all the Children of pride For The Seed of the Woman hath broken this Serpents Head And the Devil shall be cast into Hell What though he be the Prince that ruleth in the Ayr for his number Legions for his strength a Principality a Power a Lion and for the depth of Policy and malice stiled the Ruler of Darkness and also the accuser of the Brethren yet know he is but a Creature and thy Saviours Vassal For By Him were all things created that are in Heaven and that are in Earth visible or invisible whether they be Thrones Dominions Principalities or Powers And he that made him can make his Sword approach unto him And though the number of fallen Angels be great yet the number of the Elect Angels its likely are far greater at least their Power greater as the issue of that great battel in Heaven if literally takeâ— illustrates So that thy eyes being opened by faith there are more that are with us than against us Christ is that Lion of the Tribe of Judah our Sampson to destroy that roaring Lion the Devil the wisdome of the Father and the light that not only enlightens our darkness but dissipates and puts to flight the darkness and subtilties of Sathan the only Mediator betwixt God and Man the Son of God the lover and friend of Men The Brother of the Brethren To conclude he it is to thy comfort whom the Father hath set at his own right hand in heavenly places far above all those Principalities and Powers and all might and dominion Who hath spoiled these Principalities and Powers and made a shew of them openly tryumphing over them even on his Cross. Therefore rejoyce yee Heavens and yee that dwell therein for now is come salvation and strength and the Kingdome of our God and the Power of his Christ For The accuser of our Brethren is cast down which accused them before God day and night Do I expect thee O my Soul to be a companion of this Heavenly Quire Why then do I hear thee utter nothing but mourning and as it were keep time with sighs Such a Song admits not of a burthen I will not bear a part with thee since in thy tears as in a mirror I see Hanibal ad portas another Enemy at thy Gates At thy Gates did I say nay entred and within thee so that now thy sobs me-thinks are vocal and articulate groaning out nothing but such sad captive complaints as these I am carnal and sold under sin O wretch that I am who shall deliver me from the body of this death O my Soul though thy fear questions yet let it not make thee despair of a Deliverer say I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord whom he hath sent to be thy Saviour even in the midst of this fiery Furnace So that like those Votive Martyrs though with the Flesh thou obeyest and art invironed with sin yet with the Minde thou servest the Lord. I am not ignorant that like to the City of Ai there are behinde thee ambushes of thy first Parents transgression before thee the Armies of thy many actual offences on both hands of thee the wages of sins of commission and omission yea that the Infantry of thy in-bred and original corruptions have not only taken but begun to Fire thy out-works Yet fear not stand still and see the salvation of the Lord for these spiritual Egyptians thy Enemies which thou hast seen in this short day of thy life and travail thou shalt see no more for ever since the Chariot-wheels of their strength shall be taken off and in conclusion their selves shall be drowned and hid in that red Sea of thy Saviours pretious blood Wherefore armed with a holy and Jehu-like severity command as Joshua once the five Kings so these the heads and chief of these thy Enemies to be brought forth and let them be slain with a Christian magnanimity even with that two-edged Sword which proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord. Fear not with Gedeons stripling that Goliah-like transgression of Adam though as a second Briarius his many Armies of Pride Blasphemy Rebellion Unthankfulness Discontent Curiosity yea all manner of wickedness seem to threaten Heaven Neither quit thy ground though he brandish against thee that curse that Cherubs flaming Sword in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die Let him strike yea let the stroke wound thee and bring thee upon thy knees yea let the wound send forth floods of penitent tears for this thy fall shall be thy rise this thy humiliation thy greatest exaltation This is that Weapon that gives both death and life For this thy misery is become the object of that infinite mercy which not only rescues thee but sheathes this his mortal Sword in this thy Enemies bowels Since by Man came death by Man came also the Resurrection of the dead For as in Adam all die even so in Christ shall all be made alive And lest he should again revive as Joab did to rebellious Absalom He again pierces his heart with these three Darts As by the offence of one judgment came upon all to condemnation even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all unto justification of life for as by one Mans disobedience many were made sinners so by the obedience of one many shall be made righteous That as sin reigned unto death even so might grace reign thorough righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord. That Cloud is disperst But behold a greater storm arises even such a one as not only shakes and endangers the Battlements of a Christian conversation but blowes up the foundation When an Enemy besieges he ever is within view But if he take a Bulwork he gains possession and the loss seem irrecoverable Adams sin imputed like a furious adversary surrounds beleagures and shatters the whole Fort of Man But that Original corruption that holy David complains of as conceived and born in by propagation makes neerer approaches and undermines the Mud-walls of our Flesh taking possession of the Tryangular and chiefest Cyttadel which once yielded he fills every sconce of the sence with Armed Lusts and mounts through every Loop-hole a murdering piece which continually roares against Heaven And as for the Chief Commander Collonel and Mustar-master the understanding will and memory having put out their Eyes it makes them in the Dungeon of Ignorance grinde like Sampson at the Mill of Lust and fleshly desires Thus miserable and seemingly irrecoverable is our estate in Nature whilst our in-bred corruption that strong Man keeps the hold But let us not be discouraged for the Lord Jesus who is stronger than he is come upon him and hath overcome him taking from him all his Armour wherein he trusted and dividing his spoyles being sent by God in the likeness
or greater Assemblies the glorious fearfull and wonderful Name of the Lord our God that is his infinite and incomprehensible Attributes by which he is made known to his Creatures for every Attribute is God in the abstract as his Omnipotency wisdome holiness justice love mercy truth goodness life glory eternity and the rest As they have been are and shall be declared in his works of Creation then fully understood and revealed to us as to the causes and effects nature vertues influences and uses of all things that God hath made and that have a Beeing in Heaven or in Earth to the glory of our God their Creator Which is to me a strong reason and a great help to interpret many Scriptures as setting forth the great wisdome and justice of God in appointing a certain time for his Saints for whom he made the Earth and wherein they have so greatly suffered and been persecuted for his sake and to whom he hath redeemed and restored it shall with their Head the Lord Jesus in this new Heaven and new Earth before their second and ultimate Glory in the highest Heavens possess and enjoy know and understand this his lower Creation in its Primitive excellency That so they may sing to his praise and speak thereof one to another to the exalting God's Name and Glory as being the Chief end for which he Created it and them The second Chief Head of the Saints exercise of speech one with another will be concerning the wonderfull providences of God especially in respect of his Church from the beginning of the World a History never to be blotted out obliterated or forgotten by his Saints but to be frequently remembred and mentioned to the glory of his power wisdome love and faithfulness and of the rest of his Attributes A third and principal subject will be that which now and ever shall be the wonder of Heaven and Earth the admiration of Saints and Angels that Miracle of Divine love the Redemption of Man-kinde by the Lord Jesus God-Man in one Person In which above all other his works the Lord hath been pleased to draw neer and to manifest himself in all his glorious Attributes both to Saints and Angels This is that mystery of mysteries of which the Apostle witnesses That without controversie great is the mystery of Godliness God manifested in the Flesh justified in the Spirit seen of Angels Preached unto the Gentiles believed on in the World received up into Glory This is that bredth and length that depth and height the knowledge of the love of Christ which passeth knowledge even the fulness of God and the riches of his Glory But I must return where I left off lest I be swallowed up in this Ocean of Divine love which both now and then shall far transcend not only the expressions but the Conceptions of Saints and Angels The fourth Subject about which the Saints Tongues shall be exercised respects their several employments and activities under their glorious Head and King in this transcendent Kingdom and Universal Empire which by way of allusion I may terme their Callings or degrees of Office under him and in Relation to one another For if the Holy Scriptures hold forth that in the highest Heavens there is the most excellent Order and Government evidenced by the gradual denominations and titles given unto those Aetherial subjects as arch-Arch-Angels and Angels Principalities and Powers Thrones and Dominions Cherubins and Seraphins All which have their several Offices Imployments and Governments according to the appointment and establishment of our great and all-wise God in those vast Regions and innumerable starrified Orbes yea if in Paradise had our first Parents not fallen as they so also their Progeny should have dressed the Garden and not have been idle so also it is more than probable that as the Saints according to the Scriptures should have like the Stars different degrees of Glory so shall they have different actings Offices and Imployments for the performance of which the Tongue and speech above other parts and Members of the Body as being the Souls Image and Interpreter will have the greatest share and honour As for their Offices he who is truly the Fountain of honour our Lord and Emperor the Lord Jesus saith that the Saints shall be all Kings yet with a difference as to the extent of their Governments For some shall rule over five others over ten Cities in this Empire of Glory Now their several and respective Functions and atchievments in their Governments none will suppose can be performed without the use of the Tongue and speech If all things in the Church Militant must be done with decency and in order much more admirable shall be the unparallel'd order of this Church Tryumphant The regulation directory and carrying on of which I conceive shall not be as now by the use and help of any kind of Books or Canons but by verbal Orders and Acts flowing continually from their Souls now as full of Light as Life That gracious promise and prophesie being then to be compleated and fulfilled They shall be all taught of God Let none mistake me as though I here hold forth that Saints shall have any Dominion or Rule over their Brethren No I mean and intend no such thing For all here are Kings and free and shall be subject to none but God and Christ their Head But this I conceive that this Church Tryumphant being that glorious and mystical Body whereof only Christ is the Head it is as the Apostle elegantly concerning the Church Militant like the natural Body compounded and made up of many Members every one of which hath a different degree of honour grace and glory and are design'd for several uses and actions which without any servitude or disrespect from each other of their Members they do and chearfully execute in order to the good benefit and happiness of the whole according as they are continually influenced and directed by their Head the Lord Jesus who is the only Potentate The King of Kings and Lord of Lords I come now to the third and last particular the gubernative and mandatory acting of the Tongue and voice of glorified Saints upon the new Earth as in respect of all animate and inferiour Creatures as Fowles of the Aire Beasts of the Earth and creeping things some of all which kindes as being intelligible although not rationable are now subjected to and obedient to the voice of Man even to the command of wicked Men As first for instance are not Faulcons Lanners Gosshawkes and all kinde of ravenous Fowles brought and taught to obey the Rulers call and voice of the Faulkner And as for other Fowles how wonderfull is the subjection and observance of the Cormorants and the coy Ducks as to the Instructions and designes of their Masters And as for harmless lesser and singing Birds how speedy and trusty Conveighers of Letters are the Pigeons called Carriors
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
