in the Eastern Countreys to the Merchants How do Parrots and other Birds speak and sing as they are taught and when they are commanded so to do by their Teachers Next how are all sorts of wild and devouring Beasts made Tame and obedient to their Keepers as the Lyon Bear Tyger Wolf especially the Elephants and Rhinoceroses so much used and imployed in Warres and for service by the Eastern Nations As also those less wild the Horse Mule Ass the Camels Dromedary and Dogs of all sorts Baboons Apes Monkies of which last a credible Writer reports that he knew a Monky to have so well learnt and obeyed the rules of his Tutor that he would not only play a Game at Chess but often give a Check-Mate to a good Gamester As to creeping things although Naturalists report many strange things concerning their love and subjection to Man and dayly experience shews us with what awe and fear they are possest when they but hear a humane voice yet for brevity sake I will only observe what is written concerning the Adder that it hath such a dreadfull apprehension of the force and power of Incantation that to avoid the Inchanters voice she will stop one of her Eares with the end of her Taile and the other by laying it close to the Earth which as to the actions although not to the precise manner of doing the Holy Scriptures witness That the Adder stoppeth her Ear from hearing the voice of the Charmer charm he never so wisely If then there remains and appears such manifest signs and testimonies of Mans dominion and of the inferiour Creatures obedience and subjection to him even after the Fall Gods curse the Creatures rebellion and the vacating of Mans commission How perfectly intire and absolute shall this Dominion be and the Creatures subjection and obedience when the glorified Saints in the right of Christ the Lord and Heir of all things their Head shall be as co-heirs with him restored to this their Primitive right and prerogative which promise and act of Christ could not be fulfilled or performed to us in this particular although no small privilege of the Saints unless before their second and last degree of Glory They raign with him upon the renewed Earth a thousand years according to the Scripture which Earth it is more than probable shall be furnished as before with several kinds of Creatures to the end that they may be in subjection to and under the dominion of the Saints who shall be all Kings now a King and subjects are relatives so that no subjects no King If it be a truth that they shall not raign over one another it is as clear a truth they shall raign over all terrene animals and inferiour Creatures But it may be objected how shall the Creature according to that assertion of the Apostle Be delivered from Bondage they now are under and enjoy the liberty of the Sons of God if they be under this subjection I answer as it is no diminution of our liberty that we shall then be in subjection to God in Christ because his Service is our perfect freedome so it shall be no impeachment or contradiction to the liberty in that Scripture intended to be restored to the Creatures For no other liberty it is clear is there meant to be given then but what they had before their unwilling subjection to bondage by reason of Gods curse for Mans sin and it being one of the principal ends of their Creation to delight serve and obey Man Gods Vice-gerent upon Earth their service therein according to the Primitive Ordinance of God as may be observed also in the unwearied motions of the Sun and Planets shall be their joy honour and freedome not their bondage This government having no need or occasion to make any such harsh laborious oppressive or slautering use of any Creature as now all the Saints vocal commands being then by the wonderfull wisdome and providence of God so ordered and made agreeable to the nature and will of the Creatures and that by a certain kinde of instinct as that their subjection and obedience shall be as natural pleasing and acceptable to them as it is to the Fire and Air to ascend they being as ambitious and ready to obey as the Saints to rule govern and command them since all their Orders and verbal Injunctions shall tend to the great glory of God ours and their Creator and of Christ our Redeemer As to the particular actings and subject matter of the Saints verbal Statutes and Injunctions in this their Dominion and Government of the Creatures I shall not further inlarge as conducing nothing to the subject I am now upon although the Holy Prophets in mysterious Figures and expressions hold forth some light and discovery thereof Only I desire it may be observed That before Mans Fall the several genusses or kindes of all terrene Creatures were in possession of and enjoyed Paradise with Adam else how could they be brought by the Lord to Adam to see what he would call them And whatsoever Adam called every living Creature that was the name thereof From which I note the great use of the Tongue and speech of Man in that blessed Garden the certain and cleer Figure of our restored and Paradisical Earth as also that the Creatures were not brought by God to Adam only and barely to receive their Names but that Adam should particularly and understandingly view them that so he might take seriously notice of the variety of their kindes the wonderfulness of their formes and shapes and Phylosophically inspect as being the wisest of all Earthly Beeings their respective qualities and natures that so he might not only give them significant and proper names a Prerogative and Character declaring him Lord and King over them but as a Priest unto God to both which Offices the Saints are to be restored he might from the dayly contemplation of them praise admire and adore as the Saints also shall do the great and only most high God who hath made them and us and all things for his own Glory From this my weak and short inquiry and induction of a few particulars it is made clear and evident how excellent a Member the Tongue is and also how great and manifold the use and exercise thereof will be in this our glorified condition I shall now therefore according to my former Method conclude this subject and this Treatise with a few Meditations O my Soul shall thy Tongue voice and speech have such an excellent and glorious employment in the state of glory as to be thy Representee Embassadour and Prolucutor to God Saints Angels and Creatures shall it be the most loud sweet and full-sounding Organ and Instrument of the worship and high praises of the Trinity in Unity Father Son and Holy Ghost God blessed for ever shall it be a vocal Trumpet in the ravishing and most melodious Chore of Millions of
a Glass darkly and imperfectly taken a view of the Land of Promise the Inheritance of the Saints in light and presented to the Lord and to his Spouse the Church what discoveries he hath in great mercy given me as concerning Eternal Life that last and great Article of the Christian faith begun visibly in the Saints glorified condition in the new Heaven and new Earth and continued unto Eternity in the Heaven of Heavens Wherein concluding with the glorification and blessed use and exercise of our Tongues in that happy state I thought it proper both as to the general subject I have been upon as being the Vision exercise and Tryumph of Faith and as to the subject matter both lauditory to God and declarative to one another about which our Tongues shall in our renewed life be imployed to declare in this life with all humility and thankfulness of Heart and Tongue to both which my Pen is but the Secretary in the Ejaculatory part of that Meditation what by faith I behold and am assured from the Word of Truth shall come to pass here and be injoyed by me and all Gods Elect in the life to come and shall be there a blessed Subject of our praises to all Eternity In which Song of 12. parts or Jacobs Laddar of 12. Staves whose foot stands upon Earth and top reaches to Heaven we may by faith ascend beginning here upon Earth in this present Year of our Lord 1666. by twelve successive Steps wonderfull and most signal periods noted afore in the Margint to the last and highest ascent the Glorification of the Saints in the Heavens Being now come to Hercules Pillars the Ne-plus ultra of Faith beyond which all sacred Scripture the light of Faith is silent I can proceed nor walk any further in these Contemplations lest walking without a Light I fall into the Darkness of Error It being alike sinfull curiosity and presumption to inquire what God will do after this silence When time shall be no longer as to ask what he did before time was and before this World was Created Wherefore I shall here conclude these my imperfect Meditations and with all humility and reverence return all Honour Glory and Praise to thee O glorious Trinity in Unity and Unity in Trinity Father Son and Holy Ghost one God blessed for ever for thy most gracious assistance by the light of thy Word and Spirit in this great Work a subject too weighty for Angels how much more for me a simple sinfull and weak Worm Lord I acknowledge that whatsoever is good right and true in this Treatise is of and from thee who art Goodness Light and Truth and to thee alone belongs the praise and that whatsoever therein is Hay or Stuble is mine who humbly takes shame therefore and Petitions for thy free pardon in my Lord Christ Jesus beseeching thee that in the assurance of thy love and mercy in him and in the faith light and assurance of thy glorious Truths herein declared out of thy Word I may with Holy Job all the Days of my appointed time wait until my Change come And with zealous Paul desire to depart and to be with Christ that so my faith and hope may be swallowed up in the possession of thee and Vision may be changed into fruition Thy Spirit and thy Bride say come And let him that heareth say come Thou O Lord that testifieth these things sayest Surely I come quickly Amen Even so come Lord Jesus The Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with us all Amen Soli Deo Gloria An Advertisement by the Author to the Reader FOr the more cleer and fuller proof of the Twelve great things mentioned in the Conclusion of this Work I refer the Reader to my Treatise almost ready to be published Entitled An humble Exposition of most of the Scripture-Prophesies concerning Twelve great Periods to be fulfilled to the Church beginning to be manifested in the Year 1666. and concluding with the end of our Lords Mediatory Kingdome and the Translation of the Saints to the highest Heavens FINIS AN ALPHABETICAL TABLE Of the Things contained in the TREATISE Intitulated MEDITATIONS ON FAITH A. THe Affections lose their appetite if ye do but change the object viz. Spiritual for Temporal Page 4 Christs Agony as described should much act upon our spirits Page 27 The use and abuse of the Affections Page 45 46 All Arts and Sciences are in the Scripture as Metaphysick Phylosophie Astronomy Chronologie Rhetorick c. Page 71 Christs answer to the soul complaining of her Affections Page 81 The Antiquity of the Scriptures Page 102 Of the Affections glorified Page 151 Of holy Anger glorified Page 160 A Soliloquium upon it Page 161 An Ejaculation upon it Page 161 A caution against blotting Assurance Page 185 B. The Body of man like the pool of Bethesda with its five Porches Page 22 The curse and judgement of the Body Page 52 The Souls complaint against the Body with Christs answer Page 88 89. c. Of the Body glorified Page 164 Of the spirituality and swiftness of our Bodies at the Resurrection Page 169 A soliloquium and ejaculation on those two qualities of the Body Page 170 The glorious shining of the Body at the Resurrection Page 171 A soliloquium on that shining of the Body Page 173 Item an ejaculation upon it Page 174 Of the Immortality of the Body glorified Page 175 C. The Certain condition of man is to be uncertain Page 8 A man may be a Conduit-pipe to others and be a Vessel of dishonour himself Page 15 17 Of Christs Death and Burial Page 33 34 His victory over Hell Page 35 His Resurrection Page 36 His Ascension Page 38 Man in respect of Conscience is as one possessed Page 42 A Contemplation on love Page 47 A Contemplation on the insatisfaction in Riches Honours Pleasures Wisdom Page 49 A Contemplation on fear Page 51 A Contemplation on the sinfulness of the Eyes Ears Nostrils Taste and Touch Page 56 Of Christs Priestly Office Page 57 The occasion of Christs Priest-hood Page 58 A Contemplation upon Christs Priest-hood Page 60 Of Christs satisfaction Page 61 Christs answer to the poor soul complaining of his Conscience Page 75 The souls general Complaint answered by Christ Page 85 86 The souls Complaint against her Senses Tongue and Members of her body and Christs answer to it Page 88 89 A meditation on the excellency of Christs person Page 99 Against Coveteousness Page 123 An Ejaculation upon the glorious Change of the body at the Resurrection Page 185 D. Demas described Page 14 A Dialogue between Christ and the poor complaining soul in many particulars which Christ answers and satisfies Page 74 Our victory by Christ over Death Page 130 Our victory over the fear of Death Page 132 Our victory over the pain and separation by Death Page 133 All things fall short of the Duration of glorified Bodies and Souls and the high
stiled passions shall in that life comparatively exceed but not subjectively the full and lasting gale in that Ocean filling the Sailes not sinking the bottome O my love which art now full of repentings and unconstant because unsatisfyed wishing with Alexander more Worlds to marry thy affections to which hadst thou beyond Arithmetical progression thou wouldst still prove a Harlot and they insufficient For though a Creature thou art fitted only for an infinite object not to comprehend it but to be comprehended of it Wherefore nothing finite can be adequal or proportionable to thy extension Hence even the Worlds darlings the wicked have this Monument of their lost happiness and primitive Creation remaining viz. they live and dye seeking and unsatisfyed But the Elect as they are restless in their search with the Spouse in the Canticles so at length they finde him whom their Soul loves But as yet He standeth behind our Wall he looketh forth at the Window shewing himself thorow the Lattess With him they enter into a mutual contract in Baptisme and receive continual pledges and love-tokens by his Spirit In this life by reason of seeming absence clowdings and intermissions our loves are violent yet pleasing passions But in the other that day of our Nuptials they shall be swallowed up in excelling fruitions Then shall we affect and enjoy in one the all of goodness and loveliness The love which is here different and divided according to the diversity of opinions and objects shall be in God one and concentred in him we both affecting and possessing the eminency of beauty the height of honours the Elixar of pleasures the perfection of wisdome So that the then glorified sences the Windows and ports of the affections though inconceivably enlarged shall then continually receive in even to overflowing spiritual and ravishing object of love and delight For In his presence is fulness of joy and at his right hand pleasures for evermore Lastly which ought most to ravish us neither this nor any other affection or faculty of the Soul shall be limitted or at their heighth of glory Not but that in the first entrance they shall have a present sufficiency and fulness for even in Heaven there shall be no Vacuum but as we have seen a Bladder filled with Wind afterward by a second influx far more extended yet at all times full And as our Saviour is said to increase more and more in knowledge yet from his conception full according to his organical reception so the glorified Saints like the Angels on Jacob's Ladder according to their several degrees shall mount and continually encrease and ascend to higher steps of Glory the influxe of all divine excellencies incessantly and at once both enlarging and filling all their faculties all their affections So then desire of more shall never torture us because ever full nor satiety cloy us because our joyes shall be ever new and encreasing The grounds of this Coelestial and Eternal growth of happiness excellency and glory arises both from Gods Word and Nature The Prophet telling us that those which are wise shall shine as the brightness of the Firmament Our Saviour yet higher The righteous shall shine forth as the Sun in the Kingdome of their Father Let Solomon expound both the Path of the Just is as the shining light which shineth more and more unto the perfect day They as the Sun mounting towards their Meridional heighth God to whom they shall be perpetually approaching neerer and more and more like in glory but never shall nor can reach or equalize he being and dwelling in infinite and inaccessable lights Farther our Saviour teaches us that in Heaven we shall be like the Angels Now the Angels have accidental joyes in the repentance of sinners Accidental knowledge by the Church of the mysteries of our Redemption and no doubt if their joyes and wisdome have an accidental encrease through the Creature then much more from