its utmost growth flourish and fruitfulness is but a fading flower the mystical natural tree of God's left-hand-planting distinguish'd from the incorruptible seed 1 Pet. 1. 23. of his right-hand-planting by a new-creation which springs up in spiritual Saints prospers into an everlasting Kingdom-state rendring them mystical Gospel-trees the fruits whereof are incorruptible and the very leaves such as never wither or 〈◊〉 away Psal. 1. 3. This spiritual tree of Life will be known by its fruits in distinction from the natural fleshly tree all the fruits whereof are as the root and tree they grow upon perishing Vanities The new Name or Life of the new-Creature Gospel-spirit or living Word of God set up in man can never be turn'd into a lie Man's old name and fading first-covenant Law-life at best when asserted to be a spiritual Gospel-state of everlasting Life and Salvation is turn'd into a flat lie and falshood and all the things births works fruits and products thereof and in though good in their kind when call'd spiritual and confidently rested in for Salvation are all lies and enmity to God and his Gospel-Spirit of Truth Renew'd nature call'd Grace the renew'd old or natural Man with his first Covenant righteous Life and Name call'd the new-creature the spiritual Saint with the new Covenant-Life and Gospel-Name all these are dangerous destructive lies In sum the good Name and precious Oyntment here are the differing characters of first and second-Covenant Life The former through the said mistake Paul found to be a body a law a state of sin and death Rom. 7. 24. 8. 2. which the new-covenant law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus freed him from by putting his nature therein to death The Spirit of life is the death of death when it puts the law-spirit of Enmity and Death to death in the Saint utterly abolishing all the Anointings or said precious Ointment receiv'd in the natural state and giving all again with usury in the unchangeable life and transcendently more precious anointing of the spiritual Man Man in restor'd first-Covenant Law-life is apt as Paul once to despise and reject all Gospel-Tydings or witness of the second The good Name imports a transcendently higher and better anointing then the precious Oyntment here can signify For then the spiritual there is no better kind of precious ointment receivable by or communicable to Man This true meaning of the Holy Ghost in Solomon as to this former will much conduce to and facilitate the opening of the latter clause of this verse And the day of Death then the day of one's Birth The stress of these words can't lie in the literal sence which cannot hold generally nor mostly true For the literal death of the vast number of wicked men is abundantly worse then the day of their litteral birth and life in this World Man though born dead in Sin is capable of a restauration-birth of a first-Covenant life in his Spirit which puts him under hopeful advantages and possibilities of a new-creation-birth of an everlasting righteous Life These hopes are utterly cut off from all that die in their Sins as all that die in a state of enmity to God and his Spirit of Grace and everlasting Life do This necessitates the allowing a mystical meaning to these Words which is this The death of Man's Spirit as to all natural first-creation life 〈◊〉 or first-Covenant righteous obediently submitted to with certain hope of a Resurrection into the life of Christ's Gospel-Spirit that slay's and offers it up in sacrifice to God as he serv'd our nature at best in his own person is transcendently better then the Birth and utmost flourish thereof in him For now is he much forwarder on his way in the right method and death-pass towards an everlasting righteous new-Covenant life Paul counted the former dung to the latter and suffer'd the loss of all therein for it Phil. 3. 7 8. If Man submit not to the terms and ways of arriving at this new birth for a newness of life he will come to a latter end worse then his beginning in either of his two former Births litteral or mystical of bodily or first-Covenant life eternal death By obediently losing and quitting the former natural or Law-life for a spiritual Gospel-one he comes to a latter end better then any of his beginnings in Adam before the fall or since in his own said twofold personal birth eternal life A rebellious pitying and sparing our own nature in the first-covenant life thereof loses all for ever An obedient giving it up to death and right losing it saves all Matth. 16. 25. The Spirit or inner natural Man when crucified and raised into Christ's spiritual life the death or dissolution of the body is not fear'd but desir'd as by Paul He earnestly long'd and groan'd after the shaking off and being perfectly rid of the dusty mortal perishing earthly life and state of his whole natural Man body and spirit 2 Cor. 5. 1 4. and so to be wholly at home with the Lord ver 6. in the intire single uninterrupted exercise of spiritual life amongst the best company the pure unchangeable Friends of that life blessed Angels and Saints departed In this World the Saint is surrounded with innumerable Enemies thereof very burdensome ill unpleasing company to him In the birth and utmost flourish of a first-covenant Law-life we are still under Satan's power and delusive influence He can deceive us into the same perdition with himself by that very righteous life By inducing Men to over-value and and rest in it and on it for Salvation he brings them into unchangeable Union with himself in Enmity to God When perfectly crucified as to the life of the Law raised into the life of the Gospel we are not under the Law but under Grace Then Sin and Satan have lost their dominion over us for ever We wholly cease and are freed from both and all all enemies and dangers whatsoever Rom. 6. 7 -14. 1 Pet. 4. 1. The birth of a first-Covenant life gives not full victory over Satan the right death of Nature and loss of it does Therefore better on all hands as the only way to free us from death and set us up in eternal life The right full death of Man's Law-spirit of bondage delivers him from all bondage and fear of death for ever which all their first-Covenant life-time Men are continually subject to Heb. 2. 15. Vers. 2. It is better to go to the house of mourning than to go to the house of feasting for that is the end of all Men and the living will lay it to his heart The house of mourning or state of sorrow to the natural Man under the death-blows of the Gospel-Sword or spiritual cross of Christ is better for him to go into and be in then the house of feasting in the most joyful fruitful life and exercise thereof in a first-Covenant state For therein draws he nearer to a heavenly
under this tryal they make a right or a wrong choice find eternal life or death the better or worse end than their beginning All that make the right choice have the praise of God but lie under the utmost dispraise and malice of Man all along this World under Satan's reign and the day of Man's orthodox judgment or Wisdom This is the great and main controversy between God and his creatures 〈◊〉 and Men. 〈◊〉 the very turning point to 〈◊〉 life or death the obedient submitting to the death of nature or the rebellious keeping up the life thereof The Saint sinds the end that 's better than the beginning others an end that 's worse The Saint sinds that blessed end of the Lord that the Lord Christ himself and his Servant Job found to be the happy issue and result of all their sufferings in the flesh or natural Man Jam. 5. 11. The truly patient in spirit here meant that submits to the death of his own nature finds the life of God's new-creature spirit of Grace in the room thereof So is he transcendently better than the proud in spirit that contradicts blasphemes and does despite to the Spirit of Grace with all its words and followers to his own everlasting destruction By sparing saving and keeping up his own life in enmity to the Cross he loses all life and comfort for ever The over-value and love of his own freedom or free-will brings him into everlasting bondage The quitting it for God's Free-will to good only and that unchangeably is everlasting deliverance or Salvation from all captivities oppressions enemies dangers or deaths The Saints new-creation life of God swallow's up all death's and enemies into victory renders them more than conquerors over all for ever The proud lifters up of themselves against God will be made vessels of dishonour under everlasting contempt and lie down in sorrow for ever This will they have of his hand Ver. 9. Be not hasty in thy spirit to be angry for anger resteth in the bosom of fools The spirit of Man rich full wise strong and honourable in the fruitful 〈◊〉 of a first-covenant life is apt to be hasty angry and offended at what comes to run down all this in him marre his 〈◊〉 and lay all this his fading glory and honour in the dust The wise spiritual Saint in Seed may be found in this hasty angry demeanour against the Cross or any words or Doctrine thereof ignorantly for a season with Paul but such anger resteth or abides for ever only in the bosom heart or spirit of fools that obstinately persist in such wilful madness and folly as to their grand concern and utterly perish in their own corruption Will Man justifie himself herein saying I do well to be angry at the Doctrine and work of the Cross He that contends with the Almighty reproves God's declar'd method and way of saving his own creatur's let him answer it Job 40. 2. Why what Says Man's wrangling disputing wisdom Shall I suffer my house to be set on fire the Gospel Fire-Baptism and death thereby to be brought on my righteous natural state Christ did on his more righteous Shall I suffer the comely visage beauty and glory the wisdom and righteousness of my own nature ' twice set up in and put upon me by God himself once at creation and again by redemption to be all spoil'd and marr'd Shall I suffer all my mystical riches herein to be seiz'd and like a tame fool make no resistance The Man-Christ himself did not He opened not his mouth against this dispensation He suffer'd that fleece to be shorn off all that riches to be taken away as the dumb Sheep her literal fleece yea that life and all as the Lamb brought to the slaughter without noise or struggle Isa. 53. 7. And Paul was forthwith obedient to the Heavenly Vision and discovery of the Lord's mind herein without struggle or dispute He gave not way to the fleshly disputer of this world in himself or others against the known Command of God and method of his Wisdom for Salvation He became a tame fool in this case as Man's wisdom reckon's an obedient wise spiritual Man as God's Wisdom reckon's 1 Cor. 4. 10. Here 's the clash of two distinct opposite Wisdoms They that reckon themselves wise are not wise in God's account 2 Cor. 10. 12. And those they reckon fools the Lord commendeth v. 18. Those that finally refuse to be offer'd up in the fire of the same Heavenly eternal priestly Gospel-spirit of Grace in which Christ offer'd up our nature at best in himself without spot unto God Heb. 9. 14. Joh. 10. 17 18. will offer up themselves in the false fire of Satan's spirit unto him will give their body or natural state to be burnt by him not in love but unchangeable enmity to God This is the state they chuse to pass into as set on fire of Hell Jam. 3. 6. They are back'd and encourag'd by Satan's lie to set up their own nature with him in unchangeable enmity to God So come these mystical proud in spirit by their false self-preserving reasonings to be guilty of remediless folly and madness to their own destruction All this proceeds from a 〈◊〉 up thought of the wisdom and glory of their own nature above what is written of it They take and assert it to be everlasting But no such thing was ever written of it in the Oracles of God's Wisdom but the contrary 'T is therein abundantly and frequently asserted to be but a fading flower a perishing vanity and Man at best therein altogether vanity lighter than vanity less than nothing It had bin better for him never to have bin at all than never to be better He will find himself worse then nothing Annihilation-death will be desireable a reduction to his primitive nothing rather than a being exquisitly sensible under eternal torment and vexation of spirit When thus gull'd by Satan do men carry his lie in their right hand teach it as the only way of Salvation to their own and deceived blind-followers eternal damnation To prevent this great danger Solomon advises not to be hasty in our spirit to be angry in this grand concern and case as knowing it a fault Saints themselves are too inclinable to through a readiness to listen to the voice of their own spirit the words of their own Wisdom which go forth out of their own mouth Jer. 44. 17. with Satan's strong delusions and reasonings at the back of their own humane arguings to beget in them a rash hasty angry temper against the Cross or spirit of Christ and all the words thereof A stiff-necked resisting the cross-work of the Holy Ghost Act. 7. 51. upon them is the unpardonable sin the great the presumptuous transgression the sin unto eternal death They that thus do reject so great Salvation as in God's way and Wisdom is offer'd to them and 〈◊〉 what proves damnation in their own will and way as the
all worldly riches wisdom and glory litteral and mystical by man's wilful madnes made an occasion of his everlasting grief sorrow torment and vexation of spirit Who can utter it what life treasure meats food clothing man should not seek and what he should Christ declar's and commandes nothing that 's liable to moth-eating rust corruption loss or death but heavenly unsubjected to any of these things above all dangers decayes deaths enemies or fears Mat. 6. 19 20. Joh. 6. 27. And by James he shew's what all that take not this counsel will come to at last as found possessed of no other riches litteral or mystical Gold and silver but what will be cankered and the rust thereof witness against them as guilty of inexcusable folly in neglecting all the faithful warnings of Christ against their trusting in such self-evidencing vanities for true hapines Jam. 5. 1-3 What they reckon a heaping up treasure for themselves for the last dayes they 'l find to have bin a treasuring up unto themselves wrath against the day of wrath Man's passive obedience to the death and loss of all his life wisdom and riches is the highest point of obedience God requires or he can perform in the right use thereof This makes way for the quickning and springing up of the incorruptible seed principle of a new and everlasting righteous life in which alone t is possible for man to bring forth 〈◊〉 unto God or perform such active obedience as shall be ever pleasing to God and 〈◊〉 to himself This is the counsel and method of Gods wisdom about man's salvation which all that 〈◊〉 reject will inevitably perish If they will follow the words of man's wisdom in perfect contradiction thereunto This will they have of God's hand they must lie down in sorrow CHAP. II. Vers. I. I said in my heart go to now I will prove thee with mirth therefore enjoy pleasure and behold this also is Vanity SOLOMON set his Heart to try what all Mirth Joy and Pleasure in all sorts of first-creation things amounts unto After the utmost Proof thereof he finds and declares this also to be vanity all worldly delight and desire of the same complexion with the desirables delighted in whether visible or invisible delights of bodily life and the corrupt spirit of nature therein or of the rectified intellectual rational powers more properly the delights of the Sons of Men. The other are for beasts brutified men drown'd in the lusts of literal Sodom where sensual Powers usurp dominion over rational using what should be their Masters and Rulers as Slaves to fetch in provisions for them by right or wrong Some are recovered out of this disorder and confusion towards a rectitude of their natural powers where the rational command and sensual obey But to shew the unstable slippery standing of Man here Solomon not onely restored into the right exercise of his naturals but under strong spiritual convictions of true wisdom was caught and miserably entangled in this lowest sort of worldly snares His suppressed sensual powers struggled for and recovered their formerly usurped dominion over his rational and intellectual The signal aggravation of this 〈◊〉 was that he was eminent in the restor'd first-covenant wisdom of his own spirit of nature and spiritual light of the second the self-discoveries and revelations of Gods wisdom in his own spirit of grace as his pleasing request to God and the gratious answer thereunto do evince 1 King 3. 5-14 And again ch 9. 1-9 where the Lord also threaten's him and his people in case of apostacy or turning from following him v. 6. After all this his sensual lusts after strange Women run him a-ground They turn his heart after strang Gods also from the true He not onely tolerated but himself went after the Gods of the Idolatrous borderers Zidon Moab Ammon c. whence he fetched his Wives 1 King 11. 4-8 The Lord takes notice of the aggravation of this folly and madness as after his remarkable appearing to him twice and solemnly commanding the contrary v. 9. 10. On this threaten's to rend the greatest part of his Kingdom from his Son 11-13 T is like his expences about Idols and his Idolatrous Wives occasioned such unreasonable taxes and oppressions as moved the people to capitulate with his Son for redresse of greivances which he refusing they refused him for their King Chap. 12. 'T was an amazing thing a double-portion'd saint and kingly Preacher when old and neer his exit out of this world should be found guilty of such gross enormities as many meer heathens in a long life avoid to their dying day To encrease the wonder under all the violent impetuous hurries of his own disordred spirit the wisdom of God's still remained with him Without this his foolish hurtfull lusts had drowned him in destruction and perdition A seed and principle of true wisdom was his powerful preservative from final apostacy And the want of this will be found no excuse to final apostate's from and haters of it when convincingly shewed and offered it Solomon exercised his brutish lusts for a season not onely in a flat contrariety to this but to the very light of his own reason also The unsubdued natural spirit or mystical Woman in himself carried him forth in lust after the literal who involved him in their gross Idolatries He allowed himself the full experience of all worldly desirables from the higher to the lower parts of the dust of this mortal first-creation worldly vanities He sent forth his heart on this errand to try what satisfaction the whole lump of this world's vanities from the Cedar to the Shrub intellectual delights to Husks among Swine would afford him and set's down at the foot of his account All is vanity In a union of mind with Christ by spiritual light he acknowledges all his ransacking the whole bulk of this world's desireables and roving up and down as thinking to pick up a satisfying food for his immortal Spirit amongst them direct madness So comes he from dear-bought experience to say as follow 's Vers. II. I said of Laughter it is mad and of Mirth what doth it Laughter and Mirth here signify the highest delight and satisfaction can be had in the fullest possession and enjoyment of all worldly desireables relating to the corrupt or righteous life of man in his own nature Solomon therefore in the al-discovering light of the spirit of God reflects upon his former foolish design therein judging his whole course and race there evil because his force or principle was not right but indeed a spirit of enmity to God All his delusive and destructive Joy he found Madness a making large and swift steps under the bewitching influence of the God of this world towards the chambers of death His words pleasing suggestions and gratifying offers to men are smoother then oil yet are drawn swords his method of wounding men to eternal death The spirit of man since the fall is a
16. T. Also he hath set the World in their Heart c. When Men 〈◊〉 six or set up for themselves in their worldly nature and Life of the Law and so set up the World in their Hearts as the only Object of their desire and delight then does God Judicially harden and six them there or set the World in their Hearts And then is their highest Wisdom a Black Darkning Vail upon their Hearts disabling them for ever finding out the Work of God from the beginning of it in the first-creation to the Blessed end of it in the second The God of this World fixing Mens hearts in the love of this World that 's Enmity to God blind's their minds that the light of the Glorious Gospel may not shine into them They see not to the end of that which is abolish'd 2 Cor. 3. 13. So set up for Salvation in that Law-Life that 's to be abolish'd that Glory that 's to be done away v. 7. Fleshly 〈◊〉 t s were not able to behold the spiritual Glory of Moses his true face of Spiritual Saint-ship He therefore put a Vail on it that is came forth in the appearance of the Righteousness of Man or the Law to them They that set up in the Light and Life of the Law for Salvation set up in the Vail Such never see to their comfort the true Face inward Beauty and Spiritual Glory of Moses or other Saints nor the true inward Face or spiritual meaning of any Scripture All Spiritual things or truths in Scripture all spiritual Light Life Wisdom Understanding all things of God in his Saints lie quite out of their sight as meer nothings in their day their Judgment They no more skill or ken them than a Beast the Rational Powers and things of a Man 1 Cor. 2. 11. So they absolutely deny all Gospel things and Truths and positively assert there 's no more excellent Creature-Life or things Man is capable of then what were set up in the first-creation-state of Angel and Man What work will such make at Gospel specially if fixed here and so hardned in unchangable Enmity thereto Thus Christ found the Righteous Scribes Pharisees c. in a Murdering Enmity to the truth that is the Gospel-Spirit and so of their Father the Devil who abode not in that truth or Obedience to the said Gospel-Light in which Created but quitted that his Habitation or first Estate Jo. 8. 44. Jude 6. They that Rebelliously set up this Shadowy World in their Hearts can't receive the Spirit of truth nor words thereof Jo. 14. 17. 1 Cor. 2. 14. They provoke God to give them their desire in Wrath to set up the World in them or them in their worldly Law-spirit of Enmity and Death to chuse their Delusions Isai. 66. 4. send them strong delusion that they should believe Stan's Lie and be damn'd because they chose rather to beleeve that than his Spirit of truth 2 Thes. 2. 10-12 So God Christ Themselves and the Devil all concur and center in one point the setting the World in their heart or fixing them in their own worldly spirit but upon very differing accounts Then is their case as desperate as that of the Evil Angels Heb. 10. 26 27. Though yet highly Esteemed of Men as owners yea Ministers of the Gospel are they most abominable to God Mystical Sodomit's the most Criminal Sinners in the whole World By being set or fixed in their worldly Spirit they become wholly Strangers and Enemies to the spirit of the World to come which will be upon them at last in Irresistible Wrath. Vers. XII I know that there is no good in them but for a Man to rejoyce and to do good in his life Solomon at a dear rate had experienc'd that there 's no durable unchangable good to be found in all first-creation Life and most Righteous Actions or things thereof No true Joy or Happiness to be had in this World but by doing what is truly good in God's sight in the Life and Spirit of the next True Godliness or power of 〈◊〉 exerciseable only in the Gospel-spirit of Christ is profitable to all things having the promises of this and the Life to come 1 Tim. 4. 8. that is it comprehend's the promised Spiritual Life of Christ and Comforts thereof in this and the World to come the daily encreasing first Fruits of it here and fulness there Yea also the promises even of this life or worldly things thereof such as 〈◊〉 seek belong to true seekers of the Righteousness of God in 〈◊〉 Kingdom spirit All these shall be added to you say's Christ himself Mat. 6. 31-33 The only right rejoycing in and doing good in its kind with such things of this Life is as receiv'd on the said account and manag'd in the Kingdom-spirit of the World to come Vers. 13. And also that every Man should eat and drink and enjoy the good of all his Labour it is the gift of God 'T is in the unspeakable gift of God only the spirit of Christ the inmost man of the Saint in the Life hid with Christ in God can feed upon the hidden Manna the divine Glory as vailed by that Spirit of Christ and thereby also unvailed or rendred visible in a sutableness only to 〈◊〉 not natural understanding in Man or Angel The never-perishing Meats and Drinks the Bread and Wine of the Kingdom the divine and creature-glories of God in the Mediator are the things true Saints eat drink feed and live upon enjoy rejoyce and delight in even in the peculiar delights of the Sons of God divine spiritual heavenly substantial things things eternal All this is the comfortable fruit of all their right labours in that Spirit that 's the peculiar gift of God distinct from the natural spirit or state of Life with all the Fruits brought forth by Man's utmost and best labours therein Vers. XIV I know that whatsoever God doth it shall be for ever Nothing can be put to it nor any thing taken from it And God doth it that Men should fear before him Whatever is the immediate Divine Workmanship shall be for ever that is the new-creature Spirit set up by the Divine from everlasting Prov. 8. 23. in personal union with it and also called God that made the worlds Jo. 1. 1-3 Heb. 1. 2. Both Worlds Natural and Spiritual and all in both were comprehended in it and brought forth by it This Fountain creature-Spirit in Christ and Streamings forth of the Living Waters thereof into Saints is of an unchangable nature The Gift thereof to Men or heavenly call of them into The Life thereof is without Repentance Variableness or chang The natural first-covenant principle of life and action set up in Man and Angel by the first-Creation is a Starting Variable Wavering thing Ps. 78. 57. Man breaks that Covenant with God and then God his Promise therein with him Numb 14. 34. Though Men be Children and Spouses to Christ therein Jer. 3. 14.