unthankful unholy without natural affection truce-breakers false accusers incontinent fierce despisers of those that are good Traytors heady high-minded lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God having a forme of Godliness but denying the Power thereof from such turn away For of this sort are they which creep into Houses and lead Captive silly Women laden with sins led away with divers lusts ever learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth Now as Jannes and Jambres with-stood Moses so do these also resist the truth Men of corrupt mindes reprobate as concerning the faith But they shall proceed no further for their folly shall be manifest to all Men as theirs was The Fool hath said in his heart there is no God they are corrupt they have done abominable works there is none that doth good Therefore the wrath of God is revealed from Heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of Men who hold the truth in unrighteousness Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them For God hath shewed it unto them For the invisible things of him from the Creation of the World are cleerly seen being understood by the things that are made even his Eternal Power and God-head so that they are without excuse O righteous Father the World hath not known Thee but I have known Thee No Man cometh to the Father but by Me. No man hath seen God at any time the only begotten Son who is in the bosome of the Father he hath declared him He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father For I and the Father am one Believe also my works that ye may know and believe that the Father is in Me and I in him For in the beginning was I the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God All things were made by Me and without Me was not any thing made that was made In me was life and the life was the light of Men. I the Word was made flesh and dwelt amongst you and ye beheld my glory the glory as of the only begotten of the Father full of grace and truth I am the image of the invisible God By me were all things created that are in Heaven and that are in Earth visible and invisible whether they be Thrones or Dominions or Principalities or Powers All things were created by Me and for Me I am before all things and by me all things consist There are three that bear Record in Heaven the Father the Word and the Holy Ghost and these three are one I spake unto my Apostles and true Ministers saying Go ye therefore and teach all Nations Baptizing them in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost What high blasphemers then are they that deny the Holy Ghost to be God The Spirit of God moved upon the Waters And by the Word of the Lord were the Heavens made and all the Host of them by the Spirit of his Mouth The Spirit of Truth which proceedeth from the Father He shall testifie of Me. For he shall not speak of himself but whatsoever he shall hear that shall he speak He shall glorifie Me for he shall receive of mine and shall shew it unto you Peter said unto Ananias In that thou hast lied to the Holy Ghost thou hast not lied unto Men but unto God Wherefore I say unto you all manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto Men But the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto Men. The Grace of me the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the Communion of the Holy Ghost the Comforter Preserver and Sanctifier be with you all This is the will of God even your Sanctification that you should abstain from Fornication and that every one of you should know how to possess his Vessel in Sanctification and Honour Not in the lust of Concupiscence as the Gentiles that know not God Wherefore to avoid Fornication let every Man have his own Wife and every Woman her own Husband Have you not read that he that made Man in the beginning made them Male and Female I the Lord will bear witness against them that deal treacherously with the Wife of their Youth Is she not thy Companion and the Wife of thy Covenant And did not I make one yet had I the residue of the Spirit And wherefore one that I might seek a godly Seed Therefore take heed to your spirit and let none deal treacherously against the Wife of his Youth For I the Lord God of Israel hate putting away Therefore I say unto you whosoever shall put away his Wife except it be for Fornication and shall marry another committeth Adultery and whosoever marrieth her that is put away committeth Adultery The Husband is the Head of the Wife not of Wives as I am the Head of the Church Let every one therefore in particular so love his Wife even as himself And the Wife not the Wives see that she reverence her Husband Despise not Prophesyings quench not the Spirit He that heareth you that are my true Ministers heareth Me and he that despiseth you despiseth Me and he that despiseth Me despiseth him that sent Me. He that is of God heareth God's words My Sheep hear my voice He that knoweth God heareth my Ministers but he that is not of God heareth them not And as oft as you eat the Bread and Drink of the Cup in my Sacraments ye do it in remembrance of Me and shew my Death until I come Pray without ceasing The workers of iniquity call not upon the Lord. Think not that I am come to destroy the Law or the Prophets I am not come to destroy but to fulfill For verily I say unto you till Heaven and Earth pass one jot or one title shall in no wise pass from the Law till all be fulfilled Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least Commandements and shall teach Men so he shall be called the least in the Kingdome of Heaven But whosoever shall do and teach them the same shall be called great in the Kingdome of Heaven Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's and unto God the things that are Gods Let every Soul be subject unto the higher Powers For there is no Power but of God The Powers that be are ordained of God Whosoever therefore resisteth the Power resisteth the Ordinance of God And they that resist shall receive to themselves Damnation For Rulers are not a terror to good works but to the evil Wilt thou then not be afraid of the Power Do that which is good and
Vew here his face from the Jngravers mint And in his workes his life and Soule in Print The True Effigies of Sir James Harington Knight and Baronet HORAE CONSECRATAE OR Spiritual Pastime CONCERNING Divine Meditations Upon the great Mysteries of our Faith and Salvation Occasional MEDITATIONS and Gratulatory Reflexions upon particular Providences and Deliverances vouchsafed to the Author and his Family ALSO A SCRIPTURE-CATECHISME Dedicated to the Service of his Wife and Children AND NOW Published together with other Treatises mentioned in the following Page for Common Use. By Sir JAMES HARRINGTON Kt. and Baronet London Printed for the Author 1682. The Contents of the Six Treatises I. Treatise THe Vision Exercise and Triumph of Faith In which is discovered from the Elevated and Holy Mount of Divine Contemplation 1. The shadows of Faith 2ly The true Faith and its Object God in Christ more particularly The Lord Jesus Christ in his Incarnation Life Death Passion Resurrection Ascension and coming to Judgment with the Benefits accruing from them to every true Believer 3dly The lost and miserable condition of every man by Nature 4ly The Restauration of man by Grace considered as accomplish'd by Christ in and by his Priestly Prophetical and Kingly Offices 5ly A Prospect of Eternal Life considered in the Glorification of the Soul and Body particularly as to the Faculties and Affections of the Soul and as to the Senses and Members of the Body in the new Heaven and new Earth during Christs personal Reign upon Earth for a thousand years 6ly A Prophetical Vision of Faith holding forth twelve great works of God which will shortly begin to appear and shall be fulfilled in their Respective Seasons and to be ended in the Translation of the Saints to Heaven The Compleatment of Scripture Prophesies the particulars of which Twelve Magnalia Dei View in the next page all which is intermixt with Holy Soliloquies and Divine Ejaculations applicable and profitable to every true Believer II. Treatise A Scripture-Catechisme contained in an Epistle sent by the Authour in the Name and Person of the Lord Jesus Christ to his Wife and Children wherein in Scripture-phrases only is held forth the Doctrine and Duty of a true Christian A work of excellent use for private Families as an Appendix to Catechising III. Treatise Divine Meditations upon the Creation Mans Fall and Redemption by Christ presented by the Author to his Parents in the one and twentieth year of his Age. IV. Treatise A Pillar of Praise or Occasional Meditations upon many Remarkable Mercies and Deliverances vouchsafed by the Lord to the Author and his nearest Relations V. Treatise The Lords days Preeminence above all other days held forth in an humble answer to a paper or Quere given to the Author by King Charles the First concerning the Observation of the Lords day and Easter day VI. Noahs Dove or an Epistle of peace directed by the Author to his Fatherly affected Brethren the Presbyterians and Independents as a probable means for their Agreement and Union TWELVE MAGNALIA DEI Or Heads of the wonderful Works and Actings of God on Earth by the Lord Jesus Christ during his Mediatorie Kingdome not yet Accomplisht All which are Treated of in three Tracts of this Volume I. THe Raising of the Witnesses Rev. 11.3 unto the 13th II. The Victorious Kingdom of Christ appearing in the Burning of the City of Rome Rev. 18.8 9. III. The Total and Final Ruine of the Papacie and of the Papal Kings of the Earth her Popish Supporter Rev. 19.19 20 21. IV. The Return to Canan of the Ten Tribes and the Jews and their Conversion Rom. 11.25 to the end V. The total Overthrow of the Turkish Empire by the Israelites and the subduing of all open Enemies of the Saints by the reformed Nations Ezek. 38 39. Chapters Dan. 2.44 45. VI. The Binding and Casting of Satan and his Angels into the Bottomless Pit the Local Hell for one thousand years to begin as I humbly conceive about the six thousand year of the world according to a true Chronology and Account Rev. 20.1 2 3. VII The Conversion of the whole World to the profession of Christianity Psal. 67. to the end Rev. 11.15 VIII The Peaceable Kingdome of Christ to be exercised by his Saints in this World for one thousand years the time of Satans Imprisonment which will begin as I humbly conceive in the year of the World six thousand and one being Daniels first Monarchy Rev. 2.44 45. Chap. 7.17 18.26 27. Rev. 20.4 And the Churches Sabbatisme upon this Earth Heb. 4.9 IX The Loosing and the Re-casting Satan and his Angels into Hell after the destruction of Gog and Magog by Fire Rev. 20.7 8 9 10. Together with the Consuming and Renewing of the whole Elementary World at our Lords coming the second time to Judgment by the same Fire 2 Thes. 2.7 8 9. X. Christs coming to Judgment under which is comprehended the Change or Resurrection of all the Elect to Glory 1 Thes. chap. 3. v. 13. to the end And Christs Remunerative Act of Justice to them in their Reigning with him upon the Renewed Earth a thousand years Rev. 2.4 5 6. XI The Raising of all the Wicked to Judgment a thousand years after the Elect Rev. 20.5 and the Sentenceing them and the Wicked Angels Rev. 20.11 XII The Translation of all the Elect to Heaven 2 Cor. 5.1 and the delivering of Christs Mediator Kingdome to his Father 1 Cor. 15.24.28 A Synopsis of the General Heads of this Treatise THe Definition of Faith Page 3 Diverse sorts of Faith viz Historical 4 Temporary 8 Miraculous 15 The Means of Faith 21 The Object of Faith Christ 22 Christ Born of the Virgin Mary 24 Persecuted by Herod ibid. His Agony 27 His Condemnation by Pilate 28 Crucified 30 His Death 33 His Burial 34 His Victory over Hell 35 His Resurrection 36 His Ascension 38 I. Man by Nature miserable in his Soul viz. in his Mind in general 41 Understanding 42 Conscience ibid. Will 44 Affections 45 The disorder in them namely in Joy which cannot be in Riches 48 Honours ibid. Pleasures ibid. Wisdom 49 Fear 50 II. Mans misery in body In general 51 In particular the sinfulness in his Eyes 53 Ears 54 Smell ibid. Taste 55 Touch ibid. Christs Priests Office in general 57 Intercession in particular 60 Satisfaction by both 61 Of Justification 62 Forgiveness of sins 63 Imputative Righteousness 63 The Definition thereof 64 Proofs of our right to Christs Imputative Righteousness by Scripture Demonstrations 65 General Questions and Objections answered 67 A Dialogue between Christ and the soul 74 The souls particular eompalint Against the mind and understanding 74 Christ answ 75 Against the Conscience 75 Christ answ 75 Against hardness of heart 76 Christ answ 77 Against the memories 78 Christ answ 79 Against the will 80 Christ answ 80 Against the affections viz. Love 81 Joy 81 Christ answ 83 Her general complaint of her Vniversal unworthyness 84 Christ
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
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
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
zealous flaming Grace of holy anger add light to light and glory to the glory of a Saint O my Soul is holy anger a saving and gracious affection a part of the glorious Image of God in a Saint Do the holy and blessed Angels as the Scriptures witness in their zeal to Gods glory and hatred of Sin express it in their constant oppositions and inflictions of Gods Judgments upon wicked Men and Devils Yea is it an Apostolical Precept and Duty to be angry and sin not Shall this grace have even in Heaven continual objects and occasions to exercise it self to Gods glory and thy own O write after this Copy and endeavour that this grace may not be seldome and casually but habitually in thee here upon Earth Let it be one of the Mortifiers and Crucifiers of thy lusts as they were the Murderers of thy Saviour Let it dash out the brains of all these Babell Beasts against the Stones of holy reproofs even the accursed issue of thy sinfull thought words and actions Let this God-like passion resist the Devil in all his subtle and powerfull temptations and he shall undoubtedly flye from thee Yea let this grace imitate and second the holy Spirit in reproving and convincing the ungodly World of Sin So shalt thou be preserved from the Commission of all evil triumph over all thy worldly and spiritual Enemies and be prepared by thy more full extent and acting of this grace here to be of an higher form in the blessed exercise thereof in Glory O All-mighty Creator who hast made my heart the seat of my affections and plac'd it in the Centre of my Body that it might affect and influence every part alike Let it not I humbly beseech thee be any longer like the middle Region of the Aire the coldest part of this Micro-cosme and void of this Heavenly heat of holy anger But let this sanctified affection flash forth like thunder and lightning and burn up and destroy every crude and evil thought word and action as soon as they appear and purge this Element of my Heart and Soul from all the infectious noxious and sinfull vapours of vain and sinfull thoughts that arise from this Earth this Body of Death and Sin that incompasses me about that they may never come to the maturity of wicked actions or if they do they may be as it were Thunder strucken and torne up by the Roots and not able to stand before this flaming grace so shall I be like thee who art as a flaming Fire consuming all Iniquity That so being renewed and fashioned according to thy Image in this World by such holy affections I may be assured of theirs and my greater perfection in the World to come when I shall be made like thee iâ— thy Image of Glory Amen As the light of the Sun to the World so is the affection of joy to the Soul when it arises there is day when it sets an uncomfortable night Man in his innocency enjoyed a polar day a continued presence thereof but having lost God its cause and object the effect ceased not that the Soul is disrob'd of the affection but of the true use of it hence the distinction of a spiritual and carnal joy The first is the true only found and beginning afresh to bud in the renewed Saints and favourites of God for a stranger shall not intermeddle with their joy but the other is momentary and illegitimate as being begotten in the Soul by false objects and is as it were the Moon-light of the wicked The object then of true joy is God and that in this consideration as he is inclusively and exclusively the compleat happiness of the Creature Whereby it comes to pass that the godly and reprobate may both rejoyce in the same things as Wifes Children Honours Estates c. And yet the joy of the one be holy and spiritual of the other carnal and wicked Leaving then the sensual mirth which is deceivable sinfull and temporary my thoughts pitch upon the Solace of the Elect which the Scripture stiles the joy of the Holy Ghost unspeakable and glorious the first-fruits and earnest of their future happiness By these glimpse O ye Saints of God's may yee judge of that full light you shall there enjoy Which if unspeakable here shall surely be there unconceivable Alas what can I then think and meditate of it chiefly negatively thus that