God the Fountain This being I conceive one meanes as respecting them subordinate and co-operating with Gods high and eternal decree for their confirmation in Christ it being impossible for that essence to fall away that is continually intent upon and replenisht with new fruitions and manifestations of Gods glory This being a blessedness both to Angels and Men that the Wings of Cherubins and Seraphins though they are without labour and wearisomness and with delight ascending yet they can never out-soar the infinite heights of the divine Majesty and incomprehensible fulness If the affection of love O my Soul shall be perfect in Heaven as hath been declared and perfect love casts out fear as saith the Apostle what place is then left for the affection of fear in glory I answer our divine love both now and then shall exclude all servile and slavish fear but not our filial Espousal and Reverential fear which if found in our sinless Mediator who was heard in that he feared and a duty of the glorious Angels that with this reverential fear serve and praise him and exhort all others to do it then also of glorified Saints who if commanded to fear God for ever and as long as the Sun and Moon endureth shall doubtless thus fear him everlastingly and in Heaven as well as here upon Earth For as love without this fear would be presumptuous so fear without love would be painfull and discouraging But both together are to the sanctified Soul as Ballast to a Ship to keep it steady and doth grandize elevate and enlarge each affection from the awfull apprehensions and adoration of so super-excelling an object of infinite glory as is the Trinity in Unity Jehovah God blessed for ever Further if this saving grace and sanctified affection of holy fear is by Solomon commended to us as the beginning and end of divine wisdome in the Saints on Earth shall they be denuded of it and excluded from it in Heaven Is it held forth in Scripture as the summe and implication of all religious duties and worship and the condition or rather qualification of those holy ones that have right to temporal spiritual and eternal promises in the Word and shall this grace then cease when with other graces it is to be Crown'd with Glory Is this pure affection the Salt to preserve from corrupting not only in the Marriage-state amongst Men but in the conjugal and spiritual union betwixt Christ and his Spouse the Church and shall it not be as lasting as that Union which is everlasting I conclude it shall though with this difference according to our differing condition not a fear of offending because we shall be then in a sinless condition Not such a fear as was in the Spouse in the Canticles because of sin and infirmities nor of Gods hiding his face and with-drawing his presence for former things are past away all things are made new we are entred into life
the World After which act of thy remunerative Justice and thy Raign upon the renewed Earth with thy Saints a thousand years thou wilt I believe raise and Judge all the wicked called the Goats at thy left hand and the Apostate Angels according as thou hast declared in thy Word of Truth when every ungodly one shall be sentenced and punished proportionable and according to the evil of their thoughts words and actions then being all made manifest who with the Devils their Tempters and Tormenters shall by thy mighty Angels be cast into the Lake of Fire the Locall Hell unto Eternity This is the second Death O my King my Judge my Spouse shall this dreadfull time of Judgment fearfull indeed to the wicked but a most joyfull Day to the Godly certainly come upon the World according to thy Word Shall there be a long tract of time measured out in the acting and manifesting thy Judgments and magnifying the glory of thy remunerative and vindicative Justice to the World as well as there hath been a long space of proclaiming and holding forth the Golden Scepter of thy free Grace and incomprehensible love and mercy to the Sons of Men Is this truth one of the Articles of the Christian Faith and as certain to us as the Day of our death according to that unrepealable Statute It is appointed to Men once to dye and afterwards comes the Judgment Shall the Crowns dignities and rewards conferred upon thy Saints be one chief subject of praise and fill the Mouths of Men and Angels with continual Hallelujahs unto God not only whilst they rest upon the renewed Earth but also in the highest Heavens after the end of this long Day and the pouring out of thy wrath and execution of thy righteous Judgments upon wicked Men and Devils when thy glorious justice in both the parts thereof shall be finished and compleated according to that Prophesie of the Psalmist then perfectly fulfilled Verily there is a reward for the righteous Verily he is a God that judgeth in the Earth O let both my Heart and Tongue now inure themselves to this Subject since I live by faith and not by sense and sing with the Elect ones in the Revelations that prophetical Song calculated for this time saying Hallelujah Salvation and Glory and Honour and Power unto the Lord our God for true and righteous are his Judgments Praise our God all yee his Servants and yee that fear him both small and great Hallelujah for the Lord reigneth Let us be glad and rejoyce and give honour to him for the Marriage of the Lamb is come and hiâ— Wife hath made her self ready And to her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine Linnen clean and white for the fine Linnen is the righteousness of Saints Blessed are they that are called to the Marriage Supper of the Lamb. O King of Saints and King of Nations our Almighty Saviour and Conquerer who hast fulfilled the Law satisfied Divine Justice overcome the World Crucified Sin spoiled Principalities and Powers and wilt at the Resurrection of the Just and the Redemption of our Bodies destroy our last Enemy Death and after the Judging and Hellifying of wicked Men and Devils wilt in Tryumph ascend on high with thy Elect and lead Captivity Captive that the Glory which thy Father gave thee may be given them that they may be with thee where thou art and may behold the Glory which he hath given thee and possess an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that fadeth not away reserved in Heaven for us where we shall be ever with thee our Lord and see God face to face and in thee the perfections of all Creatures as in their first cause And know thee according to our measure as we are known by thee Blessed Mediator this is that time when all rule all authority and power being put down and under thee in the Kingdome of thy Saints and under thee in thy personal and glorious raign upon Earth All Enemies even Death it self being destroyed and put under thy Feet thou shalt deliver up the Kingdome so far as it is Mediatory personal and singly acted and managed by thee in thy humane appearance and Man-hood to God even the Father That so thou the Son as being also as Man the Son of God might be subject as to thy present kinde of administration unto him that put all things under thee that God may be all in all And the whole Universe and Creation both in Heaven and Earth especially thy spiritual Body thy Church may be immediately governed and influenced by him who is three in one God-blessed for ever To which mystical Body thy Spouse and Church as also to Angels thou still remainest Head and Lord for ever which being now perfectly and inherently sanctified and graciously admitted through the glorious inhabitation and communion of thy most holy and eternal Spirit to an immediate fellowship real and spiritual union although not essential with the Father Son and holy Ghost one God blessed for ever shall live eternally in the life of God and in whole and in part as respecting every individual Member and Vessel be always full yet always increasing in knowledge grace and glory as Eying and enjoying continually the Divine Nature and cast into an Ocean of infiniteness unto Eternity This is the Generation of them that seek thee that seek thy face O God of Jacob. Therefore let both my Heart and Tongue even now O Lord prepare and begin to praise thee as from Pisgath with beholding Canaan and by faith the eye of my Soul from the raised hill of holy Contemplation viewing this Saint Paul's third Heaven the Throne of God and of his glory and the many yea innumerable shining and starrified Mansions in thy Fathers house the places prepared by thee for thy Saints as also their Kingdome and State of endless glory happiness and blessedness In the ravishing Meditation of these things their translation and thy second most glorious and tryumphant Assention O let me sing and rejoyce in the words of thy Prophet David foretelling both thy Ascentions God is gone up with a shout the Lord with a sound of a Trumpet sing praises to God sing praises sing praises to our King sing praises Lift up your Heads O yee Gates and be yee lift up yee everlasting Doors and the King of Glory shall come in Who is this King of Glory the Lord strong and mighty the Lord mighty in Battel Lift up your Heads O ye Gates even lift them up ye everlasting Doors and the King of Glory shall come in Who is this King of Glory the Lord of Hosts He is the King of Glory Selah I have now by Divine assistance according to my weak-sightedness for all Men here know but in part and as in
glory when he maskt it with humanity and the same love makes him as it were dis-esteem his glory that he might confirm his Disciples The Rulers lye saying his Disciples came by Night and stole him away might perchance have been received generally as a truth Or else the believers might have proved as incredulous as Didimus Had not his bodily presence Non-plust falshood and controuled unbelief Forty Days the time appointed for his last sojourning on Earth being now expired Let my faith as it hath followed Him from Heaven so ascend with Him to Heaven The Angels that questioned the Disciples with a Why stand yee gazing did not intend the closing of the Souls eye but the bodies No act of Christ ever wanted a Witness the Foundation of Christianity thereby being as it were semented for ever Whereas all other fabulous Religions moulder away as layed with the untempered Morter of Mans devices The Wise-men and Sheepwards are Witnesses of his birth John and the multitude of his Baptization and Circumcision Pilate of his Innocency the Centurion of his Deity and Crucifixtion the Souldiers of his Resurrection and his Disciples of his Ascension The affection of Christ towards Man is like himself always the same That free and good will of his that brought Him down to suffer lifts Him up to mediate The unspeakable comfort and truth of which office since I am both unable and unworthy to express I refer my self and others to the Scripture of God Rom. 8.33 34. Who shall lay any thing to the charge of Gods elect It is God that justifieth who is he that condemneth It is Christ that dyed yea rather that is risen again who is even at the right Hand of God who also maketh intercession for us Whilst the glorious Sun is clouded or eclipsed Man may with an open and undazled eye behold its luminous Orb But when free from all interpositions it shall re-ascend the top of its Meridian What seeing Organ is there that can behold it without being bleard with a review in sign of weakness or incombrance within it self as uncapable of such brightness The eternally begotten Son of the everlasting Father our Son of Righteousness and the only Son of Glory hath been made manifest to the eye of my faith whilst vail'd with an unglorified Humanity he continued his unchangable course through the darkness of suffering Cloudiness of Persecution and Eclipse of Death But now that he hath remounted his solsticial of Glory weak faith thou must with a humble and closed eye endeavour to admire which is thy homage to his Divinity what thou canst not conceive of not being discouraged as though thou hadst lost all with his bodily presence For as we possess light though the Sun be not visible his brightness being conveyed unto us in his beames So thy Saviour though corporeally absent he in his glorious rayes shines forth unto thee that thou mightest enjoy light warmth and comfort O how am I ravisht with this Vision 'T were the worst of unthankfulness to conceal such unspeakable favours With David therefore I must proclaim Mans Jubile Come hither all yee that fear God and I will tell you what he hath done for our Souls But I beseech you bring with you Stephens as well as Davids Ear else you may perhaps as blinde Men know my happiness not see it that is not to receive and apply it as your own As in the Divine Essence there is three Persons each of which is God yet not three but one God so in the Person of Christ there is a Trinity of offices each of which is proper to whole Christ as to be King Prophet and Priest not many of them the Man-hood being seperated from the God-head as some would But in all Christ being one the same and all these O these are those solacing rayes I before spake of so beneficial to pernicious Man O suffer not O Lord the Bodies middle Region my Heart to be cold and uncompact like that of the Ayr lest thy beames shine thorough and not warm me But purifie it and create in it such a solidity and soundness by faith that it may be capable of their virtue and inflamed with zeal and gratefulness for and to the glory of thee the giver Christ Jesus is the Christians Sanctuary and these his offices the three precious and unexhaustible Fountains from whence Ezechiel's healing Waters plentifully flow Ghrist Jesus is our Physician and these three are those beautiful Boxes in which the pure balme of Gilead which cures all putrified sores is inclosed Is here a Physician Is here a mundifying River Is here a most approved Balme O my Soul thou must also finde out and that by Faith a diseased Patient a deadly wound a corrupted Cancer for The whole have no need of the Physician but the sick O my Saviour is there any Man living so sound that he hath no need of thee yea sure there are some whose stincking soares which the Devil and their own pride have skinned over Others whose wounds he hath too deeply searched pouring into them instead of comfortable Balsome the deadly corrasives of desperation O Lord the nature of every one of us at the first is to be Sathans Apothecary ayding him with ingredients even from our own corruption to stupifie our sence of sin and mortifie our Souls O thou which art the only skilful and spiritual Cheruâ—gion search with thy spirit and tent with thy Law my gangrened and ulcerated Soul that I may live though with an issue For though the stopping of Bodily issues often times procure death yet my death shall stop my issue The noblest knowledge of things is from their causes not from their effects Lord make me know the state and danger of my Disease from both but from the first even my fall in Adam This self-inspection is a grace by faith conveyed to us from the Prophetick office of Christ. And ought according to my method there to be handled But the agreeableness of the Meditation to this place and the profit which by Gods grace will flow to me in the Meditation to others in the perusal makes me insert here this Anatomy of a dead Man which cannot be too large since none can enough know himself In the profundity of a Well even at mid-day a Man may view the Stars And in the Sun-shine of prosperity if our Souls fathome this our depth of misery we shall free from all impediments more perfectly apprehend our Lucifer Christ Jesus God the universal Creator being perfection it self it must needs follow that the beauty and happiness of the Creature consists in being like to him It being always remembred that what in them hath its measure degree and proportion in Him is boundless unexpressable and infinite If the impression of Gods Image in his Creatures as the Kings Image upon their Coine only makes it Royal and gives it preheminence and excellence it must needs be granted that
