ravishing contemplation of the infinite Power and Wisdome of thy Creator manifested in the multiplicity variety and unexpressible excellencies of smells and odours as also of his wonderfull mercy love and goodness in making them and communicating them to thee for thy use and benefit that as in a clear mirrour and by this blessed medium thou mayest behold and enjoy him who is essentially sweetness and by whom through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ which grace as a spiritual internal and common sense and Architype of all thy Bodily senses beholds hears tasts smells imbraces and possesses him thou mayest I say in God alone be delighted refresht and nourisht unto Life Eternal O infinite holy ever glorious and Eternal Spirit who art the power and love the goodness holiness and sweetness of the Eternal Father and the Son as proceeding from all Eternity from them and who art co-equal co-eternal and co-essential with them in the unity of one Divine Essence and God-head who art the Comforter Counseller Preserver and Sanctifier of all the Elect and Children of God give me a new heart and a new spirit and make me a new Creature according as the Father hath promised in the new Covenant of grace so shall not only my Soul with all the faculties and affections thereof but my Body also with all its Members and Senses be meliorated renewed and sanctified and this rare wonderfull and curious sense of Smelling with the sinfulness of pride voluptuousness excess curiosity and vanity hath made not only unprofitable and destructive to me but of ill savour offensive and dishonorable to thee become like the laborious Bee a gatherer of sweetness out of every object thereof Of which various mixtures my Soul shall compound and make up an holy Incense in resemblance of that under the Law prefiguring this of love as in return for thy goodness of admiration in the acknowledgment of thy wisdome of adoration as declaring thy Omnipotency of praise and thanksgiving as glorifying thee for these thy manifold gifts and blessings and be not only Adamiz'd and like him as in Paradise before the Fall but Angeliz'd yea like my Lord and Saviour who from every object Creature and occasion observed and raised matter of honour and glory to God his Father and mine yea by such an holy exercise of this Sense my Soul as well as my Body shall be refresht delighted and nourisht in its Eternity of Life begun here and to be made perfect together with this sense at the first Resurrection of the Just in Glory I need not prove that the Sense of Feeling shall continue and have existence in the Saints glorified state since to deny it is tanto-mount as to affirm that their Bodies shall not have a beeing or which is equally absurd that they shall in this new life be sick of a dead Palsie This Sense being now and so without doubt shall be then one of the clearest signes and demonstrations of the life of the Body and hath in one respect a singular preheminency and difference above the rest of the Senses For whereas every other Sense hath its proper Seat and Organ This may be truly said to be like the Soul and to Organize and reside in every part and member of a living and perfect Body Neither is this Sense less necessary to motion than to life insomuch as that when a Body is totally deprived thereof it is insensible and moves not and is accompted no better than a dead Trunk and inanimate Corps I shall add further that this Sense as it is now so certainly it shall be then the Souls chief Instrument and Inquisitor to discern by and give Judgment with much pleasure and delight of those four principal Elementary qualities that are respectively inherent to and in all created things and bodies that consist of matter and are made up and compounded of the four Elements as to heat or coldness driness or moisture or of those remoter qualities and adjuncts soft or hard smooth or rough arising from them So that as the Soul united to the new-raised Body without Eyes and the Sense of Sighâ— may truly be said to be imperfect and blind as to all visible objects so should the Body want this Sense of Feeling the Soul may as truly be said to be incompleat and ignorantly dark as to its knowledge and understanding as to all Tangible subjects From what hath been said I assert that the Saints at the Resurrection shall in their glorified Bodies have both the continuance and exercise of this Sense of Feeling and that in an incomparable perfection as to what it is now I will not positively affirm that spiritual substances as Angels may be subjects of this glorified Sense that shall be spiritualiz'd with our Bodies which though now a Natural Body shall then according to the Word of Truth be raised a spiritual Body If so is it not probable that as now to our natural Bodies natural things are touchable so to our spiritual bodies spiritual substances as Angels may be Tangible Our Saviours expression to his Apostles not at all contraducing or excluding this inquiry or inference he affirming only that a spirit hath not flesh and bones as he had not denying that a spiritual glorified body may touch and feel a spiritual Beeing and Essence But should this not be I am assured we shall both touch and imbrace him and be imbrac'd by him I speak this according to the Scripture-phrase with all due and humble reverence who is far above all Creatures and Angels our Head our Spouse our Saviour the most glorious Lord Jesus Christ God-man in one Person as also Abraham Isaac and Jacob the Holy Patriarchs Kings Prophets Apostles Martyrs Confessors and glorified Saints as also our formerly neer and dear Relations which then shall be known of us in that perfection of knowledge and in this our exaltation that so their salvation may add such an accidental joy to the augmentation of our blessedness as the Holy Angels are said by our Saviour to have now super-added to their happiness at the conversion of a sinner To these I shall annex and subjoyn other more inferiour subjects of this glorified Sense the then refined and well-tempered Aire and Elements the delightfull contact of Fowles Birds and Beasts now willingly subject and obedient to Man the super-excelling and numerous Trees Fruits and Plants the Arbors of soft and sweet-smelling Roses the banks of Lillies the beds of Violets the Carpets of all manner of rarest Herbs and Flowers with which this new Heaven and new Earth this renewed Paradise shall be even to perpetuity plentifully garnisht and adorned with to the great glory of God the Creator of Christ the Restorer and of the Holy Ghost the Efficient and to the unexpressible pleasure and delightfull use and benefit of the Elect and glorified Saints As the blessed Canticles that Song of Songs hath been and is reproacht and abused by wanton Amorists
hath adopted thee his Son and esteemed thee and stiled thee his Sister and Mother To conclude lest these foregoing degrees may admit of a division he vouchsafes thee this high favour to call thee the branch He the Vine thee a member He thy Head He the Husband thee the Spouse that so a union yea the perfectest of unions might be exprest and that sweetest of Petitions be fulfilled That all may be one as thou Father art in me and I in thee that they also may be one in us Those that are joyned unto the Lord being one spirit and one body in Christ. Tell me then O my Soul can such a Lord whose love to thee made him serve thee become a cruel Inquisitor to condemn thee Will thy friend thy brother be an Achitophel a Cain to thee Is it a thing possible that thy everlasting Father instead of the Bread of Life will give thee to the torments of Hellish Scorpions No though Parents may forget the Sons of their Wombe yâ—â— will He not forget thee Is it unnatural for the Root to suffer the Branches to wither for want of sap For the Head to deny animation to the Members yea cannot there be a true conjunction in Marriage without the cement of affection And wilt thou dare to think that that Root of Jesse thy Head thy Spouse the God of Order and Nature will destroy the Principlse of nature and with-hold the sap of his Grace and Mercy his all-quickening Spirit of Life and Glory his Eternal free and unchangeable love from thee a branch a member a beloved No account it impious Infidelity to give such a thought the least entertainment Rather if thou wilt meditate of that day which indeed is a Christians duty all being commanded to watch because we know not at what hour our Lord will come pitch thy thoughts upon the Resurrection and that happy and blessed assumption of thy Soul and Body reunited to meet thy Judge and Saviour The Apostle testifying that we shall be all caught up together in the Clouds to meet our Lord in the Ayre and that then we shall be ever with the Lord For wheresoever the Carkass is there will the Eagles be gathered together Wherefore as the same Apostle exhorts Comfort both thy self and others with these words Rely also upon and apply those golden and royal declarations of thy Judge As that he will not condemne thee when thou art judged That he that believeth on him is not condemned but hath everlasting life and shall not come into condemnation but is passed from death to life That there is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus Since God doth justifie thee who is he that condemns thee That we are often times corrected here that we should not be condemned with the World Further is it possible that thou shouldest be saluted with so sweet an invitation and denomination as Come thou blessed of my Father and be accursed Canst thou be the Heir yea the Possessor of a Kingdome and also the Slave and Prisoner of Sathan Will the righteous Judge give to them Torments of Fire and Brimstone to whom he hath promised a Crown of Glory Art thou commanded to pray for to long for to wait for thy destroyer No surely but for him that hath promised to deliver us from the wrath to come To conclude even amongst Men none that is a Delinquent must presume to possess the Bench the Seat of Judicature But know you not saith the Apostle that the Saints shall judge the World yea Angels Wherefore doubtless they must be just yea are acquitted and made innocent both imputatively and inherently in their own Persons Further if this be not sufficient to animate and strengthen thy hope let thy faith make the last Article of the Creed thy object Where thou believest everlasting life to take its beginning or rather begin its perfection immediately after death and the last Judgment The time appointed for the full reward and coronation of the Saints I know there are many gracious promises of temporal blessings and those often-times fulfill'd and confer'd upon the Saints in this life Some whereof though few of many as being a remunerating act of Christs regal and judicial Office I will by the way recite not impertinently as being earnests to them of future glory sensible tokens of Fatherly love a Pilgrims Staff for our Faith to lean upon in our lifes peregrination This maxime being first undoubtedly to be believed that the same promises made to perfect obedience under the Law had at the first a respect and are now truly applicable to faithfull sincerity under the Gospel Such that Magazene of blessings in the 28. of Deuteronomy where to the largest and several appetites every true believing and sincere obeying Christian as well as to the sacrificing Jew a most plentifull feast and satisfaction is offered Is thy calling in the City or iâ— the Field thou shalt be blessed in them both Desirest thou riches and plenty of all the fruits of the Earth and a numerous posterity and a blessed use and enjoying of them Thou hast a Pattent a great Seat for these also Art thou a Man of action and great employment for the Church or the Common wealth yea hath thy vertues splendour a shadow of envious and malitious adversaries If thou hearkenest unto the voice of the Lord thy God thou shalt be blessed when thou comest in and blessed when thou goest out and the Lord shall cause them thine Enemies that rise up against thee to be smitten before thy face Wouldest thou have thy forfeited Charter renewed and all the Creatures yea the most honourable serviceable unto thee Behold the Lord shall give his Angels charge over thee yea they shall pitch their Tents about thee and the Heaven shall give Rain unto thy Land in due season Dost thou wish for to the further glory of God a long life and an honourable place and esteem amongst Men The Lord hath promised that he will set thee on high that he will make thee the head and not the taile and with long life will satisfie thee Yea more which is the compleatment of all he will shew thee his Salvation But a long life if imbittered with sickness is but a tedious Death True But if thou fear the Lord and depart from evil it shall be health to thy Navil and marrow to thy Bones Yea thy light shall break forth as the Morning and thy health shall spring forth speedily Further dost thou desire wisdome beauty strength The righteous have promises of all these so far forth as they still perfect their happiness Whose Daughters so fair as Jobs Those that mourn in Sion have assured unto them beauty for ashes If the Feet of the Saints are beautifull surely no part else is deficient But
eating and drinking of the glorified Saints which was not at all in the question For if so it may be brought as well to prove that they shall in all things else be like the Angels which I humbly conceive no Man will or hath asserted since in many things were it proper to be treated of upon this subject I could shew a manifold difference betwixt the Angels and the glorified Saints This being sufficient and a clear and full answer to that objection I shall now proceed to speak more particularly although very succinctly as having in the six foregoing reasons or preliminaries spoken more than I intended and given sufficient satisfaction to my self and I hope to others both from Scripture and reason as to this Subject First as to the sight or sense of Seeing the Eye although by Oculists Naturalists and Anatomists it is now placed in the first rank of the bodies parts or members as a subject wherein the most excellent and wonderfull wisdome of God is greatly manifested and that not only as in respect of its curious fabrick but admirable way and manner of conveighing and representing objects to the Soul whether Extra or intra mittendo or by both is not my work now to dispute or determine yet then it shall as to its optick use and faculty be much more wonderfully bettered heighthned and enlarged and that first as to its objects Now the best Eye cannot immediately behold the Sun shining in its brightness any time with fixedness without twinckling trouble and danger of blindness and as though it was asham'd of its weakness is presently vailed with a tear Now a Daniel an Ezekiel cannot look upon or behold an Angel without astonishment and falling to the ground upon their faces as being not able to behold their created glory But after the Resurrection we shall with these Eyes as Job speaks not only behold the glorified Saints that shine as the Sun and are as so many millions of Suns but the glorious Angels and our Redeemer the Lord Jesus Christ the brightest Sun of righteousness and shall see God as he is yea we shall see him face to face and live This is that everlasting and glorious beatifical Vision of Father Son and Holy Ghost the for ever blessed Trinity in Unity and Unity in Trinity so much spoken of by the ancient Fathers in which as in a most bright cleer mirror the Saints shall behold their Eyes being herein assistants to their Souls all things God is pleased to reveal and so far as a created nature is capable of past and present and to come As also the natures virtues and qualities of all the Creatures not as now by their effects but in their cause Idea and truth yea the high and deep things of God The second excellency of this glorified sense of sight as to its strength in respect of objects that are far distant is That whereas now our Eyes without the help of Perspective-Glasses cannot discern or clearly distinguish and inform us of the things upon Earth some few miles off and are much inferiour to Eagles and Vultures of whom Naturalists report That when by high flying they are so lessened as not to be discerned by our Eyes yet they can behold a little quarry upon the ground and their prey although many miles distant from them and that now through the imbecility and weakness of our sight in a clear day we judge the skie to be of an azure colour whereas truly it hath no colour but is only so represented being only by a vaster distance and the intermediate Aire enlightened by the Sun and that distance beyond the extent of our weak Eyes upon the level of the Earth seems to be dark or black But hereafter at the Resurrection the Eye being the Instrument and Organ through and by which the Soul beholds all things shall be so strengthened that it shall thereby behold things very far distant Else it should lose by union with the body that excellency of sight it had as a Spirit before it re-entred into the Body It being clear and evident that the Angels and Spirits excell all other living Creatures as to the activity and extent of seeing That evil spirit the Devil being able to behold and represent to our blessed Saviour from the top of a high Mountain all the Kingdomes of the World that is of that Hemisphere and semi-circle of the Earth and the glory of them a most vast view and prospect so also the Angel of God called unto Hagar and afterwards to Abraham out of Heaven A third admirable excellency of the Eye glorified is the wonderfull life and beauty of it Now it is the chief Ornament and grace of the Face in Men or Women but then it shall super-excell what it is now as much as the Eye of a living Man transcends the Eye of one that is dead Which life splendor and beauty doth not only proceed from the glorification of the Eye as apart and member of the glorified body but from those spirit-full and sparkling rayes sent forth from the within glorious Souls which like the Sun-beams shining through and upon the purest Chrystal shall cause the Eye to shine with a most delightfull and unexpressible radiancy and splendor much like to that wonderfull and visional appearance of our Head and sample the Lord Jesus to Saint John of whom it is written That his Eyes were as a Flame of Fire O my Soul shall thy sence of seeing attain to such a height of perfection as to be able not only to behold glorified Saints and Angels but the much more resplendent face of thy glorious Saviour yea of God himself shall it be so greatly fortified as to surveigh like the Angels things remotely distant shall thy eyes be so beautifull and radiant as to shine and sparkle like the Stars of the first magnitude O resolve and endeavour by the assistance of Gods free grace not to vassalage and debase them by beholding Earthly vanities much less to make use and imploy them as the Pandors of Sathan and the Dung-ports of sinfull lusts and lasciviousness like the Men of this World Whose Eyes are full of Adultery and uncleanness But let them according to the end for which they were created be wholly employed in beholding and admiring the glory of God in his wonderfull works held forth in the bright-shining Stars and Planets and in the splendor of the Moon and Sun Let them be also helpfull Instruments to conveigh unto thee continual matter of praise and admiration as to the wisdome of thy Creator in the consideration and meditation not only as to the excellent and universal frame of Heaven and Earth but as to the great variety and beauty of each particular Creature so shall this their Heavenly and holy exercise prepare thee and them for a greater measure of perfect Glory O blessed Spouse and dear Saviour who hast said to thy Church