there shall be no cloudings nor intermissions there no measure of our joy for we shall continually behold God and in him see all the grounds of rejoycing If here excesses have proved mortal their exceedings shall make us more immortal this being an increasing and reviving not a surfeiting fulness The capacity of the affection being gradually and continually augmented according to the plentifull infusion our joyes multiplying there even to Eternity The growth of our graces here although God be seen of us through the cleft of the Rock as to Moses teaching discovering and evincing a continued and far greater augmentation in glory hereafter O blessed and happy estate which is not diminished by Eternity but is as unlimitable as lasting O happy place wherein all joyes meet their objects in one Centre There shall we possess and enjoy not guttatim but according to the fulness of each Vessel God our gracious Father Christ our mercifull Saviour the Holy Spirit our everlasting Comforter the glorious Angels and Arch-Angels our fellow-Servants the Holy Patriarchs and Prophets our Tryumphant Leaders the pious Apostles and valiant Martyrs our victorious Champions together with the many millions successively of religious Professors There shall we meet and rejoyce in the like felicity of all our vertuous Parents Brothers Sisters Wifes Children Kindred and Friends There shall we inherit unvaluable and incorruptible riches Be install'd in Thrones of unchangeable and incorruptible honours and be filled with all unspeakable and Soul-ravishing delights To conclude whatsoever things either in conception or possibility can affect or rejoice the glorified Soul are there not interchangeably but contemporarily and continuedly obvious and present And on the contrary all things whatsoever that may lessen or offend in the least degree this divine extasie have an impossibility of subsistence in this Eternal Paradise And that not only in regard of the presence but of the decree of God himself Therefore needs must this joy be ineffably compleat to which all things concur for its perfection O Divine condition which shall thus sweetly impe and restore these mouldring and broken Wings of my Soul O blissfull Paradise and Chrystaline Sea upon which these now maimed Feet of my affections shall walk or rather evenly slide free from all rubs thorns and sinfull interruptions O how melodious will the harmony of these Strings be when mounted to the highest Key not to Ela but to Eli Methinks the very Contemplation of this life should so ravish my Soul and actuate these Wings these Feet that
they should not only brake Prison but carry her up in an holy extasie to these glorious Mansions O that this pious love and holy joy fixt to the Fiery Chariot of a true zeal moulding this Dust burning up this Chaff at least letting fall this fleshly Mantle would make me a second Elias in a speedy ascent and present fruition of my God But alass poor Soul how are thy Wings limed thy Feet lamed thy Chariot-wheels clog'd with Earth and Sins O by way of preparation since certainly Elias shall be parted from Elisha thy Soul from thy Body let the sharp beak of the Law pick and prune thy Wings the healing Oyl of the Gospel supple thy Feet and thy Heavenly Conversation of a Christian disburden thy motion that when the Whirlwind of Death shall make a separation thou mayest cheerfully and swiftly go up alive unto the Heavens The Body hath during these my last Meditations seemed to sleep in the dust But since the Body as hath been shewed shall have a glorious Resurrection at the last Day so it must be raised here also by my weak thoughts as the fit and next object of a Christians faith I believe then that at the shrill sound of the last Trumpet which is no other than the mighty and powerfull voice of our Arch-Angel Christ Jesus the innumerable Atoms of my Body shall incorporate and after the re-union of my Soul stand up a most glorious substance mortality putting on immortality and corruption incorruption This Worm-hill this mouldering Hutt of white and red Sands shall then inherit the name of an eternal mansion and become not as now a little Cage a loathsome Dungeon but the glorious Pallace of the Soul O surpassing glory of this re-animated Phaenix So excessively radiant that the Holy Spirit who is eloquence and truth it self pitches upon the most illustrious of visible Creatures the Sun the light to be the resemblance of this divine transfiguration The righteous shall shine like the Sun in the Kingdome of their Father They that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the Firmament and they that turn many to righteousness as the Stars for ever and ever The Jewish Temple seemes to be a resemblance of this Temple of God Man glorified in which the Body may be stiled the Sanctum the Soul through the inhabitation of the Holy Spirit the Sanctum Sanctorum Oh if that Earthly Temple transcended others and Heaven be Heaven because of the more special manifestation of Gods glorious presence there shall not each glorified Saint be a Heaven of Heavens It being a necessary and consequent Truth that the great God will more declare his excellency in his living members then in his inanimate works in his adopted Sons than in his inferiour Creatures and Mansions If an humble heart contrite for Sin be now Gods dwelling shall not a sanctified heart purified from Sin become then his Throne of Majesty Our Bodies which now Imprison and Eclipse the Soul's lustre shall then not only be coagile but like a Chrystaline Lanthorn transparent and coruscant not hiding but by a radiant concomitancy augmenting the others splendour For as in the Sun there is the containing and the contained the sphear and the light yet both conspire and meet in a heighth of brightness or as in sounds strings apart musical being struck together produce a harmony so though the Body and Soul are two distinct excellencies yet being united they shall mutually conveigh and reflect their beauty conducing to and effecting a joynt perfection of Glory Further whereas the Creator is now but in part magnified in Man because of the partial knowledge of our selves as concerning the admirable secrets and excellent curiosities of the humanity Then not only our understanding but our Eyes and other bodily sences shall coadjute to make each Saint a most exact Anatomist a most divine Phylosopher O let not then that better covetousness of secular knowledge make us bankrupts in spirituals Let not imprudent pursuits after the shadow make us over-run the substance Being confident of this that a true Christians life shall not prove then as it is now by the World accounted of a devourer of time folly and madness but a Tree of Life in the midst of Eternity Yea a Tree of Knowledge whose fruits shall be fully ripe in Heaven Perplex not thy self then vain Sophister in those scholasticals and endless labyrinths I mean those difficult and so much controverted Questions whether the Soul be ex traduce or immediately from God whether it be confined to a Throne or Tota in toto tota in qualibet parte Whether there be three distinct Souls in Man or only the rational How the Soul sees hears smells tasts touches by those sences Whether we see Intra mittendo or extra mittendo of the species Whether the course of the blood be circular or direct whether odours nourish or only refresh with many others of the like stamp Rather O wandering Disputant let thy chief study be to resolve these questions thus that in our Saviours sense thou art born of God that thou art wholly holy in every part both of Soul and Body that he the incomprehensible three in one is Soul of thy Soul and sees hears tasts smells and touches in thy chast looks devout attentions spiritual relishes faithfull imbracements and in the sweet savour of a pious conversation That thy holy love the blood of action and the life of practise is circular and endless having God to be its Centre that from him it may receive daily new Spirits and new fervour That thy Prayers which the learned call Gods perfume his incense do not only revive but by the powerfull attraction of saving grace feed thee to Eternal life Such thoughts as these O Man if practical shall make thee transcend the natural and become a divine Phylosopher These exercises which are the study of Angels and the liberal Arts of Heavens Academy end in the perfection of knowledge But to proceed O my Soul thou now groanest under a Body of Lead made up of corrupted flesh and stuft full with noisome humours either so fat as it sweats under its own burthen or so lean and weak that it needs wooden supports In its motion is so Worm-like that its contemptible if compared with the pace of most four-footed Creatures But in this thy melioration it shall become thy winged Chariot and be as swift as thy thoughts can imagine or thy wish desire even like lightning then which it shall be far more sprightfull passing in an instant from one end of the Heaven to the other thy whole body shall be then all feet not moving as now but incredibly swiftly guiding through those immeasurable spaces of the Empyrean Heavens These Locomotive Mussels if at all useful shall then only serve for the graver measures of Glory for our Bodies shall as the Apostle speaks be made like unto Christs glorious body not only
in its splendour but in its voluntary motion and other glorified qualities Now as he ascended so said the Angels shall he descend not step by step but as it is most like with inconceivable celerity else could not the first Century have confessed him to be at the right hand of his Father in the highest Heavens a hundred of years not being sufficient according to Astronomical discoveries to have ascended so many millions of miles Nor could the Saints after the Judgment past under the expence of many years attain those Heavenly Mansions The glorified Soul being now to re-enter reassume and to be reunited to its own body chearfully takes possession and findes it raised filled and prepared by the Almighty Power of the Creator for its habitation Not as formerly a Prison hindring and streightning its faculties and their enlarged operations by reason of Organical deficiencies but made in every part member and sence capacious and proportionate to its utmost activity Not as formerly a natural weighty dull and earthly body but a Coelestial Heavenly and spiritual body Not as formerly occasioned by the curse of sin corruptible and mortal but incorruptible and immortal Not as formerly weak and infirm especially at Death pale noisome filthy and dishonourable but powerfull and shining with glory according to the Word of Truth declared by the Apostle It is sowne in Corruption it is raised in Incorruption it is sowne in dishonour it is raised in Glory it is sowne in weakness it is raised in Power it is sowne a natural Body it is raised a spiritual Body As we have borne the Image of the Earthly so shall we bare the Image of the Heavenly for Flesh and Blood cannot inherit the Kingdome of God neither doth corruption inherit incorruption for this corruptible must put on incorruption and this mortal must put on immortality Then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written Hosea the thirteenth Vers. the fourteenth Death is swallowed up in Victory From the preceding Scripture is evidently proved that the glorification of our bodies shall principally consist First in being raised spiritual and heavenly bodies Secondly in being made shining and glorious Thirdly in their being incorruptible and immortal of all which more particularly and first of their spirituality and heavenliness Our present bodies although they are compounded of the four Elements yet are made up in an unequal mixture the proportion being much less of Water than of Earth and much less of Ayre than of Water and of Fire than of Ayre Therefore our Bodies have the denomination from Earth and not from any of the rest and are called in the foregoing Text Earthly Bodies And much different in their mixture from the Bodies of Fishes Fowles Meateors This also our natural motion declares For being placed in any one of the three other Elements and left at liberty by reason of our Earthly ponderousness we violently move towards the Centre of the Earth of which we were form'd and upon which is our habitation But our state place and condition being to be changed at the resurrection of the just our bodies that shall be a live at the Lords second coming shall be changed And though the same bodies for matter and substance as saith holy Job shall be raised yet much differing from what they were before as to their mixture and qualities And therefore are said to be raised Spiritual and Heavenly Bodies A further proof whereof the Holy Spirit gives us in that Text wherein he saith the Lord Jesus Christ shall change our vile Body that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious Body according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself The same witnesses the beloved Apostle in that his blessed gradation and comparison of our present and future more glorious condition Beloved now we are the Sons of God and it doth not yet appear what we shall be But we know that when he shall appear we shall be like him for we shall see him as he is Whence note this Apostle or the rest did not yea could not with their then bodily eyes behold him as he was then risen from the dead he vailing his glory in condescention to their present state A second Heavenly and Spiritual quality of the Saints glorified Bodies is a swift and speedy local motion prophesied of as many interpret that place in the Prophet Isay They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength they shall mount up with Wings as Eagles they shall run and not be weary and they shall walk and not faint Which I cannot better manifest to our weak apprehensions than by comparing it to a flash of lightning which in an instant passeth from the East to West and from one Port of the vast Canopy of Heaven to the other This quality also was manifested to be in our Saviours glorified Body upon Earth like to which we shall be raised by his swift passage from Jerusalem being many score miles to a Mountain in Galilee when he was seen of five hundred Brethren at once And from Jerusalem to the Sea of Tiberius when he did eat with Peter and the rest after the great draught of Fishes And from thence to Jerusalem again at his Ascention from Mount Olivet And which is also most demonstrable by his discent from Heaven to the Aire when he spoke to and was seen of Paul in the way to Damascus which without doubt was a personal not a visional appearance since the Apostle adds that to his other personal appearances saying last of all he was seen of me which had not it been real had been but a slender proof of our Saviours Resurrection To which end he there vouches it As our Souls are now like the Angels yea Angels in the Flesh so then our Bodies as to this Spiritual quality shall be raised like our Souls That so their future union may be lasting and compleat and this Marriage may continue and be indissolveable In which respect the Apostle saith they shall be raised not only spiritual but heavenly bodies as fitted to dwell in that place which for the matter Philosophers call a Quint-essence far more refined than any or all the four Elements and which the Scripture calls the Heaven of Heavens and the Inheritance of the Saints in light O my Soul shall thy Body at that great change and resurrection of the just be raised heavenly and spiritual like the body of our Lord be pure as the Essence of Angels as speedy and quick as to motion as the lightning and fitted to inhabit Heaven Have a high value and esteem of it and make not this Vessel of honour by sinning a Vessel of dishonour the Members of Christ the Members of a Harlot the Image of God and Christ the Image of Sathan the Temple of the Holy Ghost a Stie yea