wonderfully delivered O thou which hast wrought all these things for me work in me an experimental and sensible knowledge a continued and enlarged thankfulness So shall I give to thee the praise and receive from thee the comfort of that benediction Blessed is he whose transgressions is forgiven and whose sin is covered No sooner had the power and wisdome of God puld off the Visard of the Chaos and discovered the form of Heaven and Earth but he adorned and clothed them with beautifull Creatures all his works having not only in their Beeing a naked existence but a fulness of goodness which is their perfection If these things which God made for the use of Man were exceeding good Surely Man whom he made for his own use and glory was in his first Creation in Nature and shall be in this second of Grace indued with a plenitude of excelling graces To be and not to be good is to be evil as wanting the Character of the Creator Who is a most pure Essence there is no mean betwixt good and evil every Soul being either conformed to the Image of God or deformed after the similitude of Sathan Now to them upon whose fore-heads the Seal of the living God is placed is given a two-fold righteousness the one inherent and imperfect not if simply considered as the work of the Spirit but as it is accompanied and mixed with the corruptions of nature Our best performances being like unto those strange births which receive their life and beeing from God their deformities from some defect or vice in nature But of this in another place The other is that infinitely perfect legal super-errogating and inherent righteousness of the Son of God the Lord Jesus Christ which God the Father beholding his Sons sufferings and fulfilling the Law together with his own promise and Covenant which is a due debt in Justice imputes to them to whom in his unspeakable mercy he gives faith to receive and apply it This I call infinitely perfect as being the righteousness of God as well as Man by reason of the communication of properties from the union of nature I call it legal because the Law was the object and rule thereof Super-errogating because it super-abounds and is made the sole merrit of Saints Lastly I tearm it inherent as being the actual righteousness and obedience of the Man Christ Jesus All his sufferings by reason of the spontaneous and loving offer of himself being also the acts of his will as well as the passions of his nature O wonder of love O miracle of mercy O divine charity which in the lowest depth of our misery and swelling height of our Rebellion cloth'd not only our Bodies nakedness but our Souls as that first hid our outward pollutions from our selves so this our inward corruptions from God For ever blessed be thou O Lord for that union of thy Spirit and gift of faith by which I put on nay more am made one with Christ. What suggestion of Sathan or contradiction of depraved nature granting me a member of this Head a branch of this Vine can make it difficult to prove or dares deny my right to possess this spotless Robe As the union of Soul and Body of Head and Members produceth a sympathizing property and joynt-propriety to every thing so my union with Christ as being the Soul of my Soul the Head of his Church entitles me to and gives me whatsoever is his And no doubt as it is horrible blasphemy to account any part of the Lords humane Body as sinfull and unclean So it is unreasonable infidelity and shamefull impiety to think any true member of his mystical Body can be as in him unrighteous and defiled his perfect and abounding righteousness being like to that pretious and sacred anointing Oile which according to the Psalmist was poured on the head of Aaron and went down to the skirts of his Vesture This O this his innocency and merit is that white Robe which was given to them that were slain for the Word of God and the testimony which they held This is that glorious Sun which clothes the Church that Woman in travaile Yea this is that beautifull wedding garment wherewith Christ our Bridegroom invests every true invited and elected Guest The Linen Vestments of the Jewish High Priest were comely enough to minister in at the ordinary and daily Sacrifice But they were accounted too mean and poor when he entred into the holy of holiest The Rayment of Joseph a Prisoner though good enough perhaps for that place must be changed when he is presented before Pharaoh a King Yea the Prodigals Rags may serve him whilst he serves the Devil and feeds with the Swine of the World upon the husks of vanity Every true Christian is a Priest unto God the Sanctum is the Church militant wherein we minister and that but for a year Mans whole life being but a revolved year Again we are all Stewards to the World to whom our flesh in nature our Mistriss hath plighted her troth so that if we once became Josephs in denying her lusts we must with Joseph undergo slander affliction and imprisonment Lastly we are naturally Prodigals also Our portion is the common goods of the minde of the body of education The waisters and consumers of this our first patrimony are the Dallilahs of Sin Now though we may minister on Earth amongst our brethren cloth'd in the white Garments of a good report and profession though whilst we are imprisoned in affliction or spoyled by sin and Sathan the tatter'd Rags of sorrow and lamentation may serve us yet when we are converted and ascend afterwards into the Sanctum Sanctorum the Heaven of Heavens when we shall appear before the Lord Jesus our King and return unto God our Heavenly Father we must be cloth'd with the Golden Garments the clean Vestments the best Robes even that meritorious righteousness of our loving Saviour which being the Rayment of our elder Brother may assure us with Jacob of a blessing and acceptance here of Glory hereafter Away then from my thoughts that perfection and merit which some dream of in renewed nature That scant sacrilegious and unthankfull opinion of our Saviours active and passive obedience such Tenants as it were halt and disgracefully curtaile the ample and large Garments of our Lord that so vain pride might patch it up with the old Rags and rotten performances of Mans desert Lord thy Word teacheth me and my own infirmities inforces me to another yet better Plea Can Man be justified in thy sight or how can he be clean that is born of a Woman Behold even the Stars are not pure in thy Sight how much less Man that is a Worm We are all thy Creatures thy servants The observance of thy commands is the work we are made and hired for Now could we as thou know'st we cannot perfectly obey thy will there
until Shilo come and unto him shall the gathering of the People be Now it is evident that our Lord sprang out of Juda. Further Moses drawing neer to his dissolution Prophesies and that from the Mouth of God That God will raise them up a Prophet like unto him Now Moses was not only a Prophet but a King He was King in Jesurun In the next place hearken to the mellodious and foretelling Hymns of the royal Psalmist David who knowing that God had sworn with an Oath to him that of the Fruit of his Loynes according to the Flesh he would raise up Christ to set on his Throne At once beholds his Seed his Saviour and becomes the Herald of his King his Son thus Proclaiming I have set my King upon my holy Hill of Sion And again The Lord said unto my Lord set thou on my right hand until I make thine Enemies thy Foot-stool Of him also the Prophet Esay thus Prophesieth Vnto us a Childe is born unto us a Son is given and the Government shall be upon his Shoulders and his Name shall be called Wonderfull Counseller the mighty God the everlasting Father the Prince of Peace of the increase of his Government and peace there shall be no end Zachary also remarkably points him out and that not only verbally but by certain actions of our King Rejoyce O Daughter of Sion behold thy King cometh unto thee he is just and having Salvation lowly and riding upon an Ass and upon a Colt the Fole of an Ass. Lastly lest the testimonies of Men should seem weak the premulgation of Angels shall conclude and that undeniably this holy and comfortable truth Behold saith the Angel Gabriel to the blessed Virgin Thou shalt conceive in thy Wombe and bring forth a Son and shalt call his Name Jesus he shall be great and shall be called the Son of the Highest and the Lord God shall give unto him the Throne of his Father David And he shall reign over the House of Jacob for ever And of his Kingdome there shall be no end Again as his Birth and Kingdome over the Jews yea over the whole World was foretold by the Angel so correspondently they were proclaimed by an Angel and seconded by a multitude of the Heavenly Host saying unto you is born this day in the City of David a Saviour which is Christ the Lord. O my Soul I have hitherto like John by the finger of the Prophets pointed out unto thee thy King thy Saviour The Lamb of God which taketh away the Sins of the World It is expedient and time now that with Andrew thou follow him home and by the eye of thy faith takest a particular view of his excellencies administrations and government That thy heart being bedewed with those many comforts benefits and blessings which descend therefrom may with those ravished Jews in the Gospel cry out Hosanna blessed is he that cometh in the Name of the Lord Blessed be the Kingdome of our Father David that cometh in the Name of the Lord Hosanna in the highest And also sing with that Heavenly multitude Salvation unto our God which sitteth upon the Throne and to the Lamb Blessing and glory and wisdome and thanks-giving and honour and power and might be unto our God for ever and ever Amen Proceed then O my Soul and diligently consider first how thy King governs amongst his Subjects Secondly how he rules and reigns over his Enemies and lastly how in that great Assize he shall execute his last Judgment and translate his Kingdome on Earth to Heaven there establishing and fixing a glorious and tryumphant Monarchy even for Eternity The wisest Heathen whose choisest flowers of learning and knowledge were gathered out of our Paradise of God the Scriptures stiled their Kings Pastors of the People That the Spirit of God useth the like Metaphor and that it might well be that they stole it from thence may be supposed from these places amongst others The Psalmist glorifying God for the deliverance of his People out of Egypt concludes thus Thou leddest thy People like a Flock by the hand of Moses and Aaron And the same Moses neer the ending of his life desires God to appoint his Successor That the People be not as Sheep which have no Shepward Michaiah Prophesying of Ahab's death and the overthrow of his Army saith That in a Vision he saw all Israel scattered a Sheep that have no Shepward And the Lord by the Prophet Esay promising his People a deliverance from their Captivity by the means of Cyrus even many years before his birth â—aith thus of him He is my Shepward and shall perform all my pleasure Surely as there is good cause to commend the Heathens choice and application of this Metaphor So a-above all to admire the infinite wisdome of the Spirit of God as the Original who under this similitude comprehends and discovers the whole duty of a religious Prince and Governor as that like a Shepheard he is to feed his People to lead them to fold and keep them from straying and to protect them from those Wolves and wicked Enemies that seek to destroy them See all this exprest in that woe pronounc'd by the Spirit of God against the Shepward of Israel that do feed only themselves Should not the Shepwards feed the Flock The diseased have yee not strengthned neither have you healed that that was sick neither have yee bound up that that was broken neither have yee brought again that that was driven away neither have yee sought that that was lost But with fierceness and with cruelty have yee ruled them Seeing then that the Lord himself commends unto us this humble vocation offering it as a Glass unto Princes his Vice-roys upon Earth therein to see their duties It will neither be unfit nor unprofitable to meditate and consider the office and actions of the Lord of Lords even our Lord Jesus Christ under the same Metaphor And the rather because St. Peter gives us a Precedent who stiles him the chief Shepward and Bishop of our Souls and more especially for these reasons First because God the Father so calls him often in Scripture witness that Prophesie of Ezekiel saying I will set up one Shepward over them he shall feed them Secondly he so names himself and with abundance of affection and delight and prosecutes and applies the similitude saying I am the good Shepward and know my Sheep and am known of mine And lastly whatsoever he in that Chapter or elsewhere applies to himself in the office of a Shepward doth most aptly agree with his Kingly administration But to make this more cleer Is it the duty of a King to govern and direct his People by good Laws Which though written yet are as it were his lively fixt and continued voice And is not this verified of our King the Shepward of
who were deprived for a time of their Principalities for their refractoriness to Idolatry In defence against the first assault the pious Christian marching under Christs royal Standard victoriously opposes his Shield of faith with which and the Sword of the Spirit he disorders and puts to flight his Enemies reverberating and expulsing Sathans temptations with the blessed Virgins Antheme God scattereth the proud in the imaginations of their hearts and pulls down the mighty from their Seates and exalts them of low degree With the curse of the holy Prophet Isaiah Woe to the Crown of Pride Yea he concludes the Victory with that holy Maxime of St. James God resists the proud Now who amongst us shall be able to dwell with everlasting burning If the Lord condemns who can justify In pride in all these places the Spirit of God includeth ambition which essentially differs not being connatural and concomitant with her As for the temptation on the left hand the loss of any temporal dignities The valiant Christian poyses them with the glorious promises of Gods faithfull word whereby judging of their lightness he concurs with holy David that surely Men of low degree are vanity and Men of high degree are a lye to be laid in the Ballance they are altogether lighter than vanity And therefore returns this or the like counter-buff Get thee behind me Sathan for I value not thy threats since thou boasts of that which is not in thy power The haires of my Head are numbred the Lord maketh poor and maketh rich he bringeth low and lifteth up But say the Lord should suffer thee as he did in Job to be the Instrument of my debasement I will kiss Gods Rod even in thy hand and say with that holy Man The Lord hath given and the Lord hath taken blessed be the Name of the Lord and with that tryumphing Apostle In all these things viz. disgraces and losses of what kinde soever I am more than a Conquerour through Christ that loved me For what things were gain to me those I count loss for Christ yea doubtless I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord for whom I will suffer the loss of all things accounting them but dung that I may win Christ. The highest favours of Princes from whom flow Earthly dignities are but shadowes of true honour Shadowes for they weakly express them and vanish when their Sun is set or clouded He that pours contempt upon Princes commands me not to rely upon them Put not your trust in Princes nor in the Son of Man in whom there is no help If not in them much less in their gifts For in that very day in an instant they their gifts and thoughts perish My happiness is a better hope My honour is more surely fixt than by Man or Devil to be extirpated or extinguisht Can all thy power O Enemy of Man frustrate my Election whereby from Eternity I am enroll'd a Peer of Heaven Can all thy policy or force dim the splendour or annihilate that title of being called and truly adopted the Son of God Canst thou disrobe me of my honourable red and white Garments of Justification and Sanctification in my Saviour O Father of lyes canst thou turn light into darkness and truth into falshood Deprive me of my Crown and nullify these glorious and infallible promises Fear not my little Flock it is your Fathers will to give you a Kingdome Those that honour me I will honour If any Man serve me him will my Father honour Glory and honour and peace to every one that worketh good I am assured and conclude thou canst not And therefore I trample under foot thy power and vilify thine and the Worlds menaces and offers as believing in the royal might and truth of my Saviour That neither life nor death nor Angels Principalities Powers nor things present nor things to come shall be able to separate me from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus my Lord. Having thus routed and discomfitted the Wings and first Squadrons of the Enemy we must not rest here losing both our hopes and advantage A Christians whole life we have heard is a continued warfare To live unto the Lord and by self-denyal to overcome former temptations is a happy progress towards our Victory But to persevere to the end to dye for the Lord is the conclusion the Crown the tryumph of the Christian. By how much the Enemy is more powerfull and terrible by so much is the service more honourable and the conquest more glorious This last Phalanx of the Worlds force Persecutions are her Janizaries her Pretorian bands her last refuge in whom she puts her chiefest confidence led and marshalled by Sathans Lieutenant General described and set forth in the Revelations by him riding upon a red Horse destroying the fourth part of the World who may be also as expressing its mortal effects figuratively called Death whom Hell it self follows and attends Well is this the last and strongest of our worldly adversaries Yea have they begun already or will they shortly certainly assault us and notwithstanding our former Trophies contend with us for our Palme For all that will live godly in Christ Jesus must suffer persecutions Let us like our English Martyrs with courage leaping and rejoycing run to kiss the Stake to meet our Opposers yea as the Apostle our tortures not accepting deliverance that we may obtain a better resurrection Are we hated by the World It is the surest mark of our Election by God So the word of truth Because yee are not of this World but I have chosen you out of the World therefore the World hates you Have we mourning here It ushers in yea accompanies an unutterable and inseparable joy Yee shall be sorrowfull saith our Saviour but your sorrow shall be turned into joy and your joy shall no Man take from you Yea do we so far suffer for well doing that we are delivered over to Death as Malefactors Remember we are not without a companion in our sufferings our blessed Saviour was Crucifyed and reckoned amongst the Transgressors Now the Servant is not greater than the Lord if they have persecuted him they will also persecute you To conclude if we be conformable to Christ in his Death we shall also be like him in his Resurrection we shall have a change rather than a loss For He that loseth his life for his sake shall finde it viz. Immortality which is only the true life This is a faithfull saying If we be dead with him we shall also live with him If we suffer we shall also reign with him if we deny him he will also deny us Thus then have I made good my proposition that this is the Victory that overcomes the World even our Faith Thanks
