but such as shall be exceeding ravishing and delightfull and as Musick to the Soul even such unspeakable words as blessed Paul heard when he was caught up into Paradise Then shall we being placed in glory at the right hand of our righteous King and Saviour hear with boldness and without fear or astonishment that most joyfull sentence Come yee blessed of my Father inherit the Kingdome prepared for you from the foundation of the World Then shall we hear that great voice of God the Father who sits upon the Throne saying Behold I make all things new the Tabernacle of God is with Men and he will dwell with them and they shall be his People and God himself shall be with them and be their God Then shall these words which are faithfull and true be fulfilled God shall wipe away all teares from their Eyes and there shall be no more death neither sorrow nor crying neither shall there be any more pain for the former things are passed away I am Alpha and Omega the beginning and the end I will give unto him that is athirst of the Fountain of the Water of Life freely he that overcometh shall inherit all things and I will be his God and he shall be my Son To conclude I shall not say any thing as to the Musick of the Sphears as esteeming them to be only groundless dreams and phantasies of Heathens and Phylosophers I humbly conceive that as far as the glorious Heavens and Angels transcend and excells the nâ—w Earth and the Inhabitants thereof so far shall the ravishing and musical voices and sounds in this glorified state of the Saints excell all the pleasures and delights of this kind in this our low and corruptible condition O my Soul shall the sense of Hearing in the next life be as comprehensive and perfect in its kinde as the sense of Sight Shall it be made capable not only of Hearing and that with understanding also the Musick of Heaven the all-ravishing Hymns the mellifluous speech and voices of Angels the Language of Glory as also to hear him whose voice is as a Trumpet and as the noise of many Waters of him who is the Judge of Heaven and Earth the King of Kings the King of Saints and the King of Nations the Eternal Word the Lord Jesus Christ God-Man blessed for ever Yea shalt thou then O my Soul by the assistance of this glorified sense hear not as now the dreadfull and killing but the all delighting reviving exalting and transporting voice of the ever glorious Trinity even of the Eternal God Himself O let not this so excellent and usefull a sense be deboist so much as to be the Gate or in-let of vain and unprofitable discourses of wanton and lascivious words or of any kind of false slanderous or evil speeches all which are as so many Traytors to thee and Enemies unto thy God and Soveraign Nor let thy Eares be â—urfeited and excessively glutted with any kind of earthly Musick or with the pleasing sounds or voices of any of thy fellow-Creatures which although lawfull delightfull and refreshing to the natural and animal Spirits as being neer a Kin to them yet by the subtilty of Sathan the World and thy Flesh do frequently become snares and an undiscernable flattering and therefore the more dangerous Enemy and means to pollute thee with sin or to introduce some kind of fleshly lust or other But begin even now O my Soul to exercise every sense and member upon such objects and in such employments and actings as come neerest to those of Angels and glorified Saints This is to make this Earth a Paradise and to have even whilst thou art in this World as the Apostle exhorts thy conversation in Heaven To this end let thy delight be with holy David in the converse of the excellent ones upon Earth yea watch dayly at the Gates of Wisdome and wait at the Posts of her Doors yea with attention hang upon the Lips of her Teachers Be much in the exercises of the Church Tryumphant in praising God in the Assemblies of his Saints in Psalms and Hymns and spiritual Songs singing with grace and making Melody in your heart So shalt thou O my Soul by a sanctified spiritual and internal sense heâ—e frequently even in this thy state of humiliation the counsels and instructions of blessed Angels the voice of God and of his holy Spirit viz. thy Father and Comforter behind thee saying This is the way walk thou in it And the loving expressions and invitations of thy most sweet and gracious Spouse and Saviour who standing behind the Wall of thy Flesh and looking forth at the Windowes of several Providences and shewing himself through the Lattess of thy intervening and impeding weakness and infirmity will often speak unto thee saying Arise up my love my fair one and come away For loe the Winter is past of thy doubts fears sufferings and temptations The rain of thy teares and mourning is over and gone The Flowers of my saving gifts which evidence the Spring of my Grace appears on the Earth of thy renewed nature The time of the singing of Birds the earnest and witness of my Spirit and of thy conscience assuring thee of my love and salvation is come and the voice of me the true Turtle is heard in the Land even in thy Soul my Habitation The Figg-Tree putteth forth her green Figges and the Vines with the tender Grapes give a good smell viz. thou art fruitfull in all holy and good works Now therefore arise my love my fair one and come away and inherit the Kingdome prepared for thee before the Foundation of the World O my gracious Lord and Saviour who when thou wert upon Earth in the zeal of thy Spirit cryed out unto thy Auditors He that hath Eares to hear let him hear and didst declare and expound the Words of thy Prophet That there should be many that hear but understand not intimating to us thereby that there is a spiritual and internal sense of hearing that many want that have the bodily sence and Organ O thou which openedst the heart of Lidia as well as her Eares when she gave attention to Paul's preaching and said to the deaf Man in the Gospel Ephtata and his Eares were opened give me an understanding Eare as well as thou hast given me an Ear of Flesh that I may both hear and understand know and obey thy will declared unto me by the Ministers of thy Word Yea let my Eares be always open to receive entertain and retain the holy instructions consolations reproofes and encouragementâ— of any of thy faithfull Servants and my fellow-members and Brethren But let them through thy grace be turned away sealed up and guarded against the Syrene Songs of all Sin and Sinners And if by force or surpriâ—e oaths curâ—ing lying slandering blasphemies vain
to make all good in few words hear thy King by the Prophet Isaiah The Lord of Hosts will be for a Crown of glory and for a Diadem of beauty unto his People and for a Spirit of Judgment to him that sits in Judgment and for strength to them that turn the Battel to the Gate But this World is a Bed of Vipers a bundle of snares a stage of dangers True yet if thou trust in him he shall deliver thee from the snare of the Fowler from the noysome Pestilence Thou shalt tread upon the Lion and Adder the young Lion and the Dragon shalt thou trample under feet O read yee faithfully and digest this whole Psalme which I may truly stile the City of David for strength and beauty the fortress yea Paradise of every true Christian. But the godly have but a few friends I answer Comparatively they have but a few Enemies the whole Creation except Sathan and sinners being at peace with a reconciled Soul such as Job speaks of being in League with the very Stones and Beasts of the Field And the malice of the malignant turns all to their good Yea more if a Mans wayes please the Lord he will make even his Enemies to be at peace with him But to conclude a good Wife and good Children are amongst the chief blessings upon Earth They are so and have not the Saints strong and comfortable evidences for them if the Lord see them good witness those twine-like Psalmes the 117. and the 118. which for their excellency and comfort sake deserve the Readers more full and perfect Observation I will not be further tedious for the Lord God is a Sun and a Shield the Lord will give grace and glory no good thing will he with-hold from them that walk uprightly O Lord of Hosts blessed is the Man that trusteth in thee Having given my Soul by faith a taste of some few of those many temporal promises treasured up in the Scripture being they are to be but as Sallets to provoke my spiritual appetite I will return to feed upon Eternity O my Soul what surer Antidote against the apprehension of the last Judgment whose sting is Eternal Death than the Meditation and assured hope of Eternity of life which is Glory in grain and the deifying of Humanity Surely if there be any Spiritual weight that depresseth the Soul it is Judgment If there be any Heavenly Magnes that attracts and quickens it 't is Immortality For toucht with this though encircled with corruption thou shalt continue moving with the Needle until fixed upon the lines