with false hopes and confidences here and come what will think they hereafter At length they must leave their false present rest and lie down in everlasting sorrow Who can help Satan's twofold party corrupt and righteous men fixed in nature with him will on in their fools Paradise in their various pathes under Satan's counsel and steerage to the same Tophet Saints ought to do their best in all meekness to recover any out of the snares of the Devil till evidently fix'd in Enmity God's method with men is that none should usually have two Heavens or two Hells All Good is the Saints all Evil the incorrigible sinners in the world to come All Saints tears are put into God's bottle of remembrance to requite all hereafter as Enemies oppressive madnesses shall also be paid off with such recompence of their Errors as is meet the vengeance of Eternal Fire Jude 7. All will come to their rights at last Friends and Foes This very Argument does Paul comfort oppressed Saints with 2 Thes. 1. 4 -- 10. At Christ's second coming will Saints ride in their Triumphal Chariots as more then final Conquerors over the Heads of their Oppressors Devils and Men who have had their turn to ride over their heads Ps. 66. 12. The Lord regards every sigh and groan of his Prisoners appointed to death under worldly Powers Psal. 12. 5. and 69. 33. and 79. 11. 146. 7. He will make his despised oppressed ones a praise in the Earth in the sight of all that have scorn'd and trampled on them Psal. 102. 13. 16. 19. 20. The true Saint pants after final deliverance from all Enemies within him Rom. 7. 24. as well as without All will be 〈◊〉 at last in Answer to their Prayer Psal. 74. 10. and ver 〈◊〉 Saints groan after deliverance from their mortal righteous earthly life of Enmity as well as from that of the Body 2 Cor. 5. 1 2. All in nature within and without them is in a universal confederacy against them What matter If God be for them who can be against them Or who can hurt them Rom. 8. 31. Here 's enough The whole first-creation world lies in wickedness litteral and mystical filth of flesh or spirit 1 Joh. 5. 19. and so in a universal daring affront and contradiction to all words and things of God in the next Jer. 44. 16 17. But God will hear or deliver Saints from the horns of the Unicorns Psal. 22. 21. That is from all oppressive Powers of this World visible and invisible without and within So have we in some small measure the meaning of these words Vers. II. Wherefore I praised the Dead which are already Dead more than the living which are yet alive The weight of these words lies not in the Litteral Sense For no miseries or oppressions incident to bodily Life in this world are comparable to the sad condition of the wicked after death under final wrath The spiritual truth here relates to Saints Saints departed are in a far better condition than those left behind them in the Body that have not fully passed through the twofold inward and outward oppression or suffering-work that 's to be undergon by them Saints departed out of the Body or while in the Body out of the Law-life of their own spirit are those A voyce from Heaven command's John to write as a most certain Truth blessed Blessed are the dead in the Lord Rev. 14. 13. All so dead with Christ will live with him for ever in his Immortal Gospel-life All others will perish in their own corruption or corruptible Law-life and state which they have rebelliously chosen and trusted in for blessedness against the Lord's known commands and warnings to the contrary By keeping up what Paul cast away as dung for Christ's spiritual Life will they perish as their own dung for ever Job 20. 7. A perfect death of the natural Spirit and Principle of Life and Action in man an everlasting cessation and rest from all the desire thought and unprofitable labour thereof and so the honourable burial of it in the mystical grave of Christ is true conformity to his death Christ came not to do his own Will nor speak his own words the Dictat's of his own understanding though spotlessly perfect in our fleshly nature but Crucified and ceas'd from all We must follow his suffering steps through the same fire of his eternal Spirit Heb. 9. 14. kindled by him on us as on himself Luk. 12. 49. Spiritual Circumcision and fire-Baptism put nature corrupt or righteous to death cut off and burn up all flesh even Holy Flesh Col. 2. 11 12. Man in the restor'd righteous Life of his own nature has nothing but a Body of Sin and Death about him which Paul pray'd for deliverance from Ro. 7. 24. Phil. 3. 6-8 Since the fall filth of Spirit Enmity to God is inseperable from the Life of nature corrupt or righteous Nature in whatever condition and Enmity to God Live or Die breath or expire together Paul when eminent in Holy Flesh breath'd out Enmity Threatnings and Slaughter against God's Holy Gospel-Spirit Saints and Truths Act. 9. 1. From the time this Spirit of Enmity was Death-struck by Christ in his way to Damascus he lived and brought forth Fruits unto God in a newness of Life In the restor'd Life of nature the great Sin of Enmity revives gather's Strength Credit and Authority By the death of it under the Cross that and all other Sins are pluck'd up by the Roots He that is so Slain and dead is freed from all Sin for ever Ro. 6. 7. When Planted together in the likeness of Christ's Death and Resurrection the Old Man is Crucisied the Body of Sin destroy'd v. 5 6. Man's natural Body or whole natural Man at best as a Righteous Living Soul 1 Cor. 15. 44 45. is by the twofold death and Life-work of Christ's quickning Spirit Transformable into the likeness of his Glorious Body or the glorified Body Soul and Spirit of our nature in his person Phil. 3. 21. On such death of nature Man ceases from sin for ever 1 Pet. 4. 1. If Obedient to the Slaughter-work of Christ's Gospel-Spirit on our Lawless or Law-Spirit in corrupt or righteous nature shall we by the second operation of it be quick'ned up into the Life of his Gospel-Spirit All dead with Christ shall after their season of dwelling in Dust arise with his dead Body into a newness of Life and Sing for ever Isai. 26. 19. Paul's argument in this case looks both way's If the Dead rise not Christ is not Risen 1 Cor. 15. 12-19 implying if Christ be Risen the Dead with him shall be Rais'd into that 〈◊〉 of Life our Crucisied nature in him Lives in for evermore Rev. 1. 18. Our nature in Christ is rais'd also into and possess'd of the very Divine Life So the fulness of the very Godhead dwells in him bodily in personal Union with his Manhood This is his peculiar Prerogative
shall never enter into his rest in the second And for their unpardonable Sin he will take from them all the fading beauty or goodness he had bestow'd on them in the 〈◊〉 So all 's gone God's first-Covenant-gift set up in unchangable enmity to his convincingly shew'd and graciously offer'd second is the unpardonable Sin against the Holy Ghost comprehending all the most criminal Sins or Abominations Man can be guilty of mystical spiritual Adultery idolatry Murder c. Ezek. 16. 15. 38. Ro. 2. 21 22. 1 Cor. 6. 9 10. Gal. 5. 19-21 The proud reigning 〈◊〉 old first Covenant Kings despise all these words to their own destruction But the poor of the Flock Christ's little ones content to be impoverish'd and run down into the barreness and death of their own however 〈◊〉 and enlight'ned nature understand own and obey all such words of the Lord 〈◊〉 11. 11. They are willing to be made Fools weak and despicable with Paul in the 〈◊〉 visage of a first-covenant State Image of the earthy that they may be all glorious within in the Image of the heavenly such as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 rich strong and honourable in God in the spiritual Gospel-Life 〈◊〉 with Christ in God All that finally 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are the greatest Fools as to their greatest eternal concerns All that 〈◊〉 boggle and fly off at the Gospel-Tydings of the Cross and Death thereby to be brought upon nature resolving to maintain the sandy Foundation and untemper'd Walls of their earthly worldly first-Covenant Church-building for Salvation are be witch'd by Satan with their glittering Holy Flesh and things of Man and Devil into unchangable enmity to God's Holy Spirit and all the things of Christ and God This work Satan is at with first-covenant Professors in holy 〈◊〉 the self-same as with Eve 2 Cor. 11. 3. And through God's most wise permission has he wonderfully prevailed in all Ages and Generations and not less sure in this last and worst of times to keep men short of the Grace of God yea to fix them with himself in enmity to it and so deprive them of all advantages or benefits of both God's Covenants Many that begin well engage and set their hand to God's Spiritual mystical-Plow the Cross of Christ for running down nature in them toward the commanded Death suffering many things that way their foot in the same Gospel race of suffering with the thorow-pac'd resolv'd Gospel-Saint that follow 's the Lamb slain whithersoever he goes even to the mystical Death and Grave of nature many of these engaged Racers does Satan fetch back again to himself and sixes them with himself in first creation-Life and so in unchangable enmity to God and the second Gal 5. 7 8. and 3. 1-4 When come to the borders of the heavenly Canaan as Israel of the litteral they hate it and turn back to mystical if not also litteral Egypt sixing in the righteous or rolling back to the corrupt Spirit of nature and that as their professed Judgment for Salvation with Ranters After all high Spiritual enlightning partaking of the Light of the holy Ghost and offer'd the Life thereof and so tasting of that heavenly gift the good living word and wisdom of God and Powers of the World to come they Apostatize or fall away beyond all possibility of recovery or renewal of them again unto repentance Heb. 6. 4-6 The high Priest's among the Jews offer'd litteral Sacrifices Christ the true high Priest comes to Preach Death to nature in their very Persons as the true Gospel Sacrifice they ought obediently to give him to offer up in the fire of his Eternal Spirit as he offer'd our nature at best in himself to God most high For this they blasphem'd and crucified him The fix'd Shadowy Law-Priest's and their blind followers abhor the true Gospel-Priest with all his Spiritual Seers and Doctrine Many shuffling devices and inventions Devils Suggest and men find to shift off the Cross of Christ wave all the unpleasing words or doctrine thereof which indeed is the only way to and Door of entrance for any into the Kingdom of God Through a fellowship with their Lord in sorrows sufferings and manifold tribulations of and to their natural man inward and outward do true Saints enter with him into his everlasting joy All others must lie down in everlasting Sorrow eating the fruit of their own way be filled with their own devices under final wrath Had they own'd God's reproofs given by the mouth of true Wisdom his living word to them even the reproofs of Death to their nature and followed his instructions for Life they might have dwelt safely for ever and have been quiet from all fear of evil Prov. 1. 20-33 The Pisgah-Prospect into the new-creation Life or true Land of promise given to their natural understandings by Spiritual irradiations or Light should have invited moved and drawn their wills with cogent arguments to the most delightful embraces thereof on any terms Man convinc'd of the more excellent Gospel-Life and way and setting hand and foot to work in prosecution of it and towards attaining it is actually under the vow of surrendring nature to Death And this is upon record in that living corner-stone the fountain Gospel-Spirit or living creature-Word Wisdom or Book of God in Christ's person This was figur'd by the Stone Josua set up under an Oak by the sanctuary of the Lord that in figure heard the Spiritually enlightne'd Israelâ—â—s vow promise and engagement over and over for the true serving the Lord in his Spirit of truth the principle of the new and everlasting covenant accordingly will witness for or against them as they firmly hold or perfidiously fly off from the said engagement As for me and my house say's Josua we will serve the Lord. So will we answer'd the people again again again and again Jos. 24. 15. 18. 21. 24 yet after all these good words fair promises and engagements a world of them flew off and came to worse then nothing Christ the living Stone sigur'd by that Joshua set up will witness against and deal with all such according to their works and dealings toward him v. 26 27. Man must not dispute or deferr the performance of the said vow but with Paul should be forthwith obedient to the heavenly vision of the mind of God come roundly and readily off with his holocaust or whole burnt-offring of his natural State His eye must not pity nor hand spare any thing in it that God requires to be destroy'd as Saul spar'd Agag and best of the Cattel in letter and mystery whereas Abram spar'd not his very Son Isaac Nature at best Our true father Abraham though tempted to it by Satan and his own apostle Peter spared not the true Isaac our spotless nature in his own person but offer'd it up in the mystical fire of his eternal Spirit of grace unto God accounting with litteral Abram that God was able to raise him or it up again from the
AN EXPOSITION OF Ecclesiastes OR The Preacher The Inspiration of the Almighty giveth Understanding Job 32. 8. The things of God knoweth no Man but the Spirit of God by which he reveal's them 1 Cor. 2. 10 11. The Spiritual Man discern's all things v. 15. If I pleas'd Men I should not be the Servant of Christ Gal. 1. 10. LONDON Printed in the Year 1680. Sold by Samuel Lee at the Feathers in Lombard-Street near Popes-head Alley CHAP. I. Vers. I. The words of the Preacher the Son of David King of Jerusalem THIS Book written by King Solomon about the fourtieth year of his Reign and last of his Life Anno 〈◊〉 3030 is called in Greek Ecclesiastes in Hebrew Choheleth both signifying a caller unto or a gatherer together of Men to declare to them the words of God's Wisdom relating to their everlasting blessedness This is the proper work of the infallible Spirit of Christ in himself and Saints Pro. 1. 20-23 and 8. 1 -9. This living Creature-Word and Wisdom of God is called the Beginning in and by which God created the Heaven and the earth Gen. 1. 1. The purely divine Form of God did by way of emanation or generation not properly creation produce that Supream Creature-form of him in personal Union with it self from everlasting as it self tells us Prov. 8. 22 23. This became his fitted Hand by which to Create the World as also to mediate between meer creaturality in Angels and Men when made and the single infinite Divinity This fountain Creature-Spirit is by Divine Authority called God and asserted to be the immediate Creator of all things John 1. 1 3. Col. 1. 15 16. Yea the Man Christ as the polished Shaft in this hand of God ready to be sent forth in due time is said to be him by whom God made the Worlds Heb. 1 -- 3. Natural and Spiritual by a first and second Creation He gave an Immortality of Being not of Life to Angels and Men by the First but true Life and Immortality are brought to light and set up in them only in and by the Second The First was a mortal Law-life the Second is an everlasting Gospel-Life 2 Tim. 1. 10. Whoever fall short of Christ's Gospel-life as all do that finally refuse to part with their fading Law-life by a holy obedient death of their own Spirit and Nature fall short also of the glory of God never come to see and enjoy the divine glory as Co-heirs with Christ of God This living creating preaching Word and Creature-Wisdom of God is the supream receaver and infallible declarer of the whole counsel of the divine Mind relating to Angels and Men. The words of this living Word will prosper in the thing whereto sent the Eternal Life or Death of the obedient 〈◊〉 or willful rejecters thereof Isa. 55. 11. 2 Cor. 2. 15 16. God effectually makes obedient submitters to and receivers of it Wicked Men and Angels make themselves willful haters final refusers and incorrigible enemies thereof Hos. 13. 9. In this supream Creature-being the original Creature-Book and living Word of God did all things consist or stand up together in a Radical existence before brought forth in their actual subsistencies by Creation In this Book were all our Members written when as yet there was none of them Our substance was not hid from God but seen by him together with all we shall ever come to be or do and all he will do with us to all eternity Psal. 139. 15 16. Seen and known to him were all the works of his hands and all the works of those works Men and Angels towards him before their actual Production or personall Individuation Yea before their said radical Existence There are no Futurities to His infinite Understanding All things past present and to come were ever present to him The Supream Creature-Spirit Word and Wisdom of God is called Man as also are Angels both good and bad The man Gabriel that appeared to Daniel Zachary and Mary Dan. 9. 21. Luk. 1. 19. vers 26 27. was this Creature-Spirit in the Mediator Good Angels also have been frequently represented as and called Men Gen. 18. 2. and other Scriptures Evil Angels also are called Men of sin Sons of Perdition in and with their Luciferian Head 2 Thes. 2. 3. By the communicated Spiritual Light of the Man Christ to Angels and Men can either of them under and with him become true seers of God in his divine and creature-glories so as to be true Preachers and rightly qualified Declarers of his divine and spiritual Things or Truths Such a Seer of God was Solomon the Preacher and Writer of this Book And in the same Light in which a Seer of the things of God was he enabled infallibly to see and declare the Vanity of all first-creation Life and Goodness and the never-fading Glories and excellencies of the Second In the all-penetrating Spirit of true Prophecy did he see the deep things of Gods divinity and the natural and spiritual things of the first and second Creation what each amounted to So could 〈◊〉 with other awakened spiritual Saints infallibly prophesy or foretell what will become of any Men or Angels to Eternity as found rebelliously fixing in their first-creation Life and State of Vanity or obediently surrendring it for the second in Eternal Life or Death In this true spirit of Prophecy did Solomon with his Father David and other Saints find out and set in order many right words words of Truth given from one Shepherd Eccl. 12. 10 11. The spirit of the Lord the rock of Israel spake to and by David His Word saies he was in my tongue 2 Sam. 23. 2 3. Such words only as the Holy Ghost teacheth words of Gods wisdom shew the way of salvation and of scaping damnation Such words only shew those glorious things God hath in everlasting love provided for Saints and the dreadful amazing things he hath in everlasting wrath prepared for incorrigible sinners neither of which can the Eye Ear Heart or Understanding of natural Man or Angel take any right measure or notice of Man and Angel in the utmost wisdom of their own nature are bounded with first-creation vanities for Object of which number its very self is and they therein When view'd in the infallible Light and weighed in the just Ballance of Gods new-creation Sanctuary-Spirit they 'l all be found lighter than vanity t. The Son of David King of Jerusalem So a Type of the Man Christ as Son of the great and originally unchangable Creature-spirit of the Mediator the true King of his New-Jerusalem Saints set up by God on his holy Hill of Zion Psal. 2. 6. John 5. 22. 27. Act. 17. 31 c. Vers. II. Vanity of vanities saith the Preacher Vanity of vanities all is vanity The doubling of the words Vanity of vanities is emphatical more strongly asserting this irrefragable Truth That vain are all things in the first-creation world or natural state of Men and
whom the Lord abhorreth Psal. 10. 3. as they him and his true What profit then can man expect of all his labour under the Sun in but a first-covenant Life and Righteousness Nothing below the Holy Ghost or new-creature constant right steddy Spirit Psal. 51. 10. and principle of everlasting righteousness signifies any thing as to his true salvation When he reckons he has all he has nothing of durable life riches food or clothing but is wretched miserable poor blind and naked The wisdom of self-confident man misses the design and principal intendment of God in the whole Scripture To preach up the righteousness of man in the first-covenant-law is good in its kind But to assert this to be an everlasting Gospel-life or state of true salvation is the highest evil the very doctrine Satan preach'd to Eve Ye shall not dye at all the Life ye have in the first-creation that 's but natural is eternal This is Man's and Satan's accursed other Gospel handed to men with great confidence in the words of their twisted humane and Serpentine wisdom's To establish and warrant men in their own righteousness holy flesh for salvation is the very doctrine of devils 'T is a setting up of Man and Angel in their spirit of Nature against God's Spirit of Grace and Truth All that finally persist in this Doctrine and way in stead of the Saints everlasting rest will 〈◊〉 the Lake of fire and brimstone prepared for the Devil and his Angels Enmity to God and his Gospel-Spirit is inseperable from the restored first-covenant life of the Law in man yea gets strength courage credit and great authority by the comming of the command or fresh setting up that lost life in him by the Redeemer as Paul found Rom. 7. While then men are heaping up riches and reckon they are doing well to themselves there so as to despise the riches of God's goodness they are treasuring up to themselves wrath against the day of wrath Their moth-eaten cankred rusty corruptible Riches mystical as well as litteral will testify against them in God's day for trusting in them in their day on earth against all his faithful warnings to the contrary Jam. 5. 1-3 Vers. IV. One generation passeth away and another generation commeth but the earth abideth for ever Eternity and Immutability are the requisite Adjuncts of that wherein man's true felicity consists He must look for it in things Eternal or never find it And these are not seen by natural understanding 2 Cor. 4. 18. The litteral sense of these words is evident to the common understanding and universal experience of mankind The spiritual is a mystery to the highest wisdom of the most enlightned righteous party of men in but their own single spirit of nature short of spiritual light Man therein esteems and values only the cleans'd 〈◊〉 rich and fruitful mystical House or Land of his own Nature as that which will continue for ever So desires it may be called by his own Name This is the inward thought of the wise rich and full first-covenant Saint in his holy 〈◊〉 the sandy-foundation'd building though he see such holy wise men perish as well as brutish fools in the corrupt life of nature Psal. 49. 10. 11. Man's calling his Lands or outward possessions by his own Name is the litteral shadow of this mystical folly Yet 〈◊〉 posterity approve 〈◊〉 sayings vers 13. steer the same course do the same things and so generation after generation go to the same 〈◊〉 of 〈◊〉 and death where they never see Light vers 19. Through the unsuspected wiles of the old Serpent are new raw stagers 〈◊〉 one after another in the fame 〈◊〉 They reject the voice and instructions of true Wisdom as the greatest folly They say to true Seers see not prophesy not unto us right things They hate the Lord's Prophets as Ahab Micajah embrace Satan's with their smooth words of deceit Isa. 30. 9 10. Thus one generation of visible Saints in holy flesh after another passes away into the same dismal end eternal death as found from first to last a serpentine generation of vipers fixed in enmity to Gods holy spirit They say they are true spiritual Jews but Christ sayes they are of the synagogue of satan Rev. 3. 9. This generation passes away and yet passes not away Mat. 24. 3 4. though alwayes passing How So Why new commers into this world still keep up the old Trade the same spirit Principles and Perswasions all along Satan's reign from the beginning to the ending thereof A fresh supply of new Teachers and Hearers carry on Satan's work to their own eternal ruine t. But the Earth abideth for ever That is Man 's and Angels immortal Spirits in the earthy leaky first-creation make thereof All of them that refuse to have that first-creation building taken down in order to become new Bottles or Vessels by Christ's new-creation workmanship fitted to hold the new-wine or Spirit of his Kingdom do through the immortality of their beings become the subjects of God's unchangable wrath for their unchangable enmity to him by which they have made themselves Vessels of dishonour and everlasting contempt This is such recompence of their error as is meet even the vengeance of Eternal Fire Rom. 1. 27. Jude 7. on mystical more than litteral Sodom Mat. 11. 24. All that yield up all received in the first-creation to be filled and clothed with the everlasting life and righteousness of the second become Vessels of honour glory immortality and eternal Life Vers. V. The Sun also ariseth and the Sun goeth down and hasteth to or panteth aster his place where he arose The litteral Sun that has a causal influence on all the visible parts of this World is vanity 'T is restless in its motion and revolution direct and periodical And this yet is but a shadow of the invisible first-creation Sun the first-covenant-spirit of the Law under which Men and Angels were created and Christ himself in our flesh was made Gal. 4. 4. Under and by the causal influence of this in Christ's Person as a fleshly-bridegroom to first-covenant Saints in holy flesh are all such righteous fruits and works brought forth and done as have bin found in a restored enlightned sort of Professors and People since the fall or in Man and Angels before the Fall This mystical first-creation Sun is yet but a shadow or figure of the seven-fold and seventy times seven-fold brighter spiritual intellectual new-creation Sun of everlasting righteousness the Holy Ghost or new-covenant new-creature spirit in Christ's person of which all new-creatures are born and under the cherishing influence thereof enabled to bring forth fruits unto God in a newness of Life All thus brought under this Law of the spirit of Life are made new Bottles Vessels of honour and eternal Life and no other This is the Sun Mal. 4. 2. Through this most glorious creature-Sun in the Mediator as the 〈◊〉 Chrystaline Medium or transparent Sea of
Sand on the Sea-shore 1 Kings 4. 29. The mystical inward riches of his restored adorned nature rendred him as much above others therein as in outward worldly greatness and visible pompe And he resolved to make the best of all these advantages offered him try what they all amounted to not without a secret hopeful-thought of finding absolute blessedness therein Vers. XVII And I gave my heart to know Wisdom and to know Madness and Folly I perceived that this also is vexation of spirit Here 's that he find's all to amount unto Wisdom Righteousness Wickedness Madness Folly all within the compass of Man's natural state corrupt or righteous vanity and if finally trusted in for blessedness will leave Man to his sore and amazing disappointment in eternal darkness and death unutterable torment and everlasting vexation of spirit as his due portion the meet recompence of his errour from God Solomon found the search after all Earthly vanities all things under Heaven or below what is heavenly a sore travel vers 13. a grievous labour man little the better when he has found them For setting himself to experience what the utmost pleasures to be had in all amounted to as gratifying to all variety of life and desire in him sensuall or intellectual he found all such knowledg and folly in corrupt or righteous nature and all such practice and experience vanity and vexation of spirit He was qualified and furnished to take the largest and deepest draughts as to all delights of the Sons of Men and take them he did and this he found all to be Though he found wisdom acquired or infused nature cultivated advanced and adorned by humane learning in Heathens or made wise strong and honourable in Christ by his restoring the lost righteous first-covenant life thereof better then the folly of dark ignorant uncultivated and unrenewed nature yet he found that all these varieties in nature fall under the same general title vanity and vexation of spirit This is the conclusion he arrives at in the preaching all-searching spirit of infallible truth All Wisdom Folly Light Darkness Righteousness Wickedness in man's natural state which he had taken the liberty to experience as well as know all is vanity This is King Solomon's Proclamation and warning to his fellow-mortals and the true King Solomon's faithfull and timely warning to all man-kind in all generations Prov. 1. 20 c. 8. 1 c. Final disappointment torment and vexation will befall all that finally fall short of true substantial divine and spiritual things in which alone true blessedness can ever befound Vers. XVIII For in much wisdom is much grief and he that encreaseth knowledg increaseth sorrow All increasings with the encreases of man in the fading Life Wisdom Riches Righteousness and Glory of his own nature not of God in the everlasting Life Wisdom Glory and righteousnes things of God are but additions to and multiplications of his sorrow in getting keeping and then loosing all again For all must go first or last by the dispensation of the Cross in love or final wrath upon every Man and Angel Men cannot but have misgiving thoughts from the self-evidencing nature of the perishableness of all they can be there possess'd of that all will be gone again So are all their life time therein subject to bondage in the highest glory and flourish thereof through a fear by death of losing all Heb. 2. 15. Job declares that as safe as he was apt to 〈◊〉 himself to be in the highest righteousness wisdom and glory of his own nature in afirst-covenant-life he had a secret bottom-fear all would fail him The thing I greatly fear'd is come upon me Job 3. 25 26. I find I had nothing of that true safety rest or quiet in the utmost wisdom and glory of my own restored nature that I fondly flatter'd my self into the false perswasion of He found all death-struck by the Cross the very righteous life and mystical riches of his spirit as well as outward concerns of his body His secret fear was the truest thought and faithful 〈◊〉 of him as to what he was to expect at winding up Man's encrease in the wisdom and knowledg of his own nature amounts but to the cleerer sight of the miseries and defects of himself and others therein and all such wisdom shews it self insufficient to correct his own or others errours Young sciolists are apt presently to think they know all but when they have travelled farther in their inquiries come with Socrates to see and confess they know only this that they know nothing with certainty infallibly and so find no rest or satisfaction in all they find Yea and are still more and more vexed and press'd thereby with the foresight of future evils incident to them The wisest man will more and more find himself in the exercise of his own wisdom as to things past present or to come but in a self-tormenting labyrinth and 〈◊〉 maze of vaine self-bewildring imaginations All knowledg and thoughts depending on the temper and fitness of bodily Organs are enfeebled in the old age and at length quite extinguished at the death of the body Then that all that sort of thoughts perish all see Again the higher man's light and knowledg if uncompliant therewith in practice the heavier he knows will the wrath of God be upon him for ever Thus the sad and inevitable result af all Man's encrease in his own wisdom and knowledg is the encrease and aggravation of his sin and sorrow at every turn Lastly the higher man is advanc'd in the life riches wisdom and righteousness of his own spirit the more apt with Paul to be a fierce zelot for that law-life and forwardest opposer of the everlasting Gospel-life of Christ and all the words thereof The Cross seemes a harder dispensation to the righteous Scribe and Phaisee that have much to lose then to Publicans Harlots in the corrupt life of nature who therefore as more easily induced to submit to and own the doctrine thereof enter into the Kingdom of God before them The mysticall rich young man went away very sorrowful when he heard of parting with all he had for eternal life Zaccheus and Mary-Magdalen did not so Final trusting in the corruptible life riches wisdom and righteousness of man render's entering into the kingdom of God absolutely impossible Mar. 10. 24 25. The very Disciples acquainted yet only with first-covenant riches were astonished out of measure at this word saying among themselves who then can be saved vers 26. Encrease in outward riches also and in that wisdom and subtlety by which gotten and for a season kept all such riches pomp and glory therein as figures and shadows of inward are usually found to be but the amusing snares of Satan by which he keep 's men in a total mindlesness of truelife with all the words thereof and leads them blindfold to the chambers of Death in Mirth and Jollity Job 21. 7-13 Thus are