bottomless Pit of Hell Death and Sin out of which eternal love in Christ free grace and infinite mercy hath taken thee Call upon and bless God for this infinite depth of mercy Yea exalt and magnify the height and depth the breadth and length of this love which passeth knowledge O my Soul the mighty Angels leaving their first state as ambitiously seeking a greater as the learned conceive were cast down for their pride and discontentedness from the highest Heaven into the deepest abyss of Hell And our first Parents for the like ambition and desire of bettering their condition were cast out of Paradise From which examples I have reason to think should Man have had a thought or design of or by himself to be possest of so glorious a life prerogative state and condition as our gracious God hath freely given us in Christ It had been so high and unwarrantable a sin and ambition as would have justly deserved as great a curse and punishment O from this experience of infinite love for God is love pray incessantly in return thereof not only to be enlarged and raised to the highest and greatest love and thankfulness that a Creature can be made capable of But that thou mayest hence-forth have no will but his which shall be thy great wisdome in all things submitting all thou hast and thy whole Man solely to his most gracious and All-wise dispose whose free gifts bounty and unconceivable liberality are not such as Creatures bestow on their favourites but such as becomes the Majesty and immensness of a God who gives to his Saints benefits and blessings temporal spiritual and eternal not only above their prayers hopes and expectations but as the Apostle expresses above what we can either ask or think O my Soul shall thy body be incorruptible and immortal defile it not with lust any more neither let sin abound because grace hath abounded Since thou must know that thy incorruptability and immortality must in a true Scripture and spiritual sence begin in this life although they are to be perfected in the next Therefore our Saviour saith He that believeth on him hath everlasting life And the Apostle affirmes that we are made to sit together in Christ in Heavenly places And Saint John declares 1 John 5.12 That he that hath the Son hath life and he that hath not the Son hath not life And blessed Paul affirms If Christ be in us the Body is dead because of sin but the spirit is life because of righteousness Again dost thou live in Christ and Christ in thee Art thou even as to thy body the Habitation and Temple of the Holy Ghost and spiritually and inseparably united to God in Christ and is thy life hid with God in Christ Dally no more with sin for there can be no communion betwixt light and darkness And know this although thou canst not dye eternally yet thy backslidings in wilfull and presumptuous sinnings may through thy Spouse his righteous with-drawing and desertion cast thee into such a swoon and transe that thy life peace and Heaven here may as to thy feeling be turned into emnity death yea and to an Hell upon Earth Give not that subtil destroyer Sathan occasion or advantage by spiritual adulteries and reiterated Rebellions to sue out a divorse in the Court of thy Conscience betwixt thy Spouse and thee For know this that although Whom Christ loves he loves to the end And his gifts and calling are without Repentance and that though thy Husband hath loved thee with an everlasting love yet such a suite will be very troublesome and chargeable and may cost thy Spirit many and unexpressible sighs groans and lamentations And may as it were break thy bones or make thy Body a very Sceleton only fit for a Grave Lastly for as much as the Children of God were partakers of flesh and blood Did the Son of God himself likewise take part of the same that through Death he might destroy him that had the power of Death viz. the Devil to deliver them who through fear of Death were all their life time subject unto bondage And did not take on him the nature of Angels but took on him the Seed of Abraham from which hypostatical union of the two natures in one Person and the union of thy Person to his Person by the Eternal Spirit is given unto thee eternal life in a far higher and more excellent way and manner than to the Elect Angels Did the Lord of Heaven and Earth the Heir of all things not only marry himself to thy nature but also unto thee For I am married unto you saith the Lord in the Prophet and is the honourable Ordinance of Marriage therefore called by the Apostle a great Mystery because even in Eves formation and in its first Institution it was to be a Type and lively Figure of this thy spiritual Marriage and union to the second Adam Hast thou through infinite mercy received assurance hereof that thou art thy Beloveds and that thy Beloved is thine Is the Marriage Day and Supper appointed and declared and in the interim hast thou an Espousal contract subscribed to by thy faith and by his Spirit O be exceeding watchfull and carefull of offending such a loving Spouse and glorious Bridegroom by any sinfull relapses and backslidings into any sin that may move him to jealousie For as jealousie is the rage of a Man so the anger and jealousie of thy God is said to burn like Fire against such unfaithfull and spiritual Adulteresses O as thou tenderest the love of thy God and of thy Spouse and thy peace of Conscience and thy Heaven upon Earth venture not to blot or blur so blessed an assurance and evidence of thy Eternal happiness union and life in him by sin or any presumptuous iniquity and rebellion Nor to crust it over by customary sinning or delay of repentance But by an holy chast and religious walking Keep it so fair written and legible that all other Saints but principly thy self at all times but especially in the time of trouble temptation and hour of death may read it Then though thy Eye-strings are broken the eye of thy faith shall behold it and see thy Name written in Heaven and in the Lambs Book of Life O blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ who art the Resurrection and the Life and hast declared in thy Word of Truth that this my vile Body shall be raised and made a Heavenly and spiritual Body like to thine give me to behold this wonderfull change continually by faith the eye of my Soul then shall I not be abashed or dismayed at the baldness and gray-headedness of old age at my hollow Eyes wrinckled Cheeks blindness deafness my toothless Gums and pale countenance nor at the Palsiness lameness and decrepitness of my Hands Feet and
of Faith As an Introduction and substraction to what followes I shall premise First according to Scripture as hath been shewed Job chap. 19.25 That the same Bodies shall be raised that the Saints lived in here upon Earth as to their substance If so then the same parts members and senses shall then be raised and have a being also of which the Body consists and without which the Body is imperfect and incompleat and cannot be truly said to be the same Body Secondly that if necessarily and certainly they shall then have an existence in the Body then without doubt they must be for some most noble use and end For this is both a Scriptural and Natural Maxime That God and Nature made nothing in vain Yea the Scripture is cleer and express as to the glorious employment of some of them in this Heavenly life as of our Eyes and Eares as shall be shewed hereafter What reason then is there that we should exclude the exercise of the other Thirdly it is cleer and manifest that the glorified Soul when again united to the glorified Body shall not then act singly and by it self but organically as now it doth in and with the Body as having its seat and operation as to the understanding will and memorative faculties in the head and brain and as to the concupiscential appetite and affections in the heart and as to its external Instrument of expression and manifesting it self and mind to God Men and Angels in praises or otherwise it shall be with the Tongue as is proved by the discourse betwixt our Saviour and Moses and Elias and from many places in the Revelations and other Scriptures So also the Soul shall make use of the Feet to walk with although the whole Body as hath been shewed like the Wheels in Ezekiel's Vision shall swiftly descend or ascend according to the will and motion of the Spirit or Soul within them I say then it s now most truly as properly said that not the Body but our Souls in our Bodies see hear tast feel and smell Can it be rationally believed that the body that shall be raised in perfection shall be deprived of either the being or use of any one of its senses that the Soul should in respect of the want of them be less perfect in glory than it was in its state of misery yea be deprived of those actings or senses by its re-union to the body which it made use of in glory before its re-entry into the body Angels and therefore Souls after their manner have their seeing hearing feeling smelling and tasting when they took bodies and eat with Abraham Which senses they make use of at other times also for ought we know or are taught in Gods Word to the contrary The Scripture-allusion when it calls the Israelites Manna Angels food making more for it than against it as also when it saith that some things as wise Observers know yea many things on Earth are figures and patterns of things above in the Heavens from all which I conclude that should not the Soul re-united to the body have organically the use of all the senses it would be in that respect not so perfect in the glorified body as when it was in the corruptible body and streightned and deprived of so much of its freedome excellency and activity as it had and doth without doubt exercise as to most of the senses in the state of Glory before its re-union Fourthly if at the Resurrection of the just the glorified Saints shall then enter into the joy of their Lord and into their first degree of Glory and shall Raign as Kings and Priests with our Lord Jesus Christ personally upon the renewed Earth which he will then create according to his promise And if it be more than probable that the old furniture being all consumed the face and superficies of the Earth and Rivers for there shall be no Sea shall be beautified and adorned anew with such several kinds of vegetative and sensitive Creatures as shall be for the delight and benefit of the glorified Saints All which Creatures shall be new made and produced as they were in the first Creation out of the several refined and incorruptible Elements that so they may have a possibility if God please like them to be everlasting and be delivered from the curse vanity and bondage of Corruption that the first Adams sin had though unwillingly subjected them to into the glorious liberty of the Children of God by the second Adam the Lord Jesus Christ the restorer of all things lost by the first unto their primitive though far better condition And if so shall the great glory goodness wisdome and other excellencies of Christ declared and held forth in the sweet-smelling Aire and in the odoriferous and most rare perfumes breathed forth as being an Elixa compared with what they were from Spice and fruit-bearing Trees Plants and Flowers be clouded and as it were lost for want of the sense of smelling to conveigh them to the understanding that so it and the whole Man may therefore and in these his wondrous works praise adore admire and worship God especially since at this time this so greatly heightned and meliorated Book of Nature shall be a glorious if not the Scriptures being now fulfilled the only Book of God Again shall the new Wine spoken of by our blessed Saviour in the Kingdome of God and the promise of eating and drinking with him at his Table in his Kingdome The Tree of Life the sweet Springs Chrystal Rivers and Waters of Life or living Waters for so Springs are called spoken of and alluded to in the 22. of the Revelations and in many other Scriptures wherein I exclude not high and mysterious Allegories also to be held forth I say shall these be in vain and signify nothing Shall also all those most mellifluous Roots Fruits and Plants that in this blessed and new-birth of things shall be delivered from corruption and therefore shall not as now they do defile the body and turn into putrifaction nor leave after all the Concoctions of Nature a remainder of stinking dregs which since Sin Nature by an instinct of self-preservation is forced to expulse and exonerate it self off shall they I say want this pleasing and distinguishing sense of tasting to glorify all the attributes and wonderfull name of God in the use benefit and enjoyment of them If the delight and use of this and all other of the senses now is not only lawfull but commanded and the Saints may and do greatly glorify God in the fruition of them And these delighâ—â— are only in a Scripture-sence become sinfull and sensual to the wicked whose sin and mixture of corruption adulterates defiles and turns the use and exercise of the senses upon their several objects or subjects into sin shall they not be much more usefull and necessary to the Saints