of life thou constantly adhearing to the true Flower-de-luce Christ Jesus Amongst Moses unfeigned Metamorphoses we finde the Rod chang'd to a Serpent a devourer of the Magitian delusions So this hope a branch of the Tree of Life springing from the Root of Jesse swallows up Death in victory in Eternity What seems yea is a fearfull truth to all unbelieving Egyptians becometh a Chimera a Phantasme to every true Israelite If any word is expressive or an Epitome of God of Heaven of Glory and consequently of all felicity it is this of Life I am the way the truth and the life I am the Resurrection and the Life saith our Saviour and he that hath the Son that is believes in him hath life saith St. John Since then God is life he that hath life hath God and he that hath God hath all things even the conflux of simple and unmixt happiness And therefore most wisely and succinctly those holy Men Penners of the Creed called the Apostles have coucht and exprest the excessive treasures and immense pleasures of the Heavenly Paradise under that one word life everlasting Herein O my Soul is included and assured unto thee the sublimest of Heavenly fruitions called by the School-men the beatifical Vision Which so far as I am able to express it is the Souls full repletion and apprehension of the excellencies of the Divine Essence not by the back-parts only and mediately as Moses but primarily and immediately in himself Yea also the Body being in the very moment of its resurrection spiritualiz'd as witnesseth the Apostle shall there with open face see and look upon the word of life receiving fulness of pleasure and satisfaction by those sences which now are unprofitable and uncapable of such glorious manifestations Here since this last act of our faith and last Article of our Creed is so full of comfort and unspeakable animation after the hearty and humble acknowledgment of my ignorance and fervent supplicating the assistance of the only illuminating Spirit I will more largely and particularly eye this Crown this unvaluable price even so far as my faith hath visual beames from Scripture or consequent demonstration If the Soul of Man in this state of her nakedness and deformity hath been by some Christians though therein Heretical deifyed and by most of the Heathen Magi magnifyed even to the heighth of created excellencies surely in her renovation and perfect reassumption of that her first Image and those first created Ornaments she must needs be more splendid and more to be admired But is this beauty of the first Adam in his innocency the heighth of a Christians hope No. As our second Adam in his divine descent and generation infinitely transcends our first Parent in Nature so he hath prepared a far more excellent weight of glory for his Children by Adoption his Members by Spiritual mystical and supernatural union Witness his own Oracle and declarative rather than necessary Petition The glory which thou gavest me I have given them Blessed Lord what a word is this What a communication my minde is entraunced and my weak Meditations swell even to an Impossibility of expression Can I not now know my Soul in her humiliation in the weakness of a Creature How can I then describe and conceive of her in her exaltation in the glory of her Creator Let this be sufficient for me to believe hence that that glory with which she shall be filled according to her Spiritual Nature is for quality infinitely excellent because Gods yet allayed and fitted to be received for quantity finite and limited as in her Not as divided from the Divine Fountain but by vertue of Inhabitation in a gracious real and inseparable union communicated to and made hers according to our Saviours Prayer That we all may be one as the Father is in the Son and the Son in the Father that we may be one in them as also that the love wherewith the Father hath loved the Son may be in us and he in us Thus then the Souls of the Saints before the Resurrection and both Souls and Bodies after the Resurrection according to their several measures of grace here shall then have their divine plenitudes of Glory every Vessel being filled that is thrown into that Ocean of Life and Glory Further as a Wedge of
continue you in the things that ye have learned and have been assured of knowing of whom ye have learned them For evil Men and Seducers shall wax worse and worse deceiving and being deceived Consider one another to provoke to love and to good works not forsaking the assembling of your selves together as the manner of some is But exhorting one another and so much the more as ye see the Day approaching Endeavouring to keep the Unity of the Spirit in the bond of Peace For there is one Body and one Spirit even as you are called in one hope of your Calling One Lord one Faith one Baptisme one God and Father of all who is above all and through all and in you all Since then you are the Body of Christ and Members in particular let there be no Schisme in the Body Now I hear that there be divisions amongst those that call themselves Christians For there must be Heresies also among you that those that are approved may be manifest among you which were spoken before of my Apostles that there should be mockers in the last time who should walk after their own ungodly lusts These be they who separate themselves sensual having not the spirit Now by my Name I desire you that you all speak the same thing and that there be no Divisions amongst you but that you be perfectly joyned together in the same mind and in the same judgment If you say then I am of Paul and I of Apollo and I of Cephas and I of Christ Are ye not carnal Is Christ divided Who then is Paul And who is Apollo but Ministers by whom ye believed Even as the Lord gave to every Man If then such an one as was Paul plants or as Apollo was watereth It is God that giveth the increase Therefore let no Man glory in Men But do you mark them which cause Divisions and offences contrary to the Doctrine you have learned and avoid them For they that are such serve not Me but their own Belly and by good words and fair Speeches deceive the hearts of the simple Finally whatsoever things are true whatsoever things are honest whatsoever things are just whatsoever things are pure whatsoever things are lovely whatsoever things are of good report if there be any Virtue and if there be any praise think on these things And those things which ye have both known and received and heard and seen in me do And the Father himself that loveth you the God of Peace shall be with you Holy Father who hearest me always This is Life Eternal to know Thee the only true God and Me whom thou hast sent Keep through thy own Name those that thou hast given Me that they may be one as we are one That they all may be one as thou Father art in Me and I in Thee that they also may be one in us And the glory which thou gavest Me I have given them that they may be one even as we are one I in them and thou in me that they may be made perfect in one And that the World may know that thou hast sent Me and hast loved them as thou hast loved Me. Father I will that they also whom thou hast given me be with me where I am that they may behold my Glory which Thou hast given me I have given to them the words which Thou gavest me and they have received them and have known surely that I came out from Thee and they have believed that Thou didst send me I pray for them I pray not for the World but for those that thou hast given me For they are Thine and all mine are thine and thine are mine and I am glorified in them I pray that thou wouldest keep them from the evil of the World and that my joy may be fulfilled in them Sanctifie them with thy truth thy word is truth Finally Beloved Wife of my Youth and dear Children Farewel be perfect be of good comfort be of one mind live in peace and the God of peace and love shall be with you For this cause I bow my Knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ of whom the whole Family in Heaven and Earth is named That he would give you according to the riches of his glory to be strengthned with might by his spirit in the inner man That Christ may live in your hearts by faith that ye being rooted and grounded in love may be able to comprehend with all Saints what is the breadth and length and depth and heighth and to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge that ye might be filled with the fulness of God The God of Peace that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus that great Shepheard of the Sheep through the blood of the everlasting Covenant make you perfect in every good work to do his will working in you that which is most pleasing in his sight through Jesus Christ. Now to him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think according to the power that worketh in us to him be glory in the Church by Jesus Christ throughout all Ages World without end The Grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the communion of the Holy Ghost be with you all Amen A Post-script of the Father to his Wife and Children concerning the foregoing Epistle with some further Exhortations to the practice thereof MY dearest heart and intirely affected Children the good and salvation of whose Souls I pray for and labour for as for my own I have I trust by the direction of the holy Spirit chosen in this manner to write unto you as hoping that what is delivered to you in the Person and words of our Lord and beloved Saviour For such is every word in the Epistle except some words not substantial necessary for connexion explanation and application requisit in a subject of such various matter You will with the more reverence and affection delight and obedience attend to and receive For although all the words therein were not uttered by his own mouth upon Earth yet were they all indited by his holy Spirit who spake by the Prophets and Apostles and is the Lord God of the holy Prophets So that if ye will not hear and obey him herein speaking to you by himself and by them Neither will you be perswaded though one arose and spake to you from Hell and from the dead Ye know after what manner I have been with you at all seasons And how I have kept nothing back that was profitable unto you but have shewed you and have taught you both in private and more publiquely Testifying unto you and
forgotten Goodness and Mercy The LAMENTATION Ejaculation or Hymn upon the former Subject BRight Eye of Heaven how doth thine Ire From a smooth Brow dart forth thy Fire No Tropicks bound thy torred Zone Since Britains know no temperate one Why doth those living rayes which grace Thy Tellus brow now scorch her Face No Saturn thou yet the same heats Which gave thy off-spring life retreates Them into Death and makes them have Within themselves a wither'd Grave See how black Clouds of dust arise To blear thy Beames because the Skies Have none In Sack-cloath see thy Queen Sits having laid aside her green Her Spring-paint gone wrinkles appeares And shews her Ag'd five thousand Years Art thou not jealous for to see Thy love lye nak't forc Company Or art thou Spanioliz'd and would Through these new Inlets spie out Gold Doth Hell keep Jubill and desires Thee to shine there with lightsome Fires See Troopes of Blades whose strength did keep Whole Cities Townships scarce dare peep Or shew in Field yea in these feares Some not offending lose their Eares Whole Rivers scarce thy thirst doth bound Whilst Springs their heads hide under ground Tell me is Phaeton in place Or Daphne hath thy Twelve Moneths Race Fir'd thy Axtell for didst thou fear Our Springs hive would out-brave thy Sphear But whence this brightning hark my moan Is answer'd by a Thunders groan Wrath through that Planet burns Earth Skies Men's barren Hearts assimuliz's The Application and Petition DRead Lord I tremble and now see The cause of this Catastrophie Leaves had the Figg-Tree were prun'd Yet fruitless Vines yea like untun'd Instruments whose Notes do jar And only Briefs and Minnums are Of goodness full of stops which lie And discord makes not harmony Were the Microcosmes on which Thy love hath shin'd with a most rich Influx yet we thy Graces dew Dry up and lose both fruit and hue Lord let thy show'rs on both Worlds fall So shall thy Sun not scortch but all Things fructuate On us rain blood No evil Omen this but good On that unbowel Clouds of Rain So shall both Spring grow green again Yea once more Blood and Water shall Witness on Earth thy Peace to all Rivers shall flow then in each Place And to both prove the streames of Grace Blest Sp'rit upon these Waters move That both may yield Thee fruit praise love And those dry Chaps that want a Tongue Shall sing a close unto this Song Amen A thanksgiving for Rain after the forementioned great Drought Anno 1637 1638 1639. ARGUMENT The God that heareth Prayer heard ours And pitty seems to weep in showers The Shewer of Mercy MErcy If peace 'twixt Heaven and Vs Tell me why roars his Cannon thus Why do I hear where e're I come The Warlike Wings strike up their Drum Seest thou that Row so vastly bent As if the Centers point it meant To split through us that by one Doom The World might fall into its Tomb Or Chaos May be through Earths heart Nature two counter-poles World dart Because as some think she 's decay'd Her Poles worn out or over-way'd No drooping Soul that thunders noise Is Justice murmur 'cause my voice Prevailes with God The other sound Musters up Troops of blessings round The Orb. As for the threatning Bow It 's my Triumphant Arch no woe Portending since he means no harm Who turns the Bowes horns from his Arm. Witness those orient streaks which are The Ensigns of Earths Peace not War Since then the string is in thy power Dart up by force of love a shewer Of praise then by that Jacob's scale Let thy Soul mount with a fresh gale Take Heaven by force no danger fear 'T is freedome to be Captiv'd there Earths Jubily TEll me my Soul when did the Skies So become Morning to all Eyes Were ever teares so timely shed As these which strangely raise the Dead Mercy now puts on Justice Gown And smiles under the old Worlds frown Dame Earth grown frolick now attires Her front with liquid Pearls and desires To feast the Creatures by her lie Clear mirrons for to dress her by Young Hairs she busheth forth to hide Her baldness and like Autumes Bride Hath over her by Spike-men born A Canopie of swelling Corn. The Springs invited but she grown Feavereth to Southern Climes was gone For health yet presents her Queen By Proxie with a suit of green With which Earth spreads her lap and sets Thereon her fruits and delicates The feasts prepar'd then in each place Let us before we eat say Grace The Thanksgiving GOod God such a new World as this Deserves a second Genesis To preach thy power and love which thrice Hath made our health a Paradice O give us innocency too So place and blessing shall anew Through Christ by right of re-intaile Be ours and ours till Issue faile Lord make all Heads Fountains all Eyes Limbicks distilling like the Skies Through heat of love a weeping Rain Let hearts like Earth grow soft again So shall such mutual Harmony Shew grace as sin works sympathy And to thee Lord this truth return That Mercy melts though Justice burn Witness Earth Heaven my Heart Eyes Pen May they thus ever melt Amen ARGUMENT Vpon God's merciful restoring me to health and graciously supporting and comforting me in a fearful Agony and Apprehension of Death by reason of a dangerous Cough which caused me to spit Blood Soliloquium or Discourse AS Pride War and Contention are the ungrateful Off-spring of Peace and Plenty so are sickness and affliction the succeeding and unhappy Daughters of health and prosperity This is not only my Observation but Experiment As having the fresh Spring of my Youth after an Halcion calme and time of health on a suddain turned almost into an Autumn or Fall of that leavy beauty and greenness which my Body which is but a Tree inverted was adorned with and that by an unexpected and dangerous Spout or Cattar of Rhumetick Rain seconded with a fearful Hurricane or Thunder-storm of a rending Cough which had not God been very gracious had undoubtedly â—ink both the Pilot and Vessel my Soul and Body I pumping out through the Lungs much Water and Blood But with the Marriners in Jonah's Ship or rather with Jonah in the Whales Belly I cryed and prayed unto my God even in this Agony and preluge of Death his Serjeant wherein Pompa mortis magis â—erret quam mors ipsa As an addition to these my inward fears and terrors arising from my dangerous condition was the apprehension of my Arch Enemy and Accuser Sathan preparing and ready to prefer at the Bar of Divine Justice a long Role and Inditement of my great offences attested too by my own Conscience which is more than a thousand witnesses as also the legal and just punishment of them Hell Eternal Death and Torment I say again with all humble and reiterated thankfulness I then petitioned my