their Eye and Heart upon him with Paul in that Spiritual Life into which 〈◊〉 out of the Death of the former and be Married to him there as their Everlasting Spiritual Lord and Bride-groom Ro. 7. 1-4 While Christ Pipes to Men in First-Covenant Communications as he did by John Baptist's Ministery they are to Dance and Rejoyce When he with-draw's and call's them into the death of that State they are to Mourn else are they Immorigerous and Undutiful Mat. 11. 17. Their Natural Hearts will be filled with Sorrow as the Disciples when as a Fleshly Bride-groom and Comforter he departed from them Mat. 9. 15. Jo. 16. 20-22 Right Obedient Mourners in this case are Blessed and sure to hear of Christ as a better Comforter and Bridegroom in his Spiritual Life The Death of Man as to a Mortal First-Covenant Life is as sure as the Birth of it as the case is with the Birth and Death of the Body And indeed the House of Mourning and Death is better to Man in the tendency of it then the Birth and utmost Flourish of a First-Covenant Life in him For though after Rebuilt in the Restor'd Righteous Life of his own Nature and then pull'd down again he be seemingly in a worse condition and more hopeless then before ever Christ medled with him at all 〈◊〉 yet is this the only way to Christ's House of Everlasting Feasting and Rejoycing Those that refuse this way and Laugh now their 〈◊〉 Joy will end in Everlasting Mourning and Saints Transient Sorrow in everlasting Joy Mat. 5. 4. Luk. 6. 25. Jo. 16. 20. Christ came not to speak Peace but War and Death by his Spiritual Fire and Sword to the earthly Life of Nature at best in himself and followers Luk. 12. 49-51 We must follow the Suffering-Steps of this great Captain of our Salvation or never come where he is True Saints with Paul Glory in the Cross of Christ Conformity to his death and in bearing about them the marks of the dying of the Lord Jesus So the Spiritual Life of risen Jesus comes to be more and more manifested in their Mortal flesh 2 Cor. 4. 10 11. Vers. 6. A time to Get and a time to Lose A time to Keep and a time to cast Away A time to seek after and recover the exercise of our nature in the first-covenant righteous life thereof and to heap up Riches by a fruitfulness therein And then comes a time to lose and cast all away again as dung and loss with Paul for the more excellent Life Christ's unspeakable gift Phil. 3. 6-9 And so is there a time to keep up the exercise of our nature in the restor'd first-covenant righteous Life thereof so long as Christ own 's that to be his Dispensation to us by continuing as a fleshly Bride-groom with us and a time to part with and cast it away again for the second in the same sense with what is meant in the former clause of this Verse Vers. 7. A time to Rent and a time to Sew A time to keep Silence and a time to Speak That which has been Sew'd Heal'd and made up again after the sore breach by the first Sin and so fitted or fitting us in its kind to speak to and instruct the dark ignorant corrupt Spirit of nature in others as a Teacher and Guide of such blind ones all this healed speaking State in the Wisdom of Man made Wise in Christ must in its season be rent broken down and torn in pieces again silenc'd and wholly laid aside to make way for another better Dictatour Ruler and Guide the Infallible Spirit of Truth The final refusal to submit to this chang of Ruler and Guide lodges up first-covenant Saints in unchangable Enmity to God and the spirit of the second under the guilt of the most Criminal Adultery Theft and Sacriledg Ro. 2. 17-22 God speak's once and he speak's twice yet Man perceiveth it not Job 33. 14. God call's Man out of his Death in Sin into the righteous Life of a Man or of the first-covenant Law again Then by the voice of his second-Covenant spirit into the death of the first as his only pass into the Life and Righteousness of God in the second Under pretence of continuing in obedience to his first voice does man Rebell against his second and is found an Enemy to the Spiritual Cross of Christ. He prefer's the oldness of Letter in his Living Soul to Gods newness of Life in his quickning Spirit Man's Laughing Dancing Speaking time is over in his own Wisdom and Righteousness when shew'd the unprofitableness as to true Blessedness of all done or said by him therein The right understanding and obedient Submitting to Christs Various Voices and observing the several seasons of Speaking and Silence is Mans safety and he therein wel-pleasing to God 'T is a high point of true Wisdom for Man to be more ready to hear the voice of the Spirit of Christ in himself or Saints then to speak and so Offer the Sacrifice of Fools in his own Ec. 5. 1. Man in his highest Wisdom is a Fool as to all spiritual things his greatest concerns the unreasonable Man Paul desir'd to be delivered from the Impertinent Trouble and Babbling Loquacity of about Gospel things that he has no discerning in The restor'd Law-principle of Life and Action in Man is but a ceremony to be abolish'd and becomes an antiquated thing with all the Fading Glory of it when to be done away to give room for a spiritual Principle of everlasting Righteonsness as a new Root and Spring of his Desire Thought and Action This refused all Duties perform'd in the Law-spirit are thenceforth but Sacrifices of Fools that do evil What in its appointed Season and day was Obedience in that Law-State becomes then direct Rebellion As Man has Lived therein to God so the Season come is he to die therein to him that both living and dying he may be the Lords Rom. 14. 8. Passive Obedience is the utmost requir'd of Man in his own nature to make way for the true spiritual principle of active Obedience to God's wel-pleasing Vers. VIII A time to Love and a time to Hate a time of War and a time of Peace There 's a time of Love and Peace such as it is to be found in a first-covenant Union with Christ and such obedience as is performable therein But at length Christ speaks War and Death to this state comes to break down demolish and cast away all the stones of this old 〈◊〉 creation building And thus have we seen in these eight Verses God's twofold dispensation to Man's Body and fleshly or natural Spirit in all the fading first-creation Life and Glory thereof The Birth and Death of the Body and so of the natural Understanding as exercised there in and by all this is Typical to the like twofold dispensation of mystical Life and Death to his Spirit as to its first-covenant righteous state under the temporary wrath
then at best is of no 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or everlasting advantage to Man however conceitedly confident he be that it is True happiness is to be found only in New-Creation Life the one and only thing necessary still wanting to man till the Obedient Surrender of all his old things for God's new T. And God requireth that which is past Heb. that which is driven away Chal. and Syr. will seek out him that suffers Persecution God will call all those Men and Angels to an account who have finally chosen a known changeable Life of Vanity for their Rest and Habitation in wilful Rebellion against all his manifold Warnings and convincingly shewed and offered Spiritual Life of everlasting Righteousness They ought to have come trembling before him and lay down all their heap of Vanities with their vain Hopes and false 〈◊〉 therein with themselves as Old Bottles to be made new ones and filled with the Mystical Wine of his Spirit in which there can be no excess nor they ever too confident or bold to appear before him therein Those that in stead of fearing and trembling before him Exalt themselves against him must prepare as well as they can to meet him that can declare all their thoughts Amos 4. 12 13. and find out all their hidden works of Dishonesty and Rebellion So in his method and way of dealing with them will he require an exact account of all done in their natural Body or State of Life He will make a strict Inquisition as to all that 's past in that First-creation State of Vanity in it self and Enmity to himself They 'l be call'd to give an account of every Idle word Mat. 12. 36. Thought and Action therein as all Words Thoughts and Actions in that Life of Vanity turn'd into Enmity will be found All Preachings up of that Life for Eternal Salvation will be found the Idle Vain and Lying Words of Man's Wisdom in direct contradiction to God's To Preach up a Fixure there is to Preach up a State of unchangable Enmity to God for Salvation Let them palliate their Doctrin of Devils with what good Words and fair Speeches they will 't is but their own Righteousness they warrant Salvation in This last Clause in the Hebrew Chalde and Syriac reading God requireth that which is driven away and will seek out him that suffers or has suffer'd Persecution may import the Inquisition God will make for the Innocent Blood of his Saints shed by this confounded World of Enemies and Rebells from Cain downwards Then will there be a sad reckoning for all the strong Bulls of Bashan Ps. 22. 12. Rich Flourishing First-Covenant Cattel that have thrust with Side Shoulder and Horns all the Diseased Lean Impoverish'd little ones of Christ when Christ comes to Judg between the fat Cattel and the lean He will search out his Meek Suffering Sheep in his day that have bin scatter'd in Man's day as Weak Fools and despicable with Paul and the off-scouring of all things by the Fat Rich Wise Strong and Honourable First-Covenant Cattel 1 Cor. 4. 8-13 who have made havock of them in the cloudy and dark day of this World under Satan He will Strengthen and Establish his Sick broken-spirited scatter'd Sheep and destroy the fat and the strong feed them with Judgment but his delivered Sheep in a fat and good Pasture upon the Mystical high Mountains of his Spiritual Israel So shall they be no more a Prey to their Enemies for ever All this we find Ezek. 34. 11-24 This will Christ do for his Saints when the set time to favour Zion is come When the day of the Lord's Vengeance the Year of Recompences for the Controversy of Zion is come wo to all wilfully blind Incorrigible Enemies that have all along this World molested Push'd at and scatt'red them Vers. XVI And moreover I saw under the Sun the place of Judgment that Wickedness was there and the place of Righteousness that Iniquity was there The litteral Sun all along this Book does figuratively signify the utmost light and perfection of Man's day or judgment in his own Wisdom distinct from God's day of Judgment in the infallible Light and Wisdom of his yet sevenfold brighter mystical new-creation Sun his Gospel Spirit of Grace Solomon's seeing in the infallible light of the new-creation Sun the true spirit of Prophecy what he tell 's us of here may take us off from wondring at his observation He saw wickedness and iniquity in the highest evil angelical and humane I 〈◊〉 Dominions Principalities and Powers of this World In the highest respective natural wisdom of such 〈◊〉 Men and Angels are they both found in a direct contrariety to the divine and infallible creature-wisdom and judgment of God contesting with and fighting against both Paul in holy 〈◊〉 an eminency of first-covenant light and life was at the same dangerous work for a season ignorantly He imprison'd Gospel-saints for the life and words of God's Wisdom punish'd them 〈◊〉 in every Synagogue compelled them to blaspheme gave his voice to put them to death and was exceedingly mad against them But Christ on a sudden converts this outragious Persecutour into a signal Preacher of the very Gospel he persecuted Act. 26. 9-19 Gal. 1. 23. One would think such a patern should convince the stoutest self-confident in the utmost flourish of a first-covenant law-life though not convert his obstinate will into obedience to the like Heavenly vision or discovery But in stead of convincing and appeasing the professing Jews with this true narrative of his Gospel-conversion in his speech from the Castle-stairs to them at Jerusalem they grew more exceedingly mad against him cast off their clothes and threw dust into the Air saying away with such a fellow from the earth for 't is not 〈◊〉 he should Live Act. 21. 40. and 22. 1-23 Thus say all of the like sowre legal-spirited leavened temper with the Pharisees concerning all or any true Gospel-Saints and their testimony 〈◊〉 is not fit they should live Who even those God reckon's not the World worthy of Heb. 11. 38. See you the differing contrary Judgment of God and wise righteous men Who will be judg at last God himself The earth man in his earthly wisdom denies but the heavens will declare his righteousness Psal. 50. 6. The sowre legalist character 's Gospel-Saints as the worst of malefactors Christ himself was so handled by them worse then Papists or Mahumetans the filth of the World the off-scouring of all things 1 Cor. 4. 13. But think ye this will alwayes be so If Satan's reign and Man's day or Judgment may take place for ever it will But run and read the contrary Psal. 50. 20-22 Isai. 66. 5. Mat. 7. 21 23. with abundance of other most harmonious scripturetestmonies in this point Search the scriptures Resign up your selvs to the teachings of that spirit that dictated them Be in earnest about your salvation Let your principal enquiry be after the kingdom-spirit and righteousness
of God Ye never find it else or enter it 〈◊〉 from your own understanding Consult not or conferr with flesh and blood in your selvs or others what ye shall do to be saved That principle will never own one right word towards eternal life T' is a flat enemy to every word of God's Wisdom about it They that despise and wonder at such words will everlastingly perish Acts. 13. 41. Those that gad abroad in a spirit of vanity enmity and death to chang their way from form to form in Religion toss'd and Tumbled up and down by every Wind of Satan's and Man's Doctrin or other Gospel who can help them That that dieth say's God let it die and that that is to be cut off let it be 〈◊〉 off Zec. 11. 9. Litteral and Mystical Sodom do seem to carry all before them in this most Antichristian-day and Perillous Season A Gospel-Testimony is almost universally rejected When Christ himself Preach'd he met with Multitudes of Wilfull Proud Heady Traiterous Contradicting and Blaspheming first-covenant Saints Wise Righteous Holy Men in the form of godliness in the first denying the Power of it in the second-Covenant Spirit the Gospel-Principle This was alway's the case And even so is it now 2 Tim. 3. 1-5 Gal. 4. 29. Who but Professours in Holy Flesh urg'd Christ's Crucifixion when Pilate and his Heathen Party would have freed him They 'd rather a Robber a Murderer any Malefactor should scape then he Wise Righteous Holy Men and a Currupt Dark Profane Grosly Idolatrous Party are in a contesting Scramble But both have had their season to speak Lies at one Table against the Saints of the most High Are we at a loss for an instance The Vizard will flie off The guilty Shedders of Innocent Blood will be unpalliated at last and forc'd to appear in their more then Ethopian hiew that yet lies hid under the form of Godliness God exercises long-suffering towards them and lets them think him such a one as themselvs till he set their Sins in order before their Eyes and so tear them in pieces that none can deliver Psal. 50. 20-22 His long-suffering towards Enemies is with design to compleat and fulfill the Patience or Sufferings of his Saints by their hand for their unspeakable advantage and their Enemies final Destruction A Comfortable Consideration True Saints ought to Comfort themselvs and one another with such right Words and Thoughts In conclusion Christ will appear to their Joy and their Enemies shall be asham'd Isai. 66. 5. Yea lie down in Sorrow and Everlasting Contempt as Vessels of Dishonour Eternity will be a long day to pay their full reckoning in God in the exercise of his infinite Justice and Mercy will bring all to rights give every one their due recompence for Obedience to or Rebellion against him New-covenant Gospel-Saints are more odious to the legal first-covenant professour then is the common sinner of the Gentiles in the corrupt spirit of nature The wisdom of this world in the most enlightned first-covenant Saint Wise strong and Honourable in Christ there is 〈◊〉 to God's and God's in his new-covenant Saints to theirs Was not Paul a fool weak and despicable in Christ's Gospel-spirit to but such wise strong and honourable ones in Christ 1 Cor. 4. 10. Flesh and Spirit or Man's spirit and God's are directly contrary to each other in all their designs desires and thoughts about true Salvation The former fixed in is the carnal mind of enmity to God Rom. 8. 6 7. that will prove eternal death to man The latter becomming the principle of life desire thought and action in Man is eternal life to him and in him The carnal mind of enmity was not found in Man or Angel the day they were created Ezek. 28. 15. Neither of them as they came out of their Creator's hands were found in enmity to God or the life of his spirit of Grace though they had it not till they both sinn'd and fell The voluntary evil rebellious use of their own mind introduced this enmity to God's Changable enmity in man is now inseperable from his life Unless therefore life and all at best be parted with he will become unchangable therein as Devils are and so be found in a state of eternal death No wonder then if in the place of Judgment and Righteousness or in the most enlight'ned Righteous state of the natural spirit in fallen Man and Angel be found by the al-searching spirit of Christ in himself and Saints the deepest and most Criminal Mystical Wickedness and Iniquity hidden works of Darkness rendring them most abominable to God unchangable Enemies to the Saints of the most high and to ths most High himself But what Have Gospel-Saints all truth and First-Covenant Saints none Can any believe this Yet most true Let but the Scripture-sense of truth be duly considered as the Character of the Gospel Spirit and words thereof in distinction from the Law-Spirit of this World in all its variety and words thereof the Wonder at and unbelief of this would cease But does the wise first-Covenant Holy Man receive nothing of a Gospel-Testimony Not one word No man in the Spirit of nature corrupt or righteous rightly receives such Testimony in any point That Spirit is a Spirit of total darkness and Universal Errour an absolute Heretick as to all Gospel-Life and truths This seem's hard What then The Jews were for Moses who but they Christ found they took not the Mystical truth of one word of Moses So told them they were Infidels as to the principal intendment and main scope of all his Writings For says he had ye believed Moses ye would have believed me But if ye believe not his Writings how shall ye believe my Words Jo. 5. 46 47. The Scriptures are own'd as the Words of God by all under the name of Christians but how do they read hear or understand them In the litteral Shadow only or Mystical truth also As teaching and preferring the Righteousness and Wisdom of Man to the dark ignorant State and Vile Affections of the corrupt Spirit of nature only or as also farther declaring the everlasting Life Wisdom and Righteousness of God in his Gospel-Spirit of Grace and Truth For this latter nature at best is to suffer death the right way Viz by the death of the guilty Sinner and so death of Sin in Men whereas by the fall Men became dead in Sin Sin alive in them and they dead now they alive and Sin dead and that for ever This by the death-work of the Cross or Gospel-Spirit on the natural Men in their own confused Spirit of Darkness as to all Gospel-Truths have much variety of thought and Opinion But all as one Man are against every tittle of Gospel-truth words of God's Wisdom which the Holy Ghost teaches Though they all read all the Words of God's Wisdom in the Letter they do not read them in the sense of Christ's Question to the Lawyer or teaching
or constant steddy spirit of everlasting Truth and Righteousness and Works thereof David pray'd for Psal. 51. 10. All fix'd in the but starting righteous natural spirit or principle of Life and Action hate with a perfect hatred as they them Psal. 139. 21 22. Righteous first-covenant Brethren are the most fierce persecutors of the second can't afford them a good word sit and speak evil against them Psal. 50. 20 21. Such Crucified Christ. Profane persons hate all such right works as are performable in renew'd naturals But all of both sorts Profane and Professors are against all spiritual Saints Works Things and Truths Many lesser Ruffles may the fix'd first-covenant righteons have with the Profane party but they mortally envy and hate the spiritual Saint with all his right works and words as seventy times seven fold more abominable to them than the profane party with all their brutish vilenesses Away with them 't is not fit they should live say they Masqu'd Papists worse than bare-fac'd or Mahumetans Spiritual Saints with their truly right works are a thousand-fold more envied by sowre leavened Legalists then common sinners of the Gentiles and their generally discernable wrong works This has bin found in all times and places towards all true prophets Christ himself and Saints before and under Law and Gospel Christ came to his own in the first-covenant and they blasphemed and Crucified him for the Gospel-doctrin of the second Never more will the whole World be in an uproar against Christ and his Saints then when he is just at the Door ready to come forth with them to reign over all such enemies What a universal surprize and amazement will this be to them all one and 'tother Heathen and first-covenant people As wondering at both their madnesses against Christ in his first and second coming the Psalmist ask's Psal. 2. 1. Why do the Heathen rage and the People imagine a vain thing What vain thing do they imagine and tumultuously assemble in a Union of their otherwise 〈◊〉 minds to do to cast down Christ God's supreamly anointed one and Saints Christ's anointed ones vers 2 3. A likely Project to thrive in Do either or any of them know what they do The Mystical Kings do in some measure the greater their madness the litterai less the less their folly though they also Rage and Tumultuously Assemble in this case Both are guilty enough to find a conclusion bad enough to them all Let the two earthen Pot-Sherds corrupt and righteous tugg and fight it out with one another That 's a lower trade of Sinning in either But if they peece up and joyntly fight against their maker they are at the highest point of Folly and Madness And then highest wo to both and all Isai. 45. 9. They contend against Almighty and Irresistibly mighty Divine and new-Creation Power Is all this Hubbub and Tumultuous Assembling of Mankind with all their combined Counsels and Forces against the insinite Divine Father and his Divine and Creature-Son like to Prosper They 'd break their Bands and cast away their cords srom them This is the Rebellious Design and Plot. They 'l not be subject to limited or bound up by their Laws or words of command This is their desperate case and Resolution This Universal Conspiracy to be remarkably the case in the last beyond all former times is on the very account here declar'd their incorrigible envy at or Enmity to God's Divine and new creature-Spirit of Grace with all the right words works or fruits thereof in true Saints which offer to lay Bands on all their unruly Wills This they 'l not endure but labour might and main to shake them off and cast them away from them This is that which corrupt and righteous humane with Evil Angelical nature make head against God Christ and Saints about The two-edged Spiritual Sword in all these hands speaks death to nature in them all Therefore they all fight against it But this will in Love or Wrath perform the whole Will and Counsel of God as to the death of nature on every Angel and Man good and bad Isai. 1. 19 20. and 55. 11. 2 Cor. 2. 15 16. Christ in that Spirit wherein any can or ever could be saved is the stumbling-Stone and rock of Offence the only Rock of Defence to Saints to the numerous Troops of innumerable evil Angels and Men that Build on the Sandy fallible Principles of nature for Salvation They utterly defy all the words of the Builders on the Rock that speak nothing but War and Death to them attempting to set Fire on their House Guess who of the Earthy party are like to take this most heavily at Christ's and his Saints hands as offring to take down a beautiful Church-building with pretence to set up a better unchangably glorious That Mystical Temple of his Body or whole natural State that Christ said was to be pull'd down So as not to have one stone of it left upon another and in which he Refus'd at the Jews desire to be their King saying he 'd build it up into another more glorious Temple-State in which he would be a King this was the very ground of the Professing Jews proceeding against him to the death He has built up our nature in himself by way of Resurrection into a new-Creation Temple of the Living God for evermore His Doctrin of the Cross upon them and Practice of it upon our nature in himself did the Professing Jews and their Teachers Priests Scribs Pharises c. call Blasphemy or evil-speaking against the first-Creation Temple and Life of the Law as no State of true Salvation This they reckon'd an Evil Hurtful or false speaking that is Blasphemy And in saying so they Blasphem'd or spoke and did evil and hurtful things Maliciously of and against him and all his Gospel-Truths First-Covenant Brethren hate the very Gospel-Principle and all the Right Works and Words of Christ and Saints therein For which of my good works do ye stone me Said Christ. Not for any good work but for Blasphemy replied the Jews Jo. 10. 32 33. What must Steven or any Servant expect if the Lord were thus handled See Act. 7. 51-60 with the ground Act. 6. 9-14 A first-Covenant People among the Gentiles under Gospel do the same things to their Spiritual Brethren as the Jews under the dispensation of the Law in the self-same Law-Principle and Life the very leaven of the Pharisees But these disturbers of Gods true Israel in both will be cut off Gal. 5. 12. They labour to keep off all true Gospel-Doctrin from all hearing as the most abominable Heresy and Preachers of it not fit to live Act. 22. 22. and 24. 14. Law-circumcision for cutting off Filth of Flesh they prefer to the true Spiritual Gospel-circumcision that cutts of Holy Flesh restor'd righteous nature from which filth of Spirit or Enmity to God's Gospel-Spirit is inseperable For this Murdering-minded Cain's Envy Mortally Hate and kill Spiritual Abels from
first to last This is their evil work in Enmity to God and the Power of Godliness under the form thereof and Righteousness of Man Their envy in this case is called Murder though they be not furnish'd always for the ouvert act on Saints Bodies They Breath out Threatnings and Slaughters against Christ's Spiritual Disciples and so against himself his new name and Life Why Persecutest thou me said he to Paul Here 's the Butt all their Revengful Arrows even bitter Words are Shot 〈◊〉 They are six'd with their Father the Devil in the first-Creation and so in unchangable Enmity to God and the second Jo. 8. 44. They Mortally hate that which is Eternal Life How then should they have it abiding in them 1 Jo. 3. 15. Joseph ' s Brethren Paul and other unawak'ned Spiritual Saints have amongst others said le ts kill these Dreamers so call they the most awak'ned true Prophets and Saints and see what all their Dreams or aery Notions will come to Gen. 37. 19 20. But the guilt of the convinced 〈◊〉 in Christ's Vineyard that saw him and his Saints the true Heirs and said le ts kill them that the Inheritance may be ours is of another hiew All such knowing wilful Sinners against the Holy Ghost or Gospel-Spirit of true Saintship are unpardonable True Saints are a wonder even in Israel a first-Covenant People of God hatred in that House of God Hos. 9. 7 8. They are a Spectacle of Scorn and Derision in their Marr'd naturals to the World all Angels and Men in the Flourish and Glory of a fix'd worldly Spirit 1 Cor. 4. 8. 13. Such despisers of true Saints Wonder and Perish They will in no wise believe though a Man declare it to them Act. 13. 41. They persist in a wilful Enmity against Spiritual Conviction-Light These Hypocritical Sinners in Zion-light Justling out and killing those they know to be the true Spiritual Heirs when sorely Oppress'd by Heathen-Rulers beyond hope of Visible help will pitch for relief on Christ's appearing for them And his appearing will be a thousand-fold more Amazing and Tormenting to them then all Oppressions they groan under from their Brutish Egyptian Task-Masters His day will be darkness and not light to them the most sad gloomy day that ever befel them Amos 5. 18-20 They 'l be found in unchangable Enmity to the very Spirit and Light of that day The true Saint then we see is called to and required patiently to pass thorow all sorts of Oppression from Devils and from the corrupt and enlight'ned Spirit of nature in other Men and in himself All desires thoughts and motions of his own nature are constant fighters against his Spiritual Mind 1 Pet. 2. 11. and Ro. 7. No treating about Peace They are always for War Ps. 120. 7. Gal. 5. 17. As true Souldiers of Christ therefore are we to fight down and Crucify our Flesh with the Affections and Lusts that War against our Souls On the death of all Enemies within will Saints be compleated in a ResurrectionLife and therein become more then Conquerors of all Enviers of their right works and words But till this all along their Warfare in the Mortal Body their Envious first-Covenant Brethren and Neighbours labour to make their Travel under the pangs of Mystical death to appear a sore vexation of Spirit But the downfal weeping and tears of the natural or Old Man is the ready and only Road to the everlasting Harvest-Joy of the new Ps. 126. 5 6. Saints aware of this ought with Paul to Glory and Rejoyce in nothing save the Cross or Spirit of Christ Gal. 6. 14. Vers. V. The Fool foldeth his Hands together and Eateth his own Flesh. The Fool here is a Man that through wilfull Folly makes no right use of his first-Creation Talent of light or life restor'd by the Redeemer A Character of this Fool have we Prov. 6. 9-11 How long wilt thou sleep O Sluggard Yet a little Sleep a little Slumber a little folding of the hands to Sleep So shall Poverty and want come upon thee as an Armed Man irresistibly And Prov. 24. 30-34 The Field of the Slothful is all grown over with Thorns and Nettles The Stone Wall thereof broken down c. A remiss negligent slothful person failing in his outward call and civil capacity brings these inconveniences upon himself which render him miserable in himself and despicable to others The deep mystical truth of this we find in the Parable of the Talents to wit Christs several distributions to Men in restor'd first-Creation-Life Mat. 25. 14-30 He requires a diligent improvement of all This was answer'd by them that receiv'd the five and the two Talents They doubled them So as good and faithful Servants are bid enter into the Joy of their Lord. But he that received the one Talent hid it in the Earth This is the Fool Solomon meanes His Talent was a Measure of restor'd first-Covenant Light and Life This Light tells him what he should do And this Life furnishes him with Power to do it He is not therein to live to himself but to him that died or put that State to death in himself to purchase and recover that life again for him 2 Cor. 5. 14 15. This is done by our giving it up again in Sacrifice to God as he did the only way to come at that Life above all death which he raised our nature into in himself This way did the five and two-Talented Servants improve their Talents And he that had but one knew he ought so to have done by putting his Mony to the Exchangers Christ Condemn's this wicked and slothful Servant out of his own Mouth that knowing he Reap'd where he Sow'd not and that to receive his own again would not serve his turn ought by Exchang to bring it to him with advantage in Usury as the other two did He knew he had receiv'd it on the same terms with the other two to improve it by a faithful and fruitful exercise of it in its own activity and way for a season living therein to him that died to Purchase it for him and then to cease from that way of improving it as call'd and warn'd to do in order to receive in way of Exchange a Gospel-Principle of Everlasting Righteousness and Fruitfulness to God This Foolish Slothful Servant neglected both duties the improving his restor'd Law-Principle in its own activity and way as also the obedient Exchang of it by death for a Gospel-one Or if he perform'd the former yet neglecting the latter he fall's under the same Condemnation as if he had fail'd in both If he indulg himself and follow his own evil Concupiscence into the enormous Practices of the corrupt Spirit of nature or in preferring the most fruitful righteous exercise of his enlight'ned spirit to the Gospel-spirit of Grace he is gone as unpardonably Criminal By either of these Rebellious ways he comes to the same dreadful conclusion as justly and unanswerably