exchanges Earth for Heaven even for the City of the ever living God the new Jerusalem her Earthly associates for the beatifical vision and presence of the glorious Trinity those many Myriads of Angels the general Assembly of the Church of the first-born and the spirits of all just Men made perfect As for the overplus of her treasure uninherited she hath and doth take order by good works as by so many Bills of Exchange for the receipt of them above herein obeying the precept and counsel of our Saviour to lay up treasure in Heaven Lastly a Sceptre is not a Bar neither doth the massy weight of a Crown nor felicity of terrene things depress the high-soaring affections of this Christian Soul King David's choice is hers rather To be a Door-keeper in the House of God than to dwell in the Tents of wickedness Neither is there fear of loss where it is The Fathers will to give a Kingdome 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 Man being a compositum a sensible Creature is naturally deeply apprehensive of pain therefore impetuously an abhorror of separation Hence a third fearfull and violent assault of Death so powerfull and prevalent that it hath brought the strongest of Gods Warriours upon their knees and to a marvailous astonishment Hence as some interpret the reiterated and strong cries the wonderfull and bloody sweat of our great General Christ Jesus But because his apprehension and suffering are mysterious unconceivable and extraordinary see the conflict and hear the complaint of a dying sick Man Holy therefore truly royal Hezechiah I shall go saith he to the Gates of the Grave I am deprived of the residue of my years I shall behold Man no more with the Inhabitants of the World God will cut me off with pining sickness from Day even to Night wilt thou make an end of me I reckoned till Morning that as a Lion so will he break all my Bones Like a Crane or Swallow so did I chatter I did mourn as a Dove I might further instance here the mournfull Lamentation of Job and David upon the like occasion But what need I when every one of us in our healths can witness that in our Meditation of our dissolution we have often felt strong sits of this dead Palsey I will therefore hast to the Allay or Antidote them O my Soul I confess I have undertaken a hard task to perswade against Natures prescription and sence For what more universal more common more necessary and therefore more natural than the marriage of Soul and Body What amity more ancient or more diffusive than this betwixt these two friends Yea what expresses the glory and regal Power of the one what gives an active beeing and lively existence to the other but this mutual communion and effectual union Neither wants there negative arguments to dishearten and weigh thee down my Soul in this thy Eagle-like flight as being the unwelcome concomitants fearfull consequents and direfull defects of this unwilling separation Such the darkning of the Sun Moon Light and Stars I mean the Eyes the obscuring of those that look out of the Windows viz. the receding of the Soul by reason of the debility of the optick Nerves as the holy Ghost elegantly expresses such the palsyness of our hands the keepers of our house of Clay the weakness and binding of the Legges the strong guard thereof the want of motion in the Teeth the mills and grinders of our food such the bringing low of the Daughters of Musick by deafness in the Eares and hollowness of voice such thy many and present fears equal if thou beest ancient unto thy gray haires white like the blossoming Almond-Tree The losing of the silver Cord viz. the evaporating of the natural and vital Spirits the drying up the marrow and the relaxing of the Nerves and sinews the ligaments of the Bones such the breaking of the golden Bowle Pitcher or Wheele at the Fountain or Cistern viz. the rending in two of the heart-string those last pangs disabling it to force the blood extracted from the Liver as being the Fountain into the Veins and to perform its circular motion But all these are but the associates and symptomes of Death the followers they are far more terrible and distractive such are the privation of life the Pallace of the Soul being now a dungeon of corruption the pale hue of the Face and Body the breathless Carcass now as it were mourning for her Spouses departure Such the strange deadness of the late sparkling Eyes yellowed now like unto a fallen Star To conclude the whole Microcosme of the Body deprived of her created light and of that Spirit that moved in her and informed her the Soul becomes nothing less than a motionless lump an obscure and deformed Chaos These considerations O my Soul at the first sight I confess render Death a terrible Goliah before whom most of the Armies of Israel turn their backs Yet do not thou fear for a stone or two chosen and taken out of those running and pure streams of Gods Word from that Rock hewen out without hands shall from the Sling of every faithfull David not only pierce his forehead but also swallow up terminate and intombe Death in death Is thy sick-Bed through the fury of this adversary as full of torture as the hot glowing Gridiron of holy Lawrence yet such a Metamorphosis will thy high-soaring Contemplations and the power of faith work in thee that the full sence and influx of Heavenly joyes and raptures shall make thee senseless of thy pains and sufferings Thy feavourish fits being but Eliah's Chariot thy cold sweats but thy passage through Jordan into the Heavenly Canaan Hast thou not seen a fierce flame in thy Chimny suddenly to damp and recoyle when the Sun shines full upon it Did any Conqueror feel or regard his wounds when about to ascend his tryumphal Chariot And can the weak blaze of Deaths consumption out-vie the shining of Gods face and not be swallowed up of glory Can Deaths wounds be felt in the neer apprehension nay fruition of Immortality Surely no. Thou mayest as being in nature mourn a day or two with Mary but when thy Christ approaches thus neer doubtless thou wilt forget thy grief and run not out of thy Doors but out of thy Body to meet him Swan-like singing with David As the Hart panteth after the Water-brooks so panteth my Soul after thee O God my Soul thirsteth for God for the living God when shall I come and appear before God Wherefore O my Soul or whosoever thou art that readest these Meditations amidst thy great pangs as the Apostle exhorts Look unto yea follow the example of Jesus the Author and finisher
hath adopted thee his Son and esteemed thee and stiled thee his Sister and Mother To conclude lest these foregoing degrees may admit of a division he vouchsafes thee this high favour to call thee the branch He the Vine thee a member He thy Head He the Husband thee the Spouse that so a union yea the perfectest of unions might be exprest and that sweetest of Petitions be fulfilled That all may be one as thou Father art in me and I in thee that they also may be one in us Those that are joyned unto the Lord being one spirit and one body in Christ. Tell me then O my Soul can such a Lord whose love to thee made him serve thee become a cruel Inquisitor to condemn thee Will thy friend thy brother be an Achitophel a Cain to thee Is it a thing possible that thy everlasting Father instead of the Bread of Life will give thee to the torments of Hellish Scorpions No though Parents may forget the Sons of their Wombe yâ—â— will He not forget thee Is it unnatural for the Root to suffer the Branches to wither for want of sap For the Head to deny animation to the Members yea cannot there be a true conjunction in Marriage without the cement of affection And wilt thou dare to think that that Root of Jesse thy Head thy Spouse the God of Order and Nature will destroy the Principlse of nature and with-hold the sap of his Grace and Mercy his all-quickening Spirit of Life and Glory his Eternal free and unchangeable love from thee a branch a member a beloved No account it impious Infidelity to give such a thought the least entertainment Rather if thou wilt meditate of that day which indeed is a Christians duty all being commanded to watch because we know not at what hour our Lord will come pitch thy thoughts upon the Resurrection and that happy and blessed assumption of thy Soul and Body reunited to meet thy Judge and Saviour The Apostle testifying that we shall be all caught up together in the Clouds to meet our Lord in the Ayre and that then we shall be ever with the Lord For wheresoever the Carkass is there will the Eagles be gathered together Wherefore as the same Apostle exhorts Comfort both thy self and others with these words Rely also upon and apply those golden and royal declarations of thy Judge As that he will not condemne thee when thou art judged That he that believeth on him is not condemned but hath everlasting life and shall not come into condemnation but is passed from death to life That there is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus Since God doth justifie thee who is he that condemns thee That we are often times corrected here that we should not be condemned with the World Further is it possible that thou shouldest be saluted with so sweet an invitation and denomination as Come thou blessed of my Father and be accursed Canst thou be the Heir yea the Possessor of a Kingdome and also the Slave and Prisoner of Sathan Will the righteous Judge give to them Torments of Fire and Brimstone to whom he hath promised a Crown of Glory Art thou commanded to pray for to long for to wait for thy destroyer No surely but for him that hath promised to deliver us from the wrath to come To conclude even amongst Men none that is a Delinquent must presume to possess the Bench the Seat of Judicature But know you not saith the Apostle that the Saints shall judge the World yea Angels Wherefore doubtless they must be just yea are acquitted and made innocent both imputatively and inherently in their own Persons Further if this be not sufficient to animate and strengthen thy hope let thy faith make the last Article of the Creed thy object Where thou believest everlasting life to take its beginning or rather begin its perfection immediately after death and the last Judgment The time appointed for the full reward and coronation of the Saints I know there are many gracious promises of temporal blessings and those often-times fulfill'd and confer'd upon the Saints in this life Some whereof though few of many as being a remunerating act of Christs regal and judicial Office I will by the way recite not impertinently as being earnests to them of future glory sensible tokens of Fatherly love a Pilgrims Staff for our Faith to lean upon in our lifes peregrination This maxime being first undoubtedly to be believed that the same promises made to perfect obedience under the Law had at the first a respect and are now truly applicable to faithfull sincerity under the Gospel Such that Magazene of blessings in the 28. of Deuteronomy where to the largest and several appetites every true believing and sincere obeying Christian as well as to the sacrificing Jew a most plentifull feast and satisfaction is offered Is thy calling in the City or iâ— the Field thou shalt be blessed in them both Desirest thou riches and plenty of all the fruits of the Earth and a numerous posterity and a blessed use and enjoying of them Thou hast a Pattent a great Seat for these also Art thou a Man of action and great employment for the Church or the Common wealth yea hath thy vertues splendour a shadow of envious and malitious adversaries If thou hearkenest unto the voice of the Lord thy God thou shalt be blessed when thou comest in and blessed when thou goest out and the Lord shall cause them thine Enemies that rise up against thee to be smitten before thy face Wouldest thou have thy forfeited Charter renewed and all the Creatures yea the most honourable serviceable unto thee Behold the Lord shall give his Angels charge over thee yea they shall pitch their Tents about thee and the Heaven shall give Rain unto thy Land in due season Dost thou wish for to the further glory of God a long life and an honourable place and esteem amongst Men The Lord hath promised that he will set thee on high that he will make thee the head and not the taile and with long life will satisfie thee Yea more which is the compleatment of all he will shew thee his Salvation But a long life if imbittered with sickness is but a tedious Death True But if thou fear the Lord and depart from evil it shall be health to thy Navil and marrow to thy Bones Yea thy light shall break forth as the Morning and thy health shall spring forth speedily Further dost thou desire wisdome beauty strength The righteous have promises of all these so far forth as they still perfect their happiness Whose Daughters so fair as Jobs Those that mourn in Sion have assured unto them beauty for ashes If the Feet of the Saints are beautifull surely no part else is deficient But
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
and shall be ever with the Lord. But this glorified fear is the most bright reflection in and from us of Gods glorious Soveraignty according to that of the Prophet If I be a Master where is my fear a fruit and an effect of Gods ravishing and transporting excellency and therefore this heavenly affection being so necessary a requisite in our heavenly condition is so far from lessening our perfection in glory as that without it it cannot be perfectly glorious O my Soul shall thy affections of love and fear be thus glorious in thy Heavenly state Let them not have a lesser or lower object than the most high let not such High-Born Princesses be enamoured with their Slaves Vse the World as not abusing it and as though thou used it not Neither fear any but him that only can cast both Soul and Body into Hell-fire Let these two graces be as Jethro to Moses eye in the Wilderness of this World to admonish and to keep thee from losing thy way when thou art turning to the right or to the left And like the Lords Pillar of a Cloud by Day and of Fire by Night to direct thee according to his holy will in thy Journey towards thy Heavenly Canaan Converse with these two Royal Virgins continually So shalt thou have Communion and fellowship with the Father and the Son in the Spirit be partaker of the Divine nature and begin to enjoy Heaven here upon Earth Prepare and so enlarge these Divine Vessels by a pious use and continued Exercise that they may be the more capacious of Glory For according to the measures and proportions of graces in this life shall be their repletion in the life to come where of Apprehensors the Saints shall be made Comprehensors according to their several enlargements For as one Star differs from another in glory so shall it be at the Resurrection of the Just when we shall see God face to face and know him as we are known and be made like him in Glory O my God my Father are these two sanctified affections of love and fear the two Eyes the two Armes of the Soul with which the Saints behold imbrace and enjoy thee in all thy glorious excellencies Are they the two Centinels and Guards by which every true Christian discovers and repells all sinfull thoughts looks words and actions Doth that root of all saving Graces Faith work by love in the application of what the Father Son and Holy Ghost hath done for us Turning our Hearts of Stone into Hearts of Flesh and melting them into teares of Gospel-Repentance Doth love oile the wheeles of our universal obedience so that they run swiftly in the pathes of thy Commandements when thou thus enlargest the heart And is fillial fear the whip in the hand of zeal the holy Chariteer to drive and carry us manger all stops of Sin Sathan and the World to the end of our race Is this divine love to thee and thy Saints the summe and the fulfilling of thy Law The more excellent way The compleating continuing and the greatest grace as most like unto thee For God is love and who so dwelleth in love dwelleth in God and God