being no Man that sinneth not whose best self-righteousnesses are not as filthy rags Would we therefore as our due presume to sit down with thee in thy Kingdome Lord let such pride be far from us and do thou cause us in an humble acknowledgment of our wants and merit readily to confess that we are unprofitable Servants having done that which was our duty to do Now if of Servants we are made Friends of Bastards we are Adopted Sons of Bond-slaves we are appointed Heirs shall we not cry out that our merit is thy grace and that thou O Jesus Christ art the Lord our righteousness Art made unto us righteousness And art the end of the Law for righteousness to every one that believeth Question not here my Soul why God doth not by his omnipotent and supreme Power in one and the same instant Call justifie sanctifie and glorifie his Elect since as he did not condemn us so he will not save us without our selves Saves us without our merits indeed not without our work He hath therefore in his infinite wisdome annexed conditions to his Covenant and ordained faith repentance and all other good works to be as so many degrees in our ascent to happiness That so Earth might be our School to fit us for Heaven and the life of grace which is imperfect glory might prepare us for the life of glory which is grace in perfection Neither be thou too curiously inquisitive to ask the reason why the Lord God in this his gracious looking back upon us doth not again build up that wide breach which Sin hath made in Mans nature That so according to our first beginnings in Adam we might have continued that course enjoying happiness here and attaining after translation glory hereafter Since that the Lord the great Architector suffered this specious yet brittle building of unstable Man to fall down flat that upon its foundation he might raise up to the glory of his grace a more beautifull edifice in which admirable structure he uses the same matter and that it might be stable for ever he Himself becomes the Head of the Corner Further the Builders of this spiritual Temple are Gods Spirit and Ministers the cement faith and all other graces the Buttresses or Pillars his Election and the tegment or covering his Providence In all this Man as of himself hath no work other ways grace would be no grace The perfect work of Redemption like that of the Creation being as above the resistance so without the assistance of the Creature Again had Man been only placed in a renued estate there would have been a possibility of falling and of plunging Himself into a double curse whereupon Sathan and evil Men would have taken an occasion to derogate both from the mercy and power of God according to those Objections of the Heathen rehearsed by Moses That because the Lord would not or could not save them he suffered them to be destroyed But some will say he might have confirmed them as he did the Elect Angels I answer that if it should have pleased God thus to have bestowed his mercy towards us his Children yet the Devil and wicked Men if in these days of our weakness much more in those of our perfection would have derogated from Gods grace that they might have attributed all or the best part to Mans merit Lastly in this our Justification by Christ mercy counterpoises justice yea in these there are to the eternal praise of our all wise God an admirable and due proportion The spirit of God observes it and shall not we in whom it is wrought with unspeakable joy and thankfulness remember That as by the offence of one judgment came upon all Men to condemnation Even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all Men unto justification of life O the miserable necessity of our nature the boundless compassion of God's Doth Man want holiness merit and obedience and will his Lord confer purity and offer up his own Life for him will no other security but himself be accepted for the payment of sin Surely this will serve not only to express his love but to informe our judgments how impossible it was considering Gods holiness the Laws rigour and the least imperfection for Man to be justified before God This work belongs to the Creator not to the Creature If in our first beeing the glorious Trinity were in an especial manner sole Agents much more in this our Eternal well-Beeing Wherein God the Father imputes and accepts God the Son becomes Man obeys and fulfills and God the Holy Ghost calls and sanctifies That Man in the last place may apply and put on by faith this spotless Robe and Imperial Crown of Righteousness To whom it may be said as of Mordecay Thus shall it be done to him whom the King of Kings delights to honour I should now proceed to observe what streams and blessed effects flow from this Priestly Fountain did not the neer and inseparable relation of the Prophetical Office unto it sweetly invite me to unite them also in my Meditations I am assured that every true Christian Soul that hath followed me hitherto in my weak yet sincere Meditations is here together with me ravisht in the apprehension of these infinite Priviledges and in tasting of these Waters of Life which flow from the Throne of God and of the Lamb. Is any so welcome to the poor indebted Widdow as mercifull Elisha Is any so to be esteemed of rebellious Israel as interceding Moses Was there any Speech so pleasing to the Paralitique as Man thy Sins are forgiven thee Or any vesture so needfull and acceptable to those naked Beggars in the Gospel as the Wedding Garment And is not Christ who unto us is all these even the welcome Man the only Intercessor the Word remitting Sins the Royal Cloâ—thing our Wish our Aim our Crown our Glory No doubt but he is Why go we not then on to possess him O Lord we are all like unto those unbelieving Israelites that are over joyed with the good report of the Land of Canaan and delighted with the taste of the pleasant Fruit thereof and yet stand still even at the border discouraged As they cryed out because of the Sons of 〈◊〉 so we of our Gyant-like corruptions those opposed them theâ—e us Thou hast shewed us and we have read this thy gracious Covenant and we know thee both willing and able to perform thy part thereof But alass when we descend to the conditions on our part what have we or what can we do Thou requirest faith in us but behold doubting Repentance and behold hardness of heart O wretched Men that we are who shall deliver us from this Body of Death O let all that have such hungry Souls thank God for our Lord Jesus Christ. Who is a Joshua to overcome all these our mighty
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
and a learned Man was declared an Heretick for holding there was an Antipodes or a new World before its discovery so may possibly these my weak notions and contemplations although of a Divine subject because not heretofore searcht into by others that I know of and therefore if the Lord in his providence shall order them to come to a publick view I only recommend them to the devout perusal and judgment of holy humble regenerate and practical Christians who although in the Body do by divine Meditation as it were live out of the Body and have been so far changed into the Image of Christ and taught and renewed by his holy Spirit that they have brought their Bodies and Senses unto such a spiritual frame and exercise as is declared and exhorted to in the foregoing discourse These will rightly judge of this personal Raign of Christ with his Saints upon Earth and how uncharitably and unjustly and I may add ignorantly many in other respects learned religious and to be honoured have ignominiously and falsely branded this Doctrine as though it was New Epicureal and Sensual whereas the truth is it is a most antient and Primative Doctrine and nothing else but the declaration and affirmation of that glorious condition of Christ and his Saints that he himself the Holy Scriptures and Prophets indited and inspired by his Holy Spirit have throughout witnessed to and promised as by the Scriptures quoted in the Margin besides many others is sufficiently proved That he the second Adam should come to renew and restore all things in this lower Creation freed from the curse of sin to as good yea a far better condition than they had before the Fall When God saw every thing that he had made and behold it was very good Now did not God make this so excellent a work for his Glory and for his Creature Man to enjoy and to serve praise and glorify him in the fruition thereof and in the admiration of him in this its excellency and goodness But did any of Man-kinde but only two Adam and Eve enjoy the Earth and the Creatures thereof in their Primitive and created excellencies and that but for a Day or two How then shall God have his end the Glory of his Power wisdome and goodness and Man the enjoyment of all his liberality and bounty and be Trumpets and witnesses of his excellencies in the Creatures How shall Gods promise be fulfilled Of making a new Heaven and a new Earth and restoring all things by his Son the Heir of all things If Man I mean all the Elect in his Soul Body and Senses shall not be renewed and live personally with Christ at this Renovation of all things for a thousand years according to the Scriptures to enjoy what God hath made and Christ hath purchased for them and to admire adore and glorify him in the Primitive end use and enjoyment of them These then that deny this and in a fervent I forbear to say ignorant hast because every Age hath its measure of light would seat the raised Saints in the highest Heavens before their time and before Gods promises and great designs be fulfilled what do they else in the declining of this great truth but force themselves upon false and Allegorical expositions of cleer and literal Scriptures making ineffectual his promise yea do they not affirm