their own spiritual Mind Ro. 7. 15. 23. Solomon had a larger sad experience of this then Paul But though this one even the natural Spirit of the Saint in its own Life lust will and way oft prevail against him even against his spiritual mind or man two shall withstand him even this rebellious flesh or natural man What two Who are these The Fountain Spirit of Christ in himself and the quick'ned up Seed thereof or Spiritual Man in the Saint The Rebellious natural Spirit Satan's Party in the Saint and he at the back of it to encourage and strengthen it with all variety of Arguments Motives Reasons and Uses against its own Saviour and Salvation shall both fall down together under the prevailing Power of the Spiritual Man Christ's Party in the Saint and he at the back of it making up the blessed two here These will weaken Satan's Party in the Saint and at length quite extinguish all the Life and abolish all the Power thereof laying it in the Dust. Then the whole Man shall be fill'd with and actuated by his Spirit of Life there 's no dealing or medling for Satan with Perfect Conformity to Christ's Death and Resurrection is all compleat's the Saints work and deliverance from all Enemies without and within He that 's thus dead is freed from Sin Ro. 6. 7. Sin or the guilty Sinner the natural Spirit is dead and gone as to its own sinning life of enmity So comes a ceasing from Sin for ever 1 Pet. 4. 1. The same mind in the Saint with Christ for a compleat full suffring in the flesh extinguishes all Sinning self-destroying Power for ever in him And this bring 's the Saint's matters to the self-same passe with Christ's when he said Now come's the Prince of this World and hath nothing in me Jo. 14. 30. Satan would have perswaded Christ himself and that by an Apostle to pity and spare his first-Covenant Law-Life or righteous natural self But he utterly rejected these flattering Judas-Kisses and Smooth words of the Enemy which are drawn Swords to Wound and Kill Men eternally He took not the Enemie's Counsel but clean contrary brought his own Spiritual Sword and Fire upon it Crucified offered it up by a Holy Obedient death in Sacrifice to his Fathers Will. Saints must do likewise They must hate that Life in themselvs he Crucified in himself or cannot be his Disciples But under all plausible appearances of kindness for Self-Preservation and Salvation does Satan animate his Party in Man the Disputer of this World to Dispute and Contend for his own everlasting Destruction against all Christs Gospel-things and truths By Man himself does he carry on his work smoothly and fair for the destroying him for ever Men are generally in their fallen State of nature Children of Wrath dead in Trespasses and Sins hatefull to and hating God and one another So are they half Devils ready as 't were made to Satan's hand by his own hand or first blow upon humane nature in our first Parents They are Enemies of God Lovers and Friends of World and Devil in corrupt or in part righteous nature They are Litteral or Mystical Adulterers and 〈◊〉 Jam. 4. 4. Thus we see Men want no more of being compleat Deuils as Christ asserted Judas to be Jo. 6. 70. then of being fixed and rendred unchangable in Enmity They are born and live as thus forward in the ready Rode and broad way towards their everlasting Destruction And to forward and encourage the restor'd righteous Party in this way there want not for a World of false Christ's and false Apostles in the Counterfeit guise apparel and dress of the true fitted to deceive if possible the very Elect. These evil Angelical Roaring Lions in Christ's Clothing and 〈◊〉 in the Clothing and appearance of Christ's true Apostles and 〈◊〉 will in their Lying Spirit of Divination and false Prophecy warrant this their very way to Salvation Ezek. 13. 6. Here 's Man 's dangerous condition on all hands as to his grand concern In this deplorable State these almost desperate Circumstances all Men are in does Christ the true WISDOM of God publickly warn and cry out aloud to them all to take heed of being taken with this deceitful Doctrin of Men and Devils their false accursed other Gospel and that they listen to his contrary Counsel and Instructions of Life submit to his Reproofs of Death on that Spirit of nature that 's 〈◊〉 and so receive his Spirit of 〈◊〉 that can never Sin or be deceived err or miscarry but 〈◊〉 discern and own all his words of truth Prov. 1. 20-23 See then and consider Oye Sons of Men the different posture ye are in towards your Blessed Saviour and the Abaddon Apollyon Red Dragon and Destroyer Christ comes to Cross and run down fallen nature as to the corrupt Lusts and vile affections of Litteral Sodom This done and nature recovered and set afresh upon its 〈◊〉 in a rectified first-Creation orderly state or mystical house he comes again with Fire and Sword upon this to pull it down and destroy it in order to the new spiritual Building and Life of the Rock Here 's all this unpleasing Cross-work to nature corrupt or righteous which must be submitted to and obediently complied with or no Salvation On the other hand Satan that comes to destroy Men finds them in a ready posture gladly to receive and entertain him and all his words his flattering Kisses and smooth Sayings in his accursed other Gospel all after their own Hearts desire and Palate And if he can but fix them in Enmity they are his own for ever direct Devils Now whom think you like to be most welcome to Man the destroying Saviour or the saving destroyer Christ or the Devil the Angel or Messenger of Gods everlasting Covenant or the Angel of the Bottomless Pit The whole World or earthly party of mankind corrupt or righteous lieth in Wickedness 1 Jo. 5. 19. or in the wicked one the Devil liable to be used by him against God Christ all awak'ned Spiritual Saints and Gospel-Truths as Paul when eminent in the Law-Righteousness of Man was Ready are all save actually awak'n'd Spiritual Saints to embrace his smooth words of Counsell which are drawn Swords to kill them saw they all and to be at his service greedily receiving teaching and Hearing the very doctrin of Devils without the least scruple for Salvation All the World wonder and run after the Beast Rev. 13. 3. His Ministers and Apostles are of the World or worldly earthy nature and Life in the Image of the earthy the Wisdom and Righteousness of Man so teach only such worldly things for Salvation speak of the World and the World all of the like earthy-temper and Spirit hear follow and Embrace their Doctrin Down it goes without any chewing pause doubt or suspition If this Doctrin wear thred-bare and lose its colour he will clothe it with the appearance of Christ's Spiritual true Gospel-Doctrin In
afraid all along in the flourish and fruitfulness of his own nature in first-Covenant attainments of losing all again Job 3. 25. That sort of Life carries in its very fading nature something of a convincing self-evidencing Demonstration to the richest Possessour thereof that it may be all lost again come to nothing and so stand him in no stead as to Salvation or any safety in a day of greatest necessity The thing I greatly fear'd is come upon me What thing Mystical Wrinckles and Leannes brought upon his smooth fat flourishing rich and full natural spirit or Man And these did bear Witness to his Face against him Job 16. 8. For What For his Foolish self-flattering thought that the wisdom and glory of his own restor'd nature amounted to any thing of true happiness By the Blasts of God's Temporary Wrath or dispensation of the Cross upon it and him therein he found all withering and dying away All that in all that have it is subject to Mystical Rust Moth-eating corrupting and becomming a Prey to Thieves as Christ himself warns with advice to all to look after that Heavenly Treasure and Life that 's liable to none of these things Mat. 6. 19 20. Such first-Covenant 〈◊〉 Riches wisdom and glory in the Possession and Enjoyment whereof Men are apt to think they need nothing as to true blessedness is but a state in which they are Wretched Miserable Poor Blind and Naked wanting every thing that 's durably everlastingly and unchangably good Rev. 3. 17. The Mystical Riches and Garments Gold and Silver of Laodicean first-Covenant Saints finally trusted in will by the Corrupted Moth-eaten Cankered Rusty state thereof be sound at last day witnessing against them in them to their faces as Fools and Madmen for having wilfully trusted therein against Gods plentiful warning them the experience of all Mankind and their certain knowledg that they trusted in a lie a meer Vanity for Salvation God by his Prophet calls all the righteousnesses of Man in a first-Covenant Life of Enmity to him and the second a fading Leaf an unclean Thing a menstruous Cloth or silthy Raggs Isal. 64. 6. Enmity to God that 's filth of spirit is found in them and all their righteous works Trusting in this fading slower their own enlightned and enliven'd nature with all possible Ornaments and Embellishments thereof that God by Christ and all his Holy Prophets and Apostles since the World began has warn'd them of the 〈◊〉 of for true hapiness will render all that finally so do undeniably guilty of inexcusable folly True Saints rejoyce and Glory with Paul under the death-work of the Cross upon all that which such wilful Mistakers trust in for Salvation Gal. 6. 14. That which Crucifies the World to Man and him to the World all worldly Life or desire in Man to all or any worldly desirables and those to him is far from giving any true ground to the natural Man of the Saint to complain of or murmure with Zipporah in letter against Moses at Christ as a hard Master a Bloody Husband unto them by reason of the spiritual Circumcision For this cuts off Holy Flesh kills and offer 's up righteous nature in Sacrifice to God as that which cannot enter 1 Cor. 15. 50. but lets and hinders Man's entrance into the Kingdom of God or God's Kingdom 's entring into him by his receiving Christs Kingdom-spirit into him so as to have the Kingdom of Heaven within him 〈◊〉 Life abiding in him Christ tells us therefore his Yoke is easy and Burden light His Cross or death-work on nature corrupt or righteous in Publican or Pharisee is so far if rightly consider'd and understood from being a frightful and unsupportably Burdensome and Embondaging a thing that it is the only undispensable means and way of taking away from Man the unsupportable Burden of Sin and Punishment which otherwise nature at best will bring upon its own head in a state of everlasting Bondage and Death 'T is the only Curer of all Diseases in the remover of all Evils of Sin and Punishment from Man by the death of the continually guilty Sinner the natural Man or Spirit corrupt or righteous and so the bringer of the whole person of the Saint into a Life and State of Everlasting Rest and true Blessedness All this have we from Christ's own Mouth Mat. 11. 28-30 Christ himself Marr'd the form of Godliness the Image of the earthy his first-Covenant Law-Life his fading Glory Beauty and Visage when he had taken it in our nature even spotles Holy flesh He had more of it to Marre and so was it more Marr'd in him then it can be Marr'd in any other Man And he Marr'd it to some other ends and purposes then it is Marr'd in his Saints and followers He answer'd for the Sins of Mankind aton'd or appeas'd the Wrath of God thereby c. None of these things are done by any obedient followers of his suffering-Steps But 't is their duty to submit to the renting of the Vail of their but in part Holy flesh as he did of his perfect Holy flesh as the undispensable way of entring within the Vail into the true Holy of Holies and so of ever comming where he now is Will such death and loss expose to Contradiction Shame and Contempt from Men from Wise Holy first-Covenant Saints Such despised and rejected contradicted and Blasphem'd all Christ's Gospel new-Covenant Doctrin and Crucified his Person Isai. 52. 14. 53. 3. Heb. 12. 2 〈◊〉 The new and living way yea and the old and only way by which any ever could enter within the Vail into the true Holy of Holies is that which Christ Consecrated for us by 〈◊〉 his fleshly Vail or Holy flesh his righteous natural state that was a Vail a Wall of Partition between even our fleshly nature in his own person and the Holy of Holies He therefore did not the Will spoke not the Words of that understanding in our fleshly nature though pure spotless and perfect in its kind but suffer'd yea in and by his Holy Spirit put it to death The changably righteous Law-spirit in Christ himself was not the infallible Gospel-Preacher but his everlasting righteous Gospel-spirit that Preach'd death to the natural Law-spirit in himself all others He herein spoke the words did the works Joh. 14. 10. and will of the Father that sent him Joh. 4. 34. even in preaching death to and kindling the mystical fire of his heavenly spirit upon his own earthly and crucifying his own natural fleshly understanding and will though perfect in its kind This is the work his Father sent him to do which when finished he pray'd for his return out of the death of our crucified nature into the Life and Glory of his Father Joh. 17. 4 5. The words of Christ's Gospel-spirit are Spirit and Life Joh. 6. 63. they all recommend unto Men and tend to the perswading and counselling them to submit to the terms of having his
Devils is what the old Serpent Preach'd to Eve that Eternal Life is to be found in the first-Creation State of Man and Angel so no need of a second or second Covenant Principle of Life in flat contradiction to Heb. 8. 7. Men in all variety of Church-form or way all sorts of Pretensions towards God Christ Gospel and Salvation within the compass of first-Covenant Principles are all of a Batch all as one Man against the true new-Covenant Gospel of Christ to a tittle All spiritual Light for discerning of Christ's from Baal's Gospel does but highly aggravate their Sin in rejecting Christ's for Baal's The Devil and his Angels had fuller Light cleerer discerning of Christ's Gospel-Life at first then even Adam in his Innocency and of the necessity of parting with their first-Covenant Law-Life for it as their unspeakable advantage for the gaining Eternal Life and scaping Eternal death yet chose as we find their own eternal Ruine All Men that hate Christ's Gospel-Life fixedly unchangably do the same thing make the same evil choice and will come to the same end Pro. 8. 36. All Men since the fall are in light below Adam before the fall that was below Angels before their fall who yet made such choice as prov'd their irrecoverable Destruction Consider this well And then since the fall is there positive Enmity in Man's whole nature and so in all Mankind to the Gospel-Life of Christ and all right words thereof which was neither in Angel or Man before their fall Bare Light or knowledg then by the best meer Enlightning Spiritual Gifts is so far from doing our work for Salvation that through Obstinate Wilful Knowing Rebellion against it does it lay Men under far deeper and sorer Condemnation then if they had never had such Light or heard of Christ's Gospel at all Heb. 10. 26-29 2 Pet. 2. 21. 'T is indeed the direct full unpardonable Sin against the Holy Ghost if finally persisted in Nature in it self corrupt or righteous is as a nether Milstone to Christ's Gospel an Infidel as to all the Doctrin thereof What Wise Strong and Honourable in Christ Infidels Unbelievers as to Christ's Gospel They or Paul chuse you whether 1 Cor. 4. 10. But let such take their course the poor wise Child sees where both he and they are He know's that Christ the Righteous Judg of all ha's pronounced and declared already before-hand the poor wise Children blessed to their unspeakable Joy whom they labour by their Lies to make sad as reckoning and calling them Blasphemers and Mad People And as for the wicked rich ones the Old foolish Kings in a state Christ pronounces wo to they streng then their hands and confidences against all the warnings counsels and power of God himself promising assuring and warranting them eternal Life Ezek. 13. 6. 22. See Christ's contrary Judgment on both sides Mat. 5. 3-12 Luke 6. 20 -- 26. Men's presumptuous self-confident Kinging it in their own renew'd law-nature in a wilful despite to God's Gospel-spirit of Grace renders them a spiritual Sodom and Synagogue of Satan Though they impudently say they are Jews or the very Gospel-Church and Spouse of Christ Rev. 3. 9. They lie or at least deceive themselvs with most false imaginations and delusive dreams They need every thing conducible to true blessedness The highest and utmost folly of these Old doting Kings is they 'l not hear of their madness not be told on 't They 'l no more be admonish'd They deafen their Ear and willfully turn away their understandings from any such true openings of Scripture as open that Kingdom of Heaven they set themselvs to shut up against themselvs and others Yea if any word of a seeming tendency towards the Kingdom or spiritual Gospel-sense of any Scripture drop from themselvs unawares in their ministry or sick-bed they 'l carefully call it back or limit it into a compliance or harmony with all their other false words They 'l by no means leave any jealousies behind them in their hearers as to the truth of their reputed Gospel ministry and doctrin Thus go matters all a long their lives and at their deaths So their hearers applaud their doctrin praise their sayings and follow them to those chambers of darkness and death where none of them ever see light This get's man in honour or in the fading Glory of his own restored nature form of Godliness Image of the earthy not dul considering or willing to understand how little it amounts unto by fixing there in unchangable enmity to God and the power of Godlines in the Image of the heavenly See for all this Psal. 49. 12-20 The old foolish King in all Generations is at this desperate work reckon's and call's Christ and his poor wise children mad and say's they have a Devil Jo. 10. 20. Hos. 9. 7 8. But such Kings are the fools and mad-men beyond words in refusing all spiritual admonition and counsel as to the unspeakable gain of parting with that fading law-life they trust in for Christ's everlasting Gospel-life and riches These foolish Kings are in a Toil. The more they struggle bestirr themselvs and lay about them to heap up their deceitful riches and strengthen their false confidences therein the more are they ensnar'd in the works of their own hands more and more entangled catch'd and held fast by Satan in that fading life he know's will prove eternal death to them with himself They strive for Salvation in direct enmity to God and that spirit of grace in which it ever can be found This is the sad condition these the deplorable circumstances of these old foolish Kings And all this under the undeniable experience of the withering and decay's of all rested in by them for Salvation Here 's the case of Teachers and Hearers at this day under the blastings of God's displeasure upon them all and upon all they trust in Such a course finally persisted in will render them despicable Creatures to God Christ Spiritual Saints and Angels for evermore But room still is left for a hopefulness of seven thousand yea seventy times seven thousand Spiritual Saints yet involv'd in the Universal Heresy of the sleshly Professour or Carnal-Gospeller amongst us Nothing will do 't with others neither Words nor Blows Such a fix'd 〈◊〉 Israel Kinging it in the flourish of their own restored nature are 〈◊〉 by Edom Mal. 1. 4. Though they know and say we are 〈◊〉 under the blasts of Gods displeasure a cleer case but we will return and build the desolate places we will yet build upon our sandy foundation and rest confident still in our desolate impoverish'd blasted life of nature Build if ye will while ye will says 〈◊〉 I le throw down all again as fast as ye build as a Land a 〈◊〉 or state of unchangable 〈◊〉 that I have indignation forever against Obadiah gives us a full and larg account of this mystical Edom-spirit in an earthly-minded generation of Angels and Men represented by
'T is too painful yea 't is impossible for man Save in sanctuary-life and light Ps. 73. 16 17 to discern the spiritual new-Creation things of God's House and less yet the deep things of his very infinite Divinity The truly Spiritual Man Judges or discern's and sees all things 1 Cor. 2. 15. Divine Spiritual and natural The highest first-Covenant-Saint in Holy Flesh Righteousness of Man is a Fool a Stranger an unreasonable Man a Profane Infidel as to all Gospel-Things and Truths Such troublesome self-confidents Paul desir'd to be delivered from 2 Thes. 3. 2. and 2 Tim. 4. 14 15. as most impertinent irreconcileable Babblers and Disputers against all those Gospel-Truths or Sanctuary-things they bid at and pretend to the knowledg of That contradicting Wisdom and very Understanding they use in the dispute is to be abolish'd by the Cross as the Blasphemous Enemy of God and all his Gospel-Truths Thus Paul found it in himself till Christ knock'd down that earthly Wisdom and caused him to turn from that fleshly Mind Understanding or Principle of reasoning in obedience to his heavenly Act. 9. 3-6 Gal. 1. 16. Christ himself in the flesh turn'd away his foot or feet his own fleshly or natural understanding and will the two Feet of the Living Soul on which it walks abroad to View Desire and feed upon worldly Vanities Perishing Meats refusing to think the thoughts do the will or speak the words thereof but the will and words of him that sent him by Crucifying that Will and Understanding utterly Abolishing all the Life Desire Thought and Motion thereof And such death is the only Consecrated Living way into the new-Creation Sanctuary-Life Heb. 9. 12. and 10. 19 20. The natural man even in Christ's person however perfect was a prohibited Stranger amongst the rest that might not enter into his own new-creation Sanctuary House or Temple in the single changable first-covenant law-life in and under which made 'T was impossible even for him as so to enter By Death he ascended into it and set it open to his followers in the like Death of nature Such obedient Death is the only way to eternal life Never was there any other way to it for any Angel or Man That law-life that was but a changable shadow in him and in us must pass by the death of nature in both and all under the cross-work of the Gospel-spirit that the life which is true in him may be true in us also 1 Joh. 2. 8. and 5. 20. In Scripture sense all 's true in the new-creation all shadow in the old True Life Light Wisdom Righteousness is found in the new only All things eternal things of God are there All the Wisdom Life Light Righteousness Glory things of Man or Angel in the old are but shadows of the substantial things of God in the new The changable earthy Image of God and righteous first-covenant Life of the Law Man was at first created and set up in is but shadow of the new-creature life and Image of the heavenly or second Adam All in the former are things of man Life Wisdom Righteousness of Man all in the latter things of God Life Wisdom Righteousness of God A zeal for God's heavenly Spiritual things must eat up our earthly or natural The fire of his heavenly Sanctuary-Spirit must consume our Earthly Life and state eat up all mortal desire and thought root and all By such destruction of our flesh or natural state can we come to be Saved in that Spirit We must put off the old Man the Image of the earthy or can never put on the new and Image of the heavenly The Earthly House and Life of this present tabernacle must be dissolved that we may have that Building of God not made with hands eternal in the heavens 2 Cor. 5. 1. Think any to enter into that House any otherwise then Christ himself could to go whole and unmaimed into it in that Life or natural state he crucified Gal. 3. 1. Nature in all men is an enemy to God and his Sanctuary-Spirit Paul in righteous nature was in union of mind with the Devil an enemy to the Spirit of Grace to God Christ all Gospel-Saints and truths a stranger to all things divine and Spiritual God the Mediator in his changable Angelical nature from the beginning and humane toward the latter end of this world did cease by a Holy death from all the works of both in the activity of the changable principle of first-covenant Life Angels and Men must do and suffer likewise or never enter into his rest Heb. 4. 4. 10. The mystical Sabbath-Law of the Cross upon the works and and working Spirit of nature is expressed by turning away our foot from the Lord's Sabbath from delighting in our own will and way 〈◊〉 our own Pleasure and speaking our own Words Isai. 58. 13 14. This is the very same Death-doctrine and work of the Cross on the whole natural Spirit at best The Obedient submitting thereto is the keeping our foot from the Lord's house and turning it away from his Sabbath Those that honour God herein he will put everlasting honour upon lifting them up over the heads of all earthly powers humane or angelical called the high places of the earth He will cause them to ride upon these high places that have had their turns to ride over their heads Psal. 66. 12. But those that from a fond love to their own vain life despise the Lord's sanctuary life shal be lightly esteemed 1 Sam. 2. 30 yea made vessels of dishonour and everlasting contempt The Spiritual Heavenly Original Gospel-Light of Christ's Sabbath or Sanctuary-Spirit is the day the Lord hath made in which Saints will rejoyce and be glad for evermore Psa. 118. 24. This heavenly Sanctuary and Sabbath that 's the Lords doing his own immediate divine Workmanship from everlasting Prov. 8. 22 23. is marvellous in our eyes The earthly Wisdom of man at best despises and wonders at this heavenly creature-wisdom of God The Orthodox humane builders of a first-covenant Church which their Wisdom Judges asserts and warns firm and safe for Salvation reject and refuse the corner-stone of the second and so the whole new-creation building on the rock the true church or house of God Man's wisdom won't believe or receive the words of God's though plainly declared to it Act. 13. 41. Abundance of professing wise first-covenant Saints believe not any such thing as that creature-Wisdom of God in the Mediator from everlasting by which the Worlds were made How can ye believe says Christ to the professing Jews who receive honour one of another and seek not the honour that cometh from God only Joh. 5. 44. A mercenary self-seeking trade in the first-covenant exceedingly indisposes and hinders any listning to one right word of the second None so highly Prejudic'd and offended at the least Word of Christ's Gospel in the second as the engaged ministers of Satan's in the first Such Gospel-Teachers are
themselves 〈◊〉 or Unbelievers as to every tittle of Christ's Gospel No first-coven 〈◊〉 Saints ought to trust in themselves that selfish fleshly life or natural state however righteous but in God that raises men from the Dead or out of the obedient Death of that into his life and righteousness in the second 2 Cor. 1. 9. They ought with Paul gladly to receive God's Sentence of Death in themselves or on their Spirit in the first that they may be raised into his life in the second And as none are to trust in themselves in the first so are no men there sit to be trusted by Christ or 〈◊〉 Saints being yet but in an unsteddy starting Principle Joh. 2. 23-25 For they know in the alsearching Spiritual light of God what is in man all men in their highest restored Life Light 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The best of them is as a brier the most upright 〈◊〉 than a thorn hedge Mic. 7. 4. As found in enmity to God and all his Saints and Truths Paul himself while but there though eminent breathed out slaughter against the disciples of the Lord. What such temporary first-covenant believers came to under Christ's own personal ministry when he came closs upon them with the cross doctrin of the second upon all that we find Joh. 6. 66. A way they go walk no more with him regard not him or his doctrine Let not the true followers of the Lamb whither soever he goes not onely into the Law-life of the first-covenant but through the death of that into the Gospel-life of the second in which he lives for evermore Rev. 1. 18. expect other doings from such false hollow-hearted apostatizing professors who are presently upon the turning point to Satan and drawing back to Perdition when clossly plied and follow'd with the true full doctrin of the Gospel-Cross on the Law-Life of nature at best which they are willingly and therefore easily perswaded by the words of Man's Wisdom is a true Gospel-state of Salvation and Eternal Life Such drawers back and those that go on to the saving of the Soul grow dayly farther and farther asunder more and more strang and contrary to each other in Thoughts Words and Deeds One is Marching on with a swift Foot towards the Chambers of Eternal Death The other 〈◊〉 towards the Kingdom of God Their Bodies meet and touch Elbows still in these dayly encreasing Distances and Elongations of their minds hearts or spirits till they find one another at Length in fixed irreconcileable distances and contrarieties of Mind Will whole course and way towards eternal life or death Apostat's from Gospel Light turn from the hot fiery Doctrin of the Cross when they find it touch nature at best to the quick at the very root bringing a flaming sword upon the very principle into the cool shade of a worldly Church-doctrin where Satan's pleasing-Gospel is preach'd nature specially righteous restor'd nature tickled and gratified with words after its own heart 'T is the language or thought and Desire of all natural Hearts Prophesy to us smooth things Prophesy Deceits Isai. 30. 10. We have heard enough and too much of the right things of God's Seers and true Prophets Their Doctrin is too hot for us We like it not Let them that bring such strang and sad Tydings to our Ears sit and speak to themselvs or stools if they will which indeed may be to neer as much purpose as to any good such regardless hearers of Gospel-words have gotten 'T is a dreadful Season in which 't is rare to find any that are in earnest about Salvation or at all inquisitive after it Who with the noble Bereans search the Scriptures about their eternal concerns Who regard any more then Pagans that Command of Christ for seeking first or chiefly the Kingdom and Righteousness of God Mat. 6. 33. or to lay up Treasure for themselvs in Heaven v. 20. Even the but Shadowy Mystical Laodicean Treasur's heap'd up in an earthly first-Covenant Life are now as 't were under God's Blasting and Professors negligence therein almost in the Dust as Conclamated Wither'd Unregarded things Profanes and a regard of and inquisitiveness after meer bodily concerns and Ornaments steal away the Heart and in a manner all the time of Professors How too generally are they laying about them wholly to fetch in Provisions for the lowest and basest fleshly Life and Lusts of confounded fallen nature common with Brute Beasts But if any yet are conscientious Walkers in first-Covenant Principles and reckon they have whereof to trust in the flesh Holy flesh restor'd righteous cleansed nature Paul more Phil. 3. 4. Christ most But Christ Crucified it in himself and Paul rejoyc'd or gloried to find him Crucifying it in him also Gal. 6. 14. as the only way of delivering him from that Body of Sin and Death he before took to be a state of Eternal Life Rom. 7. 24. 8. 2. The kindly death of nature under the Cross brought upon it in love from God and submitted to by Man in Obedience to God is the only means and way of his deliverance from all evil by the death of the guilty Sinner and of being furnish'd with and Possessed of all good in God's Gospel-spirit of everlasting righteousness that never sin's 1 Jo. 3. 9. All Sabbath-keeping and other Litteral Performances in Man's Spirit of Enmity to God and his true Sabbath-Spirit Sanctuary and place of his rest that he delights in when known so to be are with their Persons an Abomination to God and so their Solemn Meeting on his Sabbath that was his own Appointment what 's ours Isai. 1. 13 14. All their Incense and Sacrifices all our Praying Preaching c. in a known Spirit of Enmity to God are Mystical Murder Idolatry Sacriledg the highest and most criminal wickednesses in God's sight Why Hands full of Blood a bloody mind of Persecuting Enmity against his Gospel Saints and Truth 's spoil's all I 'le therefore hide mine Eyes from you and not hear your Prayers Ye are a Mystical most Criminal Sodom and Gomorrha to me v. 10-15 and Isai. 66. 3. Ye do all in your own self-chosen way after your own Heart in your own spirit not mine but in perfect contrariety thereunto None of you hear's and answer's 〈◊〉 Heavenly Call in true Wisdom's Words or Preachings I 'le therefore not hear or answer your Prayers and pretended Callings upon me v. 4. If you 'l not hear my cry to you 〈◊〉 not hear your's to me saith the Lord of Hosts Zec. 7. 13. Is man in Enmity to the whole Mind Counsel true Sabbath and Sanctuary of God like to be a faithful and able Minister of his Gospel-Truths Yet who else is heard or regarded Who but the Woman or private natural spirit that 's Enmity to God and all his right Words of Counsel and Instruction for Eternal Life Be more ready to hear then to give the sacrifice of fools Man in the best wisdom the most righteous life and activity of