of his wrath and shalt Judge amongst the Heathen and shall fill the places with the dead Bodies and wound the Heads over many Countries When thou shalt put a two-edged Sword into the Hand of thy Saints to execute vengeance upon the Heathen and punishment upon the People to bind their Kings with Chains and their Nobles with Fetters of Iron to execute the Judgment written this honour have all the Saints Yea is this thy victorious Kingdome and Government wherein righteousness peace holiness and purity shall be so greatly exercised and exalted by and under thy Saints upon Earth confirmed by thee in a Vision to thy Apostle John who declares that after Sathan was bound by thee a thousand years He saw Thrones and they to wit thy Saints sate upon them and Judgment was given unto them The Prodromus to which Sessions he saw Revelations the 19. from Verse the 11. unto the end of that Chapter And shall not both my Tongue and Heart in the certain belief that these wonderfull prophetical promises shall yea are now at the point to be made good unto thy Church and to be fulfilled praise and glorifie thee in the joyfull expectation thereof in those words which thy own Spirit Indicted on this subject and for this purpose O clap your Hands all yee People shout unto God with the voice of Tryumph for the Lord most High is terrible he is a great King over all the Earth He shall subdue the People under us and the Nations under our Feet he shall choose our Inheritance for us the excellency of Jacob whom he loved For God is the King of all the Earth sing yee praises with understanding God raigneth over the Heathen God sitteth upon the Throne of his Holiness The Princes of the People are gathered together even the People of the God of Abraham for the Shields of the Earth belongeth unto God he is greatly exalted O blessed Saviour who art that great Prophet promised by Moses yea the Lord God of the Prophets Hast thou foretold to us by them that after the binding and sealing up Sathan and all the Powers of Darkness in Hell the bottomless Pit thy Saints thy Church shall enjoy a Sabatisme a thousand years of rest and peace upon this Earth which I humbly expect when their six thousand years of trouble labour and persecution shall be expired typified and prefigured as I in all humility conceive in the Arks resting the 17. Day of the 7. Month as a Type of this rest in the six Days Creation and thy seventh Days rest and in thy appointing us a laborious Week and six Days of Work and every seventh Day to be a Sabbath a Day of rest to us and the Creatures And in the seventh Years rest to the Field and release to Servants the righteousness and holiness peace plenty and happiness of which their raign and Kingdome I but lately mentioned and evidenced by a few Scriptures of many that clearly hold it forth to us O let my Heart and Tongue in the assured faith of thy accomplishing this great work sing with joy the seventy-second Psalme The lively Prophesie of this thy peaceable Kingdome under thy Saints upon Earth under the Type of Solomon concluding with the Holy Psalmist Blessed be the Lord God of Israel who only doth wonderous works And blessed be his glorious Name for ever And let the whole Earth be filled with his Glory Amen O Lord the Judge of all the Earth hast thou promised to come unto us the second time without Sin unto Salvation but in flaming Fire to take vengeance of all that know thee not Hereby destroying them and Hypocrites together with the Apostatizing Nations called Gog and Magog as Sprung from a Scythian Root seduced from the true Faith by the deceits of Sathan at his loosing for a season The number of whom is as the Sand of the Sea and by him gathered together to incompass the Camp of thy Saints and the holy City thy true Church made up of Gentiles and Israelites Hast thou then promised a Resurrection of the Just even of all thine Elect ones and Martyrs and that They shall be Priests of God and of thee O Christ and that they shall raign with thee a thousand years For thou hast made us unto our God Kings and Priests and we shall raign upon Earth Even in that new Heaven and new Earth which thou wilt create shall our Salvation be then perfected and compleated in that first Resurrection the Redemption of our Bodies now sowen in Corruption but then raised in Incorruption sowen in dishonour but raised in Glory sowen in weakness but raised in Power sowen a natural Body but raised a spiritual Body and glorious like unto thee O Lord. For ever blessed Redeemer shall I according to Scripture-Chronology probably about twelve hundred and thirteen years hence with holy Daniel stand in the Lot at the end of the Days and in my glorified Body with the many myriades of Angels and glorious Saints upon the renewed Earth behold and enjoy thee personally a thousand years shall my Tongue then declare thy Acts and the wonders of thy love mercy and truth and praise thee with them for this thy great salvation as being in a sure possession of Glory O let my Heart and Tongue now praise thee in faith and assurance thereof Since Faith is the substance of things hoped for the evidence of things not seen Yea let me with thy Prophet and Apostle Tryumph over that last Enemy Death and singing say O Death where is thy Sting O Grave where is thy Victory The Sting of Death is Sin and the strength of Sin is the Law Death is swallowed up in Victory Thanks be to God which giveth us the Victory through thee our Lord Jesus Christ. O thou whose Name is called the Word of God who art the King of Kings and Lord of Lords the only Potentate to whom all Judgment is committed by the Father and who art ordained of God to be the Judge of the quick and of the dead we must therefore all appear before thy Judgment Seat when thy righteousness shall shine forth as the Light and thy Judgment as the Noon-Day in giving to every one according to their works And to all thine Elect called thy Sheep at thy right hand who are freely justified by thy righteousness according to the goodness of their thoughts words and deeds which and not any of their sins as being fully satisfied for and blotted out by thy Death and Merits shall then be remembred as being the fruits of thy own Grace That so thy Saints may be gradually rewarded according to their works not for their works both in the new Earth and highest Heavens with Eternal Life and Glory And inherit the Kingdome prepared for them before the Foundation of
down and destroyed And that without my suffering of any considerable loss Soliloquium or Discourse OF all inanimated Instruments of God's curse for sin none have been so violent irresistable and destructive to Man as the four Elements because of all sublunary things they possess the largest extent and therefore have the greatest power and influence Witness the Earths tremendious swallowing up the Tents and Families of rebellious Korah Dathan and Abiram and the destructive and ruinating Antiochian Earth-quakes The Universal Deluge in Noah's time by Water The great Mortality and destruction of the Israelites in the Wilderness and our late dreadful Pestilences in London proceeding from the corruption of the Aire and the fearful and unparallel'd Visitation of Sodom and Gomorrah by Elementary Fire Of which four Fundamental Simples and sole Ingredients of our lower Creation None is so terrible so tormenting so swift and so indomitable as the Element of Fire and therefore not only the unsupportable pains of Hell are held forth to us in Scripture by Fire But flaming Fire is already irrevocably ordained by the Lord as the blessed Apostle Peter witnesseth to bring up the rear and to be the last and the most desolating Judgment upon this wicked World The sad yet lively figures of this last Fiery Destruction are the Burnings of Houses Towns and Cities particularly that of the great famous and ancient City of London in the Year 1666. Against which City those Ignation Fires marcht with such a large and fearful front that they destroyed and laid in Ashes in three Days the glory labours and expences of two thousand seven hundred of Years O gracious God! hath Fire been so raging unmerciful and desolating to many thousands of Houses and Palaces in London and England hath it now and heretofore impoverisht and undone many thousands of Persons and good Christians what cause have I a sinner above others to record and acknowledge thy great and continued mercies for no less than Eleven times quenching the Fires begun in Four of my Houses lately in my possession and for preserving our Goods from any considerable Damage O let thy Goodness and Mercy that was virtually Water to allay and put out these judicial and terrene Fires kindled by my sin as well as though the malice of Enemies and carelesness of Servants be as Oyle to cause the Flames of my Love and thankfulness so to mount aloft that they may be heard and seen afar off even of all that serve and trust in thee in these three Nations That they in the consideration of these and of others thy marvellous loving kindness to me declared in this my poor work may praise thee with me also Yea let this holy and Heavenly Fire consume and burn up whatsoever is not thy goods and furniture in me and destroy every Image of Jealousie any Lust that Sathan hath set up in thy Temple my Body or upon thy Altar my heart so shall my whole Man like thy House consecrated by Solomon be replenisht with thy brightness and glory yea being thus filled with the Holy Ghost my Life and Soul shall shine like holy Stephens Face thy Proto-Martyr and Confessor here and both Soul and Body hereafter to Eternity shall be made like unto my Saviour's glorious Body For we know that when Christ who is our life shall appear we shall also appear with him in Glory Amen The EXTINGVISHER Ejaculation or Hymn upon the former Subject HOw blest and Heaven-like was Man's State in Paradice When nakedness with goodness cloth'd was of a greater price By far than Cloth of Gold imbost with Diamonds Rubies great orient Pearles and other precious Stones There was no need nor pompous use of Houses fair To live lodge Banquet in or fence from Wind cold Aire Or Summers heat Grass ever green imbrodered With various colour'd Flowers was his sweet Bed The Earth his Table was spread with variety Of gustful Plants and Herbs yea every fruitful Tree As Servitors present his Smell Eye Hands and Tast With all kinds of the varest Fruits and delicates Above the rest was that Nature-preserving Tree Of Life giv'n him to feed on to Eternity By Day his large previllion was the Azure Skie Glorious like Heaven through the Sun 's light his Canopie Also by Night it was though chang'd and altred clean As being spangled o're with Stars like a new Scene O wretched Man who by thy own rebelliousness Hast forfeited this Patent of true blessedness And art most justly out-law'd and by sin cast out Of this thy first condition And be-set about With miseries hence is it that each Element Of which thou art compounded is revengeful bent Against thee that the glorious Sun whose Heavenly Fire Was made to warm and cherish thee is through God's Ire By its refracted Beams thy great Tormentor Hence The Aire is full of Thunders Tempest and with cold condenst Powers forth the down-Snow and canded Hail with Rains Like Floods Witness the Indian Spouts and Hurricanes The Seas and Rivers now have leave to pass their bounds And make that Sea again or Lakes that was drie ground Hence is it that our Mother Earth out of whose Wombe So many kindes spring forth unnaturally becomes Their Tombe before their time And with a trembling Jaw Devours her Off-spring swallowes up in her vast Maw Whole Townes yea Towring Cities and the swelling Streames Of Rivers deep making proud Mountains humble Plains Hence is it that wild Beasts rebel 'gainst Man their Soveraign Lord Nimrods oppress and Brothers fall by Brothers Sword These fearful fruits of Sin and of first Adam's Fall Was the ground Plot Impulsive cause Original Of Houses Towns and Cities Then necessity Was Man's Surveyor But now Pride and Luxury Which changed hath our Fathers Caves Tents Cottages To Castles Towers like Babel stately Pallaces And costly Buildings Four such Lord for my rich lot Thou gavest me once built furnisht to my hand what not Nay more that love and mercy might thy bounty match Eleven times thy good providence kept only watch And blest the meanes to quench those Flames that had begun To Ceize House Goods upon sins Execution Yea once the side pience of a Garret was on Fire put out Without the knowledg help of any Person wonderful throughout In all these Fires our Damages was very small When Neighbours lost fair Dwellings Houshold-Stuff and all Their precious things Wherefore let this thy goodness be By me O Lord Recorded to Posterity That what 's deficient here to celebrate thy praise May be supplyed by them in time and length of Days Dear God to give preserve from harm Four pleasant Seats Was thy great act of love and care made more compleat In giving gracing me poor sinful Hut of Clay To be thy Temple and thy dwelling Night and Day But wretched Man I am and mad that in return Have oft essai'd thine yea my one House to burn By Flames of Lusts
Vew here his face from the Jngravers mint And in his workes his life and Soule in Print The True Effigies of Sir James Harington Knight and Baronet HORAE CONSECRATAE OR Spiritual Pastime CONCERNING Divine Meditations Upon the great Mysteries of our Faith and Salvation Occasional MEDITATIONS and Gratulatory Reflexions upon particular Providences and Deliverances vouchsafed to the Author and his Family ALSO A SCRIPTURE-CATECHISME Dedicated to the Service of his Wife and Children AND NOW Published together with other Treatises mentioned in the following Page for Common Use. By Sir JAMES HARRINGTON Kt. and Baronet London Printed for the Author 1682. The Contents of the Six Treatises I. Treatise THe Vision Exercise and Triumph of Faith In which is discovered from the Elevated and Holy Mount of Divine Contemplation 1. The shadows of Faith 2ly The true Faith and its Object God in Christ more particularly The Lord Jesus Christ in his Incarnation Life Death Passion Resurrection Ascension and coming to Judgment with the Benefits accruing from them to every true Believer 3dly The lost and miserable condition of every man by Nature 4ly The Restauration of man by Grace considered as accomplish'd by Christ in and by his Priestly Prophetical and Kingly Offices 5ly A Prospect of Eternal Life considered in the Glorification of the Soul and Body particularly as to the Faculties and Affections of the Soul and as to the Senses and Members of the Body in the new Heaven and new Earth during Christs personal Reign upon Earth for a thousand years 6ly A Prophetical Vision of Faith holding forth twelve great works of God which will shortly begin to appear and shall be fulfilled in their Respective Seasons and to be ended in the Translation of the Saints to Heaven The Compleatment of Scripture Prophesies the particulars of which Twelve Magnalia Dei View in the next page all which is intermixt with Holy Soliloquies and Divine Ejaculations applicable and profitable to every true Believer II. Treatise A Scripture-Catechisme contained in an Epistle sent by the Authour in the Name and Person of the Lord Jesus Christ to his Wife and Children wherein in Scripture-phrases only is held forth the Doctrine and Duty of a true Christian A work of excellent use for private Families as an Appendix to Catechising III. Treatise Divine Meditations upon the Creation Mans Fall and Redemption by Christ presented by the Author to his Parents in the one and twentieth year of his Age. IV. Treatise A Pillar of Praise or Occasional Meditations upon many Remarkable Mercies and Deliverances vouchsafed by the Lord to the Author and his nearest Relations V. Treatise The Lords days Preeminence above all other days held forth in an humble answer to a paper or Quere given to the Author by King Charles the First concerning the Observation of the Lords day and Easter day VI. Noahs Dove or an Epistle of peace directed by the Author to his Fatherly affected Brethren the Presbyterians and Independents as a probable means for their Agreement and Union TWELVE MAGNALIA DEI Or Heads of the wonderful Works and Actings of God on Earth by the Lord Jesus Christ during his Mediatorie Kingdome not yet Accomplisht All which are Treated of in three Tracts of this Volume I. THe Raising of the Witnesses Rev. 11.3 unto the 13th II. The Victorious Kingdom of Christ appearing in the Burning of the City of Rome Rev. 18.8 9. III. The Total and Final Ruine of the Papacie and of the Papal Kings of the Earth her Popish Supporter Rev. 19.19 20 21. IV. The Return to Canan of the Ten Tribes and the Jews and their Conversion Rom. 11.25 to the end V. The total Overthrow of the Turkish Empire by the Israelites and the subduing of all open Enemies of the Saints by the reformed Nations Ezek. 38 39. Chapters Dan. 2.44 45. VI. The Binding and Casting of Satan and his Angels into the Bottomless Pit the Local Hell for one thousand years to begin as I humbly conceive about the six thousand year of the world according to a true Chronology and Account Rev. 20.1 2 3. VII The Conversion of the whole World to the profession of Christianity Psal. 67. to the end Rev. 11.15 VIII The Peaceable Kingdome of Christ to be exercised by his Saints in this World for one thousand years the time of Satans Imprisonment which will begin as I humbly conceive in the year of the World six thousand and one being Daniels first Monarchy Rev. 2.44 45. Chap. 7.17 18.26 27. Rev. 20.4 And the Churches Sabbatisme upon this Earth Heb. 4.9 IX The Loosing and the Re-casting Satan and his Angels into Hell after the destruction of Gog and Magog by Fire Rev. 20.7 8 9 10. Together with the Consuming and Renewing of the whole Elementary World at our Lords coming the second time to Judgment by the same Fire 2 Thes. 2.7 8 9. X. Christs coming to Judgment under which is comprehended the Change or Resurrection of all the Elect to Glory 1 Thes. chap. 3. v. 13. to the end And Christs Remunerative Act of Justice to them in their Reigning with him upon the Renewed Earth a thousand years Rev. 2.4 5 6. XI The Raising of all the Wicked to Judgment a thousand years after the Elect Rev. 20.5 and the Sentenceing them and the Wicked Angels Rev. 20.11 XII The Translation of all the Elect to Heaven 2 Cor. 5.1 and the delivering of Christs Mediator Kingdome to his Father 1 Cor. 15.24.28 A Synopsis of the General Heads of this Treatise THe Definition of Faith Page 3 Diverse sorts of Faith viz Historical 4 Temporary 8 Miraculous 15 The Means of Faith 21 The Object of Faith Christ 22 Christ Born of the Virgin Mary 24 Persecuted by Herod ibid. His Agony 27 His Condemnation by Pilate 28 Crucified 30 His Death 33 His Burial 34 His Victory over Hell 35 His Resurrection 36 His Ascension 38 I. Man by Nature miserable in his Soul viz. in his Mind in general 41 Understanding 42 Conscience ibid. Will 44 Affections 45 The disorder in them namely in Joy which cannot be in Riches 48 Honours ibid. Pleasures ibid. Wisdom 49 Fear 50 II. Mans misery in body In general 51 In particular the sinfulness in his Eyes 53 Ears 54 Smell ibid. Taste 55 Touch ibid. Christs Priests Office in general 57 Intercession in particular 60 Satisfaction by both 61 Of Justification 62 Forgiveness of sins 63 Imputative Righteousness 63 The Definition thereof 64 Proofs of our right to Christs Imputative Righteousness by Scripture Demonstrations 65 General Questions and Objections answered 67 A Dialogue between Christ and the soul 74 The souls particular eompalint Against the mind and understanding 74 Christ answ 75 Against the Conscience 75 Christ answ 75 Against hardness of heart 76 Christ answ 77 Against the memories 78 Christ answ 79 Against the will 80 Christ answ 80 Against the affections viz. Love 81 Joy 81 Christ answ 83 Her general complaint of her Vniversal unworthyness 84 Christ