contrary to that undeniable maxime that God made these Heavens and this Earth and all the wonderfull Creatures and admirable Ornaments thereof in vain as not known nor made use of by them for whom at first he created it and again renewed it I might here add many more Arguments for the defence of this truth but I shall at this time no further digress but return to my former Method of Meditation upon this glorified Sense of Feeling Referring the Reader to those most excellent Treatises of Dr. Homes Mr. Archer and many others upon this Subject O my Soul shall this Sense be not only continued but exercised upon such excellent subjects in Glory shall it with thy Body be spiritualiz'd and as to its sensability incomparably exceed what it is now O be carefull not to effeminate or pollute it disdaining to vassalage it to pride covetousness lust or vanity But as it more than all the other Senses declares and manifests thy living in the body So let it by an innocent sober chast and holy acting testify Christs living in thee The Lord Jesus hath taken off all legal impositions such as Touch not taste not but not his Gospel and Spiritual restraining Therefore abuse not nor make use of this Christian liberty which he hath purchased for thee to fulfill the Lusts of the Flesh For if thou livest after the Flesh thou shalt dye but if through the Spirit thou mortifiest the deeds of the Flesh thou shalt live Take heed of covetousness which hath not only its seat in the Eye but in the Hand desire not with Mydas in the Poet that every thing thou touchest may become Gold but remember the issue and moral of the Fable his starving and perishing in his enjoyments Neither imbrace thou the bosome of a strange Woman for he that toucheth her shall not be innocent for her ways draw neer to death and her steps take hold of Hell she being compared by the spirit of God to a deep Ditch and to a narrow Pit out of which very few get out and are delivered For although as in the Poet Ixion-like in the height of thy lustfull pleasure thou thinkest to infold in thy Armes a Juno a Goddess The conclusion will be but the grasping of an Airy Cloud nay which is far worse a Pestilential vapour an inflam'd and killing Granado O my Soul since whilst thou art in this vain World and in this sinfull body thou art incompast about with Legions of evil spirits with innumerable snares and with secret and subtile temptations which with those in the Prophet call good evil and evil good which put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter which call light darkness and darkness light abusing lawfull things and turning them out of their right Channel by excess that so they may overflow and drown the Earth again with a far more dangerous Flood than that of Water which destroyed only a temporal Life even a deluge of sin and of flaming Fire long since foretold the cause of that Fire and without true repentance of Eternal Death watch thou therefore and pray lest thou fall into temptation and this sence be adulterated by thy pride excess and luxury and made instrumental to cause those good Creatures the soft Silks of Persia the warm Furs of Muscovia the fine Wools of Britan and Segovia given thee by God to cover thy sinfull nakedness to become a covering of sin and a Banner of pride and vanity Take heed also that this sense be not bewitched and overcome through voluptuousness and corrupt thee by an
Millions of glorified Saints and Angels to sound forth and speak of to one another the wonderfull works and providences of God past present and to come divulged in the large Mapps of our Creation Redemption and Glorification to his continual and everlasting praise and glory Shall it be a principal Engine and Actor as to that Office and Government thou shalt be placed in amongst thy fellow Saints in this glorious and universal Empire of the Lord Jesus raigning Personally as King and Mediator in this his Mediatory Kingdome upon the renewed Earth Yea lastly shall it be the Expressor of all thy Orders and Commands in the Execution of thy restored Dominion over the terrene and inferiour Creatures O with holy David that now glorified Saint Set a watch over thy Lips that thou offend not with thy Tongue and remember that authentick Declaration of thy Judge Lord and Saviour By thy words thou shalt be justified and by thy words thou shalt be condemned and that of every idle word thou shalt give an accompt at the Day of Judgment Because out of the abundance of wickedness that is within the Heart the Mouth speaketh If any Man saith St. James offend not in word the same is a perfect Man and able also to bridle the whole Body Behold saith the same Apostle we put Bits into the Horses mouths that they may obey us and we turn about their whole Body Behold also the Ships which though they 〈◊〉 so great and are driven of fierce Winds yet are they twined about with a very small Helme whether so ever the Governor listeth Even so the Tongue is a little member and boasteth great things Behold how great a matter a little Fire kindleth And the Tongue is a Fire a World of iniquity so is the Tongue amongst our Members that it defileth the whole Body and setteth on Fire the course of nature And it is set on Fire of Hell For every kind of Beasts and of Birds and of Serpents and the things in the Sea is tamed and hath been tamed of Mankinde But the Tongue can no Man tame it is an unruly evil full of deadly poyson Therewith bless we God even the Father and therewith curse we Men which are made after the similitude of God shall out of the same Mouth proceed blessing and cursing O my Soul these things ought not so to be Doth a Fountain send forth at the same place sweet and bitter Can the Figg-Tree O my Soul bear Olive-Berries either a Vine Figgs so can no Fountain both yield salt Water and fresh Therefore If any Man seem to be religious and bridleth not his Tongue but deceiveth his own Heart this Mans Religion is vain Speak evil of no Man Let no corrupt communication proceed out of thy Mouth but that which is good to the use of edifying that it may minister grace to the Hearers Neither filthiness nor foolish talking nor jesting which are not convenient but rather giving of thanks Since evil Communications corrupt good Manners O my Soul is cursing swearing vain wanton and evil-speaking the Rant and Garb of the wicked yâ—â— the Language of Hell And is holy and a religious discourse and communication the Character and Dialâ—â—t of Saints upon Earth and praises and thanksgiving the exercise of the Spirits of just Men made perfect and of the glorious Angels Yea the Language of Heaven O let not thy Tongue learn or speak the Language of Ashdod but of Canaan not the blasphemous roaringâ— of the Devils and the damned but the sweet Anthemâ— of the Saints and Angels Yea begin thy Heaven upon Earth and be warbling and tuning this blessed and usefull Instrument thy Tongue to Psalmes Hymns and spiritual Songs singing and making melody in thy Heart to the Lord For it is good to sing praises to our God For it is pleasant and praise is comely O bless the Lord O my Soul and forget not all his benefits who forgiveth all thine iniquities and healeth all thy diseases who redeemeth thy life from destruction who crowneth theâ— with loving kindness and tender mercies who satisfyeth thy Mouth with good things so that thy Youth is renewed like the Eagles O my Soul shall thy Tongue in the next glorious Life be thy Chronologer and Orator to Gods praise before and to thy fellow Saints of Gods works and providences past present and to come O be exercising and conning over thy Lesson in this Life And inâ—uâ—e it here to what it shall do hereafter Say to my friends relations and fellow Christians Come and hear all yee that fear God and I will declare what he hath done for my Soul Yea let thy Tongue be thy glory and as the Tongue of a ready Writer Let thy Mouth speak of wisdome and the Meditation of thy Heart of understanding Remember the Days of old meditate of all Gods works muse on the works of his Hands speak of the might of his terrible acts and declare his greatness Abundantly utter the memory of his great goodness and sing of his righteousness whilst thou livest â—raise the Lord yea sing praises unto thy God whilst thou hast any Beeing O my Soul shall the Saints in this glorious Empire of Christ in the new Heaven and new Earth be all Kings and yet as one â—tar differs from another in glory so they there shall have different degrees of gifts and graces offices and imployments every Vessel being full of grace and glory although of different measures and capacities not ruling or lording it over one another and yet of necessary and excellent use by reason of their various and different gifts manifestations and employments to add an encrease of happiness blessedness and glory to each other a pattern and resemblance of which joynt Kingship under one Head and King the Lord Jesus as was mentioned before is seen 〈◊〉 the natural Body and in the militant and mystical body of Christ The Saints glorified being like so many precious Stones which although of different bigness and value yet being judiciously set by a skilfull 〈◊〉 to radiate one upon other that they add luster each 〈◊〉 other and without any diminution to the worth of any individual Stone serve necessarily to the greater and fuller perfection of the Jewel Will it be thus O my Soul and will thy Tongue be then a principal Actor in this thy most honourable station and vocation Serve thy God with David in thy Generation not hiding any Talent God hath given thee with the slothfull Servant in the Earth Set not thy Candle under a Bushel but upon a Table that it may enlighten the whole House thy Family thy Friends thy fellow-Members yea all except Dogs or Swine that thou conversest with speaking unto them as the Saints no doubt shall do to one another in Glory to edification exhortation and