his own Spirit offer 's but the sacrifice of fools in God's judgment however highly he esteem the sacrifice or himself for it He does not rightly know what he does what he is whither he goes whom he 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ospel things and truths the whole Counsel of God the 〈◊〉 and only way of salvation the methods of God's wisdom in order thereunto all the law's ordinances statut's and judgments of his new creation-sanctuary describ'd in the nine last chapters of Ezekiel all these things lie quite out of his sight How can Man in his own best Wisdom that 's foolishness to God's in his own Spirit that at best is enmity to God's perform do any thing or offer up any sacrifice acceptable to God any but the sacrifice of fools These fools consider not will not consider that they do evil Stiff-necked are they in their own self-confident understandings which are not only blear-ey'd and dimm-sighted but stark blind and wholly ignorant of all Gospel-things and truths yet on they will turning their deaf ear to or setting their mouth against the heavens Ps. 73. 9. all heavenly Gospel-doctrin and instruction They 'l listen to nothing that may induce them to consider the great mischief they are doing to themselvs and others by preaching promising and warranting peace with God in a spirit of direct enmity to him Ezek. 13. 6. 10. and decrying might and main that which is the only way of salvation and the only spirit in which any can be saved with all the words thereof This desperate work are these blind leaders with their self-confident followers at all reck'ning they are doing very pleasing and acceptable service to God Act. 26. 9. Having nothing of Christ's very Gospel-Spirit or doctrin in their Church do they with great indignation and scorn cast all that are wholly for the very Christ and his very Gospel out of their church Isai. 66. 5. Ps. 50. 20 yes and out of the world too when they can as not fit to live any longer in it Act. 22. 22. All this do these Gospel-Wolvs in Sheep's Clothing reckon to be a doing God service Jo. 16. 2. in a blind zeal for him and his law against every word of his Gospel Rom. 10. 2 3 for the first-covenant life of the law in their own restor'd spirit of nature against the second-covenant life of the Gospel in his own spirit of grace So think they do God service when they joyn with the Devil to do despite to the spirit of grace Heb. 10. 29 casting all the words thereof behind their backs and all contempt they can on all such words and all the speakers and right hearers of them as the worst of blasphemies and blasphemers What was Saul's Sin in letter and mystery too is their's in mystery They must be brought to acknowledg with Saul that what the wisdom of God and the words or commands thereof require to be destroy'd their foolish wisdom in the words thereof preaches keeps up and warrants currant for salvation The Spirit of nature in Man recovered and restored by Christ out of the fall into the life wisdom and ruling power thereof over all inferiour sensual brutish power of life and operation in him amounts to no more in mystery and truth then the Amalekite King Agag and best of the cattel The refuse of the cattel the vile affections the disorderly unruly lusts of the corrupt state of nature they have subdued yet not fully but the King and best of the Cattel the rational and sensual powers reduced to good order in the ruling authority of the former and due subjection of the latter these they judg fit to be spared And what are these both king and subjects All but still the Amalekite spirit of nature and Man therein the direct enemy of God and all his Gospel-Saints and truths Was not Paul in and with all these fighting against God when he thought his had bin fighting for him With Saul will all such self-confident justifiers of themselvs be condemn'd out of their own mouth even amid'st their self-justifying plea against the Lord's and his true spiritual Prophet's charge drawn up against them as Samuel's against Saul They 'l be found partial in God's Law The refuse things the vile affections of their polluted nature they are content should be subdued in obedience to it But the choicer things thereof nature at best in the Glory Wisdom and righteousness thereof that all this must go up in sacrifice by a just and holy death to God being an unholy life or state of enmity to God however in a sense holy as cleansed from filth of flesh though convinc'd God's Wisdom requir's this also do they with Saul under a self-condemning light refuse to obey c. and yet stoutly assert with him that they have obeyed the voice of the Lord. All this find we 1 Sam. 15. 18-23 This get men by setting up their own Wisdom and Spirit as judg or interpreter of the Oracles dictat's or words of God's in a known contrariety to the spiritual meaning and intendment of all In their restor'd righteous inlight'ned nature that 's God's required Gospel-sacrifice sigured out by all clean law-sacrifices in the old Testament do they presumptuously with Saul and King 〈◊〉 intrude or thrust themselvs into the priests office 1 Sam. 13. 8-14 2 Chron. 26. 16-21 In their own Foolish Wisdom and Spirit of Enmity to God and all the Words of his Wisdom do they pretend to the Office of Christ's Priestly Gospel-spirit of Infallible Truth and Everlasting Righteousness as the only true declarers of the Will and Words of God that rightly take not his meaning in any of his Words nor ever can understand them This Presumptuous course persisted and fix'd in will render the contagious over-spreading Leprosy the Sin of Enmity to God filth of Spirit that 's no otherwise curable then by the compleat and full death of nature absolutely incurable and mortal as the case was with the Litteral Leprosy on Uzzia's Body to his dying day though said for a season to have done that which was right in the sight of the Lord in his long Reign of two and fifty Yeers 2 King 15. 2 3. The true Priestly Gospel-Spirit of Christ offer'd up our nature in himself at best in Sacrifice to God When Samuel Reprov'd Saul for Sacrificing his answer was The Philistins were ready to come upon me to Gilgal and I had not made Supplication to the Lord so I forc'd my self and Offer'd a Burnt-Offring These 〈◊〉 Pleas and Apologies of nature go for nothing when thorowly search'd by the Spirit of Christ in his seers Thou hast done foolishly say's Samuel and shalt lose thy Kingdom Life and all for 't by those Philistin's through the fear of whom thou did'st Offer this Sacrifice of Fools And what befel Adam and all his Posterity with King Uzziah for Presumptuously setting or keeping up his Law-State or changable first-Covenant righteous Life of his own nature as therein
the crosse upon it be finish'd Be not therefore rash with thy mouth tongue language or expression of thy natural Spirit nor let thy carnal mind or fleshly heart that 's in union with the Devil be hasty forward and consident to utter any thing before God Let not that be the Speaker to Men in Preaching or to God in Prayer publick or private It will do Satan's drudgery carry on his designs where or when-ever it is the speaker or actour It will do all in enmity to God to his Spirit of truth and Saint's Let not thine heart be hasty to utter any thing or word before God This shew's Solomon mean's by mouth in the first clause the expressing and doing of the will and mind of the natural heart or Spirit that 's in enmity to God The Saint ought to have a jealous eye over it and keep a continual watch against it so as never to do the will or fulfil the lusts thereof but oppose fight against and crucisie them If we live and walk in Christ's Steddy Spirit of everlasting righteousness thus we shall do Gal. 5. 16. and 24 25. All yielding Obedience to or doing the will and lust of the flesh or carnal mind of enmity to God is compliance with the Devil against the Gospel-will of Christ in himself and us and divine will of God The natural Spirit is the home-bred traitour wrap'd up in a confederacy with the Devil in enmity to God the Foe of our own House or in our own persons by which Satan seek's to mischieve and destroy us 'T is our great concern to watch against this foe and keep it out of action till perfectly abolish'd and cut off and then shall we never be troubled with it more The restor'd Spirit of man that has bin as a bosome-friend and guide in the first-covenant house of God leading us out of the corrupt State of our nature and opposing the vile affections and lusts thereof filth of flesh turn's flat against the new guide and leader the Spirit of Christ in himself and us under the conduct whereof only t is possible for us to 〈◊〉 into God's rest This familiar friend and wife that lies in our bosome lifts up the heel and turn's flat against the new governour the Spiritual and sure guide to true bessedness as well as former familiar friends without doors that remain wholly in the first-covenant house establish'd by Satan in the righteousness of man and so in unchangable enmity to God Psal. 41. 9. Trust not thy bosome-friend when indeed turn'd into a bosom-enemy the Foe the worldly disputant the carnal-minded reasoner against and opposer of Christ's Gospel-Spirit in us our new guide Confer not with her Gal. 1. 16 Suffer her not to Speak or open her mouth And keep the door of thy mouth from her Let not the thoughts words prayers of thy Spiritual mind or man that 's to seek study and joyn with Christ to put her to death be offer'd to her in way of conference or treaty For She will be against all to be sure Ther 's no treating with her for peace whose enmity to God is curable only by her Death She is for war as long as one drop of mystical blood or life is left in her She will fight against Spirit to the last gasp Trust her not then Mica 7. 5. I am for peace say's David's Spiritual Man but if I open my mouth to speak of peace to my natural that with all the affections and lusts thereof that fight and war against my own soul 1 Pet. 2. 11. is alway's for war Psal. 120. 7. The carnal mind or natural Spirit is the he that hates peace that peace with God which is no otherwise attainable but by its Death The soul of the Spiritual Saint sojourn's in Mesech dwells in the tents of Kedar with him that hates peace the Foe of its own house till utterly abolish'd dead and gone v. 5 6. If we follow our former old guide in us against the lusts of our corrupted nature when thus turn'd against the new and sure Spiritual guide in us we are so far forth servants of sin and Satan Rom. 6. 16. These two Spirits natural and Spiritual Man's and God's first and second-covenant principles of life desire thought word and action in Man clearly stated and laid before him in their vast differences and irreconcilable contrarieties with the advantages and disadvantages of chusing this or that for the principle of our life and action eternal life or death does not a wrong and most foolish choice render a man undeniably and unexcusably guilty of his own eternal ruine Be not then rash with this mouth of thy Spirit of enmity to God nor hasty in that heart to utter any thing before God For how is it possible to speak right words or things to God or men in a 〈◊〉 of 〈◊〉 to God whose mouth speaks all its words in union with the Devil All that after Spiritual Light and strong conviction as to all these things afforded them do still persist in speaking the words of their hasty forward Spirit of enmity to God in preaching to men or pretended prayer to God are abominable to God in all For as their most aggravated wickedness madness and folly do they deliver themselvs up to the Devil as his sworn bored Slaves and vassals for ever When by way of death and 〈◊〉 Man's natural Spirit is transform'd and baptiz'd into a union with his Spiritual mind or man the Spirit of God in him then as a Seer of God and right obedient Servant to the true Prophet or Spiritual man in him 't is a meek rightly tuned spirit fitted to be a mouth or door of utterance for the things of God to his Spiritual man For God is in Heaven and thou upon Earth therefore let thy words be few God resides or dwells in the all-searching Light of his new-'creation Sanctuary-Spirit that can discover the bottom intent of all hearts Heb. 4. 12 13 that take up with Satan in his first-creation house or state in unchangable enmity to him and the second his heavenly house or Spirit When thou prayest then enter into thy Closet and shut thy Door Mat. 6. 6. exclude thy own Earthly understanding Mind or Will let them have nothing to do in or with thee in thy Prayers keep secret from them what thou pray'st and treatest about with God for thy Salvation For the Life of that is to be the Sacrifice by which to enter into the new and everlasting covenant with God Psal. 50. 5. Keep the Door of thy mouth from this false bosome-Friend and guide She will never consent to her own Death And in all true Saint's preaching to men and Prayer to God is this very thing to be taught and sought This foe is to be excluded out of the cabinet-counsell of Christ and the Saint who joyntly conclude the Death or utter abolition of all the Life and motion thereof If that therefore be
latter If they 'l not follow his suffering steps they never come where he is They prefer the earthy life and Countrey of the Creature to the heavenly life of the Creatour Blessed for ever The issue of and for this disobedience matters come to is this God will strip them of and take from them all the fading good they are possess'd of in the mystical earthly Countrey or land of their own restor'd enlighten'd nature as wilfully retain'd in a known rebellion against him The very same Mystical Sword or new-Creation Spirit of Christ and God will be drawn against them in final wrath to destroy them for ever which they so fear'd startl'd at and turn'd from when offer'd to be brought upon them in love to give them a kindly and right death-pass into the true land of promise Had they willingly obey'd it they had enter'd and eaten the good of the true land of promise But having absolutely and conclusively refused it and rebell'd against it they 'l be devour'd by the same sword or Spiritual cross upon them for ever The mouth of the Lord the living word of God Christ himself hath spoken it Isa. 1. 19 20. Obediently lose the fading life of nature and enter Rebelliously save pitty spare your own life and ye lose all for ever in eternal death under final wrath This is Christ's doctrin Mat. 16. 25. And this Christ presently deliver'd on Satan's contrary doctrin by an Apostle with the perswasive and seeming friendly words of his wisdom When he had spoken of his sufferings Peter rebuk'd him and preach'd the self-same doctrin to him the Old Serpent preach'd to Eve and by her to Adam Be it far from thee Lord this shall not be unto thee that is thou shalt not suffer or die at all This Spotless righteous law-life in holy flesh is eternal life no danger of death The Gospel-Riddle uninterpretable by Man's Wisdom is this die must nature or all 's lost nature and grace too all good in first or second covenant changable or unchangable And what succeeds unchangable evil of sin and punishment The obedient death of nature under the cross the full sevenfold purifying of it in the fiery furnace thereof from all dross tin and reprobate silver all filth of flesh and Spirit too renders man clean every whit Jo. 13. 10. This delivers him for ever from all captivities bondages enemies dangers and death's litteral and mystical Sodom Egypt and Babylon the life of nature corrupt or righteous both of which are a state of enmity to God and death to man if fix'd in Thou shalt never wash my feet said Peter No say's Christ then thou wilt have no part in me Oh then not my feet only but hands and head said Peter If feet be wash'd 't is enough say's Christ there need 's no more to make perfectly clean every whit whole and spiritually sound If the feet the will and understanding the two mystical feet on which man walks in his esteem judgment thought of and desire after things if these be Spiritual Heavenly Gospel-feet the discerning and desiring powers of the Gospel-Spirit and principle all will go right Heavenly things never-perishing meats will be wholly and only esteem'd desir'd and fed upon in this bottom-principle All will be right a-top in all Holy Gospel-Conversation when all 's right at bottom A Spirit greater then he that 's in the World the Devil in which 't is impossible to displease God Sin erre miscarry deceive or be deceived must needs ever do all things well and man be truly blessed in the deeds thereof The extream folly then of man in not only deferring but finally refusing to pay his engaged commanded vow for giving up his whole nature or Spirit the devoted thing in sacrifice by death unto God is unpardonable And then God will be extream and that most justly in marking all done amiss by him in his self-chosen nature and life He will call him to an account for every thing done therein from first to last This great transgression the presumptuous unpardonable sin unto eternal death will bring all other sin 's at its heels to be answer'd for as creditors come upon a man for lesser debts when clapt up in prison for a great one And then will every Spiritual conviction offered men in the day of their trial and God's patience towards them be reviv'd in them and stare them in the face to witness against them judg and condemn them in harmony with God himself When man's trial is over and sentence of death irrevocably past upon him God will not repent or change from his dispensation of wrath and man cannot repent or change from his rebellious mind of enmity against God Repentance will be hid from God's eyes and man's on all hands Unchangable enmity to God lay's man under the unchangable wrath of God thrust's him out of all distance as to any favour for ever or benefit by Christ's sacrifice or intercession Christ died not nor will intercede for the pardon of unchangable enmity to God and him And God will revive his formerly given Spiritual light to testify for him against them in their own consciences the evidence whereof can never be silenc'd extinguish'd or denied by them The irresistible testimony of it will be a perpetual condemner of them and justifier of God in his most wrathfull proceedings against them This is the worm never dies witnessing the fire of that wrath to be undeniably just which can never be quench'd Mark 9. 44. 46. 48. Vers. 6. Suffer not thy mouth to cause thy flesh to Sin neither say thou before the Angel 70. before God that it was an errour wherefore should God be angry at thy voice and destroy the work of thine hands The Spirit of man at best in its own life is but flesh The life mind will desire thought wisdom righteousness glory all the things thereof are but sleshly earthly perishing vanities Man in all altogether vanity is possess'd of no goodness but what 's a fading flower no beauty no glory but what will be consumed and done away Ps. 39. 5. and 49. 14. Isa. 40. 6. Man in all this is the slesh his mouth should not cause to sin Mouth as said signifies all manner of expression of this slesh 〈◊〉 mind or natural Spirit inward or outward in desire thought word or action If the inmost mouth bottom desire and thought of man be found approving of and consenting unto the entering into a firm unchangable union with the Devil the striking up an everlasting covenant with him then does it cause his flesh or natural Spirit to sin unpardonably against the Spirit of Grace the Gospel-Spirit or Holy Ghost in which convincingly shew'd he ought to enter into or strike a new and everlasting covenant with God His knowing wilful choice is rather to comply with the Devil in a fond self-destroying love to himself or his own life and nature to be by his most destructive workmanship Baptized into
followers are calculated and designed only to catch at something from them to accuse and charge them for right or wrong This was Christ's own case all along his Ministry on Earth among the Jewish Professors When brought Prisoner before the chief Priests and Council of the Jews very inquisitive are they for Witness against him to put him to Death but none can they get that will serve their turn Then they seek to pick something out of his own mouth to do their work For this the High-Priest ask's him Art thou the Christ the Son of the Blessed Tell us in a word Jesus said I am Oh! now we have him here 's enough out of his own mouth to condemn him what need we any further witnesses ye have heard the Blasphemy what think ye Guilty of Death say they as a cursed Jury of Rebels All 's of a batch Judges and Jury against Christ and his Followers They all condemned him as worthy of Death They never examine his Doctrine but cry tell us in a word this or that and lie at catch for an answer and then in another word condemn him for witnessing an infallible truth that 's their next word Then they spit on him buffet mock him and so on to his Crucifixion and Death Mark 14. 61. 65. What may the Servant expect when the Lord was thus handled So Luk. 22. 66-71 The Elders chief-Priests and Scribes lead him into their Council and all of them say to him Art thou the Son of God On his Answer they say What need of further witness For we our selvs have heard of his own mouth He has said enough at the Bar to take away his life though we had nothing else against him before What think ye Think bad enough no doubt all of a mind the whole rout of Wolves and Bears guilty of Death say all Christ asserted himself the Son of God Blasphemy cry they not considering whether true or false But Satan will such own not only for the Son of God but God most high himself He will assert himself to be God and the true new-creation Temple of God 2 〈◊〉 2. 4. in his transform'd appearance thereof and find followers and owners enow even amongst Professors Chief Priests Types of Christ by Office Elders and People of the Jews the only then professing people in the world Christ own'd himself the Son of God by way of Eminency above all other Sons of God begotten and Born of his Spirit Do any such dare to own themselvs Sons or Children of God in his new and everlasting Covenant-Principle his Gospel-spirit of Grace and Truth Dare they speak the words of that Spirit Words the Holy Ghost teaches and are these words contrary to their's and Satan's accursed other Law-gospel Down they go at a word for Blasphemers Guilty my Lord say the goodly Jurors all of a Pack chuse where you will Professors notion of grace is short They look 〈◊〉 it only as an act of favour from God as it is also and a transcendent gracious one But they consider not or own it as a distinct principle root and spring of life desire thought and action in man from the natural first-covenant or first-creation Law-principle A word to the wise But to undiscerning fools or worse wilful Rebels against conviction what words will serve the turn to recover them out of their folly and madness Here 's the great turning point for Eternal Life or Death Single nature corrupt or righteous fix'd in is certain Damnation Grace Salvation We are saved by Grace or in Grace through Faith or in the incorruptible new-covenant Gospel-Principles of everlasting Righteousness not in or by Nature which at best is but a fading Flower altogether Vanity not of our selvs or any thing performable by us in our own Nature the first-covenant Principle Eph. 2. 8 9. 'T is the gift of God the unspeakable gift of his Spirit of grace in us is Salvation to us Here 's a word to those that are only for a word and away about Christs Gospel-Doctrine for Salvation All ye talk of is but one thing say they 〈◊〉 therefore hear it in one word What need such a do with so many words about it Pray what 's yours and Satan's Gospel all that Man's and Satan's wisdom jointly preach up declare and warrant to be Salvation that indeed will prove eternal Damnation to all final and resolute followers and owners thereof what 's this but one thing as abovesaid That the righteousness of Man or Man in his restor'd righteous life according to the Law blameless is in a state of everlasting Salvation Did not Paul when all this most fiercely persecute Christ and all his Gospel-Saints and Truths And was he not as fiercely persecuted by such as soon as he became a Gospel-Saint What would ye have where must one be to get the least of Truth into your understandings and hearts What but this one thing the Righteousness of Man is the bottom-story of all your innumerable Books and Preachings for Salvation And what do all such gingling words such tinkling Cymbals amount unto A confused uncertain sound And if the Trumpet give an uncertain sound who shall prepare himself to the Battel What Battel the Battel of the Lord against the Mighty What Mighty Evil Angelical Principalities and Powers of this World If the righteous Life Armour Strength and Wisdom of Man be asserted fit to undertake them in all such Doctrine is a Lie All these are but as straw and rotten wood Job 41. 27. to the superiour Wisdom and Strength of evil Angels the mystical Leviathan or Goliah and his Philistine Army All such Doctrine from top to bottom in all variety of words and dress by Eloquence Wit Art and Method Reasons Uses Motives c. all is an absolute downright falshood Satan's Synagogue-Lie Rev. 3. 9. his accursed other Gospel the Laodicean Delusion v. 17. The Power of Godliness Life Wisdom Righteousness things of God all comprehended in his one Gospel-Spirit of Grace the unspeakable Gift these are the Gospel-onething necessary to be found in Man for Salvation Form of Godliness Righteousness Life Wisdom things of Man in his restor'd Law-spirit of Nature the first-Covenant Principle these make your one Law-thing you place Salvation in cloathing it only with the Gospel-words and titles of God's one thing to deceive See ye now where we both are with our several one-things And will ye allow God's one-thing and Christ's Gospel but one word and your one thing or Satan's Gospel-principle and state Millions in throng'd auditories and crowd's of numberless Books and Writings Must God's one-thing be decried for Heresie Blasphemy and a diabolical Fiction and the Devil 's and your one-thing be the only orthodox sober Truth or thing Fools when will ye be wise Psal. 94. 8. and look about you as to your most important concern which you yet leave at random and an all-adventures in the hands of your trusty Trojans your blind Leaders of
All these are to be enquir'd into and consider'd of promiscuously and inclusively in one line of discourse The Wise is Man in the restor'd the Fool Man in the degenerate corrupt spirit of Nature All 's but Nature both are possest of corrupt or righteous so all 's vanity Nothing of Grace true Regeneration Gospel-conversion or life in or about the best of them Paul at best in his Law-life of Nature fiercely persecuted this And in his Gospel-life of Grace was as fiercely persecuted by the other The Wise Strong and Honorable in Christ's first-Covenant communications finally opposing the second is a greater sinner and fool than the fool in the corrupt spirit of Nature here and will fall under sorer Condemnation and Wrath hereafter So is he the worst and will have the worst on 't in this World next He is the disputer of this World that 's perfectly unreasonable and untreatable as to the Gospel-things of the next which he can never discern in the Wisdom and Spirit he is of They are foolishness to him 1 Cor. 2. 14. He denies all root and branch the very foundation of all Gospel-Saints and Truth 's the living Corner-Stone the Rock of Ages the fountain Gospel-Spirit He denies there 's any such thing And if the foundations of all the true Saint is has or has to say be destroyd or denied what 's to be done Psal. 11. 3. They deny the Creature-Holy Ghost or Spirit of everlasting Righteousness in Christ and Saints They say there 's no such thing A Spiritual creature-life between Natural and Divine the said wise first-Covenant Saint utterly denies and shuffles out of all his Divinity and teaching What 's then to be done with him or said to him He is the most unreasonable Man in the World to be dealt with about Gospel-affairs however highly he pretends to them being wholly destitute of any spiritual Faith to discern them 2 Thes. 3. 2. 1 Cor. 2. 14. True Saints are not to cast Pearls Gospel-Truths before such Swine Mat. 7. 6. but beware of such Gospel-Wolves in sheeps cloathing Mat 10. 16 17. Can any deny this Law-life Wisdom Glory Honour Power all fading things must be parted with for God's Christ's Gospel-Wisdom Righteousness Glory never to be done away 2 Cor. 3. 10 11. 1 Cor. 3. 18. This is implied 1 Cor. 4. 10. To the self-confident first-Covenant wise all spiritual Gospel-Truths are foolish and the spiritual Saint a fool a mad man Hos. 9. 7 8. Christ's own People in the first reckon'd him mad for the Doctrine of the second Joh. 1. 11. 10. 20. what plainer or more suited to convince All Men corrupt or righteous are fools and enemies to all Spiritual Heavenly Gospel-Things or Truths These things are suited only to spiritual discerning or judgment which they are wholly destitute of 1 Cor. 2. 14. Wise Man walks but in a dream an image a vain shew Psal. 39. 6. dotes only on vanities All Glorious Heavenly Spiritual and Divine things all true Divinity lie clear out of the walk of his narrow limited wisdom that 's bounded only with vanities for object All divine and spiritual things are stark foolishness to such wise-fools Such dying as they live will be left in 〈◊〉 Want Nakedness Misery and Confusion The best things they can amuse and please themselves with are us'd and enjoy'd by them but in a Spirit of Enmity to God What was Paul while but there But besides the truly Gospel-wise in the spirit of Grace and fool in general in the whole spirit of Nature corrupt or righteous there is also in the compass of Nature the wise Man in the restor'd and fool in the corrupt spirit of Nature Also in the corrupt Nature is there a sort of wise Men and fools Some of great natural abilities cultivated by learned education and study others of small natural light or reason of weak and uncultivated minds But all in Nature are fools to the spiritual wise in Grace And even such wise Men may be short in natural parts and learning of either the first-Covenant wise Man or learned enlightened Heathen in their own Sphere of activity a subtilty and deep reach about natural concerns and objects Children of this World in their way may be wiser than true Children of light or the next Luk. 16. 8. But of all sorts of natural wise Men none so much decry the spiritual Man for a fool and mad as the wise strong and honourable in the first-Covenant See else Hos. 9. 7 8. Joh. 10. 20. 1 Cor. 2. 14. 4. 10. 2 Cor. 10. 12. Psal. 50. 20 21. Joh. 16. 2. Act. 26. 9. 1 Cor. 1. 18 -- 28. Which think ye were the fools the learned Council of the Jewish Priests Elders and Professors or Peter and John they term'd ignorant and unlearned Men Act. 4. 13. No wisdom of Man can understand or open their Writings The wisest Men first-Covenant Saints are fools to the Gospel-wise Man whom they reckon the arrantest fool of all If the Wisdom of God be foolishness to them can any wonder those that come with the words of that wisdom should be reckon'd fools by them Paul that had bin a wise Man in Man's day was a fool weak despicable no body with such when a truly Gospel-Wise-Man The true Gospel-preaching of the cross and death on all first-Creation-Life and Wisdom in first Covenant Jew or Gentile and wise learned Greek is an high offence and sore stumbling-block to both in their several states and way To be even with such they both agree to reckon them the veriest fools the Off-scouring of all things 1 Cor. 1. 23. and 4. 13. But all that have an incorruptible Seed of true Life in them though while dormant and unknown to themselves they bluster and storm at the Gospel-Believer a-while with Paul they will with him when awaken'd become true friends of the spiritual Brotherhood and helpers of their Faith The wisdom of the natural Man in all variety will be found foolishness at last and the spiritual Man the only wise in the view of all Men and Angels good and bad True Saints will laugh at last at all their scornful mockers that have laugh't a-while at them And all such laughing wise-fools will have time enough to recant their misjudging the truly wise in eternal darkness and death Who 's the fool then they 'l sadly experience after all their priding vaunting hugging and blessing themselves in their vain shew their dream their fools-paradise Nothing of their vain pomp will descend after them Psal. 49. 17. All their short-liv'd merriment and laughter is but as the crackling of thorns under a pot a blaze and away Eccl. 7. 6. Envy them that will None ought Psal. 37. 1 2. Pro. 23. 17. The spirit of Nature can't well or easily be unriddled anatomiz'd and laid open in its deep self-destroying deceits in few words yet will needs have all in a word and rather not that or if that scornfully reject it
Christ's new and heavenly his natural for Christ's spiritual creature-life and possessions A conclusive refusal to part with all we have is a final parting-blow between God and Man Paul found Corinthian Professors bewitch'd Galatians and belly-God Philippians dangerously engag'd towards a sixure in this most presumptuous Sin and Error 1 Cor. 4. 8. 2 Cor. 11. 2 3. Gal. 3. 1 -4. Phil. 3. 18 19. And Christ found a first-Covenant party in enmity to the second in most or all the seven Churches Rev. 2. 3. In Laodicea scarce any other and all this under the outward dispensation and ministry of the Gospel owning themselves as Gospel-Professors And what or who else in a manner at this day can we find but such anti-Gospel-Gospellers in all variety of opinion form and way All the highly pretending and conceited Children of the Kingdom in the most sublimated Church-forms or purest Churches in but restor'd first-covenant Law-principles without advance by exchange and Gospel-conversion will be found at a loss and cast or kept out of the Kingdom of Christ as not at all of his new-Covenant Gospel-spirit of Grace and Truth 'T is in the heavenly Wisdom of this only Men can attain the sight and inheritance of the most glorious divine Sun and of the new-creation Sun of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Mal. 4. 2. in the Mediator's person which is the greatest gain the highest prosit and advantage Man or Angel can receive or enjoy to all eternity This 〈◊〉 proves ver 12. Vers. 12. For Wisdom is a defence Heb. shadow and mony is a desence but the excellency of knowledg is that Wisdom giveth life to them that have it Here 's a distinguishing character of the first and second covenant spirits Lives Wisdoms with or by the effects riches and priviledges of each The Wisdom and mystical mony or riches of the first are a defence against the rude assaults the unruly brutish motions of the corrupt state of nature and do make up to Man all he thinks he needs for eternal life 1 Cor. 4. 8. Rev. 3. 17. But through the fading nature of all that life and riches and evil use of it in preference and opposition to the durable life and true riches in the Gospel-spirit of God all 's spoil'd Man's inordinate love to the former is that love of mony that 's the root of all evil against God and to himself evil of sin and punishment It renders all the mammon of unrighteousness as preferr'd to the 〈◊〉 riches of Christ in his infinite divine and everlasting righteous new-creation Life First-creation Life with the riches thereof is to be allow'd its due as good in its kind and lawful use for suppressing the unruly desires thoughts and motions of the corrupt state of Nature Man so using it is faithful to the Light afforded him by Christ in the first Covenant as a fleshly Bridegroom But then farther is he to follow this Bridegroom in the death and loss of all this fading life and riches Wisdom and Mony for what in spiritual conviction-Light is shew'd and offer'd him by Christ as a better Bridegroom and Comforter in the second This second and principal thing done as the passive part of obedience requir'd in the right and lawful use of all in the first Covenant law-state God is well-pleased and Man saved But be Man never so faithful in the active obedience performable in his law-life if he refuse to perform or yield to the requir'd passive obedience all his active turns in conclusion to no account at all Himself is turn'd out of God's house for ever as but that servant in his own law-spirit of bondage that refus'd to become a Son of God in his Gospel-spirit of glorious liberty that makes free indeed Jo. 8. 35 36. The truth the Gospel-spirit of Truth makes Man truly free ver 32. Where or in whomsoever that Spirit is is liberty 2 Cor. 3. 17. The Gospel-law of the Spirit of life is the perfect law of liberty It renders Man free not to but from all sin and death at last Rom. 8. 2. Jam. 1. 25. Man's spirit of bondage chosen before and against God's spirit of true freedom becom's a house a prison a state of eternal death to him If Man use his law-life aright as to the first end for which restor'd and miss the appointed and declared second all comes to worse then nothing for ever He misses that true Wisdom that gives and is eternal life to them that have it This the Law-life and best Wisdom of Man can never give or be to him Gal. 3. 21. Vers. 13. Consider the work of God for who can make that straight which he hath made crooked Consider well the life and state of Men and Angels as the first-creation Workmanship of God's hand and you 'l find it crooked first comparatively To the second make of them by his new-creating Workmanship all the fading goodness Life Wisdom Glory and Righteousness of the first are as nothing no Glory 2 Cor. 3. 10. If the Glory and other things of Man in the first be not only presumptuously compared with but preferr'd and exalted into a jusling competition with and opposition to the Life Glory Wisdom Righteousness Works Fruits and things of God offer'd them by a new and second Creation this renders all such things worse then nothing Yea if this be finally wilfully and conclusively done the Glory Wisdom Light Life Righteousness all things of Man are turn'd into unspeakable shame utmost folly and highest wickedness to which belong utter Darkness and eternal Death The corruptible seed 1 Pet. 1. 23. of God's left-hand planting in Man's or Angel's natural first-creation-make and state at its utmost growth flourish and fruitfulness amounts but to a fading flower Man in all at best is altogether Vanity This fleshly state of Life was figur'd by the tree of good and evil before the fall Since the fall 't is always evil root and branch tree and fruit silth of 〈◊〉 or spirit are found in all its operations fruits products or performances root and branch When Paul was eminent in the restor'd righteous law-life of Man how fiercely did he persecute the Gospel or new-Creature life of Christ in himself and Saints That was filth of Spirit enmity and despite to the very Gospel spirit of Grace in which any can be saved 't was a sinning against the holy Ghost but ignorantly When done knowingly and so wilfully t is the presumptuous unpardonable Sin unto Death God made Man upright set up in him a first-Covenant-life perfect in its kind but fallible corruptible changeable loseable as all mankind have sadly experienc'd by the first error of humane nature at best in the first Man Now what is corruptible God calls corruption The natural seed of a first-Covenant life cast into Man in his natural first-creation make and fashion of being was sown in corruption dishonour weakness By the obedient death of Man therein 't is rais'd in Incorruption Glory Power a spiritual