And lest Hell should tryumph over us in punishment he in Person tryumphs over it with Victory In Person I say Although his Body lay still in the Grave since its local absence contradicts not his personal presence the inseparable union of the God-head with his Body and Soul even in Death permitting only a separation in nature not of natures a mutation of order no disunion If the Devils fear forced his Prince to supplicate when our Saviour sojourn'd on Earth what unexpressible terrors did then possess them when the Worlds Great Monarch reigned over Hell If in his humiliation they doubted his sudden judgment How did his exaltation assure them of their certain execution Here behold acted that Vision figuratively after manifested unto St. John of Sathans imprisonment for a thousand years although literally it was to be fulfilled many ages after For who hath the Key of the bottomless Pit of Heaven and Hell but he to whom all power is given both in Heaven and Earth He who openeth and no Man shutteth Or when should these Principalities be subdued if not at this general and most glorious Conquest Can any imagine this great Victory to be maymed or imperfect since he then led Captivity captive trampling over all those that resisted either his Power or our Salvation So conclude this what time since his coming doth so evidently demonstrate this truth to be by our Head in part fulfilled as the after events I mean the tranquility and delight of the Church amongst themselves those hundred years immediately succeeding his suffering What though the ten Persecutions did exceedingly rage against the Saints according to the 4th verse of that 20. of the Revelations The blood of the Martyrs is the Seed of the Church Yea they did even then reign most gloriously with Christ. As the Kingdome of our Saviour and the brightness of the Church shined most perspicuously when the purity thereof brake forth in their profession and constancy so the miseries of Christians and the liberty of Sathan is never more apparent then when the damnableness and obscurity of capital Heresies Eclipse the visible face of the Church For in the first we may truly be said to live and tryumph even in death in the last their supposed freedome is the greatest slavery and their seeming life but a cursed and eternal deprivation Three Days continued though not compleat was the proportion of time allotted to measure out my Saviours last sleep Had he dyed and presently revived unbelieving Man would have tearmed such a Death but a Transe Yea the scandalous Rulers would have blasted the wonderfull Miracle of his Resurrection with an accusation of self-contradicting and not performance of his former protestation Destroy this Temple and within three Days I will build it up again Wherefore O my Soul that thy faith might be confirmed in the sure belief of his dying The Jews convicted by the truth of his performance and his own Power magnified by the Divinity of the act he is content to lodge as it were in a second Womb viz. of Clay that all things being perfected the third Day he might lead his the way to a birth of Glory The victorious Soul of my Saviour after the reliction of his Body having trampled upon Death tryumphed over Hell and took a full possession of Heaven that his actions as they were the means so they might be as it were the story and prophecy of our succeeding All the Souls of the faithfull when they part with this hollow Clay in like manner though through his right conculcate Death and Hell enjoying the new Jerusalem Behold he now proceeds by the raising of his Body to assure us that our Bodies shall be like our Souls immortal as our Souls shall be made like unto his most glorious through the re-creation of his beautifull Image in us The object of my Faith hath hitherto been a Night-piece full fraught with Persecution and suffering tears and strong cries dying and burial but now the all-flourishing Rayes of the Immortal Deity personally in the Son of Righteousness at his rising breaks forth changing that Darkness into Light To this may be applied that of the Psalmist Mourning may continue for a Night but joy comes in the Morning Noah's Ark the true Figure of a Christians faith must be drenched in the Waves and driven by the Wind a long time before it shall rest dry and safe upon the Mountains of Ararat The humiliation of my Saviour was his night wherein the humanity did most manifest it self So his exaltation in which his Resurrection hath a part is his Day wherein the brightness and power of his God-head did shew it self most apparently Adam the destroyer of Man first enjoyed a blessing a Paradise before he merited a Curse a Hell But the Messias the restorer of Man must first be made an execration before he can purchase for us a re-possession Not long since I besought all true believers to weep with Christ who wept not for himself but for them But now my Soul breaths forth a more pleasing request which I prefer not to all but to those only which are mourners in Sion That as they have grieved with Him and for themselves in him so now they would be filled with his solace and tryumph in his Victory That as they have sowed in tears they may now reap in joy Every Man was a debtor unto the Almighty untill Christ our surety paid the mortgage and redeemed our Souls He satisfied the debt on the Cross least we should doubt of the sufficiency of his satisfaction For behold here our acquittance and the Bonds rent even the Bonds of Death torne asunder in and by his Resurrection Have we not then cause to rejoyce for so great a deliverance The mirth of Moses Myriam and the Israelites was expressed in a Song of thanksgiving when the Egyptians were entombed in the Sea The joy of Barak and Debora was proclaimed in an Anthem of praise when Sisera and his Chariots were discomfited The Virgins of Israel were not silent when David overthrew Goliah And shall we that are delivered from the slavery of a spiritual Pharaoh sin from the tyranny of a hellish Sysera a strong Goliah Sathan the Prince that ruleth in the Ayr and over all the Children of disobedience be empty of gladness and gratefulness when all the Creatures land and praise our Moses our Barak our David our Jesus shall not all the People especially the redeemed of the Lord say Amen Let us now walk forth with those of Emmaus to meet our Saviour after the Resurrection of his Body Praying earnestly that through the Power of his Spirit he would open the eyes of our faith that we may believe confess and rejoyce in his Resurrection The infinite affection of this Saviour of ours is apparent in every action His love made him depart from glory when he descended from the bosome of his Father his love made him conceal his
all the Children of pride For The Seed of the Woman hath broken this Serpents Head And the Devil shall be cast into Hell What though he be the Prince that ruleth in the Ayr for his number Legions for his strength a Principality a Power a Lion and for the depth of Policy and malice stiled the Ruler of Darkness and also the accuser of the Brethren yet know he is but a Creature and thy Saviours Vassal For By Him were all things created that are in Heaven and that are in Earth visible or invisible whether they be Thrones Dominions Principalities or Powers And he that made him can make his Sword approach unto him And though the number of fallen Angels be great yet the number of the Elect Angels its likely are far greater at least their Power greater as the issue of that great battel in Heaven if literally takeâ— illustrates So that thy eyes being opened by faith there are more that are with us than against us Christ is that Lion of the Tribe of Judah our Sampson to destroy that roaring Lion the Devil the wisdome of the Father and the light that not only enlightens our darkness but dissipates and puts to flight the darkness and subtilties of Sathan the only Mediator betwixt God and Man the Son of God the lover and friend of Men The Brother of the Brethren To conclude he it is to thy comfort whom the Father hath set at his own right hand in heavenly places far above all those Principalities and Powers and all might and dominion Who hath spoiled these Principalities and Powers and made a shew of them openly tryumphing over them even on his Cross. Therefore rejoyce yee Heavens and yee that dwell therein for now is come salvation and strength and the Kingdome of our God and the Power of his Christ For The accuser of our Brethren is cast down which accused them before God day and night Do I expect thee O my Soul to be a companion of this Heavenly Quire Why then do I hear thee utter nothing but mourning and as it were keep time with sighs Such a Song admits not of a burthen I will not bear a part with thee since in thy tears as in a mirror I see Hanibal ad portas another Enemy at thy Gates At thy Gates did I say nay entred and within thee so that now thy sobs me-thinks are vocal and articulate groaning out nothing but such sad captive complaints as these I am carnal and sold under sin O wretch that I am who shall deliver me from the body of this death O my Soul though thy fear questions yet let it not make thee despair of a Deliverer say I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord whom he hath sent to be thy Saviour even in the midst of this fiery Furnace So that like those Votive Martyrs though with the Flesh thou obeyest and art invironed with sin yet with the Minde thou servest the Lord. I am not ignorant that like to the City of Ai there are behinde thee ambushes of thy first Parents transgression before thee the Armies of thy many actual offences on both hands of thee the wages of sins of commission and omission yea that the Infantry of thy in-bred and original corruptions have not only taken but begun to Fire thy out-works Yet fear not stand still and see the salvation of the Lord for these spiritual Egyptians thy Enemies which thou hast seen in this short day of thy life and travail thou shalt see no more for ever since the Chariot-wheels of their strength shall be taken off and in conclusion their selves shall be drowned and hid in that red Sea of thy Saviours pretious blood Wherefore armed with a holy and Jehu-like severity command as Joshua once the five Kings so these the heads and chief of these thy Enemies to be brought forth and let them be slain with a Christian magnanimity even with that two-edged Sword which proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord. Fear not with Gedeons stripling that Goliah-like transgression of Adam though as a second Briarius his many Armies of Pride Blasphemy Rebellion Unthankfulness Discontent Curiosity yea all manner of wickedness seem to threaten Heaven Neither quit thy ground though he brandish against thee that curse that Cherubs flaming Sword in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die Let him strike yea let the stroke wound thee and bring thee upon thy knees yea let the wound send forth floods of penitent tears for this thy fall shall be thy rise this thy humiliation thy greatest exaltation This is that Weapon that gives both death and life For this thy misery is become the object of that infinite mercy which not only rescues thee but sheathes this his mortal Sword in this thy Enemies bowels Since by Man came death by Man came also the Resurrection of the dead For as in Adam all die even so in Christ shall all be made alive And lest he should again revive as Joab did to rebellious Absalom He again pierces his heart with these three Darts As by the offence of one judgment came upon all to condemnation even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all unto justification of life for as by one Mans disobedience many were made sinners so by the obedience of one many shall be made righteous That as sin reigned unto death even so might grace reign thorough righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord. That Cloud is disperst But behold a greater storm arises even such a one as not only shakes and endangers the Battlements of a Christian conversation but blowes up the foundation When an Enemy besieges he ever is within view But if he take a Bulwork he gains possession and the loss seem irrecoverable Adams sin imputed like a furious adversary surrounds beleagures and shatters the whole Fort of Man But that Original corruption that holy David complains of as conceived and born in by propagation makes neerer approaches and undermines the Mud-walls of our Flesh taking possession of the Tryangular and chiefest Cyttadel which once yielded he fills every sconce of the sence with Armed Lusts and mounts through every Loop-hole a murdering piece which continually roares against Heaven And as for the Chief Commander Collonel and Mustar-master the understanding will and memory having put out their Eyes it makes them in the Dungeon of Ignorance grinde like Sampson at the Mill of Lust and fleshly desires Thus miserable and seemingly irrecoverable is our estate in Nature whilst our in-bred corruption that strong Man keeps the hold But let us not be discouraged for the Lord Jesus who is stronger than he is come upon him and hath overcome him taking from him all his Armour wherein he trusted and dividing his spoyles being sent by God in the likeness
of sinfull Flesh and for sin to condemn sin in the Flesh which Victory He obtained by his Death For in that he dyed he dyed unto sin once so reckon we also our selves as being baptized into his Death to be dead indeed unto sin but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord Thus being made free from Sin we are become the Servants of righteousness neither hath Sin any more dominion over us as being not under the Law which is the strength of Sin but under Grace the moving cause of our Salvation Further this total and spiritual Leprosie is in Scripture tearmed a general pollution of the whole Man In which sence how many sweet and gracious promises doth the Old Testament offer to the faith of every true Believer poynting out unto us with the Angel when in a far more despicable and desperate estate than Hagar's Ismael a Spring a Well of living Water In that day which is the day there shall be a Fountain opened to the House of David and to the Inhabitants of the Spiritual Jerusalem for sin and for uncleanness And lest with that Cripple in the Gospel we should be unable to make tryal of the Virtue nay because we are with that miserable Infant in the Prophet Dead in sins and trespasses Therefore he adds he will say unto us live which agrees with his immediate Word in St. John's Gospel The dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God and they that hear shall live Nay which is more he will become our spiritual Physician and Chyrurgion to heal to wash to cleanse to circumcise to anoint us witness this his own promise viz. Then will I sprinkle clean Water upon you and yee shall be clean from all your filthiness and from all your Idols will I cleanse you a new Heart will I give you and a new Spirit will I put within you and I will take the stony Heart out of your Flesh and I will give you an Heart of Flesh and I will put my Spirit within you and cause you to walk in my Statutes and yee shall keep my judgments and do them O thou which art my Joshua my Jesus and hast cast out and destroyed my Cananitish lusts leaving only some few tributaries to try my obedience and to be as pricks in my sides that I might not sleep to death in security grant me thy strength of grace more and more to prevail over them though they have Chariots of Iron as being strong corruptions and inhabit the Valleys as being ambushed in a deep and deceitfull heart Enable me O Lord either to destroy them or to make them Hewers of Wood and Drawers of Water to the House of my God that is serviceable to thy spiritual Building and Temple which I am Let Avarice be turned into a coveting of spiritual things Excess in thy Creatures to a repletion with thy Spirit Worldly sorrow which worketh death unto godly sorrow not to be repented of Love of Earth to a love of Heaven O my gratious Physitian what â—ee have I or is great enough for this spiritual cure or rather miracle a resurrection from the dead Lord thou hast given me all therefore I have nothing to give Yet though I cannot give I will do right and render as to Caesar so unto God what is his My Soul beares thy impress thy Image and is therefore passant in Heaven Wherefore when thou pleasest embanck it there in glory The greater an offence is the more severe and weighty the punishment This rule of proportion giving both a beeing and splendor to distributive Justice Whisperers and murmurers against a State are not prosecuted with so much rigour as the openly rebellious Nor according to the judgment of truth it self shall the ignorant Servant be beaten with as many stripes as the presumptuous offender Blessed Saviour even in this maxime of humane Justice there is though in weak