glorified in their sinless condition when the whole Soul Body Members and Senses shall all co-operate in their several functions and offices to Gods great glory and their own Further it is not improbable that although the Root Fountain Confirmation and Eternity of the Saints life flowes primarily from their spiritual union and communion with God in Christ yet as a medium or a secondary and natural means for our God is Natura Naturans this way as it was and should have been made use of in Paradise may be still continued to nourish delight and be subservient as the Rain is to the Plants although the Earth is their great Mother to Eternal Life in the Saints And such no doubt was the Tree of Life not excluding it to be of a Sacramental nature also to our first Parents before their Fall All which is evident from the reason God gives of their speedy exclusion from their continuance or return into Paradise to eat thereof Lest they should eat thereof and live for ever Now that Paradise was a Figure and Pattern none I conceive will deny this of the Saints unto which the Lord Jesus was sent to restore us Although this is much better and higher as to the degrees of our happiness and condition by how much the second Adam and publick head of the Saints is much higher and more excellent than the first Adam or common Head and Root of Man-kind Fifthly if no use of the sense of gust or tasting or that in this our glorified state in the new Heaven and the new Earth there shall be no eating or drinking For I presume not to give here any judgment as to the exercise of these two senses of tasting and smelling in the highest degree of the Saints Glory in the Heaven of Heavens when the Mediatory Kingdome of Christ shall have an end and shall be delivered up to God the Father that God may be All in All I having much less light from Scripture or reason probably to know or guess what shall be the exercise and object of these senses in those super-excelling and glorious Regions than in this new Earth which is to be renewed and restored to us by our Lord Jesus the second Adam I say if the Saints glorified shall not eat nor drink in that new Heaven and Earth what shall become of or what use shall be made of most of the internal Members or parts of the Body Of which as to their most excellent frame great number and use skilfull Anatomists have written large Volumes to the glory of the wisdome power and work of God in them Shall the glorified Bodies be like an empty Trunck void of a stomack liver guts bowels bladder and the rest If so as it is contrary to the Scripture which saith The same Bodies shall be raised which includes all the internal as well as the external parts of the Body so what use shall be made of these of the Teeth and the rest if there be no eating or drinking nor employment of them as a natural and secondary means still ordained of God for the nourishment and continuation of a healthfull and equal temperament called by Philosophers Temperamentum ad pondus aequale and as for the everlasting Well-being of the Body Sixthly It is a Maxime in nature and made good by experience that all animate and compounded Creatures on Earth are nourished and preserved in their being by feeding upon such things as are compounded of the like Elements of the which they partake And is it not more than probable that the Saints glorified bodies the time they continue on the renewed Earth shall as by a natural and middle way be delighted nourisht preserved and continued as to their Bodies by drinking the simple and refined Water and juices of the Vine and other the then incorruptible fruits as before in Paradise And by eating the super-excelling fruits Plants and Roots the subject of our Fathers nourishment before Noah's Flood being a mixture and composition even of the same repurged matter and Elements of which our new-raised and glorified bodies consist may therefore both in reason and nature God according to his former Method so ordaining it be most proper and subservient to the end afore-mentioned Which end being finisht these compounded substances being in the body as in a limbeck separated may by insensible transpiration or otherways revert each part of them again to its proper Element and by a circulation as now without annihilation continue and preserve the being of the whole new Heaven and new Earth without the least diminution But it may be objected that our blessed Saviour declares in his answer to the Sadduces that the glorified Saints shall at the Resurrection be as and equal to the Angels but the Angels neither eat nor drink To which objection I give this double answer that first he saith not we shall be like but as and equal to the Angel And besides it is unknown to us as I said before how their life and being is continued and preserved We know they live and believe they shall live ever and that they are spiritual substances but what their formes are whether they can be circumscrib'd as our Bodies are or only defined to be in such or such a place this is discoursed of but not ascertained The curious learned yea some possibly too curious have in their writings affirmed that they have conversed seen and spoken with Angels That they have bodies although so spiritual and like the light that they cannot be seen but when they please themselves and that they have a nourishment conducing to their being of an etherial nature connatural and agreeable to their spiritual substances From all which I infer that unless our Saviours expression that we shall be like the Angels or any other Scripture had excluded the Angels from eating or drinking or receiving any nourishment by which in their manner their substances are refreshed and continued for nothing but God subsists of it self and from its self the Angels may be nourished as aforesaid And as for seeing hearing and touching the Scripture testifie the Angels exercise them all although in a more excellent manner than we do That expression of our Saviour yee shall be like the Angels excludes not nor proves any thing against the eating or drinking of the glorified Saints during their abode in the new Heaven and the new Earth My second answer is that this speech of our blessed Lord is a proper full and positive answer to the question of the Sadduces whose Wife should the Woman be that had seven Husbands at the Resurrection That since the Saints then shall neither marry nor be given in marriage but shall in that respect be like the Angels that their invincible Argument as they conceived it was void and proved nothing against the Doctrine of the Resurrection Therefore it is to be limited and restrained and not to be extended as to exclude the
eating and drinking of the glorified Saints which was not at all in the question For if so it may be brought as well to prove that they shall in all things else be like the Angels which I humbly conceive no Man will or hath asserted since in many things were it proper to be treated of upon this subject I could shew a manifold difference betwixt the Angels and the glorified Saints This being sufficient and a clear and full answer to that objection I shall now proceed to speak more particularly although very succinctly as having in the six foregoing reasons or preliminaries spoken more than I intended and given sufficient satisfaction to my self and I hope to others both from Scripture and reason as to this Subject First as to the sight or sense of Seeing the Eye although by Oculists Naturalists and Anatomists it is now placed in the first rank of the bodies parts or members as a subject wherein the most excellent and wonderfull wisdome of God is greatly manifested and that not only as in respect of its curious fabrick but admirable way and manner of conveighing and representing objects to the Soul whether Extra or intra mittendo or by both is not my work now to dispute or determine yet then it shall as to its optick use and faculty be much more wonderfully bettered heighthned and enlarged and that first as to its objects Now the best Eye cannot immediately behold the Sun shining in its brightness any time with fixedness without twinckling trouble and danger of blindness and as though it was asham'd of its weakness is presently vailed with a tear Now a Daniel an Ezekiel cannot look upon or behold an Angel without astonishment and falling to the ground upon their faces as being not able to behold their created glory But after the Resurrection we shall with these Eyes as Job speaks not only behold the glorified Saints that shine as the Sun and are as so many millions of Suns but the glorious Angels and our Redeemer the Lord Jesus Christ the brightest Sun of righteousness and shall see God as he is yea we shall see him face to face and live This is that everlasting and glorious beatifical Vision of Father Son and Holy Ghost the for ever blessed Trinity in Unity and Unity in Trinity so much spoken of by the ancient Fathers in which as in a most bright cleer mirror the Saints shall behold their Eyes being herein assistants to their Souls all things God is pleased to reveal and so far as a created nature is capable of past and present and to come As also the natures virtues and qualities of all the Creatures not as now by their effects but in their cause Idea and truth yea the high and deep things of God The second excellency of this glorified sense of sight as to its strength in respect of objects that are far distant is That whereas now our Eyes without the help of Perspective-Glasses cannot discern or clearly distinguish and inform us of the things upon Earth some few miles off and are much inferiour to Eagles and Vultures of whom Naturalists report That when by high flying they are so lessened as not to be discerned by our Eyes yet they can behold a little quarry upon the ground and their prey although many miles distant from them and that now through the imbecility and weakness of our sight in a clear day we judge the skie to be of an azure colour whereas truly it hath no colour but is only so represented being only by a vaster distance and the intermediate Aire enlightened by the Sun and that distance beyond the extent of our weak Eyes upon the level of the Earth seems to be dark or black But hereafter at the Resurrection the Eye being the Instrument and Organ through and by which the Soul beholds all things shall be so strengthened that it shall thereby behold things very far distant Else it should lose by union with the body that excellency of sight it had as a Spirit before it re-entred into the Body It being clear and evident that the Angels and Spirits excell all other living Creatures as to the activity and extent of seeing That evil spirit the Devil being able to behold and represent to our blessed Saviour from the top of a high Mountain all the Kingdomes of the World that is of that Hemisphere and semi-circle of the Earth and the glory of them a most vast view and prospect so also the Angel of God called unto Hagar and afterwards to Abraham out of Heaven A third admirable excellency of the Eye glorified is the wonderfull life and beauty of it Now it is the chief Ornament and grace of the Face in Men or Women but then it shall super-excell what it is now as much as the Eye of a living Man transcends the Eye of one that is dead Which life splendor and beauty doth not only proceed from the glorification of the Eye as apart and member of the glorified body but from those spirit-full and sparkling rayes sent forth from the within glorious Souls which like the Sun-beams shining through and upon the purest Chrystal shall cause the Eye to shine with a most delightfull and unexpressible radiancy and splendor much like to that wonderfull and visional appearance of our Head and sample the Lord Jesus to Saint John of whom it is written That his Eyes were as a Flame of Fire O my Soul shall thy sence of seeing attain to such a height of perfection as to be able not only to behold glorified Saints and Angels but the much more resplendent face of thy glorious Saviour yea of God himself shall it be so greatly fortified as to surveigh like the Angels things remotely distant shall thy eyes be so beautifull and radiant as to shine and sparkle like the Stars of the first magnitude O resolve and endeavour by the assistance of Gods free grace not to vassalage and debase them by beholding Earthly vanities much less to make use and imploy them as the Pandors of Sathan and the Dung-ports of sinfull lusts and lasciviousness like the Men of this World Whose Eyes are full of Adultery and uncleanness But let them according to the end for which they were created be wholly employed in beholding and admiring the glory of God in his wonderfull works held forth in the bright-shining Stars and Planets and in the splendor of the Moon and Sun Let them be also helpfull Instruments to conveigh unto thee continual matter of praise and admiration as to the wisdome of thy Creator in the consideration and meditation not only as to the excellent and universal frame of Heaven and Earth but as to the great variety and beauty of each particular Creature so shall this their Heavenly and holy exercise prepare thee and them for a greater measure of perfect Glory O blessed Spouse and dear Saviour who hast said to thy Church
but such as shall be exceeding ravishing and delightfull and as Musick to the Soul even such unspeakable words as blessed Paul heard when he was caught up into Paradise Then shall we being placed in glory at the right hand of our righteous King and Saviour hear with boldness and without fear or astonishment that most joyfull sentence Come yee blessed of my Father inherit the Kingdome prepared for you from the foundation of the World Then shall we hear that great voice of God the Father who sits upon the Throne saying Behold I make all things new the Tabernacle of God is with Men and he will dwell with them and they shall be his People and God himself shall be with them and be their God Then shall these words which are faithfull and true be fulfilled God shall wipe away all teares from their Eyes and there shall be no more death neither sorrow nor crying neither shall there be any more pain for the former things are passed away I am Alpha and Omega the beginning and the end I will give unto him that is athirst of the Fountain of the Water of Life freely he that overcometh shall inherit all things and I will be his God and he shall be my Son To conclude I shall not say any thing as to the Musick of the Sphears as esteeming them to be only groundless dreams and phantasies of Heathens and Phylosophers I humbly conceive that as far as the glorious Heavens and Angels transcend and excells the nâ—w Earth and the Inhabitants thereof so far shall the ravishing and musical voices and sounds in this glorified state of the Saints excell all the pleasures and delights of this kind in this our low and corruptible condition O my Soul shall the sense of Hearing in the next life be as comprehensive and perfect in its kinde as the sense of Sight Shall it be made capable not only of Hearing and that with understanding also the Musick of Heaven the all-ravishing Hymns the mellifluous speech and voices of Angels the Language of Glory as also to hear him whose voice is as a Trumpet and as the noise of many Waters of him who is the Judge of Heaven and Earth the King of Kings the King of Saints and the King of Nations the Eternal Word the Lord Jesus Christ God-Man blessed for ever Yea shalt thou then O my Soul by the assistance of this glorified sense hear not as now the dreadfull and killing but the all delighting reviving exalting and transporting voice of the ever glorious Trinity even of the Eternal God Himself O let not this so excellent and usefull a sense be deboist so much as to be the Gate or in-let of vain and unprofitable discourses of wanton and lascivious words or of any kind of false slanderous or evil speeches all which are as so many Traytors to thee and Enemies unto thy God and Soveraign Nor let thy Eares be â—urfeited and excessively glutted with any kind of earthly Musick or with the pleasing sounds or voices of any of thy fellow-Creatures which although lawfull delightfull and refreshing to the natural and animal Spirits as being neer a Kin to them yet by the subtilty of Sathan the World and thy Flesh do frequently become snares and an undiscernable flattering and therefore the more dangerous Enemy and means to pollute thee with sin or to introduce some kind of fleshly lust or other But begin even now O my Soul to exercise every sense and member upon such objects and in such employments and actings as come neerest to those of Angels and glorified Saints This is to make this Earth a Paradise and to have even whilst thou art in this World as the Apostle exhorts thy conversation in Heaven To this end let thy delight be with holy David in the converse of the excellent ones upon Earth