in him Shall these twin-like graces of love and fear not leave the Soul when it leaves the Body and accompany both Soul and Body at the Resurrection to the Marriage-Supper of the Lamb and to the Marriage-Bed of Glory yea shall they be the measures and compleating of our Glory O holy Father who art the essential love my fear and my dread be thou pleased to sanctify inlarge and inflame these my affections that of sinfull passions in the old Adam they may be changed and Heavenized into active and holy graces in me thy new Creature Let them I beseech thee be effectual and usefull to all the aforementioned ends And since it is no sin but a duty to be ambitious of and to covet spiritual things let them be enlarged and heightned like Heaven even to the utmost of a created capacity that I may be as thou hast promised thy dwelling place upon Earth and thou mayest be my inheritance and my Heaven in Heaven Even so Amen Lord Jesus come quickly The sanctified affection of holy zeal in the glorified Saints deserves our next Meditation This to speak properly is not a simple grace but the highest and intense degree of every grace and holy action which if so famous and resplendent in the Saints upon Earth as in Moses in his exemplary Justice upon the false worshippers of the Golden Calf In Phineas his executing judgment upon that Idolatrous and adulterous payre Zimry and Cosby in David who declares that the zeal of Gods House had eaten him up In Elijah when he put to death four hundred of Baals Prophets in one Evening In Paul who preserved the glory of God in the Redemption of his Country-men the Jews before his own salvation and in that highest example of our dear Lord and Saviour in his purging of his Temple Then this Heavenly grace shall undoubtedly not only continue and have then a Beeing in each glorified Saint but shine forth and act in them much more gloriously Is that only infinite and pure Essence our Omnipotent God who is happiness blessedness and life it self so often declared in the Scripture to be zealous for his name and glory And shall not his Saints his Image be like him Is this grace exercised by glorious Angels as when one Angel destroyed all the first-born of Egypt in one Night Another destroyed a hundred fourscore and five thousand Assyrians at the command and in zeal for the glory of God Yea did an whole Host of Angels descend from Heaven and with a holy zeal Celebrate our Lords Nativity and Man-kindes Redemption in an holy Hymne And shall not the glorified Saints overflow and express upon all occasions to Gods glory the like zealous and inflam'd affections assuredly they shall For though Sin Sathan and the wicked World which by a kinde of spiritual Antiperistasis made their zeal here burn the hotter shall be cast out and banisht thence Yet the glorified Saints shall not want nor be without constant objects and continual occasions according to every ones measure to exercise this grace To instance only some successive ones Gods unparallel'd flaming Justice upon Gog and Magog and all wicked Men at our Saviours second coming with ten thousand of his Saints Christs Crowning and rewarding every Elect Member in righteousness according to their works together with all his glorious Administrations in that his holy righteous and personal Reign in the new Heaven and new Earth for a thousand years His powerfull raising of the wicked after the thousand years and curious Inquisition into and perfect discovery and bringing to Judgment of all their evil thoughts words and actions and his
righteous sentence pronounced upon them and the Apostate Angels and his translating his Saints from this Paradise of Earth to the Heaven of Heavens These objects and occasions of holy hatred anger and indignation against Sathan and Gods Enemies the wicked of unexpressable love joy delight praise and glorious tryumphing the holy Scriptures holds forth shall be in the state of glory And can we conceive holy zeal which is the height and crown of all these graces can be absent or unnecessary I shall further add that after our Lords yielding up his Mediatory Kingdome to the Father all the service and everlasting praises of the Saints in the remembrance of all Gods wonderfull works from the beginning unto Eternity in the Heavens Earth and Hell shall be heightned and winged with this holy zeal I shall assert this truth and conclude this ravishing Meditation with pointing at and refering the Reader to the frequent and zealous hallelujahs of the crowned Elders and glorified Saints in the Visions of Saint John set forth to us as the types and lively figures of our Heavenly and glorified condition Revelations Chapter the 4 th Verse the 8 th And the four Beasts rest not Day and Night saying Holy holy holy Lord God Almighty which was and is and is to come And the four and twenty Elders fell down before Him that sate on the Throne and worship him that liveth for ever and ever and cast their Crowns before the Throne saying Thou art worthy O Lord to receive Glory and Honour and Power for thou hast created all things and for thy pleasure they are and were Created Like to this are their zealous Songs and Thanksgivings upon divers occasions Chapter 5. Verse 8. untill the end of that Chapter and Chapter 7. Verse 9. unto the end thereof and Chapter 11. Verse 15. unto the end of that Chapter and Chapter the 14. Verse the 1. unto the end of the 5. Verse and Chapter the 15. Verse the third and the fourth besides many more to the end of that blessed Book which for brevity sake I omit These being sufficient to prove the use and exercise of this Seraphical grace of holy zeal by the Saints in their state of Glory O my Soul Is this most Heavenly grace of zeal so illustrious and exemplary in the Saints that have lived upon Earth Doth it shine forth with a Heavenly light here in the actings of holy Angels of our for ever blessed Saviour and of our Almighty Father and Creator Yea shall this grace out-live thy hope and thy faith be the Crown and compleatment of thy divine love and the height and perfection of all other thy graces in glory Endeavour then to follow their famous examples Rest not in the cold and middle Region of bare profession with the careless Gallioes of the World and frozen Church-professors The Demasses of this last and worst age but let thy holy zeal upon all occasions for the glory of thy God and purity of his Worship and Doctrine mount up even to the Firie Region and In his cause be Boanerges and like Gods Angels and Seraphins a Cole a flame of Fire So shalt thou excell and exceed others in this grace in thy glorified state as far as thou hast gone before them in this life And as thou hast been more gracious here so thou shalt be more glorious hereafter The larger thy Vessel the larger thy Receipt Every Vessel shall be full and overflow although much different in their measure All shall be Stars although not of the like Magnitude The Saints at the first Resurrection being rewarded according to their works although not for their works O Lord my God is divine zeal a holy flame a Pyramid-like Fire a Spring towards Heaven as to its own place Is my heart my Souls shop where it forges affections and this middle Region of my Body like the middle Region of the Aire cold and naturally void of this thy heavenly Fire Be pleased I humbly beseech thee to cause the same holy Spirit that once sate in the likeness of Fiery Tongues upon the heads of thy Apostles to rest upon unthaw and inflame my frozen heart and affections Then shall not its earthly and sinfull qualities of coldness hardness and ponderousness chill resist or smother the fervency and intensness of any of thy graces in me since thy Almighty Power that produces lightning in the cold middle Region of the Aire that melts the Rock and causes the Mountains Aetna Vesuvius and Hecla to breath forth flames of Fire can yea will because thou hast promised it bring forth and create in me a greater wonder even a new heart and a new spirit a heart of Flesh instead of a heart of Stone Then shall I be not only zealous in all my actings for thee but frequent and zealous in my praises to thee in this life of Grace and that of Glory to Eternity Amen All affections in this life as love fear zeal and the rest although sanctified in their heighths and intensiveness by reason of the weakness of the Organ and our decayed nature may put the whole Man to pain and in that respect are called Passions yet it shall cease to be so with us in our glorified condition Where whatsoever that flowes from Infirmity or Imperfection shall be done away In the new Jerusalem there shall be neither sorrow nor pain We shall then be as the Apostle exhorts not only when occasions shall be offered not to be angry without sin but without passion or disturbance Being herein like to God and the holy Angels whose Image shall then be perfectly renewed in us and who in the Scripture although I grant it to be meant not properly but Anthropopathos is often declared to be angry But as to the Elect Angels I conceive they may as truly be said to be angry witness that famous opposition of Balaam and that action of the Angel that with his drawn Sword was ready to destroy Jerusalem for David's Sin as to rejoyce greatly for the conversion of a sinner If then such accidental affections are testified to be in glorious Angels why not much rather in glorified Saints unless by cessation of so eminent a grace as holy anger we should irrationally conceive the Saints less perfect in this new life than in the other Especially since the sole object of this holy affection the Sin Blasphemy and Rebellion of wicked Souls and Devils to the dishonour of God shall continue and in that great and long day or time of their Judgment be more universally manifested to their view than ever as also afterward in Hell to Eternity Anger here though for Gods cause may possibly inflame the Eyes distort the Visage of a Saint but its lipe as the modest blush of a Virgin doth add beauty to her Face so shall this
a Hell of unclean lusts But labour as much to be like Christ in holiness and righteousness as thou hopest and desirest to be like him in glory Let thy Members be spiritualized and heavenized and made Members of holiness unto righteousness And let thy conversation be in Heaven where thy habitation shall be For our life is hid in Christ with God and when he appeares we shall appear also with him in glory and be ever with the Lord. O omnipotent God and gracious Father in my Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ who in the beginning madest Man after thy own Image in holiness and in righteousness of body and soul as having from everlasting decreed that thy only begotten Son the Eternal Word should be made Flesh and become Man And therefore thou saidest let us make Man in our Image after our likeness for to thee all things past and future are as in their present being in thy great goodness pitty and with infinite compassions behold what a sad and miserable change Sathan and Sin have made in thy Image and Creature Thou hast made Man upright but they have sought out many inventions Yea every imagination of the thoughts of Mans heart are only evil continually Their hearts are deceitfull above all things and desperately wicked who can know them Their bodies are become so like Sathan that they may well be called Devils incarnate Their Heads imagine mischief continually their Eyes are altogether set upon vanity their Eares are soon set open to let in all verbal uncleanness their Smell is fum'd with pride their Pallates are fur'd with gluttony and excess and their touch is the pander of lust and lasciviousness their Mouths Tongues and Throats are open Sepulchres their right hands are full of bribes iniquity and oppression and their Feet walk in the way of sinners and are swift in running to mischief In summe the whole Body is a Cage of unclean lusts and the wicked Instruments of all ungodliness and unrighteousness O mercifull Creator this is our sinfull condition by nature But thou hast promised to change these vile bodies and to make them glorious bodies like the body of our Lord. O begin I beseech thee this change and new Creation upon my body here since they only that are sanctified and made new Creatures shall be glorified They only that are raised and have part in this first Resurrection from sin shall be raised and have part in the second Resurrection to Glory Let it appear that I am born again of Water and the Spirit and that Christ is already formed in me and let all those senses and Members which have been the Members of uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity be now the Members and Servants of righteousnes unto holiness so shall my glory begin here in holiness and righteousness and be compleated hereafter in the perfection of Glory Amen I proceed next to the second excellency of our Bodies at the Resurrection They shall shine as the brightness of the Firmament and as the Stars for ever and ever Yea our blessed Saviour far transcends these expressions of the Angel in Daniel and saith The righteous shall shine forth as the Sun in the Kingdome of their Father Yea far higher yet They shall partake of the Glory of God which is far above all created Glory he declaring that The glory God hath given him he had given them All which is comprehended in the fore-recited Texts He shall make our vile Bodies like unto his glorious Body And that when he shall appear we shall be like him To this great truth the Apostle Paul further beares witness saying Whom he justifies them he also glorifies That those that suffer with Christ shall also be glorified together with him And that our light affliction which is but for a Moment worketh for us a far more exceeding and Eternal weight of Glory That when Christ who is our life shall appear then shall we also appear with Him in Glory Of this excelling and blessed state of the People of God in the darker times of the Church under the Law the Psalmist gives testimony saying Let the Saints be joyfull in Glory And of himself in particular Thou shalt guide me with thy counsel and after receive me into Glory I shall conclude the proofs of this most comfortable encouraging and ravishing Doctrine with the evidence of blessed Peter When the chief Shepward shall appear ye shall receive a Crown of Glory that fades not away The God of all grace hath called us into his Eternal Glory by Jesus Christ. Our blessed Saviour in his great love to us and for our encouragement in his service hath not only from his own Mouth and by his Spirit in the Mouths of his Ministers as hath been shewed verified this precious truth and illustrated it by sensible similitudes such as the Sun Stars and Firmament but became himself even in his state of humiliation a Sign Figure and example of this glorious shining condition and change of the Bodies of his Saints at the Resurrection in that his wonderfull and miraculous transfiguration in the presence of Peter James and John upon the Mount when his Face did shine as the Sun and his Rayment was white as the Light A sight so ravishing and delightfull that it made Peter although but a Spectator to forget Wife and Family and to look upon this World as a Dunghill saying unto our Lord Jesus Lord it is good for us to be here if thou wilt let us make here three Tabernacles one for thee and one for Moses and one for Elias Consider then was this glorious change in our Saviour so superlatively delightfull to Peter to behold What shall it be to us in the fruition Certainly true is that Word of the Lord Eye hath not seen Ear hath not heard neither hath it entred into the heart of Man the things which God hath prepared for them that love him Our Souls are now immund or rather imprisoned with in a fleshly Wall or Jaile of whited Earth and like a poor Prisoner hath only the liberty to peep and look out at the Cinque-ports or windows of the sences Neither is it or can it now be seen or truly known by our selves or others But then that Image of God that Angel-like Spirit that most rich and inestimable Jewel purchased with the infinite precious blood of the Son of God and valued by him to be more worth than the whole World shall dwell and be housed in the body glorified as in a shining pure and transparent Chrystal Cabinet And shall be seen and known by Saints our selves and Angels as to its forme to its glorious operations and perfect beauty The resplendent body like a Concave Mathematical Glass not deminishing but magnifying and adding to its excellent glory and brightness And moves according to its