and faint shaddowes a glimpse and representation of thine Mans well doing and best of action being but an imperfect imitation of thee a most pure and universal act which ballances our faults and retributes to each his due weight of punishment Thus righteously judging that if causeless anger be in danger of the judgment then approbrious and disgracefull speeches such as thou fool being a further degree and an accursed fruit of the former shall be in perril of an Hell-fire So Paul because a Persecutor through ignorance received mercy when as Julian an Apostate and wilfull sinner died a Blasphemer Lord I have laid this train to blow up my self O let thy conviction in justice like a storm before a calm forego thy absolution in mercy Righteous Judge if that thy mortal sentence hath already attached me as Adam's Son as Adam's Image yea I have pleaded guilty shall not my numberless actual transgressions meriting that other curse of thy Law make me therefore as deserving thy double curse liable to a double punishment Yes surely unless miserable wretch infiniteness and eternity will not admit of an addition If one single act the breach of one Injunction that which the Papists and others though erroneously would have no sin or at the most a venial sin that which is mine not by personal commission as not then in esse but as it were by consanguinity by imputation from Adam my root fountain and transactor If this O Lord as formerly it is sufficiently evinced hath not only arraigned me at the Bar of Justice but cast me as guilty of high Treason and worthy of eternal punishment and not only me but those without the Pale of the Church unless God be mercifull to them who have not sinned after the similitude of Adams transgressions that is as some interpret actually How ponderous and excessively weighty shall my judgment appear in Justice scale How shall her Rods be converted into Scorpions How shall the same hand and power that inflicts in respect of durance an eternal yea in all respects if we measure by the Creatures weak apprehension an infinite suffering magnify it self in the augmentation of pain according to our encrease actuality and agedness of sin adding as it were infinite to infinite and making me to be unhappily so also that is capable of it and able to subsist under its just pressure O my God I walk in this my vale of misery like the Egyptians through the red Sea before me is thy clouded countenance and wrathfull indignation ready to give the watch word to my execution On the right hand and the left stand the towring and threatning Waves of my sinfull omissions commissions and deficiencies ready as the Psalmist speaks to swallow up and flowe over my Soul and behind me the pitchy darkness of horrour and punishment waites to entombe me for ever O my Saviour being thus like Abijah encompast with the Ambushes of my Enemies like fallen David immurde within his
bottomless Pit of Hell Death and Sin out of which eternal love in Christ free grace and infinite mercy hath taken thee Call upon and bless God for this infinite depth of mercy Yea exalt and magnify the height and depth the breadth and length of this love which passeth knowledge O my Soul the mighty Angels leaving their first state as ambitiously seeking a greater as the learned conceive were cast down for their pride and discontentedness from the highest Heaven into the deepest abyss of Hell And our first Parents for the like ambition and desire of bettering their condition were cast out of Paradise From which examples I have reason to think should Man have had a thought or design of or by himself to be possest of so glorious a life prerogative state and condition as our gracious God hath freely given us in Christ It had been so high and unwarrantable a sin and ambition as would have justly deserved as great a curse and punishment O from this experience of infinite love for God is love pray incessantly in return thereof not only to be enlarged and raised to the highest and greatest love and thankfulness that a Creature can be made capable of But that thou mayest hence-forth have no will but his which shall be thy great wisdome in all things submitting all thou hast and thy whole Man solely to his most gracious and All-wise dispose whose free gifts bounty and unconceivable liberality are not such as Creatures bestow on their favourites but such as becomes the Majesty and immensness of a God who gives to his Saints benefits and blessings temporal spiritual and eternal not only above their prayers hopes and expectations but as the Apostle expresses above what we can either ask or think O my Soul shall thy body be incorruptible and immortal defile it not with lust any more neither let sin abound because grace hath abounded Since thou must know that thy incorruptability and immortality must in a true Scripture and spiritual sence begin in this life although they are to be perfected in the next Therefore our Saviour saith He that believeth on him hath everlasting life And the Apostle affirmes that we are made to sit together in Christ in Heavenly places And Saint John declares 1 John 5.12 That he that hath the Son hath life and he that hath not the Son hath not life And blessed Paul affirms If Christ be in us the Body is dead because of sin but the spirit is life because of righteousness Again dost thou live in Christ and Christ in thee Art thou even as to thy body the Habitation and Temple of the Holy Ghost and spiritually and inseparably united to God in Christ and is thy life hid with God in Christ Dally no more with sin for there can be no communion betwixt light and darkness And know this although thou canst not dye eternally yet thy backslidings in wilfull and presumptuous sinnings may through thy Spouse his righteous with-drawing and desertion cast thee into such a swoon and transe that thy life peace and Heaven here may as to thy feeling be turned into emnity death yea and to an Hell upon Earth Give not that subtil destroyer Sathan occasion or advantage by spiritual adulteries and reiterated Rebellions to sue out a divorse in the Court of thy Conscience betwixt thy Spouse and thee For know this that although Whom Christ loves he loves to the end And his gifts and calling are without Repentance and that though thy Husband hath loved thee with an everlasting love yet such a suite will be very troublesome and chargeable and may cost thy Spirit many and unexpressible sighs groans and lamentations And may as it were break thy bones or make thy Body a very Sceleton only fit for a Grave Lastly for as much as the Children of God were partakers of flesh and blood Did the Son of God himself likewise take part of the same that through Death he might destroy him that had the power of Death viz. the Devil to deliver them who through fear of Death were all their life time subject unto bondage And did not take on him the nature of Angels but took on him the Seed of Abraham from which hypostatical union of the two natures in one Person and the union of thy Person to his Person by the Eternal Spirit is given unto thee eternal life in a far higher and more excellent way and manner than to the Elect Angels Did the Lord of Heaven and Earth the Heir of all things not only marry himself to thy nature but also unto thee For I am married unto you saith the Lord in the Prophet and is the honourable Ordinance of Marriage therefore called by the Apostle a great Mystery because even in Eves formation and in its first Institution it was to be a Type and lively Figure of this thy spiritual Marriage and union to the second Adam Hast thou through infinite mercy received assurance hereof that thou art thy Beloveds and that thy Beloved is thine Is the Marriage Day and Supper appointed and declared and in the interim hast thou an Espousal contract subscribed to by thy faith and by his Spirit O be exceeding watchfull and carefull of offending such a loving Spouse and glorious Bridegroom by any sinfull relapses and backslidings into any sin that may move him to jealousie For as jealousie is the rage of a Man so the anger and jealousie of thy God is said to burn like Fire against such unfaithfull and spiritual Adulteresses O as thou tenderest the love of thy God and of thy Spouse and thy peace of Conscience and thy Heaven upon Earth venture not to blot or blur so blessed an assurance and evidence of thy Eternal happiness union and life in him by sin or any presumptuous iniquity and rebellion Nor to crust it over by customary sinning or delay of repentance But by an holy chast and religious walking Keep it so fair written and legible that all other Saints but principly thy self at all times but especially in the time of trouble temptation and hour of death may read it Then though thy Eye-strings are broken the eye of thy faith shall behold it and see thy Name written in Heaven and in the Lambs Book of Life O blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ who art the Resurrection and the Life and hast declared in thy Word of Truth that this my vile Body shall be raised and made a Heavenly and spiritual Body like to thine give me to behold this wonderfull change continually by faith the eye of my Soul then shall I not be abashed or dismayed at the baldness and gray-headedness of old age at my hollow Eyes wrinckled Cheeks blindness deafness my toothless Gums and pale countenance nor at the Palsiness lameness and decrepitness of my Hands Feet and
glorified in their sinless condition when the whole Soul Body Members and Senses shall all co-operate in their several functions and offices to Gods great glory and their own Further it is not improbable that although the Root Fountain Confirmation and Eternity of the Saints life flowes primarily from their spiritual union and communion with God in Christ yet as a medium or a secondary and natural means for our God is Natura Naturans this way as it was and should have been made use of in Paradise may be still continued to nourish delight and be subservient as the Rain is to the Plants although the Earth is their great Mother to Eternal Life in the Saints And such no doubt was the Tree of Life not excluding it to be of a Sacramental nature also to our first Parents before their Fall All which is evident from the reason God gives of their speedy exclusion from their continuance or return into Paradise to eat thereof Lest they should eat thereof and live for ever Now that Paradise was a Figure and Pattern none I conceive will deny this of the Saints unto which the Lord Jesus was sent to restore us Although this is much better and higher as to the degrees of our happiness and condition by how much the second Adam and publick head of the Saints is much higher and more excellent than the first Adam or common Head and Root of Man-kind Fifthly if no use of the sense of gust or tasting or that in this our glorified state in the new Heaven and the new Earth there shall be no eating or drinking For I presume not to give here any judgment as to the exercise of these two senses of tasting and smelling in the highest degree of the Saints Glory in the Heaven of Heavens when the Mediatory Kingdome of Christ shall have an end and shall be delivered up to God the Father that God may be All in All I having much less light from Scripture or reason probably to know or guess what shall be the exercise and object of these senses in those super-excelling and glorious Regions than in this new Earth which is to be renewed and restored to us by our Lord Jesus the second Adam I say if the Saints glorified shall not eat nor drink in that new Heaven and Earth what shall become of or what use shall be made of most of the internal Members or parts of the Body Of which as to their most excellent frame great number and use skilfull Anatomists have written large Volumes to the glory of the wisdome power and work of God in them Shall the glorified Bodies be like an empty Trunck void of a stomack liver guts bowels bladder and the rest If so as it is contrary to the Scripture which saith The same Bodies shall be raised which includes all the internal as well as the external parts of the Body so what use shall be made of these of the Teeth and the rest if there be no eating or drinking nor employment of them as a natural and secondary means still ordained of God for the nourishment and continuation of a healthfull and equal temperament called by Philosophers Temperamentum ad pondus aequale and as for the everlasting Well-being of the Body Sixthly It is a Maxime in nature and made good by experience that all animate and compounded Creatures on Earth are nourished and preserved in their being by feeding upon such things as are compounded of the like Elements of the which they partake And is it not more than probable that the Saints glorified bodies the time they continue on the renewed Earth shall as by a natural and middle way be delighted nourisht preserved and continued as to their Bodies by drinking the simple and refined Water and juices of the Vine and other the then incorruptible fruits as before in Paradise And by eating the super-excelling fruits Plants and Roots the subject of our Fathers nourishment before Noah's Flood being a mixture and composition even of the same repurged matter and Elements of which our new-raised and glorified bodies consist may therefore both in reason and nature God according to his former Method so ordaining it be most proper and subservient to the end afore-mentioned Which end being finisht these compounded substances being in the body as in a limbeck separated may by insensible transpiration or otherways revert each part of them again to its proper Element and by a circulation as now without annihilation continue and preserve the being of the whole new Heaven and new Earth without the least diminution But it may be objected that our blessed Saviour declares in his answer to the Sadduces that the glorified Saints shall at the Resurrection be as and equal to the Angels but the Angels neither eat nor drink To which objection I give this double answer that first he saith not we shall be like but as and equal to the Angel And besides it is unknown to us as I said before how their life and being is continued and preserved We know they live and believe they shall live ever and that they are spiritual substances but what their formes are whether they can be circumscrib'd as our Bodies are or only defined to be in such or such a place this is discoursed of but not ascertained The curious learned yea some possibly too curious have in their writings affirmed that they have conversed seen and spoken with Angels That they have bodies although so spiritual and like the light that they cannot be seen but when they please themselves and that they have a nourishment conducing to their being of an etherial nature connatural and agreeable to their spiritual substances From all which I infer that unless our Saviours expression that we shall be like the Angels or any other Scripture had excluded the Angels from eating or drinking or receiving any nourishment by which in their manner their substances are refreshed and continued for nothing but God subsists of it self and from its self the Angels may be nourished as aforesaid And as for seeing hearing and touching the Scripture testifie the Angels exercise them all although in a more excellent manner than we do That expression of our Saviour yee shall be like the Angels excludes not nor proves any thing against the eating or drinking of the glorified Saints during their abode in the new Heaven and the new Earth My second answer is that this speech of our blessed Lord is a proper full and positive answer to the question of the Sadduces whose Wife should the Woman be that had seven Husbands at the Resurrection That since the Saints then shall neither marry nor be given in marriage but shall in that respect be like the Angels that their invincible Argument as they conceived it was void and proved nothing against the Doctrine of the Resurrection Therefore it is to be limited and restrained and not to be extended as to exclude the