yea watch dayly at the Gates of Wisdome and wait at the Posts of her Doors yea with attention hang upon the Lips of her Teachers Be much in the exercises of the Church Tryumphant in praising God in the Assemblies of his Saints in Psalms and Hymns and spiritual Songs singing with grace and making Melody in your heart So shalt thou O my Soul by a sanctified spiritual and internal sense heâ—e frequently even in this thy state of humiliation the counsels and instructions of blessed Angels the voice of God and of his holy Spirit viz. thy Father and Comforter behind thee saying This is the way walk thou in it And the loving expressions and invitations of thy most sweet and gracious Spouse and Saviour who standing behind the Wall of thy Flesh and looking forth at the Windowes of several Providences and shewing himself through the Lattess of thy intervening and impeding weakness and infirmity will often speak unto thee saying Arise up my love my fair one and come away For loe the Winter is past of thy doubts fears sufferings and temptations The rain of thy teares and mourning is over and gone The Flowers of my saving gifts which evidence the Spring of my Grace appears on the Earth of thy renewed nature The time of the singing of Birds the earnest and witness of my Spirit and of thy conscience assuring thee of my love and salvation is come and the voice of me the true Turtle is heard in the Land even in thy Soul my Habitation The Figg-Tree putteth forth her green Figges and the Vines with the tender Grapes give a good smell viz. thou art fruitfull in all holy and good works Now therefore arise my love my fair one and come away and inherit the Kingdome prepared for thee before the Foundation of the World O my gracious Lord and Saviour who when thou wert upon Earth in the zeal of thy Spirit cryed out unto thy Auditors He that hath Eares to hear let him hear and didst declare and expound the Words of thy Prophet That there should be many that hear but understand not intimating to us thereby that there is a spiritual and internal sense of hearing that many want that have the bodily sence and Organ O thou which openedst the heart of Lidia as well as her Eares when she gave attention to Paul's preaching and said to the deaf Man in the Gospel Ephtata and his Eares were opened give me an understanding Eare as well as thou hast given me an Ear of Flesh that I may both hear and understand know and obey thy will declared unto me by the Ministers of thy Word Yea let my Eares be always open to receive entertain and retain the holy instructions consolations reproofes and encouragementâ— of any of thy faithfull Servants and my fellow-members and Brethren But let them through thy grace be turned away sealed up and guarded against the Syrene Songs of all Sin and Sinners And if by force or surpriâ—e oaths curâ—ing lying slandering blasphemies vain
lascivious or any other evil speeches enter let my heart and Tongue hate scourge and execute thy Law upon them by a zealous and holy reproof if the Speakers be not Dogs or Swine giving them a pass and sending thâ—â— packing O blessed Lord let not the delightfull sounds of Musick nor the natural or artificial pleasing voices of any Creature be thy rival steal away in the least my time or heart from thee Nor let me with the Whore of Babylon and her Imitators carnally legally and only outwardly give thee an unwarrantable and un-Gospel-like Ear and service without my understanding and without my heart But give me to joyn with and delight to hear the Musick of the lower Heaven the Songs Psalmes and praisings of thee in the Congregations of the Saints That being trained up to have a Childs place in this blessed Chore upon Earth I may be fitted and preferred to have a Man's place in the glorious Quire of Saints and Angels in Heaven O Lord let me I beseech thee not only externally but internally hear thy voice for it is sweet that my Soul may be inwardly acquainted with the Dialect of Heaven so shall my Soul speak and answer thee in the same Angel-like Language in mental and Ejaculatory Prayers and praises here a service not only required but most acceptable to thee and with Ear and Heart hereafter hear thee and return unto thee in Soul and Body praises and glorify thee Eternally in the Heavens Amen Having in the six foregoing preliminaries in all humility declared my Opinion answered the chief objections and given the reason and ground thereof both from Scripture and the light of Nature As also shewed the necessary happy and spiritual use and end of the Saints exercise of all the Five Senses as tending much more to the glory of God and the increase of their innocent and spiritual delight compleat happiness and blessedness both in Soul and Body in that their glorified state I shall not need to add much more as concerning the sense of Tasting which undoubtedly shall as well as that of Seeing and Hearing be much meliorated and heightned in this life of Glory It being cleerly evident and agreeable to right reason that as the objects and subjects upon which this Sense shall be frequently exercised be they things potable as Waters Juices and Liquors or things edible as Roots Flowers Plants Hearbs and Fruits shall much excell not only in their powers vertues and beauty but also in their juice and relish the choicest of that kind now in being as hath been formerly evinced and illustrated by reason of their new birth and incorruptible nature so shall our senses and particularly this of the Taste be wonderfully enlarged and raised and proportionably fitted and enabled accurately to distinguish and discern of the different and innumerable excellencies as to their taste by which even now a skilfull Naturalist can give a right judgment as to their vertues of such a multitude of simples and individuals that so by the exquisitness of this sense our Souls and Bodies may not only be made the more happy and blessed but delighted in the use of Gods good Creatures as the medium and conveighance of nourishment ordained of God as formerly in Mans innocency to be usefull and subservient although not absolutely necessary to our glorious and Eternal Life we having a far more virtual and higher Root of Life for our life is hid in Christ with God And also that by the testimony of this sense both Soul and Body may be the more enlarged and lifted up in the praises admiration and adoration of the wisdome power mercy and goodness of our God the Creator giver and free restorer of such manifold and wonderfull blessings in and by his Eternally begotten and only beloved Son our Head and Spouse the Lord Jesus Christ. As for the killing or eating of the Flesh of any of the sensible Creatures I humbly conceive and that upon good grounds there shall not then be any such use of them they being now made incorruptible and in their nature as everlasting as the Elements out of which they are taken and so shall continue by vertue of this new Creation so long as it pleaseth God The food of the Saints in this new Earth being only a lightning and exonerating the fruit-bearing vegitives that so they may be continually bringing forth new harvests to the glory of their Creator not a bringing in bondage or unto destruction any of the Creatures now delivered and admitted to enjoy the glorious liberty of the Children of God This blessed state being as it were Paradise revived a new Creation and restauration of all things in this new Heaven and new Earth by the obedience merit and righteousness of our Lord Jesus Christ the second Adam although much more transcending of what was lost by the fall sin and disobedience of the first Adam That last Paradise being intended in the Eternal wisdome and decree of God as I humbly conceive and seems to me now to be clearly manifested to be but the Type shaddow and figure of this all things being made by and for him who is the Heir of all things the Head and Spouse of his Church the first-fruits of them that sleep the beginning and the first-born from the dead and the first-born of every Creature and the beginning of the Creation of God I shall now conclude this subject with this monition to all true Christians not to suppose or dream here of the Poets Elysian Field or of a Turkish Paradise in this glorious state nor to be so sinfully carnal as to imagine that the sinless Souls and Bodies of the new raised and glorified Saints either shall or can abuse this Sense by any excess and make it instrumental as now to sensuality gluttony and drunkenness nor on the other extream let no Christian be so unbelievingly spiritual as contrary to Scripture that affirms the same Bodies shall be raised to deny what it asserts as an object of our faith nor so absurd and irrational as the Papists in their Doctrine of Transubstantiation to deny to our Bodies raised the properties parts and senses of which a true Body subsists thereby to destroy the true nature and essence of the Body all that are truly Saints being practically and experimentally assured that if in this life wherein we are incompast about with a Body of Sin and Death this sense and the rest may be and is spiritually made use of by us in the enjoyment of Gods good Creatures to his great praise and admiration then much more will they be beneficial and He be honoured in them by us in that our sinless condition and life of Glory O my Soul shall thy sense of Tasting be not only retained but exceedingly perfected greatly enlarged and elevated at thy Bodies Resurrection and glorious living with thy Head the Lord Jesus Christ upon the renewed Earth Shalt thou eat
excessive idle and inordinate use of the Down-beds of England of the hot Springs of Bathe of the fresh but wanton Aire of Hide-Park of the cool Baths and Aquaducts of Italy Remember that antient but true Proverb Latet anguis in Herba made good literally and vitiously in the Egyptian Cleopatra whose lusts even her unclean and immoderate indulging of this sense procured her Soul and Bodies destruction O my Soul let this sense fulfill the end for which it was made and become as before hath been observed thy Instrument and diligent Investigator to inquire into the wonders and bounty of God in the Elements other natural things and in all thy enjoyments That in the pleasing and sober exercise of this sense both thy body may be delighted and thou maist be assisted and instructed therefrom to glorify thy great and good God in all his mercies and attributes and in all thy liberal fruitions so shalt thou be like the blessed Angels who by their spiritual sense beholding and apprehending God in all his works are thereby inlarged and unwearied in his praises and be also a Companion with them hereafter in their Heavenly Hallelujahs and Coelestial Glory O Lord my God and Saviour who hath said in thy Word which Word is truth Behold I make all things new fulfill that promisary Word I beseech thee in me renew both my Soul and Body that this sense of senses this universal sense that possesses every part and member may not seem to be alive and yet not alive as being by nature and from my birth taken with and under a dead Palsie of Sin and in danger to be made past feeling through customary offending and the frequent stroaks and sharp launcings of thy Judgments the gnawings and bitings of Conscience and of my dangerous condition Is there no Balme in Gilead Is there no Physician there Lord Jesus thou alone art my Physician thou hast undertaken my Cure thou hast begun it and wilt certainly perfect it For thou art the Author and finisher of my Faith a God of perfection and immutable therefore thy Gifts and Calling are without Repentance O be thou graciously pleased to wash both Soul and Body in that Fountain opened in the House of David for Sin and for Vncleanness even in thy own most precious healing and purifying blood For thy blood O Lord Jesus Christ cleanseth from all sin and iniquity and that not only from the guilt as to Gods divine justice But from the filth of sin this my body of death and corrupt Lusts so shall I have a pure tender and feeling Conscience to avoid and eschew all evil and the like Sense of Feeling in my Body shall be so sanctified and regulated by it that neither costly pride nor penurious covetousness lustfull and itching concupiscence wastfull voluptuousness nor deceivable vanity shall vitiate corrupt or disorder it O my Lord since thou hast made a firme Covenant with me in Baptisme even an everlasting Covenant the sure mercies of David and hast contracted thy self to me in the Communion of thy Body and Blood I will now presume to say as thy Spirit hath taught me My Beloved is mine and I am his Kiss me with the kisses of thy Mouth for thy love is better than Wine Bring me into thy Banquetting-house and let thy Banner over me be love Stay me with Flaggons comfort me with Apples for I am sick of love let thy left Hand be under my Head and let thy right hand imbrace me Now I have found thee whom my Soul loveth I will hold thee and will not let thee go O set me as a Seal upon thy Heart as a Seal upon thy Arme so my love in thy strength is as strong as death Many Waters through thy grace shall not nor can quench my love neither can the Floods of Tentations Tribulations and Persecutions for thy sake drown it O let me be in thy Eyes as one that hath found favour so shall this Sense my Touch be spiritualiz'd by thee here and glorified with thee hereafter and be the Hand-maid and assistant to my Soul to distinguish and discover unto her thy bounty and goodness and all other thy excellencies in thy wonderfull works in nature and cease to be as in its unregenerate state a Pander to lust and Sathan For the works of the Flesh are Adultery Fornication Vncleanness Lasciviousness and without the new Jerusalem are Dogs and Whoremongers Lord do thou touch me with the Finger of thy sanctifying Spirit and let me lay hold and imbrace thee in the Armes of Faith and love and then this bodily sense shall be so metamorphosed by such a union and communion with thee that it shall be a real augmentation of my happiness and delight in this life and through thy free grace who proportionably rewards thy Saints receive from thee by the holy exercise of it here at the Resurrection an answerable increase of Glory Amen Having through Gods gracious assistance although in much weakness meditated and discoursed of the glorification of the Five Senses I shall conclude with the blessed and excellent use and exercise of the Tongue under which I comprehend the voice and articulate speech at our Resurrection in Glory which although not numbered amongst the Senses yet is not inferiour but transcends them all as being the Souls Orator and Interpreter to the glory of God of what is seen heard tasted smelt or touched by us And therefore it is styled by David His Glory as being that sweet and most melodious Instrument that utters and declares the wonderous works of God to his great praise and honour which is the principal end of our Creation Redemption and Glorification To this member I annex as necessary assistants the Aire Lips Teeth Throat and Lungs And as to the Speech Language or Dialect solely to be used by all the Saints at the Resurrection I humbly conceive it shall be the Primitive Hebrew Tongue as being certainly the Original Language of Adam in the Creation and before his Fall when he gave names to the Creatures according to their natures and in which God spake unto him and therefore is to be restored to us by Christ the second Adam The rise of all other Languages being a curse punishment and an effect of sin in their Original and the confusion at the building of the Tower of Babel Besides this Tongue had the great and special honour to be the Language of the Holy Ghost in the old Testament and in St. Matthew's Gospel and of our blessed Saviour the Eternal Word of God and of the blessed Angels in all their several missions and appearances throughout the Book of God So that in fine this Tongue hath the priviledge and prerogative of all other Languages and may be called the Language of the glorious Trinity Holy Angels and inspired Saints and Prophets yea the Language of Heaven I proceed next to the