ravishing contemplation of the infinite Power and Wisdome of thy Creator manifested in the multiplicity variety and unexpressible excellencies of smells and odours as also of his wonderfull mercy love and goodness in making them and communicating them to thee for thy use and benefit that as in a clear mirrour and by this blessed medium thou mayest behold and enjoy him who is essentially sweetness and by whom through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ which grace as a spiritual internal and common sense and Architype of all thy Bodily senses beholds hears tasts smells imbraces and possesses him thou mayest I say in God alone be delighted refresht and nourisht unto Life Eternal O infinite holy ever glorious and Eternal Spirit who art the power and love the goodness holiness and sweetness of the Eternal Father and the Son as proceeding from all Eternity from them and who art co-equal co-eternal and co-essential with them in the unity of one Divine Essence and God-head who art the Comforter Counseller Preserver and Sanctifier of all the Elect and Children of God give me a new heart and a new spirit and make me a new Creature according as the Father hath promised in the new Covenant of grace so shall not only my Soul with all the faculties and affections thereof but my Body also with all its Members and Senses be meliorated renewed and sanctified and this rare wonderfull and curious sense of Smelling with the sinfulness of pride voluptuousness excess curiosity and vanity hath made not only unprofitable and destructive to me but of ill savour offensive and dishonorable to thee become like the laborious Bee a gatherer of sweetness out of every object thereof Of which various mixtures my Soul shall compound and make up an holy Incense in resemblance of that under the Law prefiguring this of love as in return for thy goodness of admiration in the acknowledgment of thy wisdome of adoration as declaring thy Omnipotency of praise and thanksgiving as glorifying thee for these thy manifold gifts and blessings and be not only Adamiz'd and like him as in Paradise before the Fall but Angeliz'd yea like my Lord and Saviour who from every object Creature and occasion observed and raised matter of honour and glory to God his Father and mine yea by such an holy exercise of this Sense my Soul as well as my Body shall be refresht delighted and nourisht in its Eternity of Life begun here and to be made perfect together with this sense at the first Resurrection of the Just in Glory I need not prove that the Sense of Feeling shall continue and have existence in the Saints glorified state since to deny it is tanto-mount as to affirm that their Bodies shall not have a beeing or which is equally absurd that they shall in this new life be sick of a dead Palsie This Sense being now and so without doubt shall be then one of the clearest signes and demonstrations of the life of the Body and hath in one respect a singular preheminency and difference above the rest of the Senses For whereas every other Sense hath its proper Seat and Organ This may be truly said to be like the Soul and to Organize and reside in every part and member of a living and perfect Body Neither is this Sense less necessary to motion than to life insomuch as that when a Body is totally deprived thereof it is insensible and moves not and is accompted no better than a dead Trunk and inanimate Corps I shall add further that this Sense as it is now so certainly it shall be then the Souls chief Instrument and Inquisitor to discern by and give Judgment with much pleasure and delight of those four principal Elementary qualities that are respectively inherent to and in all created things and bodies that consist of matter and are made up and compounded of the four Elements as to heat or coldness driness or moisture or of those remoter qualities and adjuncts soft or hard smooth or rough arising from them So that as the Soul united to the new-raised Body without Eyes and the Sense of Sighâ— may truly be said to be imperfect and blind as to all visible objects so should the Body want this Sense of Feeling the Soul may as truly be said to be incompleat and ignorantly dark as to its knowledge and understanding as to all Tangible subjects From what hath been said I assert that the Saints at the Resurrection shall in their glorified Bodies have both the continuance and exercise of this Sense of Feeling and that in an incomparable perfection as to what it is now I will not positively affirm that spiritual substances as Angels may be subjects of this glorified Sense that shall be spiritualiz'd with our Bodies which though now a Natural Body shall then according to the Word of Truth be raised a spiritual Body If so is it not probable that as now to our natural Bodies natural things are touchable so to our spiritual bodies spiritual substances as Angels may be Tangible Our Saviours expression to his Apostles not at all contraducing or excluding this inquiry or inference he affirming only that a spirit hath not flesh and bones as he had not denying that a spiritual glorified body may touch and feel a spiritual Beeing and Essence But should this not be I am assured we shall both touch and imbrace him and be imbrac'd by him I speak this according to the Scripture-phrase with all due and humble reverence who is far above all Creatures and Angels our Head our Spouse our Saviour the most glorious Lord Jesus Christ God-man in one Person as also Abraham Isaac and Jacob the Holy Patriarchs Kings Prophets Apostles Martyrs Confessors and glorified Saints as also our formerly neer and dear Relations which then shall be known of us in that perfection of knowledge and in this our exaltation that so their salvation may add such an accidental joy to the augmentation of our blessedness as the Holy Angels are said by our Saviour to have now super-added to their happiness at the conversion of a sinner To these I shall annex and subjoyn other more inferiour subjects of this glorified Sense the then refined and well-tempered Aire and Elements the delightfull contact of Fowles Birds and Beasts now willingly subject and obedient to Man the super-excelling and numerous Trees Fruits and Plants the Arbors of soft and sweet-smelling Roses the banks of Lillies the beds of Violets the Carpets of all manner of rarest Herbs and Flowers with which this new Heaven and new Earth this renewed Paradise shall be even to perpetuity plentifully garnisht and adorned with to the great glory of God the Creator of Christ the Restorer and of the Holy Ghost the Efficient and to the unexpressible pleasure and delightfull use and benefit of the Elect and glorified Saints As the blessed Canticles that Song of Songs hath been and is reproacht and abused by wanton Amorists
comfort declaring to them to the praise and glory of God thy experiences thy consolations and Divine manifestations And for as much as thou art zealous of spiritual gifts seek that thou maist excell to the edifying of the Church that spiritual Body of Christ whereof thou art a living Member And since God as the Apostle excellently observes hath set some in the Church First Apostles secondly Prophets thirdly Teachers after that Miracles then gifts of healing helps Governments diversities of Tongues Covet thou earnestly the best gifts For there are diversity of gifts but the same spirit But the manifestation of the Spirit is 〈◊〉 to every Man to profit withall To one is given by the Spirit the Word of Wisdome to another the Word of Knowledge by the same Spirit to another Faith by 〈◊〉 same Spirit to another the gift of Healing by the same Spirit to another working of Miracles to another Prophesie to another discerning of Spirits to another diâ—vers kinds of Tongues to another the interpretation of Tongues but all worketh that one and the self same Spiâ—rit dividing to every Man severally as he will For 〈◊〉 the Body is one and hath many Members and all the Members of that one Body being many are one Body 〈◊〉 also is Christ. If they were all one Member where weâ—â— the Body The Eye cannot say to the Hand I have 〈◊〉 need of thee again the Head unto the Feet I have 〈◊〉 need of you Now we are the Body of Christ and Memâ—bers in particular Therefore O my Soul since 〈◊〉 Tongue as to all divine and spiritual gifts is now thâ— principal Agent and Expressor And shall be then 〈◊〉 as a Member of Christ mystical Body in this his glorious Kingdome thou shalt be plac'd in thy Function and respective administration be not spiritually idle but â—it and exercise thy Tongue continually in declaring to others according as it shall be revealed to thee by the Holy Spirit the Magnalia Dei the wonderfull ways and works of God Freely thou hast received freely give O my Soul shalt thou then be as one of Christs Viceroyes over all inferiour Creatures shall thy Dictates Orders and Commands be received and obeyed by them as the voice of God O let not then thy speech now to them be mixt with oaths and cursings according to the woâ—t and fashion of the wicked of the Earth whose behaviours towards the poor Brutes are more like to Devils than Men or Christians Yea let thy employment of them and rule over them be gentle milde and moderate not cruel or oppressive since the good Man with the Scripture is mercifull towards his Beast And 〈◊〉 tenderness of thy God towards them exprest as 〈◊〉 of the reasons of his commanding a seventh Days 〈◊〉 That thy Beast may rest as well as thee teaches what respect and considerate pitty and compassion he expects from thee towards them as being fellowâ—Creatures suffering what servitude they undergo for thy sin and from which they shall be freed and delivered in thy glorious liberty But instead of speaking evil of or to the inferiour Creatures do thou now as thou shalt do in the World to come with thy Heart and Tongue praise and glorifie thy God after the Example of holy David Psal. 148. throughout in and for them admiring his love and goodness to thee to them as also 〈◊〉 unexpressible yea unconceivable power and wisdome declared in their various formes wonderfull strength 〈◊〉 qualities excellent virtues and uses as being 〈◊〉 great end of theirs and thy Creation as the Lord â—â—clares to Job when he bids him behold Behemoth and â—â—â—iathan and leaves upon Record for our Instruction and Imitation so large a description of them and of others of his Creatures This holy exercise both of mind and voice in the contemplation of the Creatures was without doubt a chief employment of Adam in his innocency Let it be thine then in thy return and travailing to this second Paradise that what is begun by thee here in grace may be perfected there in Glory O glorious God and mercifull Father O infinite loâ—ing and gracious Saviour and Redeemer O holy and Eternal Spirit my Sanctifier three infinitely glorious Persons One Omnipotent onely wise and Eternal God Blessed blessed blessed from everlasting to everlasting who hath so highly honoured and dignified me a 〈◊〉 Worm and no Man As to love me freely in thy Eterâ—nally begotten and only beloved Son the Lord Jesus God-Man and in him from before all beginnings to elect me unto Eternal Life and Salvation Creating 〈◊〉 unto immortality and glory by giving me an immortaâ— Soul and a Body that shall assuredly be raised to life and glory by thy Almighty Power and by the virtue of the Resurrection of my Head and Saviour who hast miraculously raised me from a sinfull death unto a spiritual life in my effectual Calling through Adoption the Sanctification and Inhabitation of thy holy Spirit as 〈◊〉 freely justified me in thy Son the Lord my righteousâ—ness and by this blessed and inseparable union to 〈◊〉 in thy Son by the Holy Ghost given me assurance 〈…〉 Life and Glory which shall indubitably begâ—◠〈◊〉 my Soul at my dissolution and be compleat at the â—â—â—union of Soul and Body aâ— the Resurrection of the 〈◊〉 What shall I render unto the Lord for all his benefits O God my heart is fixed I will sing and give praise 〈◊〉 with my glory Awake my Heart awake my Tongue 〈◊〉 self will awake early and joyn with the Arch-Angels and Angels and the Church Tryumphant in Heaven and with the Holy Catholick Church upon Earth in 〈◊〉 Heavenly exercise of praise and thanksgiving O Lord whose only prerogative it is to search the heart knowest that these are the desires and petitions of 〈◊〉 Soul yet with holy Paul I cry out that to will is present with me through thy grace but how to perform know not Blessed Saviour give me of thy fulness so soâ—â— to receive grace for grace Yea be pleased to add 〈◊〉 to grace since thou alone workest in us both the will and the deed and the Heaven aspiring piercing 〈◊〉 of praise ariseth only from thy Divine Fire of Knowledge and holy affections Eternal Father let not this noble Instrument of thy Glory my Tongue be tuned to the vain and wanton Layes of the World and Sin lest thereby being crackt unstrung and made untunable for thy service here it and my whole Body with voluptuous Diveâ— be cast 〈◊〉 useless into the Fire of Hell where a drop of cold Water will not be 〈◊〉 to cool a flaming lascivious Tongue But let me O Lord be continually chaâ—â—ing the Magnâ—lia Dei and be singing those Evangelicalâ— and prophetical Songs of the four Beasts and four and twenty Elders the figure and representative of thy holy Church saying and singing
they may have a like effect upon you as to your spiritual food and edification as the â—irst and second concoction hath in the stomack as to a good and perfect digestion and turning the Meat into a fit Chile to be sanâ—â—fied and made good blood and spirits besides an after chewâ—ng of the Cud by remeditation and practice in a Gospel and spiritual signification will much difference and distinguish you that 〈◊〉 clean Christians from those that are unclean who for want of the heat of Divine affections devour but not digest holy things To include I desire my great suffering condition abounding with sorrows hopes and fears and all kinds of Tentations discomforts and distractions my above Twenty removes to several Residences and more than seven years Exile and separation from my â—ooks dearest Friends and Relations my ignorance infirmities and sinfulness as being the greatest of sinners the least of Saints 〈◊〉 excuse and apologize for me to any of my Brethren of the â—hurches of Christ that shall with you read these Contemplations â—â— to any defects or errors therein as being one of the lowest â—â—rms in the School of Christ and therefore ready in all humility to submit any thing herein contained to the Judgement of the Saints that are learned or judicious and to give or receive light or satisfaction to or from any that differ from me in Opinion Which I cannot but expect because of the diversity and rarity of a great part of this subject which may be a reason that plowing with no man's Heifer in some things I may walk alone yet left not in the dark and without as seems to me a clear light of holy Scripture hoping that this Essay of mine as to those great future mysteries and periods of the Churches state may give some new light through the free condescention of God's spirit to me his poor Exile in Patâ—os as to the understanding of many Scripture Prophesies in my Judgment much mistaken by former Expositors both ancient and modern and that though my weak light be but as a rush Candle yet it may be an occasion of the inflaming and lighting up of great and shining Tapers both in this generation and in the Age to come Most loving gracious and faithful Consort and hopeful Children whom I greatly long after in the bowels of Jesus Christ And for whom in the words of the Apostle Paul I frequently pray that your love may aboâ—nd yet more and more in knowledge and in all Judgment that ye may approve things that are excellent that ye may be sincere and without offence until the day of Christ Being filled with the Fruits of Righteousness which are by Jesus Christ unto the glory and praise of God Phil. 1.8 9 10 11. For this cause I bow my Knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ of whom the whole Family in Heaven and Earth is named That he would grant you according to the riches of his glory to be strengthened with might by his spirit in the inner Man that Christ may dwell 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 heigth and to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God Ephes. 3.14 15 16 17 18 19. Having the Eyes of your understanding enlightened that ye may know what is the hope of his Calling and what the Riches of the glory of his Inheritance in the Saints and what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us wards who believe according to the working of his mighty Power Ephes. 1.18 19. That you all with open Face beholding as in a Glass the glory of the Lord may be changed into the same Image from glory to glory even as by the spirit of the Lord 2 Cor. 3.18 Finally my dear Brethren Sisters and Fellow members in Christ for all other Relation and Denomination shall shortly be laid aside Farewell be perfect be of good comfort be of one mind live in peace And the God of peace and love shall be with you 2 Cor. 13.11 Amen Yours in all sincere and tender affection as doubly Obliged by Nature and by Grace W. W. This 29th of June 1666. Sweetnese of Forme Feature Heere 's Combinde Yet much below the Beautie of her minde The True Effigies of the Lady Katherine Harington Wife to Sir James Harington and Baronet AN EPISTLE TO THE ELECT LADY And her Children My true Yoke-fellow and Dearly beloved Children Whom I love in the Truth HEar ye the Instruction of a Father and attend to know understanding forget it not neither decline from the words of my Mouth First seek the Kingdome of God and his righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you Wisdome is the principal thing the one thing needful and with all your gettings get understanding forsake her not and she shall preserve you Love her and she shall keep you Exalt her and she shall promote you she shall bring you to honour when you do embrace her she shall give to your Head an Ornament of grace a Crown of Glory shall she deliver unto you and the Years of your Life shall be many When you go your steps shall not be straitned and when you run you shall not stumble Take fast hold of Instruction let her not go keep her for she is your life Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ who is the power of God and the wisdome of God God who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in times past to the Fathers by the Prophets hath in these last Days spoken unto us by his Son who he hath appointed Heir of all things by whom also he made the Worlds Therefore ye ought to give the more earnest heed to the things that ye have heard lest at any time ye should let them slip For if the word spoken by Angels was stedfast and every transgression and disobedience received a just recompence of reward How shall you escape if you neglect so great salvation If he that despised Moses Law dyed without mercy under two or three witnesses See that ye refuse not him that speaketh for if they escaped not who refused him that spake on Earth much more shall not ye escape if ye turn away from him that speaketh from Heaven Hear ye therefore the word which the Lord Jesus speaketh unto you who spake by the Prophets and is the Lord God of the Holy Prophets since all Scripture is given by Inspiration of God even from him who is the Eternal Word of God and is profitable for Doctrine for reproof for correction for instruction in Righteousness that the Man of God may be perfect throughly furnished unto all good works Counsel is mine