or greater Assemblies the glorious fearfull and wonderful Name of the Lord our God that is his infinite and incomprehensible Attributes by which he is made known to his Creatures for every Attribute is God in the abstract as his Omnipotency wisdome holiness justice love mercy truth goodness life glory eternity and the rest As they have been are and shall be declared in his works of Creation then fully understood and revealed to us as to the causes and effects nature vertues influences and uses of all things that God hath made and that have a Beeing in Heaven or in Earth to the glory of our God their Creator Which is to me a strong reason and a great help to interpret many Scriptures as setting forth the great wisdome and justice of God in appointing a certain time for his Saints for whom he made the Earth and wherein they have so greatly suffered and been persecuted for his sake and to whom he hath redeemed and restored it shall with their Head the Lord Jesus in this new Heaven and new Earth before their second and ultimate Glory in the highest Heavens possess and enjoy know and understand this his lower Creation in its Primitive excellency That so they may sing to his praise and speak thereof one to another to the exalting God's Name and Glory as being the Chief end for which he Created it and them The second Chief Head of the Saints exercise of speech one with another will be concerning the wonderfull providences of God especially in respect of his Church from the beginning of the World a History never to be blotted out obliterated or forgotten by his Saints but to be frequently remembred and mentioned to the glory of his power wisdome love and faithfulness and of the rest of his Attributes A third and principal subject will be that which now and ever shall be the wonder of Heaven and Earth the admiration of Saints and Angels that Miracle of Divine love the Redemption of Man-kinde by the Lord Jesus God-Man in one Person In which above all other his works the Lord hath been pleased to draw neer and to manifest himself in all his glorious Attributes both to Saints and Angels This is that mystery of mysteries of which the Apostle witnesses That without controversie great is the mystery of Godliness God manifested in the Flesh justified in the Spirit seen of Angels Preached unto the Gentiles believed on in the World received up into Glory This is that bredth and length that depth and height the knowledge of the love of Christ which passeth knowledge even the fulness of God and the riches of his Glory But I must return where I left off lest I be swallowed up in this Ocean of Divine love which both now and then shall far transcend not only the expressions but the Conceptions of Saints and Angels The fourth Subject about which the Saints Tongues shall be exercised respects their several employments and activities under their glorious Head and King in this transcendent Kingdom and Universal Empire which by way of allusion I may terme their Callings or degrees of Office under him and in Relation to one another For if the Holy Scriptures hold forth that in the highest Heavens there is the most excellent Order and Government evidenced by the gradual denominations and titles given unto those Aetherial subjects as Arch-Angels and Angels Principalities and Powers Thrones and Dominions Cherubins and Seraphins All which have their several Offices Imployments and Governments according to the appointment and establishment of our great and all-wise God in those vast Regions and innumerable starrified Orbes yea if in Paradise had our first Parents not fallen as they so also their Progeny should have dressed the Garden and not have been idle so also it is more than probable that as the Saints according to the Scriptures should have like the Stars different degrees of Glory so shall they have different actings Offices and Imployments for the performance of which the Tongue and speech above other parts and Members of the Body as being the Souls Image and Interpreter will have the greatest share and honour As for their Offices he who is truly the Fountain of honour our Lord and Emperor the Lord Jesus saith that the Saints shall be all Kings yet with a difference as to the extent of their Governments For some shall rule over five others over ten Cities in this Empire of Glory Now their several and respective Functions and atchievments in their Governments none will suppose can be performed without the use of the Tongue and speech If all things in the Church Militant must be done with decency and in order much more admirable shall be the unparallel'd order of this Church Tryumphant The regulation directory and carrying on of which I conceive shall not be as now by the use and help of any kind of Books or Canons but by verbal Orders and Acts flowing continually from their Souls now as full of Light as Life That gracious promise and prophesie being then to be compleated and fulfilled They shall be all taught of God Let none mistake me as though I here hold forth that Saints shall have any Dominion or Rule over their Brethren No I mean and intend no such thing For all here are Kings and free and shall be subject to none but God and Christ their Head But this I conceive that this Church Tryumphant being that glorious and mystical Body whereof only Christ is the Head it is as the Apostle elegantly concerning the Church Militant like the natural Body compounded and made up of many Members every one of which hath a different degree of honour grace and glory and are design'd for several uses and actions which without any servitude or disrespect from each other of their Members they do and chearfully execute in order to the good benefit and happiness of the whole according as they are continually influenced and directed by their Head the Lord Jesus who is the only Potentate The King of Kings and Lord of Lords I come now to the third and last particular the gubernative and mandatory acting of the Tongue and voice of glorified Saints upon the new Earth as in respect of all animate and inferiour Creatures as Fowles of the Aire Beasts of the Earth and creeping things some of all which kindes as being intelligible although not rationable are now subjected to and obedient to the voice of Man even to the command of wicked Men As first for instance are not Faulcons Lanners Gosshawkes and all kinde of ravenous Fowles brought and taught to obey the Rulers call and voice of the Faulkner And as for other Fowles how wonderfull is the subjection and observance of the Cormorants and the coy Ducks as to the Instructions and designes of their Masters And as for harmless lesser and singing Birds how speedy and trusty Conveighers of Letters are the Pigeons called Carriors
Holy holy holy Lord God Almighty which was and is and is to come Thou art worthy O Lord to receive Glory and Honour and Power for 〈…〉 Created all things and for thy pleasure they are and were Created Thou O blessed Saviour art worthy to take the Book of the Providential Decrees and actings of the Father as concerning thy Chuâ—ch and to open the Sealâ— and to discover the meaning thereof for thâ—â— wast slain and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every Kindred and Tongue and People and Nation And hast made 〈◊〉 unto our God Kings and Priests and we shall 〈…〉 the Earth Worthy 〈…〉 O Lamb â—hat was 〈◊〉 to receive power and riches and wisdome and strength and honour and glory and blessing Blessing â—â—nour glory and power be unto thee O Father That 〈◊〉 upon the Throne and unto the Lamb for eâ—er and ever Great and marvailous are thy works Lord God Allmighty just and 〈◊〉 are thy ways O King of Saints who shall not fear thee O Lord and glorify thy Name for thou only 〈◊〉 holy For all Nations shall come and worship before thee for thy Judgments are made manifest and thy 〈◊〉 in the raising thy Witnesses thy Magistracy and Ministry and pouring forth thy wrath upon the Beast the Man of Sin that Western Anti-christ the Pope and upon that Mystery of Iniquity Babylon the great the Mother of Harlots and Abominations of the Earth which is also spiritually called 〈◊〉 and Egypt and literally Rome the Throne and Seat of the Beast and two-horned Beast the false Prophet which is come now into remembrance before thee O God to give unto her the Cup of the Wine of the fierceness of thy wrath she saith now in her heart I sit iâ— Queen and am no Widdow and shall see no sorrow therefore shall her Plagues 〈◊〉 in owâ— Diâ—â—y Death and Mourning and Famine and she shall be utterly 〈◊〉 with Fire for strong are thou 〈◊〉 God that Judgeth her And the Beaâ—â— the Pope that was and is not that is the Eight Head and is of the Seventh shall go into Perdition and be taken and with him the false Prophet the Roman Church and Hierarchy that wrought Miracles before him with which he deceived them that had received the mark of the Beast and them that worshipped his Image These both shall be cast alive into a Lake of Fire burning with Brimstone First in this life by a direfull excommunicaâ—tion by all the Churches of Christ and after this life 〈◊〉 the Fiery Lake of Hell O Almighty Saviour who 〈◊〉 King of Kings and Lord of Lords shall my Tongue 〈◊〉 my glorified condition as hath been shewed sing thy praises declare and perpetuate the memory of these thy wonderfull actings after thou hast done them O 〈◊〉 me now before thou doest them as beholding 〈◊〉 very neer through the Perspective of thy Word by the Eye of my Faith Sing that new Song of praises before thy Throne concerning thy great and marvellous proâ—idences with the hundred forty and four thousand thy Virgins and redeemed ones that stand with thee oâ— Mount Sion the Figure of thy Church and tryumphingly declare with the Angel that the Hour of thy Judgment is come and that Babylon is fallen is fallen that great City because she made all Nations drink of the Wine of the wrath of her Fornication Let me also as by the same prospect of Faith beholding the Call and Conversion of thy antient People Israel and scattered Jewes to be at hand and the total destruction of Gog and Magog the blasphemous Mahumetan Turk by their Sword and in their Land and bless and praise thy Name for it is wonderfull fearfull and glorious O my Lord hast thou also declared and promised by thy Holy Apostle John that thou wilt shortly Lay hold on the Dragon that old Serpent which is the Devil and Sathan and bind him for a thousand years Casting him into the bottomless Pit and shutting him up and setting a Seal upon him that he should deceive the Nations no more untill the thousand years shall be fulfilled And that then all the ends of the World shall remember and turn unto thee O Lord and all the Kindreds of the Nations shall worship before thee And the Kingdomes of this World shall become the Kingdomes of Thee our Lord and of thy Christ and He shall raign for ever Lord shall I we see such a blessed and happy age as this when as a natural and rational effect of Sathans binding and thy casting him and all his Legions of Devils into the local Hell and of thy plentuous pouring forth of the gifts and graces of thy Spirit according to the Prophets the whole World shall be converted to Christianity all Wars and Contentions shall cease Swords shall be turned into Plow-shares and Speares into Pruning-hooks and the Nations shall learn Warre no more And long life and peace and plenty shall Crown this Orbe when all Idolatry Ignorance open profaneness and wickedness shall be laid aside and purity light and unity in life and doctrine worship and discipline shall shine forth throughout the Earth even above the Primitive times when saving knowledge and a Salomonial wisdome shall cover the Earth even as the Waters cover the Seas Shall I I say behold all this by faith through the gracious illumination of thy blessed Spirit in thy Word of Truth And shall I not cry out with holy David Lord open thou my Lips and my Mouth shall shew forth thy praise yea often glorify thee in singing the 96. Psalme which being a clear Prophesie of this time thy Spirit indited to that purpose as also the 97. the 98. the 99. and the 100. Psalmes O Lord hast thou foretold and promised by thy Prophet Daniel That Judgment shall be given unto the Saints of the most High and that the Saints shall possess the Kingdome That then Righteousness shall be the Girdle of thy Loynes and faithfulness the Girdle of thy Reines That thou wilt give us Judges as at the first and Counsellers as at the beginning and that thou wilt make our Exactors righteousness That the Judgment shall fit and the Kingdome and Dominion and the greatness of the Kingdome under the whole Heaven shall be given to the People of the Saints of the most High whose Kingdome is an everlasting Kingdome and all Dominions shall serve Him Yea is this that fift and universal Monarchie and victorious Kingdome which is by thy Almighty Power and Spirit to be acted and carryed on by thy Saints when as it is witnessed by the Prophets and thy Servant David Thou shalt break thy Enemies with a Rod of Iron and shalt dash them in pieces like a Potters Vessel when the Lord at thy right hand shall strike through Kings in the Day
trust in the Name of the Lord and stay upon his God When ye are troubled on every side be not distressed when ye are perplexed be ye not in despair Be not faithless but believing Say not with despairing Cain my iniquitie is greater than that it may be forgiven Nor go not with him out of the preference of the Lord. Destroy not your Souls which I died for With hopeless Saul who took a Sword and fell upon it Nor do as Judas who went and hanged himself Whosoever doth not righteousness is not of God neither is he that loves not his brother He that loves not his Brother abideth in death Whosoever hates his Brother is a murtherer and ye know that no murtherer hath eternal life abiding in him Be ye not like the violent Man who inticeth his Neighbour and leadeth him into the way that is not good who shutteth his eyes to devise froward things moving his lips he bringeth evil to pass Nor like to Potiphar's wife nor to the strange Woman that flattereth with her lips nor to them who say Come with us let us lay wait for blood let us lurk privily for the innocent without cause cast in thy lot amongst us let us all have one Purse Imitate not Jeroboam who did sin and who made Israel to sin You shall not hate your Brethren in your heart you shall in any wife reprove them and not suffer sin upon them He that speaketh flattery to his friends even the eyes of his Children shall fail And a flattering mouth worketh ruine Wo to the Sheppards of Israel that do feed themselves Should not the Sheppards feed the Flock Ye eat the fat and ye cloath you with the Wool ye kill them that are fed but ye feed not the Flock The wicked in his pride do persecute the poor but they shall be taken in the devises that they have imagined He that leadeth into Captivity shall go into Captivity He that killeth with the Sword must be killed with the Sword For they have shed the blood of the Saints and Prophets and God will give them blood to drink for they are worthy At the hand of Man at the hand of every Man's Brother will I require the life of Man whoso sheddeth Man's blood by Man shall his blood be shed For in the Image of God made I Man And blood defileth the Land And the Land cannot be cleansed of the blood that is shed therein but by the blood of him that shed it Therefore whoso killeth any Person the Murderer shall be put to death Ye shall take no satisfaction for the life of a Murderer which is guilty of death But he shall be surely put to death If a Man cause a blemish in his Neighbour As he hath done so shall it be done unto him breach for breach eye for eye tooth for tooth As he hath caused a blemish in a Man so shall it be done unto him again Be ye not like unto unjust Zedekiah who put Jeremiah into Prison for speaking to him in the Name of the Lord. Not like cruel Herod who bound John in Prison and beheaded him for Herodias sake left you partake of their punishments If a Brother or Sister be naked and destitute of daily food and one of you say Depart in peace be you warmed and filled Notwithstanding you give them not those things that are needful to the Body What doth it profit When I sit upon the Throne of my Glory I shall say unto such on my left hand Depart from me ye cursed into everlasting Fire prepared for the Devil and his Angels Verily I say unto you inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these my poor Saints ye did it not to me Woe to him that increaseth that which is not his I will be a swift witness saith the Lord against those that oppress the hireling in his wages the Widdow and the Fatherless and that turn aside the stranger from his right He that doth wrong shall receive from the wrong that he hath done And with me there is no respect of Persons Behold a flying Roll the length thereof is twenty Cubits and the breadth thereof ten Cubits This is the curse that goeth forth over the face of the whole Earth for every one that stealeth shall be cut off according to it And it shall enter into the House of the Thief and it shall remain in the midest of his House and shall consume it with the Timber thereof and the Stones thereof Therefore let him that stole steal no more but rather let him labour working with his hands the thing which is good that he may have to give to him that needeth Let no Man go beyond and defraud his Brother in any matter because that the Lord is the avenger of all such I speak to the shame of many is it so that there is not a wise Man amongst you No not one that shall be able to Judge between his Brethren But Brother goeth to Law with Brother and that before the Unbelievers Is any one will sue you at the Law and take away thy Coat let him have thy Cloak also He that by Usury and unjust gain increaseth his substance he shall gather it for him that will pitty the poor Woe unto such who like the Scribes and Pharisees Hypocrites make clean the out-side of the Cup and of the Platter but within they are full of Extortion and excess Therefore exact no more than is appointed you Woe unto them that joyn House to House and lay Field to Field till there be no place that they may be placed alone in the middest of the Earth Of a truth many Houses shall be desolate even great and fair without Inhabitant Yea ten Acres of Vineyard shall yield one Bath and the Seed of an Omer shall yield one Epha Do violence to no Man neither accuse any falsly for a false witness shall not be unpunished A false witness shall perish Behold if a witness be a false witness and hath testified falsly against his Brother then shall ye do unto him as he had thought to have done unto his Brother Bless and curse not Those That delight in cursing so let it come unto them As they delight not in blessing so let it be far from them As they have cloathed themselves with cursing as with a Garment so let it come into their bowels like Water and like Oyle into their bones He that uttereth slander is a Fool I will tear those in pieces