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
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
Order of Melchizedeck I say dost thou now being on Earth neerer to their reproaches and yet not further off from thy power pass over their iniquities suffering thy self to be crucified by them whom thy Justice should have crucified to be sacrificed by the wrath of them whom thy anger hadst thou come to destroy not to save should have sacrificed Was Noah Lot Moses Elisha all Prophets all Types of Thee by thee aided and made victorious over their unbelieving and insulting adversaries and why dost not thou O Lord of all Prophets being now thine own Orator and yet despised demolish Corazin or Bethsaida with other Cities of Judea either by Water or Fire O Lord thou art still the same God then thy Justice was manifested but now thy mercy is magnified as appears by that Deploration over Jerusalem where the Floods of Waters are now converted to an Inundation of Teares the Fire and Brimstone to love-burning and pittying sighes though some murmuring ask From whence hast thou this Authority others blaspheming make thee a Sabbath-breaker and esteem thee as a Conjurer a Glutton a Wine-bibber a friend of Publicans and Sinners yet hast thou not now a devouring Gulf for such Repiners Teeth of wilde Beasts for such calumniating Blasphemers unless we behold that one alone bottomless Gulf of thy mercy most extended and most deep even to Man in the depth of his misery Father forgive them for they know not what they do O Christ Did fear dead thy revenge due to those Sinners against their own Souls No fear is a duty of the Creature ruled by thee not over-ruling thee Passion is incident to inferiours and therefore below thee which hast no Superior Did want of ability smother thy anger No thy Power is not extinguished no less than â—nfinite although in thy humiliation clouded during thy pleasure Lord why did those many Legions of Heavenly Souldiers suffer thy Enemies to carry thee their General away Captive those Bonds which could not resist Sampson's force fetter the Armes of thee the Almighty who gave him strength those Nailes fasten thee to the Cross who wert as able to deliver thy self as thou wert willing to suffer O Saviour my thankful Soul by way of confession replies thus The unmeasurableness of thy love patiently swallowed up all these contumelies and reproaches for love instead of revenge thou forgavest thine Enemies instead of calling for power to destroy Man thou proclamedst his Salvation crying out It is finished the Angels when thou wert attached by Judas although within thy Call must only be admiring Witnesses of thy Patience not Executors of those Traytors Lastly thy Mercy only manacled thy hands and nailed thee to thy Cross making Thee a Transgressor by the bearing of our Sins that we might become righteous through the Imputation of thy Merits according to that of Peter Who his own Self bare our Sins in his Body on the Tree that we being dead to Sin should live in Righteousness by whose Stripes we are healed These things gracious Saviour yea infinitely more hast thou done for us which since we cannot apprehend let us with reverence admire rejoycing that we have view'd thee in thy Birth to be our Kinsman in thy Life our Example in thy Death our Saviour after Death our Resurrection and Glory Lord what art thou not unto us a Balme for our Wounds a Laver for our Souls a Sacrifice for our Sins and the Life of our Death What hast thou not suffered for us Wert thou not humbled in thy Birth persecuted all thy Life and though innocent adjudged to Death that our Nature might be exalted our Life enlarged our Guilt acquitted Wert thou not scourged disrobed Crowned with Thorns lifted upon the Cross derided athirst forsaken and slain that we might be delivered from the Judgments of thy Father clothed with thy Righteousness Crowned with thy Glory lifted up into Heaven freed from the mocks of Sathan satisfied with the sweet draughts of thy Love received of thee for ever to Live Eternally What shall I render unto the Lord for all his benefits towards me I will take the Cup of Salvation and call upon his Name saying Glory be to God in the Highest Peace on Earth good Will towards Men Praise and Honour and Glory and Power be unto Him that sitteth on the Throne and unto the Lamb for evermore Soli Deo Gloria A Concluding Prayer O Eternal Infinite and Everlasting God by whom all things were Created that are made and in whom we Live Move and have our Beeing I thy poor Creature humbly beseech Thee to deal graciously with me thy Servant pardoning all my Offences and passing by all the errors wants and imperfections committed in these my feeble Meditations O Lord I praise Thee for thy favourable assistance of my weakness ever confessing thy gâ—eat Goodness in my Creation the Pride Incredulity and Weakness of my Nature in Man's Fall and thy Infinite Mercy in my Redemption O let the one rejoyce me the other humble me and the last make me obediently thankful in the observant performance of all thy Commands that so I may glorifie Thee which is the end of my Beeing repent and believe in Thee who art the Resurrection of my Fall and live with Thee Eternally which is the Compleatment of my Salvation and fulfilling of my Hope which is fixt in Jesus Christ To whom with the Father and the Holy Spirit be all possible Praise Obedience and Thanksgiving now and for ever Amen Vpon several temporal Mercies Providences and Deliverances Graciously Vouchsafed By the Lord Infinite in Goodness To the most unworthy Author And to many also of his neer Relations EBENEZER HETHERTO hath GOD helped me 1 Sa. 7.12 Bethel the House of God Gen. 28.19 A Pillar of PRAISE Erected by An English JACOB unto the onely Infinite Eternal and Almighty JEHOVAH in all Sincerity Humility Reverence and filial fear Hallelujah Eternal FATHER Glorious SON and Holy GHOST Three Persons but One GOD in Essence who the HOST Of Heaven and Earth did'st make and art Goodness Power Justice Truth Love Wisdome Holiness To Thee with JACOB SAMUEL A PILLAR I ERECT to tell All Future AGES to thy PRAISE Thy MERCIES to Me all my DAYES Their 's like their Faith was of firm Stone Mine weak like Me a PAPER One O let thy Strength made Perfect be In my Great IMBECILITY Two Mites Goats Hair from Hearts most free Are JEWELS in Thy TREASURY LORD had I Men and Angels Tongues That KEY would be below the SONGS Of THANKS-GIVING I owe to THEE For what in CHRIST thou did'st for MEE From which Eternal Love forth Springs The Temporal Mercies which these Hymns Commemorate O let Free GRACE Be Adamantine and my BASE And IRON-HEART to THEE attract Seal'd by Thy SACRAMENTAL Act So shall my Person and these Sheets Which I prostrate at THY blest FEET Received be as being PERFVM'D By thy sweet SPIRIT and only
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