Millions of glorified Saints and Angels to sound forth and speak of to one another the wonderfull works and providences of God past present and to come divulged in the large Mapps of our Creation Redemption and Glorification to his continual and everlasting praise and glory Shall it be a principal Engine and Actor as to that Office and Government thou shalt be placed in amongst thy fellow Saints in this glorious and universal Empire of the Lord Jesus raigning Personally as King and Mediator in this his Mediatory Kingdome upon the renewed Earth Yea lastly shall it be the Expressor of all thy Orders and Commands in the Execution of thy restored Dominion over the terrene and inferiour Creatures O with holy David that now glorified Saint Set a watch over thy Lips that thou offend not with thy Tongue and remember that authentick Declaration of thy Judge Lord and Saviour By thy words thou shalt be justified and by thy words thou shalt be condemned and that of every idle word thou shalt give an accompt at the Day of Judgment Because out of the abundance of wickedness that is within the Heart the Mouth speaketh If any Man saith St. James offend not in word the same is a perfect Man and able also to bridle the whole Body Behold saith the same Apostle we put Bits into the Horses mouths that they may obey us and we turn about their whole Body Behold also the Ships which though they 〈◊〉 so great and are driven of fierce Winds yet are they twined about with a very small Helme whether so ever the Governor listeth Even so the Tongue is a little member and boasteth great things Behold how great a matter a little Fire kindleth And the Tongue is a Fire a World of iniquity so is the Tongue amongst our Members that it defileth the whole Body and setteth on Fire the course of nature And it is set on Fire of Hell For every kind of Beasts and of Birds and of Serpents and the things in the Sea is tamed and hath been tamed of Mankinde But the Tongue can no Man tame it is an unruly evil full of deadly poyson Therewith bless we God even the Father and therewith curse we Men which are made after the similitude of God shall out of the same Mouth proceed blessing and cursing O my Soul these things ought not so to be Doth a Fountain send forth at the same place sweet and bitter Can the Figg-Tree O my Soul bear Olive-Berries either a Vine Figgs so can no Fountain both yield salt Water and fresh Therefore If any Man seem to be religious and bridleth not his Tongue but deceiveth his own Heart this Mans Religion is vain Speak evil of no Man Let no corrupt communication proceed out of thy Mouth but that which is good to the use of edifying that it may minister grace to the Hearers Neither filthiness nor foolish talking nor jesting which are not convenient but rather giving of thanks Since evil Communications corrupt good Manners O my Soul is cursing swearing vain wanton and evil-speaking the Rant and Garb of the wicked yâ—â— the Language of Hell And is holy and a religious discourse and communication the Character and Dialâ—â—t of Saints upon Earth and praises and thanksgiving the exercise of the Spirits of just Men made perfect and of the glorious Angels Yea the Language of Heaven O let not thy Tongue learn or speak the Language of Ashdod but of Canaan not the blasphemous roaringâ— of the Devils and the damned but the sweet Anthemâ— of the Saints and Angels Yea begin thy Heaven upon Earth and be warbling and tuning this blessed and usefull Instrument thy Tongue to Psalmes Hymns and spiritual Songs singing and making melody in thy Heart to the Lord For it is good to sing praises to our God For it is pleasant and praise is comely O bless the Lord O my Soul and forget not all his benefits who forgiveth all thine iniquities and healeth all thy diseases who redeemeth thy life from destruction who crowneth theâ— with loving kindness and tender mercies who satisfyeth thy Mouth with good things so that thy Youth is renewed like the Eagles O my Soul shall thy Tongue in the next glorious Life be thy Chronologer and Orator to Gods praise before and to thy fellow Saints of Gods works and providences past present and to come O be exercising and conning over thy Lesson in this Life And inâ—uâ—e it here to what it shall do hereafter Say to my friends relations and fellow Christians Come and hear all yee that fear God and I will declare what he hath done for my Soul Yea let thy Tongue be thy glory and as the Tongue of a ready Writer Let thy Mouth speak of wisdome and the Meditation of thy Heart of understanding Remember the Days of old meditate of all Gods works muse on the works of his Hands speak of the might of his terrible acts and declare his greatness Abundantly utter the memory of his great goodness and sing of his righteousness whilst thou livest â—raise the Lord yea sing praises unto thy God whilst thou hast any Beeing O my Soul shall the Saints in this glorious Empire of Christ in the new Heaven and new Earth be all Kings and yet as one â—tar differs from another in glory so they there shall have different degrees of gifts and graces offices and imployments every Vessel being full of grace and glory although of different measures and capacities not ruling or lording it over one another and yet of necessary and excellent use by reason of their various and different gifts manifestations and employments to add an encrease of happiness blessedness and glory to each other a pattern and resemblance of which joynt Kingship under one Head and King the Lord Jesus as was mentioned before is seen 〈◊〉 the natural Body and in the militant and mystical body of Christ The Saints glorified being like so many precious Stones which although of different bigness and value yet being judiciously set by a skilfull 〈◊〉 to radiate one upon other that they add luster each 〈◊〉 other and without any diminution to the worth of any individual Stone serve necessarily to the greater and fuller perfection of the Jewel Will it be thus O my Soul and will thy Tongue be then a principal Actor in this thy most honourable station and vocation Serve thy God with David in thy Generation not hiding any Talent God hath given thee with the slothfull Servant in the Earth Set not thy Candle under a Bushel but upon a Table that it may enlighten the whole House thy Family thy Friends thy fellow-Members yea all except Dogs or Swine that thou conversest with speaking unto them as the Saints no doubt shall do to one another in Glory to edification exhortation and
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-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
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
The Saints peaceable Reign for a Thousand years Page 243 The Translation of the Saints to Heaven Page 246 U. Christs answer to the poor soul complaining of his Understanding Page 7â— A Contemplation upon our Victory by Christ over Honours Covetousness Voluptuousness persecution Page 129 Of the Understanding glorified Page 148 Of Christs Victorious Kingdom Page 242 W. The excellency of the Word Page 1â— The great dependance of the Will on other faculties Page 4â— Against free Will Page 45 The souls complaint against the Will answered by Christ Page 8â— Christs victory over the World Page 11â— The Worlds darts by which it wounds souls Page 11â— Of the Will glorified Page 14â— A Watch to be set upon the Lips Page 238 Twelve Wonderful Works of God to be fulfilled Page 239 Of the raising of the Witnesses Page 23â— X.  Y. The binding of the Devil for a thousand Years Page 241 The Saints peaceable reign for a thousand Years Page â—43 Z. Of Zeal glorified Page 15â— Zeal not a simple grace but the intense degree of every gracâ— Page 156 A soliloquium on glorified Zeal Page 159 An ejaculation and commendation of glorified Zeal Page 159 FINIS Place this before the Scripture-Catechisme at Folio 259 THE EPISTLE TO HIS Entirely beloved Wife and Twelve dear Children and to their Childrens Children until the second coming of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. MOst affectionately indeared Wife and Children one with me by Nature and by Grace who therefore may challenge and lay claim to my especial care love and respects besides the discharge of my duty to God who hath placed you under my circumspection and government and commands my constâ—â—t utmost and unwearied endeavours in order to your Eternal Salvation What my continued pains and frequent watching over you have been whilst I was present with you your selves and the rest of my Family will witness as to Weekly Catechizing Morning and Evening expounding the Holy Scriptures and praying with you besides my constant Repetition of Sermons preparation and particular examination of you on the Lord's Day and Monthly Sacraments and often remembrance of you 〈◊〉 to your Daily exercise of private Prayers reading of the Scriptures and the Works of God's faithful Ministers O let not my above Twenty Years labours be in vain to any one of you â—ay which is far worse be a great aggrevation both of your sin and punishment should ye offend and rebel against so much light and means and neglect so great salvation But most dearly beloved I believe and hope better things of you and things that accompany Salvation although I thus speak And therefore during my above Seven Tears Exile and separation from you I have not ceased to put you in remembrance of your duty to God and to stir you up by Letters to the continuance in well doing since you shall reap Glory and Eternal Life if you faint not but persevere and continue therein constant to the end Witness that large Epistle sent unto you dated from Antwerp January the first 1665. Wherein from the Mouth of our most blessed Saviour as being in a manner all his words you are exhorted to and instructed in what things you are to believe and to practise what you are to imbrace and what to eschew as to grace and vertue and as to vice and error which I earnestly desire you yea charge you as a Husband and a Father to read often over or at least once a Quarter Which were it not all Scripture and through the grace and mercy of God skimmed and digested for your edification I should not by this recommendation have presumed to put so high a value upon it Since which time having by God's gracious assistance finished this Treatise of Faith being destitute of Worldly gifts to bestow up on you That in discharge of my duty to God and to you I may still continue and express my conjugal and paternal affection respectively to the Souls of you all I have directed and dedicated it to you and yours desiring and requiring your frequent and serious perusal of it as being for the subject matter the most sublime and holding forth the glorious knowledge of the only Infinite and most high God and the wonderful and high Mysteries of Man's Salvation as they are manifested in the face of the Lord Jesus Christ who is here lively represented both to the eye and to the exercise of your faith begining with the promise to Adam and Man's fall and misery and proceeding to his Incarnation Life Death and Passion Resurrection and Assension and the exercise of his Three-fold Office as Priest and the Prophet and King with all benefits from them with his Kingdom considered in its several degrees and administrations first as it was legal and spiritual under the Law Secondly purely spiritual under the Gospel Thirdly as it shall be victorious over Sathan and Worldly enemies in this latter Age of the World Fourthly peaceable holy and righteous during the Sabbatisms the Saints Reign a thousand years upon Earth Fifthly glorious after the Resurrection of the Elect and their Reign with Christ personally a Thousand Years upon the renewed Earth Sixthly Judicial begining at Christ's second coming under which the Saints are rewarded and all the wicked raised judged condemned and cast into the Local Hell together with the evil Angels Seventhly Eternally glorious when Christ's Mediatory Kingdom being expired delivered up to the Father that God may be all in all the Saints shall be translated into the highest Heavens that they may there Reign live with God and Christ the Head of the Saints and Angels for ever and for ever As the subject matter hath a preheminence as being a discourse of things most excellent above others the knowledge beliefe and saving application thereof to your souls is of all exercises the most excellent profitable and delightful since without faith and the true knowledge of God in Christ there is no light joy peace rest happiness to your souls here nor in the life to come salvation And to have revealed to you the great misteries and secret counsel of God together with their wonderful products to the end of the World and Scripture-manifestation which are bid from the ungodly but discovered by the light of his Word in the Prophets in and by his spirit to those that fear him is of all speculative knowledge to Christians the most pleasant useful and encouraging as being through an assured hope that Helmet of Salvation which will carry you victoriously through all difficulties and opposition to triumph in endless glory together with what I have â—â—re sum'd up as the substance and body of this Treatise I have â—lso intermixt methodically many Soliloquies and Ejaculatory Peâ—â—tions as necessary to conclude several principal heads in these Meditations which I earnestly desire you to make a frequent and sinâ—â—re use and application of praying you to make them yours as well as mine and beseech the Lord that