me you shall also Raign with Me. Lift up therefore the Hands that hang down and feeble Knees and make streight Paths for your Feet Ye have not resisted unto blood striving against Sin Wherefore consider me the Captain of your Salvation that was made perfect by sufferings and that endured such contradiction of sinners against my self lest you be weary and faint in your minds For the Disciple is not above his Master nor the Servant above his Lord. Stand fast therefore in that liberty in which I have made you free only use not your liberty for an occasion to the Flesh nor to the offence of your weak Brother but by love serve one another All things are lawful to you but all things are not convenient Continue not in sin that Grace may abound Nor do evil that good may come whose damnation is just neither turn my Grace into Lasciviousness Watch unto Prayer Deny your selves and take up your Cross and follow Me. He that endureth unto the end shall be saved Give diligence to make your Calling and Election sure Add to your Faith Vertue to Vertue Knowledge to Knowledge Temperance to Temperance Patience and to Patience Godliness and to Godliness Brotherly kindness and to Brotherly kindness Charity For if you do these things ye shall never fall For so an entrance shall be ministred unto you abundantly into my everlasting Kingdom Beloved believe not every Spirit but try the Spirits whether they be of God because many false Prophets are gone out into the World And my Spirit speaketh expresly that in these latter times some shall depart from the faith giving heed to seducing Spirits and Doctrines of Devils Speaking lies in hypocrisie having their Consciences seared with an hot Iron Forbidding to marry and commanding to abstain from Meats which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth For every Creature of God is good and nothing to be refused if it be received with thanksgiving Let no Man therefore deceive you by any means neither by Spirit nor by Word nor by Letter For that wicked one is now revealed whom I the Lord have bgan to consume with the Spirit of my Mouth and will destroy with the brightness of my coming Even him whose coming hath been after the working of Sathan with all Power and Signs and lying Wonders And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish because they received not the love of the truth that they might be saved And for this cause God hath sent them strong Delusions that they should believe a lie That they all might be Damned who believed not the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness This is that Spirit of Anti-Christ whereof you have heard that it should come and even now already it is in the World That Son of Perdition who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God or that is worshipped So that he as God sitteth in the Temple of God the Christian Church shewing himself that he is God The Kings of the Gentiles exercise Lordship over them and they that exercise Authority upon them are called Benefactors But ye shall not be so But he that is greatest among you let him be as the Younger and he that is Chief as he that doth serve Be not ye therefore called â—abbi for one is your Master even Christ and all ye are Brethren And call no man your Father upon Earth for one is your Father which is in Heaven Nor be ye called Masters nor be ye as Lords over Gods Heritage For one is your Master even Christ But he that is greatest amongst you shall be your Servant And he that Exalteth himself shall be Abased and he that shall humble himself shall be Exalted None is Good save one that is God There is not a Just man upon Earth that doth Good and sinneth not Therefore if ye say that ye have not sinned you make God a Lyar and his Word is not in you Be not therefore many Masters knowing ye shall receive the greater Condemnation For in many things ye offend all The Contention was sharp betwixt Paul and Barnabas that they parted asunder And John fell down to Worship before the Feet of the Angel Ye know in part and Porphesie in part Even Fâ—â—er who was first and whom I called Cephâ—â— by Interpretation a Stone and who seemed to be a Pillar walked not Uprightly according to the Truth of the Gospel And before the Cock mowed twice denied Me thrice How much more Fallible is his pretended Successor Why also doth this Man of sin both speak and act Blasphemies Who can forgive sins but God only It is I the Lord the Lord God forgiving Iniquity Transgression and Sin that have Power on Earth to forgive sins And in Me ye have Redemption through my Blood even Forgiveness of sins Again ye have heard that it hath been said to them of Old time Thou shalt not Forswear thy self thou shalt performe unto the Lord thine Oathes And that if a man Vow a Vow unto the Lord or Swear an Oath to bind his Soul with a Bond He shall not break his Word he shall do according to all that proceedeth out of his mouth But in these last dayes the Beast that ascendeth out of the Bottomeless Pit is a Truce-breaker and with perfidious Zedikiah a Dispiser of Oaths and a Breaker of Covenants Whosoever therefore shall break one of the least of these my Commandments and shall teach men so He shall be called the least in the Kingdome of Heaven Every Word of God is pure and the Law of the Lord is perfect that the Man of God may be perfect throughly Furnished unto all good Works Add thou not unto his Words lest he reprove thee and thou be found a Lyar. For neither Peter nor Paul much less the Pope nor the False Prophet the Roman Church that other Beast coming out of the Earth that hath Two Hornes like a Lambe but speaks like the Dragon the Devil hath any Dominion over your Faith But are Helpers of your Joy For by Faith you stand For though they or an Angel from Heaven preach any other Gospel than that which my Apostles have preached unto you let him be accursed Whatsoever things I command observe to do them you shall not add nor diminish from them For if any man shall add unto these things God shall add unto him the Plagues that are written in this Book And if any man shall take away from the Words of the Book of this Prophesie God shall
unhappy Man had not ambition and infidelity Eclipsed the apprehensive brightness of thy understanding thou mightest have made thy Ring-leaders fall a mirrour to view thine own in O blindness the more blame-worthy the less to be pittied 〈…〉 self didst both willingly wilfully and speedily occasion 〈…〉 thy gracious God imprisoned all thy sences within his 〈◊〉 command all Judgments would have condemned thy ungrateful disobedience how much more blameable art thou that mightest have viewed it toucht it and delighted thy self with the fragrancy of that pleasant Fruit eternally without offence and yeâ— still desirest more even to tast thy Death O bitter sweet sweet in thy deceitful expectation bitter in thy accursed fruition O behold now what knowledge thou hast obtained thou knowest now the good thou hadst and hast lost the evil thou didst want and now enjoyest Momentary was thy imaginary pleasure certain and eternal thy procured curse O the Childishness of Man's perfectest age which sold the little World himself the great World about himself for such a knowledge which made him know good not more but less by knowing evil All things that are good in themselves in their first enjoying gain from us most estimation but Man here blest with the fruition of all happiness which joyntly met in him as in its Centre undervalues it even in the first possession exchanging pleasure for pain knowledge for ignorance Paradice for Hell and Life for Death But what neeâ— is there of my weak descriptions in delineating the lamentable 〈◊〉 of Man's fall Since if every Christian would but deal faithfully with himself and retire into his own Soul viewing it in thâ— state of Unregeneration he might in that too lively Picture of dâ—â—d Adam learn the chief point of wisdome to know himself I appeal to the witness of thy Conscience O Christian Reader whither thou findest not naturally the Supream faculties of thy Soul the Enemies of God and goodness the bond-slaves and willing Vassals of sin and Sathan the parts of thy Body the Members of wickedness and ready Instruments of ill Is not thy memory a magazine of evil unhospitable to goodness Thy imagination and intellect like the Northern Seas frozen with ignorance to whom the Sun of wisdome gives so dim a Light that thy highest knowledge is to know thou knowest nothing Is not wickedness the Centre of thy will towards which it moves with a natural swiftness all holy motions being contrary to its course Lastly do not generally the parts of the whole Man which did before by their concordance and harmonious obedience so sweetly express the due praise of the most glorious Creator now rebelliously jar with a hideous and cursed confusion But what need these questions I would to God every Mans unhappy experience did not affirm and ascertain this truth as there is none free from Death so none from sin the cause of Death we all alike come into this World all suck in corruption with their first breath no sooner have our Souls a Beeing but they are in a deep Consumption so that our life is but a continued dying a Prologue of Death according to that of Job 1.21 Naked came we into this World naked of goodness as well as Clothes and naked shall we return again except thou cloath us to Christ our beginnings our foundations are laid with untempered morter Can then our after-works be unlike the Original We must all say with David In â—in hath my Mother conceived me and I was shapen in iniquity 〈◊〉 the Root evil and can the Fruit be good Is the Fountain bitâ—er and can the streams be sweet Do Men gather Grapes of Thornes or Figges of Thistles Hath Adam fallen and was accursed and shall his Off-spring stand and be justified No assuredly There is none good no not one we are all wrapt up in the same condemnation O wretched Man that I am who shall deliver me from the Body of this Death I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Let us now having waded in the gulph of 〈◊〉 miseries from that depth behold the height of Gods mercy â—â—y mercies O Lord are great and reach unto the Heavens and â—â—y truth unto the Clouds Thou hast delivered my Soul from â—ell my Body from Death thy Mercies are above all thy Works â—onderful are they Who can express them This World is a Monarchy the great Emperor thereof is God no admits of no Equal nor Partners in his Government Kings â—rinces and all things else are either Subjects or Subject to â—â—m nay more his Creatures For by Him were all things Created â—hich are in Heaven and which are in Earth things visible and invisible Crimes of the highest nature are only accounted Treaâ—ons in terrene States but the least breach of those general Staâ—â—tes enacted by the Earths great Law-giver is not only Capital 〈◊〉 infinitely punishable had Man offended either his Superiors 〈◊〉 Angels or his equals as Man it had been possible to have reconciled the one by submission the other by satisfaction but having traâ—sgressed the Commandement of God no created and â—nite substance can repair his ruines for infinite is his Justice inâ—nite our sins and consequently infinite our punishment Thus wretched and miserable are we in our selves by reason of our â—all and thus destitute of redress from others by reason of the â—reatness of our fault and unrecoverableness of our loss and â—â—stly O Lord do we deserve to be so since wittingly willingly and wilfully we made our selves so Of Man's Redemption by Christ. GOD is both infinitely just and infinitely merciful as his Mercy hinders not the Execution of his Justice so his Justice bounds not the extent of his Mercy Man is here infinitely indebted to God and utterly unable to pay God's Justice requires payment his Mercy places his Son as principal in the Bond who fully satisfies his Justice and repeales the Judgment pronounced against our Souls and Bodies O gracious Father in this thy Son our Saviour the Lord Jesus Christ. Thy love is infinite like thy self boundless as thy Divinity and so ineffable that the Tongues of Men and Angels are not able to express it Mercy implor'd hath its first motion or inducement from the suppliant but thy mercy first beheld us when we had no power to view thee being blinded by Sathan thy goodness raised us when we were dead and buried in sin and thy free love only procured thee to move in compassion towards us who were moved through transgression contrary to thee unvaluable and extraordinary gifts are assured although silent expressions of a fixed and ardent affection But who O Lord is able to value thy gift to declare much less apprehend thy love Friendship is reciprocal for a friend can no sooner exhibit any reality of benevolence but as it were by reflection he is presently apprehensive of the like from the receiver though not in quantity as being perhaps less able yet in quality as being
Eternal God the Holy Ghost lest you should think it too high presumption to write after so rare a Copy Let me remember you of and set before you also â—s so many laudable and excellent Patterns a few of the many famous Works of our own Country-men such as the divine and eloquent Contemplations and occasional Meditations of Doctor Hall Spencer's Fairy Queen Deveout Hâ—rberts sweet guards and honest Wither's Poems which are as so many eminent Piramides of white and black Marble whose tops point towards Heaven as glorifying God as their chief aime and end and whose substance and Basis shall as their living Monuments stand fixt and undemolish upon Earth to their perpetual honour and as â—eaching Pillars to Posterity for ever Here possibly some of you may object that you are to seek of subjects to imploy our parts and giftâ— upon to the glory of God and the good and Instruction of your Brethren To whom I answer View and contemplate the wonderful Works of our Almighty and most wise Creator in the vast Canony of the Heavens and the large Globe of the Earth and Seas and you shall finde matter enough for all the Tongues Pens and gifts of Men and Angels Be not like the bruit Beasts that remain sensual and dumb in the midst of wonders Are you professedly Christians and shall that great and glorious subject the admirable and stupendious work of your Redemption by the Lord Jesus Christ God-Man the Saviour anointed the Mysterious work of the Incomprehensible Trinity Father Son and Holy Ghost the Eternal God blessed for ever a work above all expressions and conceptions yea above the praises of holy Saints made perfect and glorious Angels wherein is held forth if ever you hope to be saved from Hell and endless torments your free and eternal Election by God the Father to everlasting Life and Glory your effectual calling and sanctification by the holy Spirit your free Justification by the alone righteousness of Christ and ravishing lively hope of a never ending happy and blessed state in the highest Heavens The blessed fruit and effect of the infinite and free love of God of the unvaluable Righteousness Merit Death Passion Satisfaction and continued Mediation of Christ our Lord that Person who is God in our Nature the eternal begotten and beloved Son of the Father the brightness of his glory and the express Image of his Person I say shall this Miracle of divine love this wonder of wonders these your chief and greatest concerns together with its most beautiful attendants Faith Hope Love and the rest of the holy Image of God in you be slighted forgotten and not thought worthy to be the subject of your choicest Oratory and Poetry and of the best of your gifts wit and parts O Jewish Ingratitude shall a Heavenly Host of Angels much less concern'd than you begin give and leave you a pattern in that short but full Anthem at our Saviour's Birth Glory be to God on High on Earth peace good will towards Men And will you be still wickedly yea brutishly unthankful and not follow their holy example shall not the French Druids and our own British Bards stand up in Judgment against you at the last Day But possible some of you will say you are as yet but Babes in Christ and your Muse cannot as yet mount so high as these sublime Misteries to whom I answer Is not the large Mapp of God's great constant and marvellous providences actings and deliverances towards his Church in all Ages even from the beginning of the World until this Day spread before your Eyes in the sacred Scriptures of truth and in Ecclesiastical and other Histories Yea in your own Nation in this our Age of wonders All which in honour and gratitude to God and the edification and encouragement of his Church calls for from you in Imitation of God's Saints in former times as hath been afore declared many Triumphant Arches Pillars and Monuments of praise both in Prose and Verse never to be worn out by time or thrown down by the Malice and slanders of traducing Persons But probably some of you may be Politicians and time-servers and therefore although convins't of your duty think it neither prudent nor safe to discover either your Religion Judgment or affection To such that like Naman to the Prophet Elisha say God be merciful to me in this I cannot say go in peace but this I will say that Ingratitude includes all other sins against God and Man Si ingratum dixeris Omnia dixeris Wherefore that all such may convince and Judge themselves notwithstanding all these Excuses and subter fuges Let me ask them this question Have you from your birth until now received no mercies nor blessings from God to your Souls to your Bodies or to your Relations No recovery from spiritual or bodily Diseases nor deliverances from spiritual and corporal enemies and dangers no blessings temporal spiritual and eternal no gracious and extraordinary providences to you or yours If then you cannot deny but must acknowledge to have received from the Lord many favours of this Nature O may I not say of the most of the English Nobility and Gentry as once our Saviour of the Ten Leapers Were there not Ten cleansed where are the Nine Only One returning to give thanks Wherefore lest your unthankfulness mud and stop up the stream of God's mercy to you and the Nation for the future and since it is God's commands the practise of God's Saints and your duty as Creatures and Christians to be Praisefull Yea lest your Talents be taken from you and given to others and you receive that most terrible Sentence declared by our Lord at his return to the unprofitable Servant that hid his Talent in a Napkin Bind him Hand and Foot and cast him into everlasting Fire O let that fearful Declaration like a Thunder-clap rouse and awaken you out of your sleepy sloathfulness the Night is far spent the Day is at hand even of your Judgment and mine Wherefore walk as Children of the Light and Husband that Inch of your Life which is behind redeeming the time because the Days you live in are evil Stir up the Grace that is in you meditate of and contemplate the ineffable excellencies and attributes of our Incomprehensible God as they are manifested in his glorious actings and the fore-mentioned particulars Pen Publish Print to this and future Generations his wonderful works and praises So shall you be Angelical Heralds of his Glory Grandize and Ennobilize your Nobility dignifie and hononourably perpetuate your Gentility And not like most of the preceding Peers and Gentry of this Nation which is worth your observation have like them your Names written in the Dust and buried in oblivion O joyn then with Angels and Ark-Angels and all the Triumphant and glorified Saints in Heaven in spiritual and divine Hallelujahs here and you shall certainly sing your part with them in the blessed
