trumpet and there it is called the temple of the tabernacle of testimony Because the ark was called the ark of the testimony and the tables that were in the ark are called the tables of testimony so that I say these temples were distinct that is the first thing The Second thing that I have to prove is that this most holy place is not opened for the Vyals to come out but is opened after they are come out for when the Angels are said to come out of the temple there is no specification that that temple was the temple of the tabernacle of the testimony but I heard a great voice out of the temple chap. 6. v. 1. now to prove this he says in the beginning of the 15th chap. I saw a great signe in heaven and there is a summary account of the Vyals pouring out and the victory of the true Church of Christ over the Antichristian Sinagogue in the four first verses before you hear of the opening of the ten ple of the tabernacle of testimony for this is a character that is observed throughout the Revelations where you meet with that word after these things as you do in 5th vers there is always another vision of distinct new matter and that which follows in time after the former as for instance after the Lord had dispatch't his minde unto Johu in those Epistles in the 2d and 3d chap. It is said chap. 4. After this I looked and behold a door was opened in heaven so likewise in the 7th chap. after the 6th seal had brought the heathen dragon down and cast him to the earth it is said after these things I saw 4 Angels standing c. Now this is an evident token of things that do succeed and follow and are not contemporary so here chap. 15. v. 6. It is said after the Vyals and not before the Vyals of which he had given a summary account in the former verses and indeed if we do but consider the nature and import of Vyals that will help us in the discerning of this point that is before us which will serve for an answer to another objection and that is this You will say the Vyals are the judgments of God upon the beast now this is the order of divine justice that sin when it is finished brings forth death but the beast had not finished his sin at the begining of the times of reformation and therefore it is not to be expected that he should have his reward till he hath done his work Answ Yet he had done work enough to be rewarded for before the Vyals began he was not idle he fell to work immediatly when once he had power given to him he opened his mouth in blasphemies He had ravished the Christian world from Christ before these Vyals began to be poured forth did he not deserve something for all this was he not ripe for judgments all the work that he did afterwards was very much occasioned by the Vyals by the coming forth of the light and the truth against him which did sorely vex him so that he behaved himself like a beast indeed with great rage more then before But consider in the 2d place mark ye the import of the Vyals of which word we read but once as I know in the old Testament viz. of a Vyal and that was Samuels taking a Vyal of oyl but the Vyals we read of in the Revelations are full of odours or the prayers of the saints now there are but 3 things that can fill the Vyals either the sin of the enemies or the judgments of God for those sins or the prayers of the saints and I think they may be all in the Vyals It is certain the prayers of the saints are there they cryed from the primitive times and so down all along The sins of the enemy they also fill up these Vyals you know what God says of the Amorite The sins of the Amorites are not yet full for so God tells Abraham as much as to say the Vyals are not yet full I shall give you one place here the Lord speaks much in this kinde of phrase Deut. 3.34 Is not this laid up with me in store or sealed up among my treasures he says before Their wine is the poyson of Dragons is not this laid up in store with me you know there are seven seals and six of them were opened before the heathen Roman was destroyed So that all the whole time from Christ unto his second coming is all under the seals we are under the seals to this day the 7th seal is not sully opened till Jesus Christ in person be exhibited to the joyful view and beholding of those that look for him All this while God is registring and recording all the sins of the enemy all their bitterness it is sealed up amongst his treasures that is the 2d thing that fills the Vyals the sins of the enemy Consider that antichrist had been at work about a 1000 years before ever a Vyal did stir against him before the beginning of the Reformation And as there was the sins of a thousand years treasured up against him and the prayers of a thousanp years for vengeance upon him so there was the wrath of God distilling into these Vyals for every sin brought a drop of wrath into these Vyals still therefore you need not say that antichrist had not done his work and so was not to have his wages for you fee he had done a great deal of his work yea his sin was full that is so much as was to precede the Vyals Now because the time is so farr past I shall spend the remainder of it in a word or two of application it is a word of exhortation to us To be waiting for the return of our Lord from the wedding and I would not have you think this is th same word altogether with that I spake the last day thongh if it were yet it were worth the while I exhorted you then to watch and that was