recovery by thy blessing upon the Medicine of a poor Widdow even after that the utmost endeavours of a skilful Doctor proved uneffectual The fifth and last dangerous encounter was with another Pursivant of Death a second painful and perilsome Ague From this Ague also after three very accute fits thou gavest me a happy and healthful recovery Lord what shall I render unto thee for these five most gracious recoveries and as it were new lives And for thy deliverance from many other lesser Distempers Yea what have I to return unto thee since all I am is thine and all my most spiritual Sacrifices are lame weak and sickly Lord although such were forbidden under the Law yet under thy Gospel we have a great High Priest which takes away the iniquity and infirmity of our holy things in whom thou hast declared even from Heaven that thou art well pleased with us And who is that compassionate Physician that came not to heal the whole but the sick Blessed Saviour heal now the infirmities of my Soul as thou hast done these of my Body That according to thy promise the dumb may sing and the lame may skip as the Lamb Yea open thou my Lips and my Mouth shall shew forth thy praise O Lord God what is Man that thou visistest him or the Son of Man that thou regardest him That as a Father and Nurse thou shouldest watch over us from Morning to Night and from Night to Morning That the left hand of thy gracious providence should be alwayes under my head and that the right hand of thy unchangeable and fervent love should continually imbrace me That thou shouldest lead me to Heaven by the Gates of Hell That thou shouldest wound me that thou mightest heal me Humble me that thou mightest exalt me That thou shouldest exercise me with sickness to teach me how to overcome Death The height and summ total of all sicknesses O for ever blessed be thy Name that gives me not only believingly but practically and feelingly to seal the truth of that cordial Word that saith That tribulation brings forth patience and patience experience and experience hope which makes us not ashamed Wherefore my heart which thou hast enlarged my lips which thou hast opened and my life which thou hast thus often renewed through Grace doth praise thee this Day for these and all others thy great Mercies and desires to perpetuate my thankful acknowledgment in this and the following Memorial to all Generations Amen The BETHESDA Ejaculation or Hymn on the former Subject TRue is that Axiome since the Curse Best things corrupted become worse Than others which are less refin'd By Man and Angels fall we find This truth confirm'd yea our best meatâ— Putrified are Diseases Seats Hence came my Surfeit by that food That pleas'd my tast was sweet and good This tempted me to an Excess That alwayes brings forth Putridâ—ess Which Nature striving to cast out By Vomit made me sick throughout This first assault Thou Lord withstood Of Death thus withering my Bud Of Childhood And by Friends advice Purg'd out my sickness and its rice Restoring health to me and joy To Parents grieved by my annoy All sins a surfeit and abuse Of what is good through our misuse A Lust rebelling to Excess And yet a want of Holiness Lord Vomit Purge me and supplie Thy Grace so shall I live not die Man's Life from Birth doth hasten on Towards Death by a Consumption Of moisture Radical like Lights We wast this Oyl by burning bright But Rheums and Coughs accession Addes Wings to Dissolution Such was my state for many Years Which ballanc't me 'twixt hopes and feares Vntil in Mercy thou though'st good To blesâ— the means drie up this Flood Of Mall-concocted humors So That it no more my Earth o're-flow O Lord the streames that drown'd my Soul Are wicked Lusts let Grace controle This Deluge lest it more and more Consume thy radicating store That Body Soul restor'd again May be it 'h full of Grace not wain As Art by Succors Forcers mount Waters upon a like accompt Rheum pumping Coughs raise it and Aire Above out of their place Hence are Those stiches pains and Plurisies Which us indanger and Disease Such was the cause such the effect Of my third sickness whose Aspect Prefigur'd and made way for Death By Stitches Coughs shortness of breath Yea all one Night to add to pain Thunders did roar and Lightnings flame When thus upon thy wrack I lay Lord thou didst turn my Night to Day And answered from thy glorious Throne My prayers teares my sighs and groans And blâ—st weak means refresht my Soul And on a suddain made me whole A wonder next a Miracle Was this my quick recovery Which merits Lord a Pyramid A Trophy that cannot be hid Of praise That Saints in after Days May bless love trust in thee alwayes Lord frothy Distillations Lustful Inflammations Shorten still thy Spirits breath Threatning to me a worser Death By pricks of Conscience and Heart grief O give unto my Soul relief Dry up O Lord these Springs of sin That do obstruct thy breathings in My sickly Soul Let Conscience be Freed from its pains as cleans'd by thee So shall my Soul and Body live And to Thee living praises give The Bodies Earth-quake Agues are Shaking us like a pent-up Aire Then breaking forth through our Earths pores It casts out Flames and Waters store Imbalming us with sweat as 't were To fit us for our Sepulchre Such was my two last Sicknesses Deaths prelude and a long recess Of Health which no Court-Pagentry Could flatter for to stay with me Nor yet my Office which transfer I did to God's Commissioner An all-controling Ague which Like the Familiar of a Witch Did haunt me at set-hours each Day At first till Mercy did allay And to each other chang'd my fit Lest I should be burnt up by it Here sometimes I as frozen lay Shaking for cold as Seamen say Those do neer the North pole Anon Burnt up as one i' th torrid Zone For eight Hours space at whose retreat I almost drowned was with sweat Thus alternative cold and heat Predominant were in the same seat And subject So the Scriptures tell Sinners tormented are in Hell Where weeping wailing gnashing Teeth Shew cold and heat and easless grief Out of this Aguish Hell in which I twice was cast some Years betwixt I cryed with David Jonah Then Thou savest me as thou did'st them Wherefore as they so I will bless Thee in my Heart Tongue Life and Verse O Lord I have since Life began Been sick of a Quotidian Which sometime doth me greatly shake With faithless fears which makes me quake Anon mad Anger boyles my blood Breaths out ill humors like a Flood O purge out quite this Malady And passions tune to Harmony So shall such holy temp'rament Give health to both with sweet content And fear
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
that laugh now for ye shall mourn and weep For your miseries that shall come upon you Your riches are corrupted and your Garments are Moth-eaten your Gold and Silver is cankered and the rust of them shall be a witness against you and shall eat your flesh as it were Fire ye have lived in pleasure on the Earth and been wanton ye have nourished your hearts as in a Day of slaughter Behold the Judge standeth before the Door and my coming draweth nigh when all such shall receive the reward of unrighteousness As they that count it pleasuâ—e to riot in the Day time and living in pleasure are dead whilst they are alive Spots they are and blemishes sporting themselves with their own deceivings while they feast with you feeding themselves without fear Clouds they are without Water Trees whose fruit withereth without fruit twice dead plucked up by thee roots Raging Waves of the Sea foaming our their own shame wandring Stars to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever Beloved remember the words which were spoken before of my Apostle who told you there should be mockers in these last times who should walk after their own ungodly lusts These be they who separate themselves sensual having not the Spirit Lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God These are those scoffers in these last days walking after their own lust and saying Where is the promise of his coming For since the Fathers fell asleep all things continue as they were from the beginning of the Creation Let us eat and drink for to morrow we shall die For as in the Days that were before the Flood they were eating and drinking marrying and giving in marriage and knew not until the Flood came and took them all away so shall also my coming be Watch therefore and pray lest ye fall into temptation For you know not what hour your Lord doth come Therefore be you ready for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of Man cometh But if with that evil Servant you shall say in your hearts my Lord deferreth his coming and shall smite your fellow-Servants and eat and drink with the drunken I will come in an hour which you are not aware of and cut you asunder and appoint you your portion with the Hypocrites there shall be weeping and gnashing of Teeth Solomon the Preacher the Son of David King of Israel was great and increased more than all that were before him in Jerusalem who kept not from his Eyes whatsoever they desired and with-held not his Heart from any joy For his Heart rejoyced in all his Labours whose wisdome also remained with him when he looked on all the works that his Hands had wrought and the Labour he had laboured to do as is before at large enumerated by him makes this acknowledgment Behold All is Vanity and Vanity of Vanities and Vexation of Spirit and there was no profit under the Sun Therefore love not the World nor the things of the World For all that is in the World the Lust of the Flesh the Lust of the Eyes and the Pride of Life is not of the Father but iâ— of the World And the World passeth away and the Lusts therefore but he that doth the will of God abideth for ever Be ye not weary of well-doing for in due season you shall reap if ye faint not He that soweth to the Flesh shall of the Flesh reaâ— Corruption But he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting Are there any so foolish