Chore of Glory to Eternity Right honourable and renowned Gentlemen as I have presum'd to present and direct this weak Piece to your view so what I have above written in Zeal to God's glory and unfeigned love to your Souls shall be my Apology to the following subject As that my end therein is primarily the glory of God whose praises is my duty as well as his command to exalt in my own Soul and others as hath been declared and to perpetuate as much as in me lies to my Posterity and to all future Generations what great and free love mercy and goodness he hath shewed to me and mine herein endeavouring to imitate the Holy example of that Royal Psalmist King David who hath thus in Verse exprest both his resolution and practise Come unto me all ye that fear God and I will tell you what he hath done for my Soul I say for my Soul as may appear in some degree in the alluzions and applications in several temporal mercies and personal deliverances commemorated in this Book I acknowledging to Angels and Men that God's Fatherly love in Christ and care of my poor Soul in supporting preserving and delivering it from Sin Sathan and the World my mighty Adversaries and from innumerable spiritual evils and temptations Do as far transcend to the glory of his free grace be it spoken my temporal and corporal deliverances and mercies as the Heaven is above the Earth and my unvaluable Soul is more precious than this poor Hut of Earth I sojourn in Here possibly some great Men or rare Wits who Eagle-like soar far above my mean parts and gifts may uncharitably sensure and object to say no more What doth this poor Man's Personal or spiritual mercies and deliverances concern us To such I answer Are you Christians and fellow-members of Christ's Body and will you not weep with those that weep and rejoice with those that rejoice As God commands you Can you be living Members although in the highest rank in this spiritual Body and not sympathize and be affected with the grief or weal of the lowest Christians its Feet O take heed lest such pride and insensibleness declare you to be no living Member of one Church However I am assured all those that fear God now and in Ages to come shall read with delight rejoice and praise God with me for his gracious providences and merciful deliverances recorded in this following Treatise Which I although cloathed in a plain and low stile in the Opinion it may be of some carping Momusses and over-curious Criticks whom nothing will please but what 's their own or what is like Sphynkes Ridles to be understood by a few Or that is not imbroidered with humane strains of Wit and Eloquence or bumbasted and imbossed with affected praises and needless Epithites For my part I have not endeavoured to humour such nor to drown matter in words but without affectation vaunting or racking in Prose or in Verse I have desired to keep to my own Genuine and natural Dialect And to be understood rather than to be so obscure as to need a Comment What you finde is good herein it flowes although through my Leaden Pipe from the Spirit of the Lord the unexhaustible Fountain of Grace and goodness what is incongruous or evil it is the sinful slime and filth which naturally cleaves to every humane Aquaeduct except the Holy Scripture Nam Humanum est Errare which being in voluntary is pardoned by the Lord I doubt not of yours unless I should be so uncharitable as to think you disdain to imitate so Divine a Pattern To conclude my Lords and Gentlemen I confess I was heartily grieved for my own and your great ingratitude when upon a diligent inquiry I could finde few or none Monuments or Returns of this Nature although I am assured all of you are vastly indebted to our great and gracious God for numberless spiritual and temporal blessings mercies and deliverances and which is worse many of you have great Incomes given you by him and to this end of wit parts and gifts with which you might and ought to make to him a just and thankful repayment especially since our liberal Heavenly Father expects from you but his own Coin lent you to improve to his glory and but a sincere praiseful and declared acknowledgments for real and unvaluable benefits This serious and sad consideration of my own and your sinfull Omissions stirred me up speedily lest I should dye ungratefull to Pen and publish this Work not only in discharge of my duty to the only great and glorious God my loving and merciful Father But as an humble Essay and Copy for you to write by which if but any one of you follow I shall rejoyce much because such an one hath received great good thereby and the Lord by him much glory But if none I shall weep in secret for your Ingratitude And have much joy and peace in that herein I have done my duty to God and to you But I hope better things of you In which charitable expectation I subscribe my self my Lords and Gentlemen Your most humble Servant In the Lord J. H. OCCASIONAL MEDITATIONS ARGUMENT Vpon the Lord's most gracious Sustentation of Me when I was Born a Moneth before my full time Soliloquium or Discourse EVery extraordinary acting of Nature is not only to be admired but to be observed by us wherefore was I so over-hasty to be Born which the wisest of the Heathen accounted the bginning of their misery Was I weary of my Eight Moneths Prison and ambitious of a freer Place and Air Or was my heart more hot than others and therefore sooner needed the refreshing fanning of my Lungs Or was the Womb weary of such a sinful burden or rather did my loving Mother's affectionate longing to see and enjoy me occasion this Abortion was it weakness in her or too early strength in me that relaxt or brake in Pieces the silver Bonds of the Womb was I by the care of the Nurse wrapt in the Skin of a Lamb as in a second Womb to preserve and renue my heat and life were some or all these the natural causes of my unexpected Birth and preservation yet it becomes me as a Christian to look far higher even to him who is the cause of causes the beeing of Beeings Natura Naturans God blessed for ever whose Eternal Will and Decree was the first cause the others but secondary Yea he was the Midwife that brought me forth thus sooner into this World of sin and misery In sense of which my sad condition as by a natural instinct with all other Infants the first thing I did then was to weep and cry How much more cause have I now and that experimentally with humble Paul to cry out O wretched Man that I am who shall deliver me from this body of Death and to sigh out this my Prayer and spiritual Hymn unto the Lord The NEW BIRTH
and other such like Is it so O my Soul And hath the Lord so extraordinarily and abundantly blessed this Ordinance and condition unto thee as thou hast declared in thy foregoing Memorial and thankful Acknowledgment Let upon this occasion thy Meditation be further stirred up and inlarged and from this great temporal blessing and mystery behold declare and point out the far greater and excelling blessings which are and shall be enjoyed by thee and the Church the Spouse of Christ by our spiritual Marriage and Union unto Him As Marriage in the Institution and in the particular Application is the Holy Ordinance of God and the blessed effect of his gracious Providence and Eternal Decree All Marriages according to the Proverb being made in Heaven so is that great Architype thereof the Marriage of the Church and in it of every true believer unto Christ. The Father bringing every one of us to him as he did Eve to Adam For none comes to me but whom the Father draws saith our Saviour Christ yea our Election effectual Calling and Regeneration together with our Union by Faith and spiritual Espousal to Christ our Heavenly Husband is of and from the Eternal Decree Love and Election of God our Father As the Woman was of the Man and not the Man of the Woman and the Woman was Created for the Man and not the Man for the Woman so was the Church typified by Eve taken out of the side of the second Adam the Lord Jesus Christ that she might be made as being his Rib Beloved and neer to his heart Flesh of his flesh and bone of his bone his only Spouse and one with him as the Apostle Paul asserts Eph. the 5. ver 30. This was effectually done when being asleep in Death upon the Cross the Beeing and Redemption of his Church arose and sprung forth of his side in a Flood of infinite precious and Cordial Blood and Water To conclude this our spiritual Union and Marriage is by the Apostle called a great Mystery as being the blessed effect of the free grace of God who is assentially love and therefore it is as to the heighth and depth length and breadth thereof Incomprehensible and passing all understanding By vertue of this Espousal in Baptisme we as Wives amongst us change our names into his and instead of Adamites are called Christians And on our part promise to forsake Father and Mother and all things else for him and to honour love and obey him On the other part the Lord Jesus Christ thus betroth'd to us in holiness and everlasting righteousness becomes thereby our Lord Law-giver and Spouse our Pattern Protector and Saviour as in the Type Husbands amongst us are or ought to be unto their Wives and as they so he endowes us here not only with all temporal blesings so far as shall be for our good For Godliness hath the promises of this Life and of that Life which is to come But with the rich dowry of all the saving Graces of his holy Spirit Cloathing us with the white Robes of his perfect and immaculat righteousness As being made of God unto us righteousness wisdom sanctification and redemption Yea the Lord our righteousness And as for hereafter he gives us the earnest and assurance of being Co-heirs with him of Eternal Life and Glory Amen EPITHELAMIVM Ejaculation or Hymn upon the former Subject BReath not this Aire Men of unchast desires No Fewels here for your unhallow'd Fires Lord I adore thy wisdome and thy love That shadow'st in blest Wedlock things above Teaching Vs that this Vnions Mystical And sets forth thine with Vs Before the Fall A crooked Kib thou streightnest gav'st it Life Mad'st it a Virgin pure first Adam's Wife That she of thy dear Spouse the Type might be Once crookt by sin but now made streight in Thee Yea in the chast delights of Marriage-Bed Her union thou holdst forth with thee her Head In which thou giv'st to her thy loves that she Be'ng first belov'd might flame in love to Thee Kissing her with the kisses of thy Mouth Quickned with sp'rit and life thy sacred Truth Thou also her incirclest in the Armes Of thy protection And her frees from harmes For why thy right hand-power doth her o're-spread And left hand-care supports her graceful head Her sp'rit'al senses ear tast smell touch sight Thou satisfi'st with ravishing delight Her piercing eye of Faith sees and applies Thy excellency hid from Worldly eyes Her eares be'ng fill'd with Musick of thy Voice Doth in thy Word and promises rejoyce Thou altogether lovely art unto Her inward touch whence mutual love doth flow She tasts thy Spice Myrrh Hony Milk and Wine Of Hope Joy Peace Delight all sweets Divine Thy Spicknard Camphire fills her smelling sence Also thy Cassida Aloes Frankinsence And fragrant Oyntments All which well express Thy love truth mercy wisdome holiness Thy power and goodness grace and righteousness Sweet Oders which her cherish and refresh In fine thy nuptial-Nuptial-Bed is covered o're And pav'd with love and fill'd with Graces store Here in her thou shed'st incorrupted Seed Begets in her a Christ-like forme indeed Whence follows that which joyes both Heaven and Earth Divine Conception and thy Saints new-birth So that one Christ one Sp'rit one flesh and bone One Body is thy Church thus 't was made one Hence as of Faith and mutual love the effects Thou rul'st and in her dwell'st and her protects Cloaths her with Golden Robes thy righteousness Mak'st her within glorious through holiness Giv'st her the promises of this World's life And of that life to come and as thy Wife Crown'st her with Glory sets her on thy Throne With thee on Earth as thy beloved One Next to thy Fathers Kingdome her translates To live with God Thy Churches highest State Another Hymn upon the same blessed Subject being Meditations upon my Marriage-Day The TYPE BLest Miracle of Love whose sacred Rights Restores to Man his own and re-unites Natures Division Two Bodies were combin'd In Adam once Loe here two Souls I find Knit in a purer union How doth the smile of one Attend the others joy her sighs my groane If absence parts us like as though one breath Did fan two hearts both seem to suffer Death If distance Clouds our view the strength of Love Doth make our thoughts as well as Bodies move In visits to each other So though two parts We seem to be we still are one in Heart The Anti Type or Application MY Love my Spouse my Sav'our Can the Fires Sprung from weak Natures notions and desires Produce such Sympathies O let thy flame Spir'd by a purer spirit effect the same In my unworthy Soul The Loves of all Compar'd with that of thine the Original Are but as shades to substances the Ray Vnto its Globe of light as Night to Day Lord in my Baptisme
review how I There plighted troth to thee and did denie All other loves save thine nor was this Act My single deed alone but a compact For why so free 's thy grace Man so accurst That none can love except thou lov'st them first Thou art my Head O Christ can I then be A living Member and not part of thee The Heavens high distance doth not dim the Eye Of Souls nor can it lessen or untie Thy Spirits union now nought wants but this To be unbod'ed where my Saviour is O let me be uncloath'd then And by Angels led To thee my Spouse To Heaven my Nuptial-Bed Amen ARGUMENT Vpon God's all wise and gracious Providence in ordering of Affairs for the preserving and continuing love and peace betwixt me and my own Father and Father-in-Law in danger to have been interrupted by reason of some differences arising from a dispute in point of my Right as to the one and from an act of love towards my Family as to the other Soliloquium or Discourse AS false Ground under the Foundation of a Building a crack in a Master-beam of an House and a breach in a Wall of a City is very dangerous and destructive So are distances differences and divisions in Families and betwixt neer Relations This truth O Heavenly Father thou gavest me even in my blooming Manhood to know and to obviate when as from two very neer Relations my own Father and Father-in-Law upon two different accounts I had deeply suffered both as to profit and affection and that for the defence of what I conceived to be my right and for well doing Hadst not thou O Lord been to me a Father Judge and Friend to preserve love and to order and reconcile us as to the things in difference O Lord thou hast tried me at all times in all places by all Persons that I poor Creature might prove and have a full and sweet experience of thee also as to thy gracious Immutability Omnipresence and All-sufficiency in all things concerning me For thou hast thou doest and I trust wilt deliver me in and from the evil of all Temptations and according to thy faithful Word and promise cause all things to work together for my good To thee therefore O infinite wisdome and goodness do I offer up the Calves of my Lips and the praises of my Soul for these thy merciful preventing restraining and commenting providences in this and the following Psalm as a living Sacrifice Amen The VMPHIRE Ejaculation or Hymn upon the former Subject SAthan the first divider of himself And Man from God is still a forward Else To ruine all things by Division As doth the Jesuit Pope his Eldest Son Yea to this truth of Christ he sets his hand Kingdomes within divided cannot stand Of these his Wyles thou warnest me O Lord And taught me how to cement a discord 'Twixt me and neer Relations by love Which beareth all things rather than remove Or break domestick Bonds since such a rent Of Friends widens in time growes permanent Yea as a broken Bone well set doth grow Far stronger than it was before Ev'n so Through thy wise ordering and providence These breaches made to me a better fence Working together for my future good According to thy Word now understood In that Instead of losing what was got Thou chang'd my part gav'st me a better lot Lord since Parental loves thus ebb and flow Give me thy love which doth for ever grow Let not my Crimes make mortal my sins wounds Since their increase makes Grace much more abound O bring me to that place of rest and ease Of Charity and Everlasting Peace Where Devils World Sin cannot divide me From Parents Fellow-Members nor from Thee Amen ARGUMENT Vpon God's most gracious Answer of our Prayers in giving Rain after a great Draught threatning a Famine in Three Summers successively Viz. In the Years 1637. 1638 1639. Soliloquium or Discourse O Lord as sin is the substance so affection and judgment is the dark shaddow that alwayes attends and accompanies it as the effect doth the cause This truth was verified to this Nation of England in the Years 1637 1638 1639. When according to thy Word a fruitful Land was turned into barrenness for the wickedness of them that dwell therein As the first Rebellion of Adam brought a curse upon the whole lower Creation so this wicked off-spring by sin often invert the order and harmony of the Elements and makes malignant the influence of the higher Orbes causing those Coelestial Planets which were Created for blessings to Man-kinde to be Executors of thy righteous Judgments Of this these Three Years Prodigies are clear and sufficient witnesses when as that only Magazin of light and heat to the Universe thy glorious Sun which chears and delights Man and Beast and gives in our Northern Regions in the Spring as it were new life to Vegatives was made by thee for England's iniquities a terrible Curse as occasioning deadly Diseases Feavers and Murrains upon Men and Beasts through its constant and excessive heat and like a Globe and Furnace of Fire withered and burnt up all Grass and Vegitives especially our Grain the staff of life destroying by this Heavenly Fire our Earthly blessings As thy Sun so thy watering Pots the Clouds which like swelling Pappes used to distil streams of fruitful Rains according to thy Ordinance were now vanisht or rather banisht to the Antipodes or if any appeared they were but dry breasts and true symptomes of the barren Womb of England yea thou madest the Heavens contrary to their Nature to become as Brass and the Earth as Iron that the one might be as the Hammer the other the Anvil whereon to forge thy many Darts and sharp Arrowes of insuing Plagues As thy Rod of Justice O Lord hath three Cords or Lashes which thou callest thy three sore or greatest Judgments Viz. War Pestilence and Famine whereof this last is the greatest as being usually the dregs and the effect of the two former So thy mercy also hath a three-fold time or Plea as in the Gospel Lord let the Fig-Tree alone this third Year also to try it whether or no it will bring forth Fruit before thou cuttest it down Lord as England's sin called for and deserved this greatest Judgment Famine so thy mercy did during these three Years successively threatning this grievous Plague give her three years warning and space of Repentance Yea did offer thy Peoples Prayers unto thee by the hand of our Mediator for a reprieve and obtained it and which is much more wonderful a pardon and dismission of so justly deserved and so long impending a Judgment for which great condiscention I will bless thee as long as I have a beeing And that the Generations to come may praise thee also I have in all humility and thankfulness returned and recorded in this and the following Meeters thy never to be