this riddle of providence in outward dispensations to friends as 〈◊〉 and foes as friends He sees not this mystery that when the wicked spring as the grass and all the workers of Iniquity flourish it is that they shall be destroyed for ever Psal. 92. 6 7. They are in their various self-pleasing wicked ways but treasuring up Wrath for themselves against the day of Wrath and posting to eternal death as happy as they both seem to themselves and others to be God's abused patience and long-suffring towards them will be found at winding up a signal aggravation of their sin and punishment Yet mean while God magnifies his mercy towards them in giving them so large a time to take notice of and advantage by his instructing warnings for preventing the wrath to come The mystical-wicked first-covenant Brethren fix'd in enmity to the 〈◊〉 do long live and prosper generation after generation in union of mind with the Devil filling up the measure of their Fathers in the highest and most criminal wickednesses Wolves in Sheep's-clothing are they Serpents a generation of Vipers that have drunk down the old Serpent's poyson of unchangeable enmity to God and 〈◊〉 then can they escape the damnation of Hell Mat. 23. 31 33. They 〈◊〉 and follow their first 〈◊〉 Fathers in former generations as persecuting Zelots against the second and so pass along into the same everlasting darkness after them and never see light Psal. 49. 13 19. To prevent this dangerous fixure in the righteousness of Man in the first covenant against the Gospel-life and new-creature righteousness of God in the second Solomon advises all capable of repentance or change of mind as follows Vers. 16. Be not righteous over-much neither make thy-self over-wise why shouldst thou destroy thy felf Heb. be desolate Man is righteous over-much or long in the first-Covenant when he over-much values it and lay's to great a stress upon it when he trusts rest's in and builds upon the changeable fallible principles thereof for Salvation On this mistake he refuses Christ's heavenly call to him to come up out of the life and image of the earthy into his heavenly out of the perishing life wisdom and righteousness of man in the first-covenant principle into the everlasting Life Wisdom and Righteousness of God in the second An overvalue for and unwarrantable security in the first endangers man's shutting the door of his heart and deafning his ear to Christ against his gracious offer of and invitation into the second So by preferring the Law-righteousness of man to the Gospel-life and righteousness of Christ and God do men destroy themselves bring the desolating final judgments of God upon their guilty heads This get they by being over-much righteous and over-wise as putting a value upon such righteousness and wisdom of their own nature above what is written of it 1 Cor. 4. 6. in God's Oracles of Truth Job while yet much in the dark as to what God was about to do with him said tho' he were perfect yet would he not know his own soul but despise even his righteous life Job 9. 21. The professing Jews blasphem'd and crucified Christ Paul breathed out threatnings and slaughters against the Disciples of the Lord from a fond conceit over-value for and 〈◊〉 in the restor'd life of the first Covenant and the wisdom and righteousness of man therein so as to prefer it to the everlasting Life Wisdom and Righteousness of God in the second This 〈◊〉 when Paul was happily deliver'd from he found his Jewish professing Brethren still in Rom. 10. 1 3. They were ignorant of God's Gospel Righteousness in the second and so zealous for their own Law-righteousness in the first While thus ignorant as he once and so pardonable and curable he earnestly pray'd they might so accept of and receive his Gospel-instructions that they might be saved He had greater love and better desires for them than they yet knew how to have for themselves He compassionatly bemoans and laments over 〈◊〉 on the same account Christ himself did Mat. 23. 37 38. O Jerusalem Jerusalem c. Behold your house is left unto you desolate Here 's the temper of the mystical earthly Jerusalem professor in all times and places under Law or Gospel They have bin all along generation after generation found in a posture of 〈◊〉 towards all right words brought to them in Christ's Gospel-spirit of true 〈◊〉 declaring the death of nature in the first-Covenant undispensably necessary to their sinding eternal life in the second The final refusal of the Lord's Counsel herein will render their first-Covenant house of feasting eternally desolate This twofold errour one the certain consequent of the other even the placing Salvation in the first and finally rejecting the life of God in the second is certain Damnation Man establish'd in his own righteousness as a state of Salvation is the unchangeable enemy of God Christ all spiritual Saints and Gospel 〈◊〉 This unlawful use of the Law or their own Law-life against Christ's everlasting Gospel-life amounts to that love of the World or of themselves in their worldly first-creation Law-life of Nature that 's enmity to God and his Gospel-spirit of Grace This is spiritual and most criminal adultery Jam. 4. 4. Law-life thus abused is the leaven of the Pharisees a root of bitternesses against the Gospel-life and Truths of Christ with mystically profane Esau Heb. 12. 15 16. Such wilful opposing instead of obedient submitting to God's Righteousness Rom. 10. 3. and Jam. 4. 7. keep 's Men from ever entering into God's Righteousness David the Type and Christ the Truth intercede against such incorrigible enemies Let 〈◊〉 not come into thy righteousness Psal. 69. 27. Let their habitation be desolate ver 25. ' Be not then righteous over-much or over-long by over-much valuing and over long staying in that first-Covenant life place or state whence by the death and loss of all thou art there possess'd of the true spiritual Children of Christ break forth into the new-creature-life of God Hos. 13. 13. Be not over-pleas'd transported and delighted with the fading righteous life of thy own nature so as to be leaven'd and sowr'd into a bitter enmity against that spiritual life of Christ in which alone any can be saved Prefer not thy mortal to Gods immortal righteous life Why shouldst thou destroy thy self or be 〈◊〉 and undone for ever This by turning all the fading Life Righteousness Wisdom Beauty and Glory by Christ himself set up in and put upon thee into a perfect abomination to him and cause of final desolation to thy self Vers. 17. Be not over-much wicked neither be thou foolish why shouldst thou die before thy time Heb. not in thy time Here 's another branch of Solomon's advice to another sort of Men whom he call's wicked living in the vile affections and lusts of the corrupt spirit of nature refusing the Redeemer's purchas'd and offered Deliverance out of that most palpably evil and shameful state of
bondage and death in trespasses and sins These under the self-polluting practices of their unbridled brutish lusts carry folly and madness written in their foreheads to be seen and read of all men in and by the restor'd common light of Nature They hate the righteous life of their own nature with all reproofs and instructions towards their recovery into it They abuse what light of Reason they have rendring it a slave to those brutish powers of life it ought to direct and rule over so as to prog about and fetch in provisions for them The consequent hereof Solomon declares to be a dying before or not in their time saying Why shouldst thou die before thy time In a literal sence how oft do men hasten the death of their body by 〈◊〉 riot and luxury These are bloody-minded men that shall not live out half their days Psal. 55. 23. They wholly delight in the brutish lusts and pleasures of their degenerate nature polluted in its own blood Ezek. 16. 6. dead in trespasses and sins Eph. 2. 1. Solomon advises men not to be over-wicked or stay over-long in the brutified polluted state of fallen nature out of which the first-covenant 〈◊〉 of Christ do break forth by a being born of and knowing him 〈◊〉 the flesh into the righteous fleshly-life of the Law who also 〈◊〉 to break forth out of that fading righteous state with the spiritual new-Covenant Children of Christ when warn'd of and call'd thereunto become guilty of more criminal 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and abominable Idolatries then they that remain wholly in their polluted Nature A being born but of the flesh or will of 〈◊〉 in Christ is vastly short of a being born of the spirit or will of God in him Joh. 3. 6. and 1. 13. That that 's born of his flesh is but flesh holy flesh righteous Nature makes but a first-Covenant Saint Spouse and Child of Christ which Paul wholly quitted as dung for the knowledge of 〈◊〉 after 〈◊〉 Spirit or in his Spiritual Resurrection-life This turn'd the Law-Saint in holy 〈◊〉 into a Gospel-Saint in God's holy new-creature Spirit of everlasting Righteousness 2 Cor. 5. 16. Phil. 3. 6 10. So became he a fool weak despicable as a crucified dead Man to them that were yet wise strong and honorable in Christ by the knowledge of him only after the flesh 1 Cor. 4. 10. or in but the first-Covenant But to the wicked here Christ has restor'd the first-Covenant Light of Rational Nature in every Man that comes into the World By this he shews or gives them a fair prospect into this first mystical Canaan or earthly Jerusalem-state and so a call into it even into the righteous cleans'd Life and State of their own Nature Those that refuse deliverance out of their polluted dead state of Nature do by this additional evil to their Hereditary Disease and Pollution from Adam pull the just charge of that original Sin upon their own guilty heads as delighting in it and chusing it in preference to any thing of the righteous life of Nature Adam had before his fall They render themselves literal Sodom incorrigibly and therefore unpardonably wicked to whom belongs the vengeance of eternal fire Jude7 as the meet recompence of such errour Rom. 1. 26 27. Will they reckon it too hard eternal punishment should be brought upon them in Hell for a little short brutish pleasure upon Earth In this also they greatly err not considering that their unchangeable enmity to God deserv's his unchangeable Wrath upon them Thus Man dies before his time chuses his state of death and pollution when he might receive the fairly offer'd Righteous Life of his own Law-Spirit of Nature again after which yet he may die eternally if he refuse by the right death and sacrifice of that to receive eternal Life in God's Gospel-Spirit of Grace But as an enemy of all Righteousness or Righteous Life God's and Man's too does he turn that but changeably dead state of Nature he was born in into a state of unchangeable eternal death a latter end worse then his beginning worse then that changeable curable recoverable state of death he was born in Such brutified monsters will not admit any thing of the least 〈◊〉 towards their Deliverance or Salvation not any thing towards 〈◊〉 rendring them clean sacrifices to God in a restor'd first-Covenant Life in order to receive his life in the second By this over-plus of wickedness does man hasten his own eternal ruine If he hate the Righteousness of man that he has seen much more does he hate the more excellent spiritual new-Creature everlasting Righteousness of God and much more yet the infinite and eternal Righteousness of the very Divinity that he has not seen 1 Joh. 4. 20. As still more and more above and contrary to the vile affections and lusts of his brutified self-polluting Nature Eternal death is the undeniably just recompence of all that finally refuse to submit to the Lord 's declared terms for their receiving eternal life whether they be found in corrupt or righteous Nature whether Publicans and Harlots common 〈◊〉 of the Gentiles or Righteous Scribes and Pharisees professing first-Covenant Jews or Christian Gentiles So have we the sence in which these two verses 16 th 17 th are spoken to two sorts of Men professors and profane one perishing by being over-much righteous the other by being over-much wicked The former will needs have his Righteousness and Wisdom to be everlasting and unchangeable above and beyond all that God has ever written or spoken of it crying Peace peace to himself and others therein as entitled thereby to eternal life and peace in and with God All this in a perfect contrariety to all God's Declarations Counsels and Warnings about it So they love and delight in what Christ makes the hating parting with and death of undispensably necessary to their being saved Eternal death is the meet recompence of such errour finally persisted in As for the overmuch-wicked ver 17. he sinks himself into a far worse condition then left in by his first Parents So come they both to a latter end worse than their beginning eternal darkness and death These two sorts of incorrigible sinners mystical and literal Sodomites bring upon themselves swift destruction by denying the Lord that bought them 2 Pet. 2. 1. One denying or refusing to receive him so much as in his first the other in his second or new-Covenant life And of the two the mystical Sodomite will have the worst on 't for ever under the wrath to come Mat. 11. 24. Vers. 18. It is good that thou should'st take hold of this yea also from this withdraw not thine hand for he that feareth God shall come forth of them all The good we should take hold or lay hands on is Christ's new-creation life of Truth the absolute unchangeable good thing that 's to be sought and pure as'd at any rate sold or parted with at no rate Prov. 23. 23.
's made after the Supream new-creature image or similitude of God in Christ's Person the image of the Heavenly Adam The restor'd natural man may and ought to bless God for his mercifully restor'd righteous Law-life as effectually call'd out of his corrupt state but when by God's second voice or 〈◊〉 call summon'd to deliver up all that back again for a spiritual and more excellent life he curses rebell's against and 〈◊〉 this Gospel-voice 〈◊〉 heavenly Call all the words and things or truths of God's Gospel-spirit and Wisdom On these various accounts 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Cursing for a time out of the same mouth of the Saint But others in their restor'd Nature fixing themselves in enmity to God's Spirit of Grace go on cursing and 〈◊〉 to eternal death With Gospel-Brethren these things ought not so to be nor will always be so When the envious spiteful Curser and Blasphemer the Belial-party the Insidel or unbelieving Rebel in the Saint the natural man or spirit is fully crucisied dead and buried and then rais'd into unchangeable harmony of mind with his spiritual and so with Christ and God most high then all such cursing-work will cease for ever But till all old things with Man's old life of nature are pass'd away from the Saint and all God's new things fully compleated in him has even he need enough of this advice not to heed the Counsels per verse thoughts reasonings cursings or evil-speakings of the natural spirit in himself or others against the whole Gospel-Doctrine of the Cross and only way of Salvation Let it bark and make what noise it will they should regard none of its thoughts lusts words or ways so as sinfully to comply with or follow it but slight turn from and avoid as much as in them lies this troubler opposer and hinderer of their spiritual mind till wholly cut off and taken out of the way Vers. 23. All this have I proved by Wisdom I said I will be wise but it was far from me The Wisdom by which Solomon examin'd found out and proved the truth of all things could be no less then the spiritual new-creature Wisdom of God In this he saw all things divine spiritual and natural in their distinct differing excellencies and perfections So could he call all things by their right names and give their true discriminating characters This is the peculiar priviledg of the spiritual Man's understanding 1 Cor. 2. 10 15. Solomon in this did with his Father David see all natural first-creation things of Man and Angel at last to be altogether vanity Psal. 39. 5 6. The wisdom of Man at best is the wrangling disputer of this World about and against all things of God in the next 'T is the contradicting blasphemer of all such things absolutely denying the very Gospel-spirit life and principle of the next 'T is the wisdom from beneath earthly sensual or natural and if fix'd in devilish Jam. 3. 15. the unchangeable enemy and opposer of God's Wisdom and all the words thereof in true Saints The natural undertaker in such Wisdom to debate matters of Salvation things of God is the untreatable unreasonable man Paul desir'd to be delivered from 2 Thes. 3. 2. A self-confident Man utterly denying the very Gospel-Principle or Spirit of Christ the Saints rocky foundation in defence of his sandy is unreasonably burthensome to the Saint when intruding to discourse Gospel-matters which he knows nothing of Envying strife confusion tumult or unquietness and every mischievous evil thing or work what else can come on 't 〈◊〉 3. 16. 2 Tim. 2. 16 17. Here 's the result of all such discourse and engagement The quarrelling worldly Disputant discourses in choler 〈◊〉 goes away full of Wrath meditating revenge on the spiritual Saint for his cross-doctrine Such Swine ravenous Wolves and poisonous vipers Christ advises Saints not to cast Gospel-Pearls or Truths before But where the wise man suspect's and question 's his fitness in such wisdom to judg of such matters the case is altered He may hopefully be dealt with in such affairs In the latter clause of this verse Solomon speaks of another state and wisdom he had bin eminent in the wisdom of Man distinct from that wherein he had proved all things What he happily at last found in the Spiritual Wisdom of God he had bin successlessly and vainly seeking long before in the wisdom of man tho' taller then his fellows there I said I will be wise but it was far from me True Wisdom was far from me as wise as I thought my self All eternal divine spiritual heavenly most excellent concerning things and truths lay clear out the reach and comprehension of that earthly wisdom as far as the Heavens are above the Earth Vers. 24. That which is far off and exceeding deep who can find it out How should the shallow weak-sighted low earthly wisdom of Man ever find out the exceeding deep high remote divine and creature-things of the wisdom of God that are all spiritual heavenly and from above Gospel-things and Truths mysteries of the Kingdom of God lie in a depth unfathomable at a distance never to be reach'd by the utmost line of natural first-creation understanding They are spiritually 〈◊〉 1 Cor. 2. 14. Or by new-creation understanding only Man in his best wisdom bid's at an absolute impossibility Brute beasts in meer sensual life may as well if not better bid at the rational things of Man as of nearer kin to their things all of the first-creation sort natural then the spiritual things of God are to the natural Man and his rational intellectual things And when Man has thus presumptuously pitch'd upon things beyond the reach of his own wisdom he is ready to complain of and dispute against God that he has reserv'd things of highest concern to him out of his sight all spiritual heavenly new-creation things Wisdom Life and all in which found Rom. 10. 6 7. This does Man in stead of yielding to the terms of receiving that wisdom wherein he might reach see or know all things the loss of his own Life and all All spiritual things or truths are hidden seal'd up mysteries from the most soaring searching capacity of man in first-creation wisdom The Scriptures are a Book seal'd as to all the spiritual truths thereof from the highest wisdom of Man Isa. 29. 11. The professing learned Jews yea the very Apostles knew not what to make of Christ's Gospel-words New-covenant doctrine while they were but in old or first-Covenant Wisdom The Bread I give is my flesh says Christ. How can this be say the Jews Joh. 6. 51 52. A hard saying who can hear or understand it say his very Disciples ver 60. So when he spoke of his Sufferings and Resurrection a little while and ye shall not see me viz. as a fleshly Bridegroom again a little while and ye shall see and know me viz. as a spiritual one in my Resurrection-Life Act. 2. 1 4. which was the promise of the
the true Shepherd the said strange Woman fill's her mouth with the most inticing perswasive words of her serpentine wisdom to furnish them for the serving all her mischievous designs upon themselves and others The words of Man's and Satan's wisdom's joyntly hand forth another pretended Gospel in flat opposition to every word of Christ's clothing all their falshoods with the misapplied letter of his words of truth This Woman's words are smoother than Butter softer then Oil but are drawn Swords wounding Men to eternal death Psal. 55. 21. Many strong Men Wise Strong and honourable in Christ by first-Covenant attainments have bin So slain by her Prov. 7. 26. The palate and temper of humane Nature in general is what Ahab discover'd in hating the one true Prophet Micaiah that counsell'd him contrary to his own will for his good and rewarding the four hundred false ones that gratified his will to his own destruction 1 Kin. 22. The language or thought of all natural hearts God declar's to be this Prophesie not unto us right things speak unto us smooth things prophesie deceits Isa. 30. 10. and Satan finds false Prophets enow in a readiness to gratify them so as to keep true Seers out of all hearing or regard all whose words lie cross to the will palat and desire of humane nature corrupt or righteous in all mankind They preach the Cross and death to it in all as necessary to the Salvation of any This Satan represents as the greatest loss and prejudice imaginable to them indeed their utter ruine He advises them to hold fast their own decrying the pretended advantages of suffering and dying even a living and reigning with Christ as meer delusive fictions All men in their natural principles corrupt or righteous stand ready for receiving Satan's doctrin the doctrine of Devils pleasing to Nature in all variety of condition it can be found in No man in that worldly nature and spirit receives Christ's Gospel-Testimony Joh. 3. 22. 14. 17. This must needs make a vast difference between the numberless flockers after Satan's Gospel and the few or next to no listners after Christ's When Satan has lock'd up men in a double prison the will of their own fixed spirit of bondage and his will upon that in this firm union of these self-embondaging spirits and wills are they invincibly hardned against all the words of God's Wisdom And then the whole counsel of the Devil in his Mystery of Iniquity passes currant with them for the whole Counsel of God in his mystery of Godliness Solomon Paul and other awaken'd spiritual Saints can find out all these depths wiles devices snares and nets of this Woman that they see their fellow mortals even the professing party so generally involv'd entangled and caught in This Woman is more bitter than death her heart being full of snares and nets So subtilly contriv'd and methodiz'd as most certainly to catch all that refuse and so are destitute of the new-creation wisdom of God which alone can enable to number and find out the name and nature of this first-creation Beast Rev. 13. 18 with all her natural perfections disguis'd and gilded over by her whorish paint and transforming skil with counterfeit resemblances of spiritual in order to give the utmost shock of opposition to what is so For this end does she vent her Gospel-lies in hypocrisy or feigned resemblances of Christ's Gospel-Truths 1 Tim. 4. 1 2. Thus accoutred and furnish'd with gilded painted snares and nets from the date of her first sin and fall is she the Captain-General of all her hosts of evil Angels and Men fix'd with her in a spirit of unchangeable darkness and falshood against God and his new-creature-spirit of marvellous Light and infallible Truth Under her powerful witchcrafts and alluring charm's fell Man at best And what can he do that comes after the King Adam in the unstain'd purity of all natural perfections and excellencies of humane nature Remember this first battel in which all mankind with the first fell dead at the Serpent's feet dead in trespasses and sins and do so no more Job 41. 8. Never think of undertaking him with success in but the gradually restor'd Righteous Life Wisdom and Armour of Man In the most restor'd righteous natural Man is now found actual enmity to God but changeable pardonable curable by the cross not otherwise If Satan render this unchangeable and unpardonable his work is finish'd Christ comes with Fire and Sword speaks War and Death to Nature at best Satan with flattering kisses and pleasing Words Who is like to be best liked by Man The wounds of the true Friend and Saviour submitted to will be Salvation The kisses and smooth words of the enemy complied with Damnation Prov. 27. 6. Satan finds in man a natural inclination to resist the Cross as his enemy and he leaves no meanes unattempted conducible to the fixing him in such resistance Then is he his own true subject in his kingdom of darkness and God swears in wrath he shall never enter into his Kingdom of Light This Woman will not fail to lay her snares and nets before Saints every step they are making under the cross towards the Kingdom of God while any thing of his natural friend in them is yet about them He was at it with Christ himself again and again while he had any thing of our pure fleshly Nature and changeable life of the Law in him Mat. 4. 16. 22 23. Luk. 4. Man establish'd in his own Righteousness thinks all safe for Salvation when fast lodg'd in the very arms of this grand mystical Adulteress the Devil irrecoverably wrap'd and bound up in the bundle of death caught and held fast in her nets and snares while pleasing himself with hopeful thoughts that his soul is bound up in the bundle of life with the Lord as David's 1 Sam. 25. 29. The perswasive words of Man's and Satan's wisdom are exactly calculated to gratify the desires of humane Nature in order to fix men in enmity to the unpleasing doctrine of the cross upon it and so perfectly deafen them to the voice of the true Shepherd all the words of God's Wisdom in himself and Saints to all spiritual charmers charm they never so wisely Psal. 58. 4 5. Man by willingly giving himself up in obedience to and compliance with Satan's known lie against God's known truth Heb. 10. 26. is abhorred of the Lord and given up by him to such strong delusion as holds him fast in the snares of this bottomless pit the very spirit of the Devil that he be damn'd with him 2 Thes. 2. 10 -12. When men are thus caught in the Snares of this Woman her hands are as bands upon them powerful cords and chains they can never break or get loose from never get out of this deep Dungeon and bottomless pit into which they have plung'd themselves Who so pleaseth or is good before God shall escape her but the Sinner shall be taken
of deceits full of snares and nets as the very Kingdom of God and Salvation to men And they 〈◊〉 others to hope that they will confirm or make good their word Ezek. 13. 6. In a 〈◊〉 spirit of Divination do Devil and Man joyntly declare this and boldly affirm 't is in the Lord's Spirit of Truth they say so They say the Lord saith They see nothing but vanity and preach up nothing but perishing vanities the natural excellencies or fading things of Man or Angel in the first-creation for eternal Life They speak only of the world this world's vanities and the world hears them all the world wonder 's after them 1 Joh. 4. 5. Rev. 13. 3. All in the but earthly spirit of nature corrupt or righteous are for such Preaching or none at all Satan's Apostles or Ministers come forth in great variety of form language and way all making but a universal Babel of confusion running their hearers into the very bosom of the Devil the bottomless-pit of all deceits and falshoods as their only security for Salvation Men are deeply concern'd to take heed who they hear not such strangers to and enemies of Christ's Gospel Jo. 10. 4 5. and then what and how they they hear Mark 4. 24. Luk. 8. 18. that they rightly take the voice or words of the true Shepherd and his Spiritual Apostles or Messengers and obey them Many may hear right Gospel-words and not understand them Mark 4. 12. And then they 'l not follow or obey them but run still after Satan's Law-Gospel Those that distinguish not the Words of God's from those of the Serpent's Man's Wisdom how should they scape the snares of this grand mystical Adulteress If they suffer themselves willingly to be beguil'd into a perswasion that Satan's Gospel and that which true Saints call Christ's are all one they are caught in the snares of the Devil Satan's Apostles say those that pretend to be Christ's differ from them only in an affected singularity and disguise of words not matter While this shuffle will serve the turn Satan's Gospellers find it not needful or convenient to enter the lists for a debating the case with Sion-Saints about a true Gospel-state But if Christ's Gospel come forth in such sharp discriminating language as to evidence its distinction in the whole matter of it from Satan's and Man's then to prevent yet any farther trouble about it they sit in their Majesterial Chair and in general without meddling with any particular in it decry it for the most dangerous destructive blasphemy and falshood that ever was invented or impos'd upon Men worse then Popery or Mahumetanism then the grossest Idolatries or most brutish practices of any Heathens This general vilifying Christ's whole Gospel-doctrine and assertors of it as the vilest of doctrines and men they 〈◊〉 a far easier and safer way then to meddle with any particulars of it Thus far and at this rate only seems the shock of opposition to be given to it and manag'd against it at this day But if matters once grow to that pass that some valuable number of awaken'd Saints and spiritually convinced Men should be the Assertors Followers and Owners of the very Christ the very Gospel so as to give occasion to Satan's Gospel-ministers to say in the same levened sowr spirit of enmity to God with the Pharisees Perceive ye how ye prevail nothing behold the World is gone after them when this comes to pass enemies will go another way to work The Jews when they could not resist or bear up against the wisdom and spirit by which Stephen spake they could and did through the permission of God and instigation of the Devil silence him as they reckon'd with stones But he being dead yet speaketh as Abel and all other such witnessing Saints most injuriously slain for the Testimony of Jesus in the Spirit of true Prophecy The regenerating transforming assimilating touch of the Gospel-spirit of Christ sixes Man 's versatile changeable Law-spirit in eternal obedience to and harmony with God The degenerating transforming assimilating touch of the spirit of the Devil on Man's fixes it with himself in unchangeable enmity to God as the very principle of his life desire thought word and action By one or other of these unchangeable good or evil spirits comes man to be lodg'd up in a state of eternal life or death a bed of true rest and unspeakable joy Isa. 57. 1 2. or of everlasting sorrow Isa. 50. 11. torment and vexation of Spirit He that 's born of God's unchangeably good Spirit is secure from the transforming touch of the unchangeable evil-one 1 Joh. 5. 18. The touch of spirits is a qualifying alterative touch baptizes Man's changeable spirit into the unchangeable toucher the Spirit of God or of the Devil By the death of their own spirit that Satan can touch and 〈◊〉 into the life of God's Spirit he can 〈◊〉 touch by this way and means and this only are Saints 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 from all the nets and snares of this grand Adulteress the Devil The whole World all that take up in their worldly earthly life of nature run into them A babe a suckling in Christ's Spirit is too hard for 〈◊〉 Psal. 8. 2. Man in the highest restor'd perfections of his own is no body in his hands Job 41. The incorrigible first-creation sinner is taken by her the new-creation Saint who alone pleases God shall escape all her nets snares hands or bands for ever Vers. 27. Behold this have I found saith the Preacher counting one by one to find out the account Solomon in the Sanctuary-balance the al-searching new-Creation Spirit of true prophecy weigh'd one thing after another so as to give a clear and full account of what he was so inquisitive after an everlasting state of Truth and Righteousness He weigh'd and tried all parts of the first Creation the utmost goodness and excellencies found in Man and Angels before their fall or restor'd in Men since and in the total sum of all found the one thing necessary for the true blessedness of any wanting 'T is not in the whole first-Creation Land of the living Job 28. 21. or state of Life No such thing found he in the whole heap of this World's Vanities So arriv'd he at this negative satisfaction that there 's no hope of ever finding true happiness there He resolv'd therefore no longer to squander away his time with others in seeking for the living amongst the dead or true Life and Happiness in a Region of Darkness and of the shadow of Death No such life as will swallow up Death into Victory is to be found there nothing but what Death will swallow up into Victory and triumph over for ever This he declares Vers. 28. Which yet my Soul seeketh but I find not one Man among a thousand have I found but a Woman among all those have I not found No unchangeably good thing could he find in the first-creation What then found he One