and found wisdome I am understanding I have strength I love them that love me and those that seek me early shall finde me A SCRIPTVRE-CATECHISME I am the only begotten Son of the Father the brightness of his glory the express Image of his Person upholding all things by the Word of my Power I was by him as one brought up with him and I was daily his delight rejoycing always before him rejoycing in the habitable parts of his Earth and my delights were with the Sons of Men. Blessed is the Man that heareth me waiting daily at my Gates waiting at the Posts of my Doors For who so findeth me findeth life and shall obtain favour of the Lord. But he that sinneth against me sinneth against his own Soul all that hate me love death But if ye set at naught my counsel I also will laugh at your Calamity I will mock when your fear cometh when your fear comes as Desolations and your destruction comes as a whirl-wind Then shall ye call upon me but I will not answer for that you hated knowledge and did not choose the fear of the Lord Therefore shall you eat of the fruit of your own way and be filled with your own devices But who so hearkneth to me shall dwell safely and shall be quiet from fear of evil Believe in God believe also in me I and the Father am one There are three that bear record in Heaven the Father the Word and the Holy Ghost and these three are one For though there be many that are called Gods whether in Heaven or in Earth The Lord your God is one Lord and to you there is but one God the Father of whom are all things who Created the Heaven and the Earth And one Lord Jesus Christ the Saviour of the World by whom are all things and you by him And one Spirit the Holy Ghost by whom you are sanctified I am the Way the Truth and the Life the Word of God that in the beginning was with God and was God the life and light of Men while ye have light believe in the light in me the Eternal Word that was made flesh and dwelt amongst you was conceived by the Holy Ghost and made of a Woman born of the Virgin Mary of the Seed of Abraham and of the Seed of David The beloved and only begotten Son of the Father full of grace and truth This is the work of God that ye believe on me whom he hath sent that was delivered to Pontius Pilate the Governor of Judea who gave Sentence scourged me and delivered me to be Crucified who that I might sanctifie you with my own Blood Suffered without the Gate being obedient unto Death even the Death of the Cross dyed for your sins was buried and rose again the third Day according to the Scriptures for your Justification O look upon me whom you have pierced and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow wherewith the Lord hath afflicted me in the Day of his fierce anger whose Soul being in an Agony in the Garden was exceeding sorrowful even unto death so that my sweat was as it were great drops of blood And I cryed out upon the Cross my God my God why hast thou forsaken me my Soul being then made an offering for sin yea sin for you and upon me the Lord laid the iniquities of you all Yet did he not leave my Soul in Hell nor suffer his holy one to see corruption To as many of you as receive me and believe on my name I will give power to become the Sons of God For I the Lord am risen indeed And am ascended unto my Father and to your Father and to my God and your God and have led Captivity Captive spoyled Principalities and Powers and made a shew of them openly tryumphing over them am received into Heaven and sit at the right hand of God having all power given me in Heaven and in Earth where I ever live to make intercession for you until I come in the Clouds in the same manner as I was taken up from you into Heaven the second time without sin unto salvation as being ordained of God to be the Judge of the quick and dead For my Father judgeth no Man but hath committed all judgment unto the Son I am the head over all things to the Church which is my Body the fulness of him that filleth all in all The House and Church of the living God The Pillar and ground of the truth As your Body is one and hath many Members and all the Members of that one Body being many are one Body so also is Christ. Therefore by one spirit be ye baptized into one body and be made to drink into one spirit the Cup of blessing which you bless is it not the Communion of my blood And the Bread which you break is it not the Communion of my Body For you being many are one Bread and one Body Wherefore let there be no schisme in the Body but let each of you as Members have the same care one for another to the increase of the body unto the edifying it self in love Be it known unto you that through me is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins and by me you that believe and are justified from all things from which ye could not be justified by the Law of Moses For God hath exalted me with his right hand to be a Prince and a Saviour for to give repentance unto Israel and forgiveness of sins and redemption through my blood according to the riches of his grace I am the Resurrection and the Life he that believeth in me though he were dead yet shall he live And who so ever liveth and believeth in me shall never dye For the hour cometh in the which all that are in the Graves shall hear my voice and shall come forth they that have done good unto the Resurrection of Life and they that have done evil unto the Resurrection of Damnation If you then will be my Sheep hear my voice and I will know you and you shall follow me and I will give unto you eternal life and you shall never perish neither shall any Man pluck you out of my hand My Father which gave you unto me is greater than all and no Man is able to pluck you out of my Fathers hand For God so loved the World that he gave me his only begotten Son that who so ever of you believes in me should not perish but have everlasting life If ye love me ye will keep
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
exhorting you to repentance towards God and faith to our Lord Jesus Christ. And now behold I am as one bound a Prisoner and a banished man separated from you not knowing what things shall further befall me But none of these things move or grieve me neither count I my life dear unto my self so that I might finish my course with joy For I am perswaded and assured that neither Tribulation or Distress Persecution or Famine nakedness or peril or Sword Death or Life nor Angels nor Principalities nor Powers nor things present nor things to come nor height nor depth nor any other Creature shall be able to separate me from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus my Lord or cause to cease my love to him As therefore loving him because he hath loved me first Yea I am further assured that when I have finished my course a Crown of righteousness is laid up for me which my Lord the righteous Judge shall give me at that Day and not to me only but unto all those that love his appearing And now my dearly beloved ones I know not God he only knows whether we shall see the Face of one another any more Wherefore that living or dead I may discharge my duty as a Husband and as a Father I take you to record this Day that I am pure from the blood of you all For I have not shunned to declare unto you the counsel of God Take heed therefore to your Souls which God hath purchased with his own blood for I know that after my departure grievous Wolves and Enemies such as the mighty Powers of Darkness the numerous tempting and malicious men of the World and that out of your own selves which therefore are the most dangerous of adversaries will arise strong innumerable and impetuous Lusts all endeavouring to draw you from the Faith and to destroy your most precious Souls Therefore watch and remember that by the space of these many years I have not ceased to warn every one of you Night and Day with tears Therefore my dearly beloved and longed for my Joy and Crown stand fast in the Lord my dearly beloved And I intreat thee also true Yoke-fellow help counsel and encourage our Children in the way of godliness and righteousness which is profitable unto all things having promise of the life that now is and of that which is to come Hide not thy talent nor neglect the gifts that are in thee until I come again unto you Give attendance to reading to exhortation meditate upon these things that I have written and give thy self wholly to them that thy profiting may appear to all Be an example to our Children in Word in Conversation in Chastity in Spirit in Faith in Purity For in doing this thou shalt both save thy Self and Family now solely under thy charge and as to the care of whose Soulâ— thou must shortly be accountable at God's Tribunal O ye that are my precious Jewels my chief and only riches upon Earth my mouth is open to you my heart is enlarged ye are not straitned in me be ye not therefore straitned in your own bowels Now for a recompence in the same I speak unto you as unto my Children be ye also enlarged And now dear and beloved Christians for this is the highest and shall be my concluding Title and sweetest compellation as therein not knowing you after the Flesh I commend you unto God and to the Word of his Grace which is able to build up and to give you an Inheritance among all them that are sanctified Ceasing not to give thanks for you making mention of you in my Prayers That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ The Father of glory may give unto you the spirit of wisdome and revelation in the knowledge of him The Eyes of your understanding being enlightned that ye may know what is the hope of his calling And what the riches of the glory of his Inheritance in the Saints And what is the exceeding greatness of his Power to us-ward that believe Your most affectionate Husband and Father J. H. From Antwerpe the First of January 1665. A Directory Letter Mutatis Mutandis sent by the Author to every one of his Twelve Children prefixt to the Manuscript of the following Epistle now Printed for the use and benefit of other Christian Families Dear Daughter Mary I Commend unto your serious and often Reading and Meditation this following Epistle a Work which cost me much labour study and time in the Collection yet performed with much delight and chearfulness as moved to write it to all my Relations by the good Spirit of the Lord as the best means I could use to counsel stir up and advise them with Mary to choose the better part which shall never be taken from them Wherefore loving Daughter let me lay this Paternal Charge upon you as I shall do upon the rest of your Brothers and Sisters for whom I am preparing Transcripts out of the Original written by my own hand That you read it over at least once a Quarter as long as you live as being not mine but the Epistle of our most dear Lord and Saviour presented to you only by my hands his most unworthy Instrument The subject matter thereof being his most sacred Word who is the Lord God of all the holy Prophets the Pen-men hereof And the great Prophet of his Church whose Word whosoever will not hear and obey are threatned to be destroyed My design herein I hope through the grace and mighty power of the most holy Spirit of Christ will be prosperous and effectual as being not only a Letter of advice and counsel from an earthly Father whom I am confident you love and will obey in the Lord But the Epistle and most powerful Exhortations of your heavenly Father yea the love-letter of your Head and Spouse the Lord Jesus Christ who hath married you unto himself in holiness and everlasting righteousness Dear Daughter the holy Scriptures being the Foundation of all saving knowledge and true Religion I have by the direction and assistance of the Lord skim'd off for you the Cream thereof and given you a few proofs of many holding forth as from his own mouth First The excellency of his Person Secondly The Fundamental Articles of the Christian faith and belief in the words of the holy Scripture only Thirdly what things are to be practised by you held forth in God's holy Law Fourthly what evil things are to be eschewed either respecting Doctrine or manners wherein you have the Lord Jesus Christ's encouragement and exhortation to the attaining of all saving graces and virtues and his Dehortation from all errors in Doctrine especially those that are sowen and profest in these worst of times and from all sins and vices in practice Fifthly You have herein many of his Holy Counsels directing
not less loving But O merciful Creator thy love met with hatred the very object of thy favour was thy Enemy whom thou didst not reconcile with a gift as fearing his power or ability to resist thee since he was thy Creature thy Prisoner thy just sentence of Condemnation waiting but the watch-word of thy will to execute him O unexhausted Fountain of wisdome there was no weakness or deficiency in thee which Man destroyed might any whit disable or diminish thy workmanship in a second Creation since all thy works keep time with thy Word What caused thee then O powerful Maker to give Life where Death was due Heaven where Hell was deserved Pleasure and Joy where Pain and Torment was incurred Why didst thou give mercy and forgiveness to Man and denyedst it to Angels honouring the Humanity with a Personal Union which in Adam was a Traytor by Rebellion Lastly Why gavest thou thy only begotten Son to Death that we might be thy Adopted Sons in Life Lord my Soul shall answer with St. Paul God who is rich in Mercy for his great Love wherewith he loved Vs even when we were dead in Sin hath quickened Vs together in Christ by Grace we are saved O only begotten Son of the Father the Word by which all things were made O light of the World God equal with the Father in Majesty why from such a height of Glory didst thou descend to this Vale of Misery forsaking Heaven for Earth making thy Foot-stool thy Throne being included in the Virgins Womb though the vast Universe cannot comprehend thee Lord thy own Spirit can best express the reason of this thy wonderful humiliation Jesus Christ came into this World to save Sinners Behold here God made Man Lord how low is the Foundation of thy Mercy laid although the height reach above the Clouds gracious Saviour who doth not in this Mirrour of thy Love perceive the powerfulness of thy Divinity as being the first and self-mover in this work of compassion thy mercy having its first motion from thy self according to that thy own protestation made unto thy Children I will love them freely But O my Soul now thou hast viewed this beautiful Gate of the Temple with admiration reverence and affection proceed for the birth of thy Saviour is but the beginning of his mercies All Princes are but Vice-Royes God only is King of Kings and Lord of Lords Yet who amongst them is not welcomed into his Kingdome with joyful Acclamations and royal Solemnities But loe here not only the King of Israel but the great Emperor of Heaven and Earth born in Bethelem the least of the Cities of Judah a City and yet affords no place but a Stable to lodge and entertain the Worlds Monarch Heaven must point him out by a Star Angels must preach him before any of his own acknowledge him and then Shepheards are his Heralds to Proclaim him The sequel and after-story of his Life is no less reproachfully miserable than this Prologue of his birth Poverty clothes