Mercies and Deliverances O Lord thy many favours have so indebted me that I am a Bankrupt and unable to repay Wherefore I humbly beseech thee to seize upon all that I am and have to thy use and service yea nail my Ear to the Door of thy House that I may be thy Servant for ever so shall I still be a great gainer for thy service is perfect freedom And I had rather with King David be a Door-keeper in thy House than to dwell in the Tents of Wickedness or to sit upon the Thrones of the KINGS of the Earth Gracious God and Father let me not here forget that when thou didst thus frequently preserve us from the Infection of this Disease thou didst then at several times deliver from Death and dis-figuring Eleven of our Children even when some of them were in great danger thereof by this Malady Lord are my Children living Images and legible transcripts of my self yea self-multiplyed Then surely their Reprieves from Death and danger is mine and so to be acknowledged by me Wherefore in all Gratitude I offer them up to Thee as living Sacrifices of Praise Humbly intreating that my Sons and Daughters may be thine here in all fillial Obedience and that thou wilt please to be mine my Wife and Childrens Portion in this thy Kingdom of Grace and our Eternal Inheritance in thy Kingdom of Glory Amen The HOVSE of CORRECTION A Corolary Poem on the former Subject COme hither proud white Clay and sadly view Pride plum'd of all her Feathers in her new Denuded of her Silks and Sattins Webs of Worms Imbroideries Tissues and her rich Perfumes Her precious Jewels Pearles Her Lovers pawnes Her o're-fine Hollands Cambricks Cobweb-lawnes Her Flanders Lace all which poor Tenants wrack She carrying Farmes yea Mannors on her back This is that Day that fearful Malady In and by which the sinful Bravery Of Zion's Daughters shall be tain away As saith the Lord Their Ornaments most gay Tinklings about their Feet their Cawles round Tires Much like the Moon their Chaines Bracelets Attires Call'd Mufflers Bonnets Adornments of Legs Their Head-bands Tablets and those other dregs Of Pride their Ear-Rings and Nose-Jewels Rings Their divers sorts of Clothing Mantles Crisping-Pins Wimples fine Linnen Glasses Hoods and Vailes And whatsoever fills Prides swelling Sayles Tell me ye vaunting Nebuchadnezars Proud Herods and ambitious Caesars Ye painted Jesabels Herodiases False Delilahs and unchast Bernices Of our worst times What will you trembling say When Sergeant Pox arrests you And that Day Confines you to your Chambers binds you fast Vnto your sickly Beds long time then cast You into Burnings like to Hell next spots Your Body like a Toad confounds besots Your mind and senses makes you speechless lie Extending Tongue and Throat to strangling nie Shuts up your Eyes with Scabs denies your sight As clowding quite its Medium the Light Next he scalds-off your Absalon-like Hair That hath so oft been wanton with the Aire And nobler Creatures swells your Head and Face Big like your mindes and the Gigantick race Covers your Face with a corrupted Mud Which eats out your Complexion all that 's good And least it should a Resurrection have He buries it in Pits as in a Grave Yea your whole Body he scurffs o're with Scabs To teach you Pride shall cloth'd be with such Rags Lord hast thou me preserv'd unto this Day And my Consort from this deform'd Hidra Of pain and evils this Complication Of Maladies to Admiration Yea when thou Four and Six times visited Mine and her dwelling freely ransomed Eleven Children from dis-figuring Although the fruit of theirs and of my sin Who have been and still am most apt to be Guilty and sick of Pride Idolatrie As to all Gifts and Graces Children Wife House Land and other good things of this Life Which are thy Tallents put into my Hand To use and to repay at thy Command Not mine who now can nothing call my own But sin and its wages Hell Death Corruption O Lord accept my thankful heart thy Gift Which I return with Eyes and Hands up lift For thy Protections Ten-fold Antidote 'Gainst these infections ne're to be forgot Wherefore let my whole Man my Life my Pen Thy Praises Register for aie Amen ARGUMENT Vpon God's gracious Preservation of Me and my Wife from Poysoning or any Distemper after we had drank off a Tankard of Beer at the bottom of which we found dead a great venemous Spider Soliloquium or Discourse AS in my former Recovery from a Surfeit of Meat There was Mors in Olla Death in the Dish so here also Death lay in ambush in the Cup. For no sooner was Nature plentifully refresht but that at the sight of a great venemous Spider which lay dead at the bottom of the Por we had reason to fear that our Refresher would prove our Destroyer and our Drink our Poison At the discovery of this Enemy we were both afrighted and the more which may seem extraordinary and strange because it was dead whereas usually living not dead Adversaries are hurtful Whither this black and ugly Creature was as full of Malice as Poison and therefore burst her self in the Beer in a kind of Revenge For or as the effect of her drowning I know not nor had we time to be Coroners since our present danger did not admit of any delay as to the seeking for and taking an Antidote Our fear as is usual not neglecting or betraying such means and succors as reason offered Viz. The taking a good draught of the Oyle of Olives which by the blessing of our gracious God drown'd both our fear and danger we both remaining without the least Distemper in perfect health O Lord how true is that Proverb Latet Anguis in Herba that poysonous Asps lie covered in Cleopatra's Basket of Fruit and Flowers and that in a spiritual sense as well as corporal When hath my Soul been more in danger of the sting and venome of sin than in prosperity and in the sweet enjoyments of the lawful and necessary delights and refreshments of this life Such as Meat Drink and Cloathing Wife Children Relations great Offices and Preferments Riches Friends and Recreations Honors stately Houses and great Revenues In and under all which sin and deadly corruptions lurk and lie hid Wherefore blessed Lord and Saviour who art the power and wisdome of the Father and art by him made unto me Wisdom Teach me that in the use and enjoying of all these thy temporal blessings I may neither be superstitiously abstemious nor presumptuously secure that so whensoever I shall discover the venomous Spider of Sin lie in the bosome of any Earthly delights or refreshments I may instantly resort to my Antidote the Oyle Olive of thy Grace called in thy Word the Oyle of Gladness the Anointing So should sin break and cast out its Poison in any vicious temptation
it shall be corrected and repelled and at the worst be but as a dead Spider a mortified Lust. Blessed and praised be thou O Lord who only art the all-curing Physician and hast given to me thy sick Patient For thou comes to heal such Antidotes both for Body and Soul against both kinds of poisons for both which experimental Receipts and merciful Recoveries and Deliverances I praise thy Name with my whole Man and here declare thy gracious goodness to me and my dear Yoke-fellow in this and other thy Preservations to all that fear thee in and to all Ages Amen The PRESERVATIVE A Thankful Poem upon the same Subject AS Sathan is the Father of all Sin So Sin the Mother is of dangers and of death Both which he acts as he did first begin Vnder the specious shew of good on Earth Which though he hates yet under that disguise This Jugling Cheator ushers in his Lies Thus his deluded Agents falsly stile To save more than is meet a virtuous thrift And to be prodigal in things most vile A gentle spending and a liberal Gift Heresie they call new Light Idolatry A Medium of Worship and true Piety Pride neatness Swine-like drunkenness And beastly Gluttony good fellowship Deceit Trades mystery Voluptuousness Christian Refreshment Ruining suertiship A friendly Office murderous Duelling True Valour Justice right determining Lust and Lasciviousness his Factors name Love-Courting Amorousness Affection Hell's Patches Beauties spots Painting no stain But a good Art to help Complection Legends of Lies a pious fraud base Guile Good Language and a Complemental Stile As moral Crimes so often poenal ill Dangers and mischiefs like the Crocodile Lie cover'd under sensual Pleasures still As under Water till they Vs begâ—ile And ceize upon Thus Tomaris rich Tent Was Cyrus Sepulchre and Monument And Jael's Lordly Dish of cooling Drink Lull'd Sisera into a deadly sleep Thus Ammon Haman when they least did think Of danger Death did their own Funerals keep And the Whores Vassailes drink her filthy Wine Out of her Golden Cup of Jus Divine Sweet Lord thus also in the lawful Tast Of thy good Creature in a silver Cup I and my dearest might have drunk our last Had'st thou not seasoned our poisonousâ—Sup Elisha-like cast out by thy Command Its Venome as the Viper from Paul's hand In both fulfilling what thou promised At thy Ascention as of Faith a sigue That such of thine should not be poisoned Nor hurt by Serpents or by deadly Wine Blest be thy Name who by one act of Love Both strengthened Faith and thus preserv'd thy Dove Sin Lord of all things here 's most venomous As swell'd and badg'd with deadly poisonous Lusts. Lies in my Heart not dead but vigorous As was that Spider ready for to burst O let thy Grace by Oyle prefigured Preserve my Soul as that my Body did So shall I live here blest with sprit'all health And cast out from the bottome of my heart All spider-like vil'd thoughts dead which by stealth Creep in and poison would my better part Yea ever live to praise thee in that place Where sin shall be no more nor want of Grace Amen ARGUMENT Vpon God's merciful preservation of some of our Family from being kill'd or hurt by a Fowling-Piece full laden and unawares discharg'd by an unskilful Person carelesly medling with the Cock thereof in the Room wherein they were diversly Imployed Soliloquium or Discourse NO Person time place or Company upon Earth is free from danger not Julius Caesar who was stab'd and slain in the Senate-House of Rome although a Person as fortunate as great in a time of Peace and in a Place that was the richest and strongest Piece of the Worlds head therefore called the Capitol and in the mid'st of an Assembly of the justest gravest wisest greatest richest and valiantest Men of the whole Earth But it may be Objected that although civil Persons times places and Senates may be unsecure yet Ecclesiastical are not so and therefore they their times of Worship and Assemblies are at the least by the papal Cannon-Laws stiled and made spiritual and priviledged their Synods and Counsels sacred and their Churches and Monasteries Sanctuaries not only for themselves but for the most flagitious Persons such as Traitors and Murderers I answer that as I deny that De Jure they have any such security or priviledge so De Facto they and others have found it otherwise to their cost instance in the three Cerberus-like Heads of the Roman Catholick Church as they falsly and nonsensically call it Gregory the XII Benedict the XIII and John the XXIV all Three Elected and acknowledged Popes at one time and deposed by the Council of Constance called by the Emperor Sigismund who there chose Martin the V. Pope in their Room which Election is the present Foundation of all the succeeding Popes and their actings which if the Papists and their Champions the Jesuits deny to be legal where will they finde a Pope Papacy and Succession ever since Peter or since John the XXIV yea all actings by and since Pope Martin the V. are illegal and therefore Null If they affirm it legal then they confess their Church had three Heads or Popes at once that the Emperor of Germany hath a right to call together when he pleases a General Council that such a General Counsel hath a right to Depose Pope or Popes And lastly that he and they did lawfully then Elect their Pope without his Concave of Cardinals But leaving them this Bone to pick I proceed in my Meditations and instance together with this as a clear proof and Example besides many others like as to the Popes the sad fate of others Jewes and Pagans slain in their holy places as of Senacherib slain by his Sons in the Temple of Niscoch his God Of Queen Athaliath attached in the Temple and afterwards slain Of Joab slain by Benajath at the Horns of the Altar I might here add many more but I conceive these are sufficient to prove my assertion and to answer the Popish objection That no Ecclesiastical Persons holy times or places are free and priviledged from danger If it be lawful that is fit according to the Proverb to compare small things with great This truth and observation that all Persons times places and Companies are subject to danger was verified to our Family where Persons of the better rank and Servants being together in the Kitchin upon several employments a Fowling-piece laden with great shot Bullets or Slugs was involuntarily discharged without the hurt of any Person it 's deadly burden being by the great force of the Powder buried as in a Grave in a large Hole in the Wall That it might be a Daily remembrancer of God's gracious providence and our deliverance and excite continually our thankfulness Lord thy Word likens Mens Mouthes to Bowes or Quivers of Arrowes which many times unwarily
and unadvisedly shoot sharp Arrowes even bitter words In the same sence they may also be compared to Guns out of which Gun-powder-wits shoot forth piercing jeeres floutes and slanders to the blowing up and firing the good Names and passions of themselves and those they converse with O be thou therefore pleased to shield me in and deliver me from such Company Yea set a watch upon my Lips that I offend not with my Tongue so shall I not shoot at or be shot at by others And joyn that Mercy with this other to my Family in my Thanksgiving For which I praise thee as shall my Childrens Children when they shall read this and the rest of thy most gracious providences and merciful deliverances to me and mine Amen PROVIDENCE A Poem upon the same Subject ALl Actings here are ordered from above Although they seem excentrical to move Like Watches Wheels turn'd by a Spring unseen In this Worlds Play Dame Fortune hath no scean The Down of Snow and the white Candid Balls Of Hail do not irregularly fall Sparrowes and Haires do not upon Earth light Without Divine appointment and fore-sight No second cause prefer'd nor happy chance Did Esther to the Persian Throne advance Not Michal's wit nor Planets good Aspect Did David from the Sword of Saul protect But the Almighties presence which doth Eye And Govern all things this is Destinie Thus was a piece order'd to wound the Wall When carelesly discharg'd missing them all Within that Room unto the wonder joy Of our whole Family freed from annoy All kindes of Death are fearful most of all That which is suddain since by it doth fall Souls with Mens Bodies oft into a Tomb From whence there is no Resurrection How great was then this Mercy Lord that spar'd Some unconverted others unprepar'd For Death leaving to Vs within that Room Deep Characters of thy protection Vnto thy praise let 's raise Pyramidies And Print them here and in our memories And since thy presence only doth protect Let it produce in Vs this blest effect That we may alwayes fear to sin so shall we be Free from this double Death and Cas'alty Dreading no dangers fate or destiny Because before prepar'd to live or die Amen ARGUMENT Being a thankful remembrance and acknowledgment of the Lord 's great goodness and bounty in giving Me by one and my only Wife Sixteen Children Soliloquium or Discourse MArriage is honorable amongst all Men and the Bed undefiled not only to the Jewish but Gentile Nations Insomuch that some Common-Wealths have allotted great rewards priviledges and immunities to the Parents that in lawful Wedlock have had many Children Yea the Holy Ghost records it no doubt to the honor of Jaier the Gileadite that he had thirty Sons to whom he gave thirty Cities and of Gideon that he had three-score and ten Sons The poorest Man that hath a numerous Issue is therein more serviceable and a greater Benefactor to the Church and State than the noblest and richest Subjects that have few or none To whom the Scriptures gives this name of diminution that they are barren and dry Trees in the Vineyard of the Church and Common-wealth The consideration of which sad and unfruitful condition caused the Melancholy of Hanna the passionate speech of Rachel Give me Children or else I dye and the discontented reply to say no worse of faithful Abraham to the Lords most gracious offer and promise I will be thy Shield and thy exceeding great reward Lord what wilt thou give me since I go Childless On the other side the happiness and blessedness of fruitfulness is held forth in God's after-promise to Abraham that he should be the Father of many Nations and that his Seed should be as the Sand of the Sea-shore and the Stars of Heaven In his blessing upon Jacob in giving him Twelve Sons the Roots and Basis of that great and National Church and of his only people the Twelve Tribes of Israel This blessing as the greatest and richest of temporal good things is set in the front of the Psalmist's Song of praise that our Sons may be as plants grown up in their Youth and our Daughters may be as Corner-stones polished after the similitude of a Palace Yea it is held forth not only as a blessing too but as a discovering Character many times of a godly Man Thy Wife shall be as a fruitful Vine by the sides of thine House Thy Children like Olive-plants round about thy Table Behold that thus shall the Man be blessed that feareth the Lord. O most gracious and liberal God and Father are a numerous Issue and many hopeful Children a great blessing yea the richest of all outward temporal gifts as hath been here noted and is observed in the following Poem How great hath been thy goodness unto me and how many are my Obligations to thee that hast given me by one Wife Sixteen Olive-branches and them circumstantiated with divers remarkable favours Many have had Children but much to their grief as mournfully falling out of a living Coffin of Flesh into a dead one of Earth or expiring not long after Whereas all mine except four are in great mercy continued to me in life and health unto this Day And as for the four deceased two of them being Daughters they departed hence about the age of four years a time of much innocency The other two being a Son and a Daughter and both gracious Children slept in the Lord after they had attained unto years of discretion and therefore I have good reason in Charity to hope they are all with God in Glory Divers Persons have Children but they through their Parents error or neglect involuntarily or voluntarily which â—â—st is most to be lamented have departed hence unsealed unbaptized But the Lord hath greatly favoured me in giving me the honour to offer all but one born when I was absent in the Wars to him in Baptism with fervent prayer and thanksgiving Many have Children but they are either redundant or defective in their Members or Senses or otherwise deformed But the Lord graciously gave unto me mine perfect and well-favour'd Others have Issue but they are all of one Sex But the Lord beneficially almost equally divided my number giving me Seven Sons and Nine Daughters Several Persons have a large Progeny but they prove to be pricks in their Eyes and thorns to their sides by their wicked lives and disobedience but the good Lord blessed be his Name hath given me to see some Characters of saving Grace ingraved by his blessed Spirit in the major part of mine and some good hopes of the rest in God's good time O Lord hast thou inricht me with the best Earthly Treasures sixteen Sons and Daughters and multiplied that number of Mercies as to the many blessings Temporal Spiritual Eternal conferred upon the greater part of them already and upon the rest in that thy Sealed Covenant of