Man among a thousand but no Woman among them all No true happiness to Man or Angel in the changeable womanish first-creation life of either What 's not there can the wisest man never find 'T is folly to seek it there The self-evidencing vanity of all first-creation things is such that all and every one say 't is not in me in us no true life wisdom or goodness no manly unchangeable new-creation Wisdom Life or Goodness is to be found in or amongst us all seek while you will 〈◊〉 28. 12 -- 22. The first-creation life of Nature in the first-covenant spirit or Law-principle of action God alway saw defective as to the true blessedness of Man or Angel He had beforehand therefore even from everlasting set up prepared and kept in reserve to bestow a creature-life of everlasting Righteousness in his new-Covenant Gospel-spirit that 's in unchangeable harmony with his infinite Divine Spirit Heb. 8. 6 〈◊〉 The Law makes nothing perfect Heb. 7. 19 no incorruptible Perfection or unchangeable good is to be found in the natural first-creation make or Law-life of Angel or Man The Law never had in it nor therefore could give true Life or everlasting Righteousness to any Gal. 3. 21. 〈◊〉 Is it could no need of Grace Gospel new-Covenant new-Creation Man's and Satan's Gospel says there is 〈◊〉 Life in the first Covenant principle the spirit of the Law or natural first-creation-state ye shall not die at all What need then of a second Never look farther for eternal Life Adam's yielding to this Doctrin slew all his posterity Yet abundance of his posterity when restor'd to some measure of the life they had and lost in and with him are at the very same point Can't the universal sad experience of Mankind as to the dreadful consequents of their first sin nor all examples of like Apostacy since nor all the abundant reiterated Warnings and multiplied Counsels of God or Instructions by the mouth of all his holy Prophets and Apostles or Messengers since the World began yea and by the Son himself prevent men's running into the same error sinning after the similitude of Adam's transgression What then can How currant does renewed old first-creation life pass at this day for new and the words thereof for Gospel How mad were the righteous Jewish Teachers and Professors with Christ for disturbing their peace and dashing their hopes in Satan's Gospel-state Whereas 't is in God's new-creature life and wisdom only on the death and loss of all this we can receive God's eternal good things to have hold and enjoy for ever These are we to eye and look at 2 Cor. 4. 18. 1 Pet. 1. 3 4. Not one Woman could Solomon a true spiritual Preacher find in the whole first-creation not one Man or Angel in that changeable womanish state in whom was any such thing as eternal Life or everlasting Righteousness any unchangeable good thing From his certain experience and infallible sight hereof he declares it 's never there to be had But he leaves not the point so On this Negative testimony giving a dash on the whole first-creation state he proceeds to the Affirmative shewing where the one thing necessary unchangeable Goodness is to be found in the second or new-creation Spirit and State signified by the one Man among a thousand The manly Spirit of the second Adam never sinn'd nor can any born of it as living and walking therein 1 Tim. 2. 14. 1 Joh. 3. 9. Gal. 5. 25. This one Man the manly new-creation Spirit Solomon found among the many thousands of blessed Angels and Saints yea in Christ the head and all the members of his mystical body the Church Col. 1. 18. 1 Cor. 12. 13. Eph. 5. 23. Christ and all his true thorow-followers whithersoever he goes and call's them make up the one mystical Man in unchangeable opposition to the Devil and all his Babylonish Party of Angels and Men fix'd in the first-creation womanish state the whole mystical-Whore of Babylon Not one Man nothing of the manly new-creation spirit in all these nor one Woman to be found nothing of the womanish spirit in all the compleated new-creation body of Christ the one mystical Man All these come to be of the same mind and judgment in every thing as one Man There' s no Female in new-creation Life no Male in the first Angel Man and Woman are all but the mystical Woman in the first and when fix'd there unchangeably so and so an unchangeable Adulteress against the man Christ to whom she ought to have been married in the second In a peculiar prerogative-sence Christ himself is the one Man among a thousand even thousands of thousands of his Spiritual Saints and Angels as the fountain of that Life they are all partakers of He never fails to give it in the distinct measures and seasons appointed by his Father to all the Father has given him Joh. 17. 2. All the things of the Man here are eternal of the Woman temporal Eternal Life and Death are set before us in these two Spirits the manly second and the womanish first-Creation Spirit All that hate Christ in the second love and chuse their own eternal Death in the first Prov. 8. 36. Christ the one Man Solomon found among the thousands of his Saints in a headship of pre-eminency over and above them all comprehensively signifies the whole number of elect Angels and Men in whom his one Spirit lives and they in it Here then have we the negative and affirmative Testimony of this Kingly Preacher in this grand concern of Man where eternal Life is to be found and where not Ver. 29. Lo this only have I found that God hath made Man upright but they have sought out many Inventions Here 's a farther account not only of the first-creation state but man's evil use thereof God made him upright pure clean and righteous without spot any filth of slesh or spirit very good Gen. 1. 31. but changeably so So soon did he make himself very evil by rebellion against him that made him very Good This by following his own many evil inventions Having once rebell'd do men set themselves to seek out many inventions to justifie and fortifie themselves in their self-chosen evil way of rebellion against God to their own destruction This destructive trade are they at might and main turning the deaf ear to the spiritual charmer the spirit of Truth in Christ and his followers wholly rejecting all the Counsels of God against their own souls Luk. 7. 30. This is the case of all first-covenant Lawyers in the renew'd righteous life of the Law in their own spirit of Nature in enmity to the newness of life in Christ's Gospel-Spirit of 〈◊〉 and all the words thereof They resolutely and confidently walk in their own invented paths to damnation refusing resisting defying contradicting and blaspheming the only way of God's invention and most wise contrivance for their Salvation God's abundantly declared way from first
to last and all along is a death-pass to the spirit of Nature under the cross or death-work of his Spirit of Grace into its own everlasting righteous Life It takes down their natural sandy-foundation'd Building to build them up anew in its rocky-life that 's 〈◊〉 then theirs as the Heavens than the Earth a Life a Glory never to be done away Man is grown to have exceedingly contrary thoughts and ways to God's in reference to Salvation And he will on in his own invented way to destruction rather then in God's to Salvation Hereby have all Men in and with the first and many Angels given many infallible sinful proofs the wrong way of the changeableness of the good and upright state they were 〈◊〉 in The good Angels with their head as the Lamb 〈◊〉 from the foundation of the World proved it the right way by a death of that and resurrection into a life unchangeably good 〈◊〉 the Head look'd and went they look'd and went turned not or looked back as they went When he was lifted up from the Earth or out of the earthy changeable first-creation life of Nature these angelical wheels or chariots were lifted up by him For his spirit was in them Ezek. 1. 12. and v. 19 -21. and Ezek. 10. 11. The spirit of the living creature or spirit of life was in them v. 16 17. They follow'd the Lamb whithersoever he went thro' the death of the first-creation state into the Resurrection-life of the second in which he became the first-born from the dead Col. 1. 18. In the utmost reach of those words Rev. 14. 4. the peculiar Spousal Saints follow the Lamb whithersoever he goes over all the heads of the highest elect Angels sitting on the very Throne with him as his Bride and Wife about which they stand Rev. 7. 11. as friends of the Bridegroom and his choice Bride from among men A sinless power of sinning was in Angel and Man at best The exerting this in sinful Acts was their sin and fault unpardonable in Angels at first pardonable in Men till wilfully committed the second time in their own persons after the similitude of Adam's first sin This amounts to a fix'd preferring the Life Wisdom and Nature of Man to the Life Wisdom and Grace of God the Creature to the Creator The fruit of this their own device and invention will Men find a sowrer Grape then Adam at first ate unchangeable Wrath Prov. 1. 31. Many such do prosper in their own self-chosen way having more then heart can wish in this World They set their mouth against the Heavens or heavenly Spirit of Christ in himself and Saints Psal. 73. 7 9. But what come they to Desolation in a moment they are utterly consum'd with terrors ver 18. 19. They spend their days in wealth or mirth and in a moment go down to their eternal grave Job 21. 13. These fat and strong Cattel in first-Covenant Life Strength and Wisdom thrust with their shoulder and push the diseased with their horns the lean feeble poor and needy Cattel Spiritual Saints whose Natural Man is death-struck by the Cross or Gospel-sword plagu'd and chasten'd continually thereby Ezek. 34. 20 21. Psal. 73. 14. Those the Lord is thus disciplining for Salvation Heb. 12. 6 7. the poor and needy little ones of Christ's flock do the sturdy daring stiff-necked self-confident proud fat full wise strong and honourable 1 Cor. 4. 10. first-Covenant Cattel despise deride shoot all their revengeful Arrows bitter Words against Psal. 50. 20. Their teeth are Speares and Arrows their Tongues sharp Swords against them Psal. 57. 4. Thus are they merrily posting to the Chambers of Death while the impoverish'd needy ones of Christ are passing through much Tribulation into the Kingdom of God Act. 14. 22. The former make swist steps in the broad way to Destruction the latter safe steps in the narrow way under the Cross that narrows and shrinks Nature to death unto Salvation The former set their heads awork to invent what will gratify their own Wills in a known contrariety to God's They fondly and madly please themselves with hopes of Salvation in a state all mankind have experienc'd no such thing was ever to be found in at best in innocency The Righteousness of it then was but a fading Garment Since the fall 〈◊〉 raggs Isa. 64. 6. Think they to enter the Kingdom and sit at the Marriage-Supper of the Lamb in such Garments where all the Guests are cloath'd with everlasting Righteousness See what 's like to become of them 〈◊〉 22. 11 13. Their life is not of the same kind nor their Garments of the same Cloth make or fashion with the true Saint's So will they be thrown out of Christ's Kingdom of Marvelous Light into Satan's accursed Darkness their own proper deserved place with Judas Act. 1. 25. Angel's first sin rendred them unchangeably evil because unpardonably wicked being a full noon-tide daring and most presumptuous Sin against the Holy Ghost 〈◊〉 first sin render'd him but changeably evil and if he love that so well as to become unchangeable in it he will sind himself in the same condition with evil Angels even in unchangeable enmity to God Let God then be true and every Man a liar Rom. 3. 4. God made Man upright Man by his own evil choice and invention has spoil'd himself and is the single and only demeritorious cause of his own ruine He seeks out many inventions Errour is manifold Truth one the Gospel-spirit of Truth one in head and members Men are toss'd to and fro into variety of Opinions and Ways from their various conceptions in their fluid wavering unstable unconstant spirit under the blasts and inspirations of Devils David aware of this pray'd for that right or constant Spirit of God the evil one can't touch Psal. 51. 10. 1 Joh. 5. 18. Yesterday to day and for ever from everlasting to eternity is God's Creature-Spirit of Truth one and the same This 〈◊〉 the one thing with all its things of God awak'ned Spiritual Saints are for and interpret the Scriptures of Truth given by this Spirit of Truth into Man's one thing and things of that thing is his own spirit of nature which by the Conceptions and Words of his own Wisdom he interprets all Scripture into in favour and defence of himself against the cross of Christ and all the spiritual Truths and sence of Scripture the things of God as the very sum and substance of all his humane Divinity And he will not endure this one thing of his should be call'd by its right name a spirit of direct enmity to God and all his Gospel-Truths Consequently as unwilling is he Christ's one thing or Spirit of Truth should be call'd by its right name or any name at all He denies there is any such Holy Ghost or Spirit at all communicable to men John's Disciples and conscientious faithful followers in first-covenant holiness Paul found at Ephesus wholly ignorant of any such thing
alway's for An open 〈◊〉 to the 〈◊〉 voice and too general reception of the methodiz'd words of man's wisdom as orthodox-Gospel does wonderfully disframe Peoples minds and prejudice them as to a right listning to one right Gospel-word of God's If the true Gospel-Preacher gratisie not their prurient or itching ears their vain wanton understandings or fancies with the humane methods they have bin all along accustom'd to and habituated in from enmity to and dislike of the matter they 'l pretend that occasion to fly off from any farther hearing it The numberless things of the Gospel one thing 〈◊〉 the Pearl of great price the unspeakable gift the Thoughts Affections Words Works Births Fruits and products thereof will be sound to out-number as well as transcendently to exceed in dignity all man's first-creation no-things shadows things that are not Things 〈◊〉 have their numerous varieties as well as excellencies above all first-creation perishing vanities The New-creature Gospel-spirit brings with it into man the New-creature Life Wisdom and 〈◊〉 of God that is that creature-life that being in Christ personally united with the Divine and in Saints in unchangeable harmony with the Divine is call'd the Life of God and they that have it are said to be born of God and partake of the Divine Nature 2 Pet. 1. 4. All things are theirs and they are Christ's and Christ is God's 1 Cor. 3. 22 23. God or the infinite Divine Nature is their inheritance by way of object to their sight and enjoyment not an ingredient into their persons as in Christ's That 's his super-eminent Prerogative But Saints are Co-heirs with him of God Rom. 8. 17. as to the vision of and feeding on the Divine Glory to eternity The great design of the whole Scripture is to bring Men into the view love and enjoyment of things eternal 2 Cor. 4. 18. all which are comprehended in the explain'd one thing necessary The vast number of things eternal in the one eternal Creature-spirit of Christ Heb. 9. 14. are handed to us in great variety of Expression Types Figures Parables Similitudes with most significant Instructions about the one thing or spirit that comprehends them all as the natural spirit in Man and Angel comprehends all their natural things first-Creation Shadows perishing Vanities Those that come to any right frame of mind towards God's Gospel-things will quit and rid themselves of all those Prejudices and false Conceptions they have bin cramm'd with and built up in by worldly-Church-custom's and freely expose their darling nature to be touch'd and hit between the joynts of the Harness or Armour of Man by the sharp doctrine and discipline of the Gospel-sword and Cross of Christ. Man at best in his own Strength Wisdom and Armour stands ready to resist and fight against God not the Devil Whose side was Paul engag'd on when according to Law blamless Every right interpretation of Scripture will be at this work with us even the darting in mortifying Truths upon Nature's heart shooting in the sharp Arrows of the Lord into the hearts of the King's Enemies even in Saints the foes of their own house their own very Spirit and that at best with all the mystical Children Works Fruits or Products thereof as altogether Vanity and sinful All the desires thoughts and reasonings our own spirit the foe of our own house people's our Souls with against God and his only way of saving us are a numerous throng of Enemies Fighters and Warriers against God and the true interest or eternal concerns of our own Souls These are all struck at at every turn by every right Gospel-word or doctrine of the Cross. If we come with but itching Ears to gratify our curiosity by hearing a few Gospel-words of God's Wisdom as a novelty among the various Words or Doctrines of Mans for our understandings to trade in to furnish notional Discourse only and so to pride our selves in over-topping others understandings we shall find our selves sorely mistaken in the case Such a design may seem a-kin to Ptolomee's curiosity in procuring the Greek translation of the old Testament by 72 Jews 6 of each of the twelve Tribes call'd thence numero rotundo the Septuagint to furnish his new-erected Egyptian library amongst the learn'd writings of the wise Greeks and others from others parts God's Word is another-gets thing and has far other-gets matters to do with Men then to furnish a little overly Discourse Where rightly interpreted in the Words of his Wisdom or of that spirit which inspired the holy Pen-men thereof 't will be a Savour of Life or Death to the hearers 2 Cor. 2. 15 16. 'T is as a sire in and upon Men's spirits Luk. 24. 32. A hammer that breaks the Rock in pieces Jer 23. 29. 'T will prosper in the thing whereto he sends it accomplish that which he pleases Isa. 55. 11. Life or Death in and to the respective heedful or regardless hearers thereof 'T is dangerous dallying with such sharp two-edg'd tools Do we stand trifling and lie at catch with the Pharisees to see what Gospel-doctrine will be at Where it will pitch Alas alas Every Word of it rightly heard and consider'd makes a home-thrust at Nature's heart howe're it slips o're Men's inadvertent heads while they confusedly wait for they know not what hoping to hear some change of voice in favour to poor Nature's head and that the Righteous Life of the earthly Jerusalem State thereof need not be surrendred to the Gospel-sword and Cross. A like vain thought to that of King Zedekiah when he sent privately for Jeremy out of a Dungeon to speak with him Is there any Word from the Lord Says he to him There is says Jeremy and this is it Thou shall be deliver'd into the hand of the King of Babylon Jer. 37. 17. How Nebuchadnezzar handled him see Jer. 52. 8 11. The Word of God is a steddy constant Word not off and on no yea and nay with it all 's yea and amen 2 Cor. 1. 17 20. Or absolute infallible Truth The mercenary preachers of Satans accursed other Gospel in great variety of opinion and way flourish in worldly dignities and recompences for their pretended skil in spiritual affairs the whole world running after them 1 Joh. 4. 5. Rev. 13. 3. Amidst this self-exalted crew of mercenary Babylonians with their many inventions if the true spiritual Gospel-Declarer can but scape blows he will think himself tolerably treated He comes with a Doctrine that strikes at the very root and foundation of all their humane self-interests the very principle of all their Life Desire Thought and Action at best CHAP. VIII V. 1. Who is as the wise Man and who knoweth the interpretation of a thing Heb. word A man's wisdom maketh his face to shine and the boldness Heb. strength of his face shall be changed HEre are too questions the latter implying an answer to the former and then a declaration of the valuable priviledges of the truly wise man The
was glorified and exalted by the Father into a life wherein he can do all the Father doth Joh. 5. 19 27. So Saints can do nothing of themselves or in their own Law-life towards Salvation but on the obedient surrender of that in Christ's Gospel-life can they do all things Phil. 4. 13. God then works all in or for them and they work all their works in him Isa. 26. 12 Phil. 2. 13. Joh. 3. 21. But consider how great this Man the King of Saints Ruler of all is He is anointed above all his fellow-Brethren that are Co-heirs with him of God in the transcendent prerogative of his fountain-creature-life of everlasting righteousness and also of his infinite divine life Psal. 45. 7. Rom. 8. 17 Saints that are Kings Priests to God will ever own him as their 〈◊〉 King of Kings Lord of Lords and High-Priest in a transcendent supremacy over and superiority to the highest Saints and all Saints and Angels put together All are to honour him as they honour the Father Jo. 5. 23. See then the weight of Solomon's Counsel here for keeping this King's Commandment to whom God has given all Rule and Authority over both Worlds as Heir of all things Psal. 2. 6 -- 9. Heb. 1. 2. The Reason he gives for this Counsel is in regard of the Oath of God This Oath implies the terms between God and the Man Christ on which he is to possess all God's Authority over his creatures The surrender of the pure and spotless natural Life of the Law for that spiritual Gospel-Creature Life that 's in unchangeable personal union with the divine entitles him to the exercise of all conjunctive divine and creature-power over all Christ's own Priestly Gospel-Spirit offer'd up his Law-spirit in Sacrifice to his Father as his part of the Covenant of the Oath the new and everlasting Covenant Then the Father perform'd his part made the Man Christ Ruler over all as advanced into the life of his original priestly Gospel-spirit and so made a Priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec or in the life of his creature-root the original 〈◊〉 And on the same account has he made him King over all Psal. 2. 6 7. All this hath God confirm'd by Oath to our mystical Lord Abraham figur'd by the literal on offering up his mystical Isaac or spotless natural Life to him God sware by Himself he would perform his promis'd part for advancing the Man Christ and Saints in their degree on the like obedient Sacrifice of their natural State So have they two immutable things for their strong consolation his immutable Counsel or living creature-Creature-word and his immutable infinite Divinity Heb. 6. 13 18. Here 's the safe anchor-ground for Saints sure and certain hopes of eternal Life and Blessedness on surrender of their fading natural Saints by following Christ's suffering-steps into a conformity with him in his death are assur'd by him they shall reign with him in that life he is risen and ascended into 2 Tim. 2. 11 12. No other way can any come to reign with him Saints must keep his Command as he his Father's that has made him King Joh. 14. 15. 10. 18. These are the true and faithful sayings of his spiritual Law all yea and amen of absolute infallible certainty The same way our changeable nature comes to reign in him can it in us a change by death for his unchangeable creature-Life that 's spiritual and eternal The Man Christ the King of Kings in infinite divine and irresistible Creature-power exercises a universal kingly and priestly Authority in Love or Wrath over all Angels and Men good or bad He will sacrifice changeable nature as to any goodness thereof in them all in the incorrigibly wicked to God's revenging Justice No being saved but as with Christ obediently yeilding to the terms of the Covenant by Oath the new and everlasting Covenant even the sacrifice of all receiv'd by us in the first Psal. 50. 5. This must be done in regard of the Oath of God to Christ as our duty in obedience to this King's command to us who requires nothing of us herein but what himself has done Father and Son are herein obey'd or disobey'd together He that hath the Son hath the Father also and he that obeys the Son obeys the Father 2 Joh. v. 9. Mat. 10. 40. Luk. 10. 16. Joh. 15. 10. ver 23 24. 16. 15 27. Vers. 3. Be not hasty to go out of his sight stand not in an evil thing for he doth whatsoever pleaseth him Here 's a farther reason for obeying this great King He has full commission to do whatever he pleases in both Worlds to foes that set up in the first or natural and Friends that obediently quit that for the second or spiritual Be not hasty then to go out of his sight by wilful turning from that light by which he shews and offer 's that Life to you wherein he is King Think not to get out of his sight or reach of his Power He sees you whether you 'l see him or no. And his Power will reach you for your wickedness in refusing to see own and become willingly subject to him There 's no fleeing from his presence His presence in Wrath will reach you in Hell it self Psal. 139. 7 8. Yet will Enemies labour to shuffle themselves out of his presence They will bid him depart from them as not desiring the Knowledg of his Ways of saving them Job 21. 14 15. Even first-covenant holy Men desire not to hear of his Counsels for the saving them by the destruction of their fleshly life or natural state at best Yea true Saints for a season are found amongst these refusers of God's Reproofs and Counsels for their Salvation ignorantly with Paul And Job while frighted at the Death-discipline of the Cross upon his righteous natural state went a-while in company with the workers of Iniquitie pleading against the equity of it with strong reasonings and arguings as an injurious proceeding of God towards his Creatures thus 〈◊〉 charges him Job 34. 5 -- 9. Yea the natural Man even in awaken'd spiritual Saints will be at such work as offended and amaz'd at a being daily plagu'd and chast'ned notwithstanding all their 〈◊〉 circumspect walking while wicked Men have more then heart canwish See what strange conclusions an impetous hurry of carnal reasonings is ready to run them into Psal. 73. 1 -14. Jer. 12. 1 2. 20. 14 -- 18. But the spiritual Principle in the Saint lifts up the natural Eccle. 4. 10. into Sanctuary-light to see the design of God in these cryptick Methods of his wonderful Wisdom dealing with them as Sons Heb. 12. 7. while those that refuse such Chastisements perish by their very Prosperity as gratified in their self-chosen way to their everlasting Destruction Psal. 73. 15 -20. But thousands depart from Christ for ever and walk no more with him or look after him as coming with his Cross-doctrin
Spirit are after a peculiar manner in the hand of God or under his peculiar regard care and approbation as obedient to him in all things Yet by any outward dispensations his Love to them or Hatred to his and their implacable Enemies can't be known For the natural Man or State is gratified in Enemies with more then heart can wish and in Saints or Friends under continual Chastisements Crosses and Disappointments In this cryptick Method or mysterious Course of God's dealing with Friends as Foes and Foes as Friends in all discernable appearances to Man's Wisdom will Man judg enemies the only Favorites of God and Friends rejected cast-aways hated by him for ever as Job's enlighten'd Friends did seem to reckon him when under the Cross Job 4. 7 -9. Psal. 73. 7 -14. Heb. 12. 6 -8. Solomon in the Wisdom of God and true Spirit of Prophecy farther declares Vers. 2. All things come alike to all there is one Event to the righteous and to the wicked to the good and to the clean and to the unclean to him that sacrificeth and to him that sacrificeth not as is the good so is the sinner and he that sweareth as he that feareth an Oath In God's dispensations to the outward Man of Saints and Sinners all things come alike to all righteous and wicked good and bad clean and unclean So God's Love or Hatred cannot thereby be known God causes his Sun to shine and Rain to fall on the evil and good just and unjust Mat. 5. 45. From the afflicting or gratifying dispensations of God to the whole natural Man is the Wisdom of Man apt to take the measures of God's Anger or Love God affords invisible as well as visible good things of this World to the inner as well as outer natural Man the Spirit as well as Body of the rebellious as also of those who will prove obedient Saints This as one fruit of Christ's Redemption-work Psal. 68. 18. As to a first-covenant Benefit ' of Christ's death the common or general Salvation all Men are capable of may they be made wise strong and honourable in Christ yea by new or second-Covenant Light also shew'd offer'd and brought to tast and see how good and gracious the Lord is in his new-Covenant-life and after all irrecoverably apostatize and perish for ever 1 Cor. 4. 10. Heb. 6. 4 -6. If man finally keep up his restor'd first-creation changeable righteous Life in enmity to God and his second he perishes for ever If he prefer the Knowledg of Christ after the flesh in the restor'd righteous Life of the Law or conformity to him as born of a Woman under the Law to Christ after the Spirit or in his spiritual resurrection-Life he perishes for ever In this evil self-chosen life and way does God in Judgment gratify Men with invisible fading or natural good things beyond all they can wish Psal. 73. 7. The literal wicked in the corrupt and mystically wicked in the resin'd spirit of Nature may be gratified with all worldly desirables outward or inward to their bodies or spirits and perish for ever after all under the Wrath to come All this Solomon understood and declar'd The natural Understanding even in the spiritual Saint can't reach these mysteries of Providence in the promiscuous dispensations of God to good and bad as to all worldly desirables visible or invisible Psal. 73. The truly righteous good and clean 〈◊〉 his natural Life to God as fearing an Oath or the swearing an everlasting Covenant with the Devil in the first-creation state against God and the second So comes his heart in a newness of life to be set in him to do good in God's sight for ever He that swears that Covenant with the Devil is fully set to do Evil for ever Eccl. 8. 11. However undiscern'd the Saint's condition be to his Enemies under the love of God in this life God will at last manifest the difference between them that serve him and those that serve him not but swear everlasting Allegiance to the Devil Mal. 3. 18. whose Servants they are Rom. 6. 16. Vers. 3. This is an evil among all things that are done under the Sun ' that there is one Event unto all yea also the heart of the Sons of Men is full of evil and madness is in their Heart while they live and after that they go to the dead The death of Nature as to the mortal life of Body and Soul is the one Event to all Men. This fatal Period comes nature to in the wise and fool righteous and wicked The spiritual wise Man only is an unspeakeable gainer by all such losses as befals his nature with his fellows Out of the darkness and death brought on his natural state is he raised into the spiritual light and life of God The same darkness and death brought upon others in Wrath for refusing it in Love becomes their dreadful condition and portion for ever under Wrath. This exceedingly differing Event of the said same event the Death of nature in all Men is not consider'd or discern'd by Man's Wisdom Hence Solomon says how dies the wise Man As the Fool there 's no remembrance of the one more then of the other for ever Eccles 2. 16. in Man's day or Judgment The differing event of the Cross in Love or Wrath turning all first-creation Wisdom Light and Life into foolishness darkness and death Man's Wisdom sees not All wisdom beauty or desirableness in nature will perish and be forgotten in all Men for ever On this account as to any thing in nature the truely wise dies as the Fool. For both by death lose all the changeable Life and fading Glory of their own nature But the said wise 〈◊〉 obedient surrender of all receive a more excellent Life and Glory for ever and those that rebelliously keep it lose all for ever under Wrath in everlasting darkness So though the same Event happen to all as to the death of nature the event of that event is exceedingly different eternal life or death Those that do not obediently part with their own first-creation Life and Wisdom for God's in the second seem charact'red here by a heart full of evil and madness while they live and after that they go to the dead Yea they are dead while they live as 〈◊〉 in enmity to God which must needs be eternal death to them The best Works of righteous Nature fix'd in enmity to the Righteousness of God in his Spirit of Grace are but dead Works perform'd in a spirit of Enmity and Death True Repentance from dead Works Heb. 6. 1. imports Law-Conversion from nature dead in Trespasses and Sins Eph. 2. 1. to the righteous life of a Man But this second death of righteous nature by a fixure in enmity is worse then the former and exposes to the second death as the due punishment thereof the vengeance of eternal fire Rev. 20. 14. This is the latter end worse then any beginning which many self-confident