Him with obscurity and affliction 30. Years in which space his very Infancy is not free from Persecution by Herod witness those Innocents of Bethelem who suffered for him who came to dye for them he flying into Aegypt from the wrath of Man that he might undergo the anger of God preserving himself not from pain but for pain O Lord had thy Loves Foundation been laid in Earth the hatred and ungratefulness of Man might have ruined thy proceedings and induc'd thee to have retrograded from thy purposed design but behold the Root of thy Mercy was in thy Self which brought forth the fruits of thy sufferings thy love being natural therefore immutable none of thy grievous pressures were obscured from thy view for thy praescience beheld as present all fore-past actions and future events so that thou wert not ignorantly or contrary to thy will overtaken by them no necessity did enforce thee to undergo so difficult a Task since constraint is only prevalent in a finite nature but thou art infinite comprehending all things circumscribed by nothing Lord Jesus let me admire since I cannot express this thy love and make me to love thee again in some measure that thus hast loved me without measure Here whilest my Soul full of wonder desires to stay and meditate thy goodness leads me still forwards and as it were reproves my lingring thus O Man bound not thy thoughts progress with the first mercies of thy Saviour to wit that Light shined in Darkness The Word became Flesh yea that the life of all things received life and the Son of God became the Son of Man behold more misteries of love not regarded the Creator rejected of his Creature He came unto his own and his own received him not He who ordained Holes for the Foxes Nests for the Birds of the Aire he who measured the Earth as with a span and clothes the Heavens as with a Garment he who is a self-moving Sphear whose Centre is every where whose circumference is no where He even the Saviour and Creator of Man hath not amongst Men whereon to rest his Head O admirable and unconceivable humiliation of greater force because not enforced freely not reciprocally undertaken being therefore of infinite merit before God and worthy of Man's eternal acknowledgment what could Man suffer which the Son of Man did not undergo nay what anger torment punishment or affliction could an infinitely inraged Deity inflict which God made Man did not endure for behold no sooner doth this Son of Righteousness whose light is in himself arise to be a light unto the Gentiles dissipating the mists of Superstition and Ignorance the morning of the Gospel succeeding the Evening of Idolatry no sooner did he appear to the glory of his People Israel dispersing those Clouds of Ceremonies which Vail'd the mercy Seat but that present Generation prefering Darkness before Light interposed unbelief to Eclipse his splendour witness John 3.19 And this is the Condemnation that Light is come into the World and Men loved Darkness rather than Light Also they retorted the beames of his Priestly Office saying None but God hath Power to forgive Sins They shuned the Light of his Gospel-Prophesie and Teaching witness that loving Lamentation O Jerusalem Jerusalem which killest the Prophets and stonest them that are sent unto thee how often would I have gathered thy Children together as a Hen her Brood under her Wings but ye would not Lastly they denyed and rejected his Dominion with that abnegation We have no King but Caesar. Lord were the Children of Israel so severely punished for repining against Aaron though but a â—igure of Thee Was Heliodorus so suddenly and fearfully tormented for resisting the High Priest And doest thou who thus revengedst and defendest thy substitutes whilest thou wert in Heaven as being the summe of all Figures the substance of all shadows and an Eternal High-Priest according to the
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
Chore of Glory to Eternity Right honourable and renowned Gentlemen as I have presum'd to present and direct this weak Piece to your view so what I have above written in Zeal to God's glory and unfeigned love to your Souls shall be my Apology to the following subject As that my end therein is primarily the glory of God whose praises is my duty as well as his command to exalt in my own Soul and others as hath been declared and to perpetuate as much as in me lies to my Posterity and to all future Generations what great and free love mercy and goodness he hath shewed to me and mine herein endeavouring to imitate the Holy example of that Royal Psalmist King David who hath thus in Verse exprest both his resolution and practise Come unto me all ye that fear God and I will tell you what he hath done for my Soul I say for my Soul as may appear in some degree in the alluzions and applications in several temporal mercies and personal deliverances commemorated in this Book I acknowledging to Angels and Men that God's Fatherly love in Christ and care of my poor Soul in supporting preserving and delivering it from Sin Sathan and the World my mighty Adversaries and from innumerable spiritual evils and temptations Do as far transcend to the glory of his free grace be it spoken my temporal and corporal deliverances and mercies as the Heaven is above the Earth and my unvaluable Soul is more precious than this poor Hut of Earth I sojourn in Here possibly some great Men or rare Wits who Eagle-like soar far above my mean parts and gifts may uncharitably sensure and object to say no more What doth this poor Man's Personal or spiritual mercies and deliverances concern us To such I answer Are you Christians and fellow-members of Christ's Body and will you not weep with those that weep and rejoice with those that rejoice As God commands you Can you be living Members although in the highest rank in this spiritual Body and not sympathize and be affected with the grief or weal of the lowest Christians its Feet O take heed lest such pride and insensibleness declare you to be no living Member of one Church However I am assured all those that fear God now and in Ages to come shall read with delight rejoice and praise God with me for his gracious providences and merciful deliverances recorded in this following Treatise Which I although cloathed in a plain and low stile in the Opinion it may be of some carping Momusses and over-curious Criticks whom nothing will please but what 's their own or what is like Sphynkes Ridles to be understood by a few Or that is not imbroidered with humane strains of Wit and Eloquence or bumbasted and imbossed with affected praises and needless Epithites For my part I have not endeavoured to humour such nor to drown matter in words but without affectation vaunting or racking in Prose or in Verse I have desired to keep to my own Genuine and natural Dialect And to be understood rather than to be so obscure as to need a Comment What you finde is good herein it flowes although through my Leaden Pipe from the Spirit of the Lord the unexhaustible Fountain of Grace and goodness what is incongruous or evil it is the sinful slime and filth which naturally cleaves to every humane Aquaeduct except the Holy Scripture Nam Humanum est Errare which being in voluntary is pardoned by the Lord I doubt not of yours unless I should be so uncharitable as to think you disdain to imitate so Divine a Pattern To conclude my Lords and Gentlemen I confess I was heartily grieved for my own and your great ingratitude when upon a diligent inquiry I could finde few or none Monuments or Returns of this Nature although I am assured all of you are vastly indebted to our great and gracious God for numberless spiritual and temporal blessings mercies and deliverances and which is worse many of you have great Incomes given you by him and to this end of wit parts and gifts with which you might and ought to make to him a just and thankful repayment especially since our liberal Heavenly Father expects from you but his own Coin lent you to improve to his glory and but a sincere praiseful and declared acknowledgments for real and unvaluable benefits This serious and sad consideration of my own and your sinfull Omissions stirred me up speedily lest I should dye ungratefull to Pen and publish this Work not only in discharge of my duty to the only great and glorious God my loving and merciful Father But as an humble Essay and Copy for you to write by which if but any one of you follow I shall rejoyce much because such an one hath received great good thereby and the Lord by him much glory But if none I shall weep in secret for your Ingratitude And have much joy and peace in that herein I have done my duty to God and to you But I hope better things of you In which charitable expectation I subscribe my self my Lords and Gentlemen Your most humble Servant In the Lord J. H. OCCASIONAL MEDITATIONS ARGUMENT Vpon the Lord's most gracious Sustentation of Me when I was Born a Moneth before my full time Soliloquium or Discourse EVery extraordinary acting of Nature is not only to be admired but to be observed by us wherefore was I so over-hasty to be Born which the wisest of the Heathen accounted the bginning of their misery Was I weary of my Eight Moneths Prison and ambitious of a freer Place and Air Or was my heart more hot than others and therefore sooner needed the refreshing fanning of my Lungs Or was the Womb weary of such a sinful burden or rather did my loving Mother's affectionate longing to see and enjoy me occasion this Abortion was it weakness in her or too early strength in me that relaxt or brake in Pieces the silver Bonds of the Womb was I by the care of the Nurse wrapt in the Skin of a Lamb as in a second Womb to preserve and renue my heat and life were some or all these the natural causes of my unexpected Birth and preservation yet it becomes me as a Christian to look far higher even to him who is the cause of causes the beeing of Beeings Natura Naturans God blessed for ever whose Eternal Will and Decree was the first cause the others but secondary Yea he was the Midwife that brought me forth thus sooner into this World of sin and misery In sense of which my sad condition as by a natural instinct with all other Infants the first thing I did then was to weep and cry How much more cause have I now and that experimentally with humble Paul to cry out O wretched Man that I am who shall deliver me from this body of Death and to sigh out this my Prayer and spiritual Hymn unto the Lord The NEW BIRTH
And lest Hell should tryumph over us in punishment he in Person tryumphs over it with Victory In Person I say Although his Body lay still in the Grave since its local absence contradicts not his personal presence the inseparable union of the God-head with his Body and Soul even in Death permitting only a separation in nature not of natures a mutation of order no disunion If the Devils fear forced his Prince to supplicate when our Saviour sojourn'd on Earth what unexpressible terrors did then possess them when the Worlds Great Monarch reigned over Hell If in his humiliation they doubted his sudden judgment How did his exaltation assure them of their certain execution Here behold acted that Vision figuratively after manifested unto St. John of Sathans imprisonment for a thousand years although literally it was to be fulfilled many ages after For who hath the Key of the bottomless Pit of Heaven and Hell but he to whom all power is given both in Heaven and Earth He who openeth and no Man shutteth Or when should these Principalities be subdued if not at this general and most glorious Conquest Can any imagine this great Victory to be maymed or imperfect since he then led Captivity captive trampling over all those that resisted either his Power or our Salvation So conclude this what time since his coming doth so evidently demonstrate this truth to be by our Head in part fulfilled as the after events I mean the tranquility and delight of the Church amongst themselves those hundred years immediately succeeding his suffering What though the ten Persecutions did exceedingly rage against the Saints according to the 4th verse of that 20. of the Revelations The blood of the Martyrs is the Seed of the Church Yea they did even then reign most gloriously with Christ. As the Kingdome of our Saviour and the brightness of the Church shined most perspicuously when the purity thereof brake forth in their profession and constancy so the miseries of Christians and the liberty of Sathan is never more apparent then when the damnableness and obscurity of capital Heresies Eclipse the visible face of the Church For in the first we may truly be said to live and tryumph even in death in the last their supposed freedome is the greatest slavery and their seeming life but a cursed and eternal deprivation Three Days continued though not compleat was the proportion of time allotted to measure out my Saviours last sleep Had he dyed and presently revived unbelieving Man would have tearmed such a Death but a Transe Yea the scandalous Rulers would have blasted the wonderfull Miracle of his Resurrection with an accusation of self-contradicting and not performance of his former protestation Destroy this Temple and within three Days I will build it up again Wherefore O my Soul that thy faith might be confirmed in the sure belief of his dying The Jews convicted by the truth of his performance and his own Power magnified by the Divinity of the act he is content to lodge as it were in a second Womb viz. of Clay that all things being perfected the third Day he might lead his the way to a birth of Glory The victorious Soul of my Saviour after the reliction of his Body having trampled upon Death tryumphed over Hell and took a full possession of Heaven that his actions as they were the means so they might be as it were the story and prophecy of our succeeding All the Souls of the faithfull when they part with this hollow Clay in like manner though through his right conculcate Death and Hell enjoying the new Jerusalem Behold he now proceeds by the raising of his Body to assure us that our Bodies shall be like our Souls immortal as our Souls shall be made like unto his most glorious through the re-creation of his beautifull Image in us The object of my Faith hath hitherto been a Night-piece full fraught with Persecution and suffering tears and strong cries dying and burial but now the all-flourishing Rayes of the Immortal Deity personally in the Son of Righteousness at his rising breaks forth changing that Darkness into Light To this may be applied that of the Psalmist Mourning may continue for a Night but joy comes in the Morning Noah's Ark the true Figure of a Christians faith must be drenched in the Waves and driven by the Wind a long time before it shall rest dry and safe upon the Mountains of Ararat The humiliation of my Saviour was his night wherein the humanity did most manifest it self So his exaltation in which his Resurrection hath a part is his Day wherein the brightness and power of his God-head did shew it self most apparently Adam the destroyer of Man first enjoyed a blessing a Paradise before he merited a Curse a Hell But the Messias the restorer of Man must first be made an execration before he can purchase for us a re-possession Not long since I besought all true believers to weep with Christ who wept not for himself but for them But now my Soul breaths forth a more pleasing request which I prefer not to all but to those only which are mourners in Sion That as they have grieved with Him and for themselves in him so now they would be filled with his solace and tryumph in his Victory That as they have sowed in tears they may now reap in joy Every Man was a debtor unto the Almighty untill Christ our surety paid the mortgage and redeemed our Souls He satisfied the debt on the Cross least we should doubt of the sufficiency of his satisfaction For behold here our acquittance and the Bonds rent even the Bonds of Death torne asunder in and by his Resurrection Have we not then cause to rejoyce for so great a deliverance The mirth of Moses Myriam and the Israelites was expressed in a Song of thanksgiving when the Egyptians were entombed in the Sea The joy of Barak and Debora was proclaimed in an Anthem of praise when Sisera and his Chariots were discomfited The Virgins of Israel were not silent when David overthrew Goliah And shall we that are delivered from the slavery of a spiritual Pharaoh sin from the tyranny of a hellish Sysera a strong Goliah Sathan the Prince that ruleth in the Ayr and over all the Children of disobedience be empty of gladness and gratefulness when all the Creatures land and praise our Moses our Barak our David our Jesus shall not all the People especially the redeemed of the Lord say Amen Let us now walk forth with those of Emmaus to meet our Saviour after the Resurrection of his Body Praying earnestly that through the Power of his Spirit he would open the eyes of our faith that we may believe confess and rejoyce in his Resurrection The infinite affection of this Saviour of ours is apparent in every action His love made him depart from glory when he descended from the bosome of his Father his love made him conceal his