as to begin in the Spirit and to think to be made perfect in the Flesh If any Man have run well let none hinder you that you should nor obey the truth Remember Lot's Wife No Man having put his Hand to the Plough and looking back is fit for the Kingdome of God If any Man draw back my Soul shall have no pleasure in him But ye are not of them that draw back unto Perdition but of them that believe unto the saving of the Soul The back-slider shall be filled with his own ways but a good Man shall be satisfied from himself Let back-sliding Children return and I will heal their back-slidings and will love them freely When the unclean Spirit is gone out of a Man he walketh through dry places seeking rest and findeth none Then he faith I will return unto my House from whence I came out and when he is come he findeth it empty swept and garnished Then goeth he and taketh with himself seven other Spirits more wicked than himself and they enter in and dwell there And the last state of that Man is worse than the first For if after Men have escaped the pollutions of the World through the knowledge of Me the Lord and Saviour they are again intangled therein and overcome the latter end is worse with them than the beginning For it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness then after they have known it to turn from the holy Commandements delivered unto them But it is happened unto them according to the true Proverb The Dog is turned to his own Vomit again And the Sow that was washed to her wallowing in the Mire I am the Vine ye are the Brances he that abideth in Me and I in him bringeth forth much fruit for without me ye can do nothing If a Man abide not in me he is cast out as a Branch and is withered and Men gather them and they are cast into the Fire and they are burned As the Father hath loved me so have I loved you continue you in my love If ye continue in my Word then are ye my Disciples indeed And ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free Whoso looketh into the perfect Law of Liberty and continueth therein he being not a forgetful Hearer but a doer of the work this Man shall be blessed in his deed I am the Lord the hope of Israel all that forsake Me shall be ashamed and they that depart from Me shall be written in the Earth because they have forsaken me the Lord the Fountain of living Waters But he that endureth unto the end shall be saved If any Man see his Brother sin a sin which is not unto Death he shall ask and I will give him life for them that sin not unto Death There is a sin unto Death I do not say that he shall pray for it For it is impossible for those who were once enlightned and have tasted of the Heavenly Gift and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost and have tasted the good Word of God and the Powers of the
World to come If they shall fall away to renew them again unto Repentance seeing they crucifie unto themselves Me the Son of God afresh and put Me to an open shame For the Earth which drinketh in the Rain which cometh often upon it and bringeth forth Herbs meet for them by whom it is dressed receiveth blessing from God But that which beareth Thorns and Briars is rejected and is nigh unto Cursing whose end is to be burned If then ye sin wilfully after that ye have received the knowledge of the truth there remains no more Sacrifice for Sin but a certain fearful looking for of Judgment and Fiery indignation which shall devour the Adversaries He that despised Moses Law died without mercy under two or three witnesses Of how much soarer punishment suppose ye shall be thought worthy who hath trodden under foot Me the Son of God and hath counted the blood of the Covenant wherewith he was sanctified an unholy thing and hath done despight unto my spirit of grace Wherefore I say unto you that all manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men But the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto Men. And whosoever speaketh a word against Me the Son of Man it shall be forgiven him but whosoever sinneth against the Holy Ghost it shall not be forgiven him neither in this World nor in the World to come But beloved I am perswaded better things of you and things that accompany Salvation though I thus speak Pray therefore that you may be kept back from presumptuous sins and that they may not have dominion over you So shall you be innocent from the great transgression My Children forget not my Law but let your hearts keep my Commandements For length of Days and long life and peace shall they add unto you Be not slothfull in business but fervent in Spirit serving the Lord. As Enoch and Noah walked with God and Moses seeing him who is invisible So walk you as Children of the Light and by the same Rule since your fellowship is with the Father and the Son And you are made partakers of the Divine nature and being joyned unto me are one Spirit My Children attend to my words incline your Eares unto my sayings let them not depart from your Eyes keep them in the midest of your hearts These things write I unto you that ye sin not and that your joy may be full And if any of you sin I am your Advocate with the Father and the Propitiation for your sins Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin for his Seed remaineth in him Have respect therefore to all my Commandements And keep your selves from your Iniquity Repent and turn from all your transgressions with a godly sorrow not to be repented of So iniquity shall not be your ruine Yea let Rivers of Waters run down your Eyes because Men keep not my Law Watch and pray always lest you run into temptation through Me that strengthens you you shall be able to do all things And be more than Conquerors and saved from your Enemies and from the hand of all that hate you Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness nor go in the way of evil Men but rather reprove them Set me always before you And whether you sleep or wake be together with me Lay hold on Eternal Life since the things that are seen are temporal but the things that are not seen are eternal For you know that if your Earthly House of this Tabernacle was dissolved you have a building of God an House not made with Hands Eternal in the Heavens Hate evil thoughts and let not vain thoughts lod within you Keep your heart with all diligence for out of it are the issues of life Yea out of your hearts proceed evil thoughts Murders Adulteries Fornications Thefts False-witness Blasphemies Be not high-minded but fear For God resisteth the proud but giveth grace to the humble Be angry but sin not Let not the Sun go down up on your wrath Let your Conversation be without Covetousness and be content with such things as ye have For I have said I will never leave thee nor forsake thee A meek and quiet Spirit is in the sight of God of much Price Exercise your selves to have always a conscience void of offence towards God and towards Men. Speak not lies in Hypocrisie not have your understandings darkned nor your Consciences feared with an hot Iron Happy are you if you condemn not your selves in those things which you allow since he that doubteth is condemned For whatsoever is not of faith is sin Have your Hearts sprinkled from an evil Conscience And follow after the things which make for peace and things wherewith one may edifie one another It is good neither to eat Flesh nor to drink Wine nor any thing whereby your Brother stumbleth or is offended or is made weak Speak evil of no Man Take heed to your ways that you offend not with your Tongues Let not wasting and destruction be in your Paths nor wast your substance among Harlots Wherefore do ye spend Money for that which is not Bread And set your Eyes upon that which is not If riches increase set not your Hearts on them For riches certainly make themselves Wings and flie away as an Eagle towards Heaven Vanity of Vanities all is Vanity Therefore honour the Lord with your substance and with the first-fruits of your increase Cast your Bread upon the Waters for after many Days you shall finde it Give a portion to seven and also to eight He that hath pitty on the poor lendeth unto the Lord And that which ye have given will he repay you again Make to your selves friends of the Mammon of unrighteousness that when ye faile they may receive you into everlasting habitations Give Almes of those things you have and lend looking for nothing again Say not to your Neighbour Go and come again to morrow I will give when you have it by you Nor shut your hands from your poor Brethren Lest I say unto you Depart from me ye cursed into everlasting Fire prepared for the Devil and his Angels For I was an hungry and ye gave me no Meat I was thirsty and ye gave me no Drink I was a stranger and ye took me not in Sick and in Prison and ye Visited me not For inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these my poor Members ye did it not to me See then that ye walk circumspectly