God This is the strange method of God's Wisdom for his despis'd little ones to be found more than Conquerers of all their proud self-exalting despisers and enemies The abolishing the worldly life of Nature out of Christ and his Army is the way to their being all found in that life and power of the World to come in which they overcome all that obstinatly set up in this This way the Man Christ triumph'd over all evil angelical and humane Principalities and Powers the Princes of this World Col. 2. 14 15. 1 Cor. 2. 6. All Men that finally take up in the first-creation are Satan's Subjects all that pass out of that by death into the life of the second are God's The poor wise Man that does all these wonderful things for his little City has infinite divine and infallible creature-wisdom and power in him And what can all the visible and invisible Powers of this World with all their Strength Devices and Bulwarks be before him He was made a poor Man by the death of our nature that he might make many rich in his spirit of Grace on the like obedient death of nature in them 2 Cor. 6. 10. 8. 9. Phil. 2. 6 8. Yet no Man remembers this poor wise Man No man in his own Wisdom receives his Gospel-Testimony Joh. 3. 32. takes his Counsel follows his Example Under the sinking weight of this charge will evil Men and Angels lie for ever They 'l not remember hearken to or follow this poor Man under his Cross into the like poverty and death of nature in them the only way into his everlasting Rest. Vers. 16. Then said I Wisdom is better than strength nevertheless the poor Man's wisdom is despis'd and his words are not heard The everlasting Wisdom of God's New-creation Gospel-Spirit is better then all the fading strength wisdom and power of Man and Angel in the first or old But the voice and words of this Wisdom from the impoverish'd natural man in Christ and his followers is not heard heeded or regarded by those that resolve to set up in that state of Nature for happiness which they preach death to as the only 〈◊〉 way and means for their being truly happy All such reproofs of death on the spirit of Nature and instructions of life in God's Spirit of Grace are despis'd and rejected by the wisdom of Man in first-Covenant Righteousness Even such are found all along this world a disobedient gain-saying People Isa. 65. 2. Rom. 10. 21. See the dismal and blessed consequents of not hearkning or hearkning to this poor wise Man's Counsels reproofs and instructions Prov. 1. 20 -33. Somethere are amongst the vast multitude of self-confident righteous men and also profane who at last are brought to regard this poor wise man's voice and his only the voice of his Spirit in himself and Saints 〈◊〉 still God has a little flock that are content to be made his little ones in Nature that he may make them his great ones and worthies too big and too many for all his and their enemies in his Wisdom and Spirit of Grace All do not finally provoke him Heb. 3. 16. Rom. 11. 1 -5. Christ then and his followers are not without all hearing from Men. For Vers. 17. The words of wise Men are heard in quiet more then the cry of him that ruleth among fools The words of Christ and his awaken'd Spiritual Saints the words of God's Wisdom which the Holy Ghost teaches and utters in both and all will be heard or obey'd by a spiritual Seed of Christ in meek broken-spirited quiet peaceable men Sons of Peace Their meek broken silenc'd natural spirit is of great price with God 1 Pet. 3. 4. as quitting its own vain corruptible life for that which is not corruptible but everlasting They instruct those that oppose them in meekness of Wisdom not returning railing for railing in the wrathful wrangling spirit and earthly wisdom of Nature that 's from beneath waiting with patience if God peradventure will give them Repentance or change of mind from Satan's lie to his Gospel-Truth 2 Tim. 2. 24 -26. See the different demeanour conversation and fruits of Saints in God's Heavenly Spiritual wisdom communicated to them and of incorrigible sinners in Man's and Satan's earthly devilish wisdom from beneath Jam. 3. 13 -18. Men in their wisdom render'd devilish by fixure in enmity to God's are the loud clamorous boasting self-exalting undertakers at teaching the way of Salvation who by their great cry and confused noise of their 〈◊〉 Cymbals their uncertain-sounding false Trumpet gain a ruling power amongst fools to the final destruction of blind foolish rulers and ruled leaders and followers All fall into the ditch or bottomless pit of deceits and destruction nets snares and death together Eccle. 7. 26. Mat. 15. 14. Such Rulers or Teachers and Leaders as a demonstration of their utmost folly and madness despise are offended at and absolutely reject all the words of God's Wisdom as folly and madness ver 12. Hos. 9. 7 8. 1 Cor. 1. 23. Joh. 10. 20. 7. 45 49. The quiet-spirited Saint in whom this self-confident spirit of enmity to God and all his Words of Counsel is broken down and silenc'd by the Cross listen to the Words of the true Shepherd or Teacher in himself and messengers and follow not but flee from the Stranger 's voice Joh. 10. 4 5. The spiritual Feet or Principles on which Christ's true Messengers or Apostles come to them are beautiful and all their right Words of reproof and instruction most welcome and desireable They esteem hear and obey the words of the truly wise as incomparably beyond all the cry and noise of Rulers among fools that presumptuously undertake an absolute impossibility even to declare the Mysteries of God's Wisdom in that wisdom of Man that 's foolishness to God's and all the words of God's to it Yet is their voice and cry readily heard and follow'd by Fools to the everlasting destruction of both and all Vers. 18. Wisdom is better then Weapons of War but one sinner destroyeth much good True Wisdom or the Spirit of Christ in Man is better then all the Wisdom Srength Power and Armour of Man or Angel in the first creation and yet more when all these are turn'd into and used in enmity to God For so became they the one sinner that from first to last 〈◊〉 against God Christ and Saints who must needs be unspeakably too hard for them All wicked Angels and Men in the finally abused first-creation state or spirit and life of nature make up and are the one sinner or uniform fighter against God in and with their first-creation Strength Armour and weapons of War And thus does this one comprehensive Sinner or perverted first-creation Spirit in all evil Angels and Men destroy much good even all the changeable goodness in that state which had they obediently return'd it back in sacrifice to God they might have receiv'd much good
corrupt or enlighten'd nature is but a fool and as the Beasts that perish as to all his eternal Concerns Gospel Things or Truths Psal. 49. 12 20. Jer. 10. 23. 1 Cor. 2. 14. All such things are or seem foolishness to him because he is a fool All words or fruits utter'd or brought forth in his own nature at best which he trusts and advises others to trust in are lying vanities perishing transient shadows He walks in a vain shew sees teaches is nothing but vanity altogether vanity Psal. 39. 5 6. Ezek. 13. 6. He neither consider's the fading nature of all he 's possess'd of nor the everlasting Life Righteousness and things of God he wants He hugg's himself as rich and happy when in truth miserable poor blind and naked Such fools were the Laodiceans Rev. 3. 17. and the Corinthians 1 Cor. 4. 8 10. Both these mistake's in embracing and waxing confident in false and in rejecting true riches Christ found the young Man in Mat. 19. 20 -22. Men reckon they want nothing for true blessedness when they want every thing Thus foolish Men's words swallow up themselves or expose themselves and others to be swallow'd up in a spirit of unchangeable darkness and death God will take all such wise fools in their own craftiness as knowing all their thoughts vain 1 Cor. 3. 19 20. They think of trust in relie upon and teach nothing but vanity and this in unchangeable enmity to God and all the reproofs and instructions of true Wisdom Prov. 1. 20 32. They craftily and subtily defend themselves and secure nature's head from his spiritual Cross Gospel-fire and Sword and so swallow up sink and drown themselves and all that follow their words of Counsel into everlasting destruction and perdition Vers. 13. The beginning of the words of his mouth is foolishness and the end of his talk is mischievous madness From first to last he sets up and pleads for a life that 's changeable in it self and enmity to God as true happiness He begins sets out and 〈◊〉 in this folly till fix'd in enmity and so guilty of mischievous madness 〈◊〉 might and main to render others Children of 〈◊〉 with himself Mat. 23. 15. Vers. 14. A Fool also is full of words a Man cannot tell what shall be and what shall be after him who can tell him Abounding in words is a 〈◊〉 of both literal and mystical Fools as highly 〈◊〉 in 〈◊〉 false 〈◊〉 measures of 〈◊〉 The mystical or wise Fool is in total darkness as to his 〈◊〉 concerns is wholly ignorant of the obedient Saints true 〈◊〉 or life and state 〈◊〉 to be for ever blessed And as ignorant is he as to the 〈◊〉 most deplorable state of himself and followers incorrigible haters of God in eternal Death This unutterable distress confusion and 〈◊〉 that comes after all the mirth and jollity in his self-pleasing thought and foolish way will be an absolute amazing surprize and disappointment to him Who can tell 〈◊〉 of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 shall come to 〈◊〉 after his life and race in this world The truly wise spiritual Saint can But he 'l not hear believe or regard his words Vers. 15. The labour of the foolish wearieth every one of them because he knoweth not how to go to the City All the labour of 〈◊〉 wise-Fool in the restor'd righteous life and wisdom of man for Salvation is term'd in Scripture but bodily exercise that profiteth little or but for a little time in suppressing the vile affections of corrupt nature but when once knowingly kept up in wilful unchangeable 〈◊〉 to God most highly displeasing to God and not only unprofitable but utterly destructive to man After or by all such 〈◊〉 he 'l find it impossible for him to go or get into the City New 〈◊〉 All such will be found those mystical Dogs 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Murderers and Idolaters that have loved and made or 〈◊〉 on Satan's lie from first to last against God's truth Rev. 22. 15. So will they be shut out of the said City for ever and 〈◊〉 their portion in the lake of fire Rev. 21. 8. among damned Angels and Men 2 Thess. 2. 11 12. Mat. 25. 41. Ver. 16. Wo to thee O Land when thy King is a Child and thy Princes eat in the morning In letter a sore punishment to a Nation is a childish Ruler or King unfit for Government as given up to all sorts of evil and misgovernment in his own Person implied by eating in the morning as voluptuous in gratifying his evil sensual appetites or lusts This is Wo to him and the Land under his Government For instead of being a praise and encouragement to good works and workers and a terrour to evil as he ought Rom. 13. 3. he will be found in a directly contrary practice But the mystical and principal sense here is this When the mystical Land or natural State of Man is cleans'd or swept from 〈◊〉 of flesh and Satan rather receiv'd into this cleans'd house Mat. 12. 43 45. then Christ as Ruler and King very great will be the Wo to the said Land For then is Man a slave to the Prince of darkness to do his will in all things This ruling Child or birth of the spirit of the Devil in Man will be found eating in the morning or gratifying his sinful love lust and desire with 〈◊〉 perishing meats and so will be establish'd with him in unchangeable enmity to God which brings him under the unchangeable wrath of God Vers. 17. Blessed art thou O Land when thy King is the Son of Nobles and thy Princes eat in due season for strength and not for drunkenness In 〈◊〉 where Governours are of a noble meetly qualified temper for Rule in a spirit of Justice and Wisdom the Land or people are happy The mystery or spiritual sense is this Those that are born of the spirit of Christ are of the Heavenly extraction and Pedigree Sons of Nobles as begotten by his Gospel-Ministers Apostles or messengers in which sense Paul calls Timothy his Son in the Gospel-life of Faith 1 Tim. 1. 2. and indeed Sons of the great King himself the only Potentate to whom of right all Rule belongs His one Spirit of everlasting Righteousness and true Wisdom sits them to be steddy doers of the divine Will in all things So under Christ's and their peaceable righteous Government will the whole Land Earth or World be blessed Isa. 32. 1. And the mystical Land Spirit and whole person of every Saint will be blessed under the Government of this Spirit of Christ in himself and themselves Vers. 18. By much slothfulness the building decayeth and thro' idleness of the hands the house droppeth thorow Here 's a reproof of Man's negligence or sloth under spiritual convictions of his interest in having the new-building of him carried on a-main and a discovery of the great danger thereof All favouring or keeping up the old hinders the new and so any happy proficiency progress or advance towards
life the true Shepherd call's for the surrender of by death in Sacrifice he and all that so do will find no harvest of true joy and comfort to be reap'd by them at last Vers. 5. As thou knowest not what is the way of the Spirit nor how the bones do grow in the Womb of her that is with Child even so thou knowest not the works of God who maketh all In explaining his former words Solomon here uses the hidden ways of God in forming the fleshly body of Man and uniting his immortal Spirit with it in the Womb. These common things in the first creation over-setting Man's understanding as to the discerning or giving any certain account of are but typical to the yet far more mysterious and hidden things of Christ's new-creation-workmanship in Saints None know by the utmost improvement and skill of their own understanding how the Body is form'd in the Womb of the literal Mother or how the Spirit that had its radical creation and existence from the beginning in the mystical Womb of the Parent of Spirits comes in its appointed time to be united with its Body in the Womb. And how much shorter must Men come of discerning the yet more undiscernable mysterious works of God who maketh all things in both Creations or Worlds Heb. 1. 2. as forming and setting up his Spiritual Heavenly Eternal things in Man by his new-creation-workmanship The effects of the literal Wind are seen tho' not known whence it comes or whither it goes so are the effects of the new-creating Spirit of Christ in and upon all born of it Joh. 3. 8. As an irresistible Whirlwind it tear's down the earthly building and blow's up by the roots the fleshly tree of a perishing life in Saints andthen by the second new-building-operation of it does it make them new Vessels fill them with new-Wine even it s own Spiritual Kingdom-Life of everlasting Righteousness thro' which they become meet habitations of God Ephes. 2. 22. Now if Man be ignorant of his natural make or how the distinct parts of his being are brought together into a personal union in him by a first-creation much more is he of the abundantly more mysterious way and things of his new-creation birth Vers. 6. In the morning sowe thy Seed and in the evening withhold not thine hand for thou knowest not whether shall prosper either this or that or whether they both shall be a like good Here 's a confirmation of the said spiritual Truth In the morning or under Christ's first and earliest spiritual Convictions and Revelations or Discoveries of himself to thee in his spiritual Life sow thy Seed or readily use all diligence to make way for Christ's speedy influencing and quickning up his own Incorruptible Seed of Spiritual Life in thee Let not thy earthy natural carnal mind be hard'ned against Christ but break and kindly melt away under him that what hinders being removed his spiritual Seed may spring up in thee This done by us is call'd our sowing that spiritual Seed as the works wrought in the quickned up life thereof are called our works in God and God's in us Isa. 26. 12. Joh. 3. 31. works of Grace in the second-Covenant life not of Nature in the first And in the evening withhold not thine hand or natural spirit from sacrifice For this is it hinders the spiritual Seed from springing up towards an hopeful Harvest And so will the evening state of darkness and death to Nature be turn'd into an everlasting morning-light and life in the spirit of Grace For thou knowest not c. Man's receiving spiritual Light by which Christ in his spiritual life is shew'd and offer'd him is call'd a beginning in the Spirit a partaking of the Holy Ghost and tasting of the good living Word of God Gal. 3. 3. Heb. 6. 4 5. Then is he upon his trial for Eternal Life or Death as obedient or disobedient to the said spiritual Light And accordingly will he be evil or good barren or fruitful to God Delivering up the natural spirit to death is the only way to its becoming fruitful to God in a newness of life Rom. 6. 4. 7. 4. So as rais'd into the life of the spiritual Man do both the natural and spiritual become a like good in a life of everlasting Righteousness While Man is doubtful under the darkning demolishing death-work of the Spirit or Cross of Christ on his Nature what will be the issue as Job for some time was whether everlasting blessedness or misery the Light or Voice of the Spirit listen'd to will inform that both will prosper and be a like good both natural and spiritual Man thro' the death and resurrection of the former into the quicken'd up life of the latter So there will be a joynt birth of life springing up in the whole person of the Saint from the quickned spiritual Seed and both crucified and quicken'd earthly But spiritual Light resisted and life rejected Man's earthly state however righteous becomes that cursed mystical Earth whose end is to be burn'd Heb. 6. 7 8. Vers. 7. Truly the Light is sweet and a pleasant thing it is for the eyes to behold the Sun The light of the literal Sun is pleasant to the bodily eye But the days of darkness will be many after Man is cut off by the death of the body from such sight and pleasure The certain foresight of this can't but much allay his present delight In mystery Christ is the Sun or original of all 〈◊〉 creation intellectual light and life By his shining into Man does he render him wise strong and honourable in his own restor'd nature So becomes Man joyful and fruitful therein Yet all this light life and joy therein will pass away also as well as that of the bodily state And the succeeding days of darkness will be many even to all eternity as to those that never submit to the way of coming to experience Christ in an higher and better light and life shew'd and offer'd them The cross of Christ in love or wrath seizes and takes away all fading first-creation light or goodness from every Angel and Man good or bad This Solomon farther declares Vers. 8. But if a Man live many years and rejoyce in them all yet let him remember the days of darkness for they shall be many All that cometh is vanity Let a Man live never so long in the light and joy of a first-Covenant state under the mystical first-creation Sun or first-Covenant spirit and communications from Christ or shinings forth upon his Tabernacle there Job 29. 2 -4. he must consider and remember that all this will be gone and everlasting darkness succeed if Christ be not receiv'd in that spiritual life which will scituate him under his beamings forth as a Divine and spiritual new-creation Sun of infinite eternal and everlasting Righteousness Light Brightness and Glory Vers. 9. Rejoyce O young Man in thy youth and let thy heart cheer
everlasting righteous spiritual Life set up in them to wit the death of their natural state Christ could do nothing of himself or in his fleshly Law-life and state Joh. 5. 30. nothing that his Father sent him about His errand and business was to put it to death Passive obedience to his own Gospel-cross Spiritual-sword or Circumcision-knife was the high duty of his natural spirit and whole Man There 's no other way of coming to do all things well in God's sight which can only be in his Gospel-spirit or principle of everlasting righteousness and active obedience but by the passive obedience and death of our Law-spirit or natural state in which we can do nothing well before God nor ever enter into his Kingdom Christ in his Gospel-spirit the true principle of active obedience to God for ever did and said alwayes what was well-pleasing to to his Father Joh. 8. 29. as found in exact harmony with the very mind and will of his infinite divine spirit He despised the shame and contempt of those that despised his Crucified natural man Heb. 12. 2. And those that do not so he will despise disown reject and be ashamed of when he comes in the Glory of his Father with the holy Angels Mark 8. 38. Christ's Doctrine was not his own but his that sent him Whoever does receive or despise and reject the words of his Gospel-spirit in himself or saints receives or despises the Father that sent him and him that sends them The four Gospels abound with words to this purpose especially John's First and second Covenant-Saints poor wise children in the second and Old doting foolish Kings in the first are in a perfectly cross constitution and thought about salvation absolute sools to one another The Cross on Man's wisdom is reckon'd the starkest arrantest folly and madness imaginable by natural Man and Angel But one broken contrite-spirited crucified Saint is of more esteem with God than millions of unbroken uncrucified Men and Angels in all the excellencies glories wisdom and righteousness of their first-creation humane and angelical natures Isai. 66. 1 2. Man's day or light and Judgment in first-covenant wisdom and God's day of Judgment in the second will be found in flat contradiction to each other in this grand concern of men about Salvation Whose Judgment whose word will stand His or theirs Think well on 't before too late Ther 's no speaking at present to the old self-deafned doting foolish King by the poor wise Child He scorns and rejects with a wry mouth Rhetorical mockings in utmost contempt all his words and warnings His whole Gospel-doctrine of the cross on all the foolish King rest's in for Salvation is rejected as absolute foolishness and madness 1 Cor. 1. 18 -- 23. and 4. 8. 10. Hos. 9. 7 8. These foolish self-confident first-covenant fifth-monarchists that tugge it out somtimes with worldly Caesars for the civil sword as that by which to manage the reign of Christ in this world are but at the same work the Jews desired to have Christ have been at by owning himself a King in his first-covenant law-life and righteousness of man which he refused them in 〈◊〉 6. 15. Refusing to be a King in the fading Law-principle of first-covenant life and operation and asserting his kingdom in the Gospel-spirit of the second they crucified their king Joh. 19. 15. They that would have set up Christ for their King in this world against Caesar say to rid their hands of him we have no King but Caesar in answer to Pilat's question This is the confusion and falshood found in man's shusfling wisdom on all accounts at every turn about and against his own Salvation When God not only by words but deeds in his blasting dispensations witnesses his displeasure against them and all their false confidences not suffering them to prosper in them 〈◊〉 2. 37. still they are at the same point When they find mystical gray hairs decays and old age convincing Harbingers and Messengers of the approaching Death upon them as to all that 〈◊〉 Life and Riches they have trusted in still there they 'l hold and hope for safety When God comes upon them in his beginning Judgments on that State they trust in so as undeniably to evidence to them that as six'd in 't is but the Mystical Land of their Nativity and Border of Wickedness and they therein the People against which and whom he hath Indignation for ever Mal. 1. 4. still they obstinately rest and trust for safety therein Here 's the case of these old foolish Kings that will not be brought to any happy obedient chang of mind by any thing the Lord either say's or does to them They obstinately persist in bringing forth Wild Grapes Gall and Worm-wood from a bitter Root of Enmity in them against God And they will still needs pass for his only Gospel-People and Saints when a downright Synagogue of Satan fix'd in unchangable Enmity and Rebellion against him This do they to their litteral Graves And to carry on the like destructive work on others that they leave behind them as their Counsel-Legacy to them in their dying words they 'l charg their hearers the pretended Gospel-Churches of Christ that they look not after regard or receive any other Gospel then that accursed false one they have Preach'd to them even the same the Old Serpent Preach'd to Eve that Eternal Life is to be found in the Old or first-Creation State of nature and that they shall not die at all and so that all Preaching the Cross and Death upon it is a Blasphemous fiction against the Law and that Holy place or State of Man Thus the Jews accused Stephen Act. 6. 13. The whole Gospel is reckon'd by them Blasphemy against the Law The whole current of Scripture in the Gospel-sense of all run's for the Poor Wise Child But the whole current of their false other Law-Gospel and short sighted Interpretation of all Scripture run's cleerly for the old Foolish King in exact Harmony with the Old Serpent that Bewitches Teachers and Hearers through self-love to the sading Life and Glory of their own nature into a state of unchangable Enmity to God and Death to themselvs with him Oh but say they that which you call Satan's and our accursed other Gospel is the very same you call Christ's You only come forth in an affected singularity of words but say all the same things we do We Preach and own the Cross of Christ. Upon what The corrupt Spirit of fallen nature with the vile affections and lusts thereof But what say you to the Cross on your enlight'ned restor'd righteous nature made Wise Strong and Honourable in Conformity to that Life of the Law or Holy Flesh Christ took as Born of a Virgin Is this the Subject of the Cross of Christ Are ye willing to part with all this in case ye had it to part with To despise your own righteous Law-Life or Living Soul for Christ's Gospel-Spirit
1. Cast thy Bread upon the Waters for thou shalt find it after many days HEre 's an Admonition to the universal practice of Charity in doing good to all but specially to the houshold of Faith Gal. 6. 10. As having a compassionate fellow-feeling with our fellow-Creatures and Brethren in the same nature by a free-hearted distribution of this World's goods As contriving opportunities for the practice of this duty has God given some a super-abounding over-flow of such things while others are destitute of the very necessaries of Life To a faithful answering his design and our duty herein a Blessing is promised He that hath pity on the Poor lendeth to the Lord and that which he gives will he repay Prov. 19. 17. See also the contrary threat'ned Prov. 21. 13. Whoso stoppeth his Ears at the cry of the Poor he also shall cry himself and not be heard As for the peculiar charity to the houshold of Faith Christ's little ones as his spiritual Disciples this will not miss of the great reward Mat. 10. 42. 25. 34 40. But we should extend our charity also to all which though it seem but as a casting our Bread upon the Waters 't will through God's promised Blessing be found again Deut. 15. 10. Vers. 2. Give a portion to seven and also to eight for thou knowest not what evil shall be upon the Earth The practice of the said duty towards others is oft made a seeds-time to ones-self in such an unfore-known time of evil wherein we may be reduc'd to the like want Give and it shall be given you The same measure ye mete with shall it be measur'd to you again Luk. 6. 38. Such retaliation in distress will be comfortable when the said duty has bin well perform'd in prosperity So much of the literal sence of these two Verses In the spiritual or mystical what 's casting Bread upon the Waters Obedience to the Cross the spiritual Law whereof calls for mystical charity even the free giving up of all the Life Riches and fading Glory Wisdom and Strength of our own Spirit so as to become poor and dead with Christ there in order to live and reign with 〈◊〉 in that life he has rais'd our Nature into Here 's the recompence of such Love Obedience and Conformity to Christ a quitting our perishing life meats and riches for his never-perishing Christ himself was made poor in our Nature as to the mortal first-Creation 〈◊〉 and State thereof that thro' his exemplary poverty he might make many all followers of his suffering steps rich in God or in the everlasting righteous life of the second 2 Cor. 8. 9. The kindly suffering of the natural is the mystical seeds-time that will bring in a blessed harvest to the spiritual Man thro' an abounding fruitfulness in a newness of life Psal. 126. 5 6. Gal. 6. 7 8. He that sow's to the flesh builds his Faith hope and expectation for Blessedness on the corruptible life and fruitfulness of his but restor'd earthy natural state will reap corruption and eternal death He that sows to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap Life everlasting All in spiritual life principle and fruits the mystical Births and Children therein have Holiness to the Lord written in all their fore-heads The spirit of bondage and her Sons all Fruits Births or Works producible or performable in the most restor'd righteous natural state or life of the Law have all of them vanity and vexation to the Worker enmity and rebellion against the Lord writ out upon them All the Children there then are Children of death Except the 〈◊〉 seed of God's left-hand planting by a first-creation die in us 1 Cor. 15. 36 38. 1 Pet. 1. 23 25. as obedient to the husbandry and plough of Christ's spiritual Cross the incorruptible seed of an everlasting righteous life of God's right-hand planting in us has no room or way made for a springing up into its own life activity and fruitfulness under the powerful quickning influence of the same Spirit of Christ that destroys all our earthly life and fruit the mystical 〈◊〉 tree of good and evil root and branch tree and fruit This spiritual Love or Charity is the Saint to shew to Christ as the full and right payment of all mystical tithes and offerings to the true Melchisedec or high-Priest of God in a universal surrender of all changeable good things in his nature for all unchangeable good things in his Spirit of Grace as rais'd out of the death of his slain sacrific'd Nature into the life of the very Priest that slay's him But why should he be thus charitable and obedient to Christ Because he know's not what evil may be or come upon the earth even on all that rebelliously remain in their earthly life under final Wrath in everlasting poverty want and nakedness as to any goodness changeable or unchangeable A being willingly made poor there intitles to the true durable Riches and secures from all want for evermore in eternal life Vers. 3. If the Clouds be full of Rain they empty themselves upon the Earth and if the Tree fall towards the South or toward the North in the place where the Tree falleth there it shall be Man's natural spirit how everfill'd with the fading life riches fruits and products thereof at best must be emptied of and lose all again or never receives an everlasting life with the never-perishing meats fruits riches and clothing thereof Mat. 16. 25. North and South here may signifie the first and second or old and new-creation state Man in the first corrupt or righteous fall's toward the North into a cold barren desolate starveling condition for ever In the second toward the South has everlasting warmth and blessedness under the joynt shinings forth of the Divine and Creature-Sun of 〈◊〉 and everlasting Righteousness As the Tree fall's or Man dies in a six'd enmity to God as establish'd in his own life corrupt or righteous or in a spiritual life of everlasting union with and obedience to God there he shall be in Hell or Heaven Cold comfort in the former none at all under the scorching flames of unquenchable Wrath which will be found to make up to incorrigibly wicked Angels and Men a state of eternal darkness and death Vers. 4. He that observeth the Wind shall not sowe and he that regardeth the Clouds shall not reap The slothful Man that looks upon Winds and Clouds that are nothing but uncertainty it-self in their motions omit's the diligent husbanding his Ground and will not so sow as to reap any true profit or advantage to himself In the mystical sense he that neglect's Christ's voice and convincing discoveries not submitting to the spiritual husbandry of his Cross on his earthy natural state to make way for the springing up of a spiritual Seed and listen's to the stranger's voice the uncertain words or reasonings of Nature in himself or others signified here by Winds and Clouds for sparing that