it is common among Men A Man to whom God hath given riches wealth and honour so that he wanted nothing for his Soul of all that he desireth yet God giveth him not power to eat thereof but a stranger eateth it this is vanity and it is an evil disease Let every Man abide in the same Calling in which he was called Let none stand idle all the Day For an idle Soul shall suffer hunger And by much sloathfulness the building decayeth and through idleness of the hands the House droppeth through Behold this was the iniquity of Sodom abundance of idleness Avoid ye therefore their sin lest ye be consumed as was that City upon which the Lord rained Brimstone and Fire from the Lord out of Heaven Seest thou a Man diligent in his business he shall stand before Kings he shall not stand before mean Men But drowsiness shall cloath a Man with rags Wherefore be not sloathful in business as private Persons Let him that Ruleth do it with diligence lest when I come and reckon with you the sloathful and unprofitable Servant be cast into utter Darkness where shall be weeping and gnashing of Teeth Be ye angry but sin not let not the Sun go down upon your wrath Like Simeon and Levy Instruments of Cruelty are in their habitations for in their anger they slew a Man and in their self-will they digged down a wall Cursed be their anger for it was fierce and their wrath for it was cruel I will divide them in Jacob and scatter them in Israel Therefore be not hasty in Spirit to be angry for anger resteth in the bosome of fools Whosoever is angry with his Brother without a cause shall be in danger of the Judgment One of the works of the Flesh is hatred therefore thou shalt not hate thy Brother in thy heart They that hate the righteous shall be desolate He that faith he is in the Light and hateth his Brother is in darkness even until now Whosoever hateth his Brother is a Murderer and ye know that no Murderer hath Eternal Life abiding in him Woe to them that hate good and love evil All they that hate me love death Use not your liberty for a Cloke of maliciousness But let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamour and evil-speaking be put away from you with all malice and be ye kinde one to another tender-hearted forgiving one to another even as God for my sake hath forgiven you The beginning of strife is as when one letteth out Water therefore leave off contention before it be medled with Walk honestly as in the Day not in strife and envying Let nothing be done through strife For where strife and envying is there is confusion and every evil work The Spirit that is in you lusteth to envy which slayeth the silly one and is the rottenness of the bones Charity suffereth long envyeth not Wherefore laying aside all malice and all guile and hypocrisies and envies and evil speaking as new born babes desire the sincere Milk of the Word that ye may grow thereby Dearly beloved avenge not your selves but rather give place unto wrath for it is written Vengeance is mine I will repay it saith the Lord. Therefore if thine Enemy hunger feed him if he thirst give him drink for in so doing thou shalt heap Coals of Fire on his head Be not over-come of evil but overcome evil with good Pride and arrogancy and the evil way and the froward mouth do I hate Only by pride cometh contention and where it cometh there cometh shame But with the lowly is wisdom Wherefore let him that standeth take heed lest he fall Be not high-minded but fear For who maketh thee to differ from another And what hast thou that thou hast not received Now if thou didst receive it why dost thou glory as though thou hadst not received it Thus saith the Lord let not the wise Man glory in his wisdome neither let the mighty Man glory in his might let not the rich Man glory in his riches But let him that glorieth glory in this that he understandeth and knoweth me that I am the Lord that exercise loving kindness Judgment and righteousness in the Earth For in these things I delight saith the Lord. Pride cast the Angels out of Heaven Your first Parents out of Paradice and the wicked World into Hell For the wicked through the pride of his countenance will not seek after God Behold that which I have built I will break down and that which I have planted will I pluck up And seekest thou great things for thy self seek them not For behold I will bring evil upon all flesh How can ye believe who receive honour one of another and seek not the honour which comes from God only He that glorieth let him glory in the Lord for not he that commendeth himself is approved but whom the Lord commendeth Learn of me for I am meek and lowly in heart and ye shall finde rest to your Souls Whosoever shall humble himself as a little Child the same is greatest in the Kingdome of Heaven Whosoever exalts himself shall be abased and he that shall humble himself shall be exalted Be ye not ambitious like Absalon and Adonijah least ye partake of their Judgments and violent deaths Give thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in my Name For it is good to sing praise unto our God for it is pleasant and praise is comely Be ye not therefore guilty of the great sin of ingratitude with Hezekiah and the nine Lepers who rendered not again according to the benefits done unto them In these last times Men shall be lovers of their own selves covetous boasters proud blaspheamers disobedient to Parents unthankful unholy without natural affection despisers of those that are good Traytors from such turn away Whoso rewardeth evil for good evil shall not depart from his House Example in King Joash who remembred not the kindness which Jehojada the Father of Zacharias had done unto him but slew his Son Therefore his Servants conspired against him for the blood of the Son of Jehojada the Priest and slew him on his Bed Whoso loveth pleasure shall be a poor man he that loveth Wine and Oyl shall not be rich Woe unto the Land whose Princes eat in the morning But blessed is the Land whose Princes eat in due season for strength and not for drunkenness Woe unto you that are full for ye shall hunger Woe unto you
me you shall also Raign with Me. Lift up therefore the Hands that hang down and feeble Knees and make streight Paths for your Feet Ye have not resisted unto blood striving against Sin Wherefore consider me the Captain of your Salvation that was made perfect by sufferings and that endured such contradiction of sinners against my self lest you be weary and faint in your minds For the Disciple is not above his Master nor the Servant above his Lord. Stand fast therefore in that liberty in which I have made you free only use not your liberty for an occasion to the Flesh nor to the offence of your weak Brother but by love serve one another All things are lawful to you but all things are not convenient Continue not in sin that Grace may abound Nor do evil that good may come whose damnation is just neither turn my Grace into Lasciviousness Watch unto Prayer Deny your selves and take up your Cross and follow Me. He that endureth unto the end shall be saved Give diligence to make your Calling and Election sure Add to your Faith Vertue to Vertue Knowledge to Knowledge Temperance to Temperance Patience and to Patience Godliness and to Godliness Brotherly kindness and to Brotherly kindness Charity For if you do these things ye shall never fall For so an entrance shall be ministred unto you abundantly into my everlasting Kingdom Beloved believe not every Spirit but try the Spirits whether they be of God because many false Prophets are gone out into the World And my Spirit speaketh expresly that in these latter times some shall depart from the faith giving heed to seducing Spirits and Doctrines of Devils Speaking lies in hypocrisie having their Consciences seared with an hot Iron Forbidding to marry and commanding to abstain from Meats which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth For every Creature of God is good and nothing to be refused if it be received with thanksgiving Let no Man therefore deceive you by any means neither by Spirit nor by Word nor by Letter For that wicked one is now revealed whom I the Lord have bgan to consume with the Spirit of my Mouth and will destroy with the brightness of my coming Even him whose coming hath been after the working of Sathan with all Power and Signs and lying Wonders And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish because they received not the love of the truth that they might be saved And for this cause God hath sent them strong Delusions that they should believe a lie That they all might be Damned who believed not the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness This is that Spirit of Anti-Christ whereof you have heard that it should come and even now already it is in the World That Son of Perdition who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God or that is worshipped So that he as God sitteth in the Temple of God the Christian Church shewing himself that he is God The Kings of the Gentiles exercise Lordship over them and they that exercise Authority upon them are called Benefactors But ye shall not be so But he that is greatest among you let him be as the Younger and he that is Chief as he that doth serve Be not ye therefore called â—abbi for one is your Master even Christ and all ye are Brethren And call no man your Father upon Earth for one is your Father which is in Heaven Nor be ye called Masters nor be ye as Lords over Gods Heritage For one is your Master even Christ But he that is greatest amongst you shall be your Servant And he that Exalteth himself shall be Abased and he that shall humble himself shall be Exalted None is Good save one that is God There is not a Just man upon Earth that doth Good and sinneth not Therefore if ye say that ye have not sinned you make God a Lyar and his Word is not in you Be not therefore many Masters knowing ye shall receive the greater Condemnation For in many things ye offend all The Contention was sharp betwixt Paul and Barnabas that they parted asunder And John fell down to Worship before the Feet of the Angel Ye know in part and Porphesie in part Even Fâ—â—er who was first and whom I called Cephâ—â— by Interpretation a Stone and who seemed to be a Pillar walked not Uprightly according to the Truth of the Gospel And before the Cock mowed twice denied Me thrice How much more Fallible is his pretended Successor Why also doth this Man of sin both speak and act Blasphemies Who can forgive sins but God only It is I the Lord the Lord God forgiving Iniquity Transgression and Sin that have Power on Earth to forgive sins And in Me ye have Redemption through my Blood even Forgiveness of sins Again ye have heard that it hath been said to them of Old time Thou shalt not Forswear thy self thou shalt performe unto the Lord thine Oathes And that if a man Vow a Vow unto the Lord or Swear an Oath to bind his Soul with a Bond He shall not break his Word he shall do according to all that proceedeth out of his mouth But in these last dayes the Beast that ascendeth out of the Bottomeless Pit is a Truce-breaker and with perfidious Zedikiah a Dispiser of Oaths and a Breaker of Covenants Whosoever therefore shall break one of the least of these my Commandments and shall teach men so He shall be called the least in the Kingdome of Heaven Every Word of God is pure and the Law of the Lord is perfect that the Man of God may be perfect throughly Furnished unto all good Works Add thou not unto his Words lest he reprove thee and thou be found a Lyar. For neither Peter nor Paul much less the Pope nor the False Prophet the Roman Church that other Beast coming out of the Earth that hath Two Hornes like a Lambe but speaks like the Dragon the Devil hath any Dominion over your Faith But are Helpers of your Joy For by Faith you stand For though they or an Angel from Heaven preach any other Gospel than that which my Apostles have preached unto you let him be accursed Whatsoever things I command observe to do them you shall not add nor diminish from them For if any man shall add unto these things God shall add unto him the Plagues that are written in this Book And if any man shall take away from the Words of the Book of this Prophesie God shall
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-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
review how I There plighted troth to thee and did denie All other loves save thine nor was this Act My single deed alone but a compact For why so free 's thy grace Man so accurst That none can love except thou lov'st them first Thou art my Head O Christ can I then be A living Member and not part of thee The Heavens high distance doth not dim the Eye Of Souls nor can it lessen or untie Thy Spirits union now nought wants but this To be unbod'ed where my Saviour is O let me be uncloath'd then And by Angels led To thee my Spouse To Heaven my Nuptial-Bed Amen ARGUMENT Vpon God's all wise and gracious Providence in ordering of Affairs for the preserving and continuing love and peace betwixt me and my own Father and Father-in-Law in danger to have been interrupted by reason of some differences arising from a dispute in point of my Right as to the one and from an act of love towards my Family as to the other Soliloquium or Discourse AS false Ground under the Foundation of a Building a crack in a Master-beam of an House and a breach in a Wall of a City is very dangerous and destructive So are distances differences and divisions in Families and betwixt neer Relations This truth O Heavenly Father thou gavest me even in my blooming Manhood to know and to obviate when as from two very neer Relations my own Father and Father-in-Law upon two different accounts I had deeply suffered both as to profit and affection and that for the defence of what I conceived to be my right and for well doing Hadst not thou O Lord been to me a Father Judge and Friend to preserve love and to order and reconcile us as to the things in difference O Lord thou hast tried me at all times in all places by all Persons that I poor Creature might prove and have a full and sweet experience of thee also as to thy gracious Immutability Omnipresence and All-sufficiency in all things concerning me For thou hast thou doest and I trust wilt deliver me in and from the evil of all Temptations and according to thy faithful Word and promise cause all things to work together for my good To thee therefore O infinite wisdome and goodness do I offer up the Calves of my Lips and the praises of my Soul for these thy merciful preventing restraining and commenting providences in this and the following Psalm as a living Sacrifice Amen The VMPHIRE Ejaculation or Hymn upon the former Subject SAthan the first divider of himself And Man from God is still a forward Else To ruine all things by Division As doth the Jesuit Pope his Eldest Son Yea to this truth of Christ he sets his hand Kingdomes within divided cannot stand Of these his Wyles thou warnest me O Lord And taught me how to cement a discord 'Twixt me and neer Relations by love Which beareth all things rather than remove Or break domestick Bonds since such a rent Of Friends widens in time growes permanent Yea as a broken Bone well set doth grow Far stronger than it was before Ev'n so Through thy wise ordering and providence These breaches made to me a better fence Working together for my future good According to thy Word now understood In that Instead of losing what was got Thou chang'd my part gav'st me a better lot Lord since Parental loves thus ebb and flow Give me thy love which doth for ever grow Let not my Crimes make mortal my sins wounds Since their increase makes Grace much more abound O bring me to that place of rest and ease Of Charity and Everlasting Peace Where Devils World Sin cannot divide me From Parents Fellow-Members nor from Thee Amen ARGUMENT Vpon God's most gracious Answer of our Prayers in giving Rain after a great Draught threatning a Famine in Three Summers successively Viz. In the Years 1637. 1638 1639. Soliloquium or Discourse O Lord as sin is the substance so affection and judgment is the dark shaddow that alwayes attends and accompanies it as the effect doth the cause This truth was verified to this Nation of England in the Years 1637 1638 1639. When according to thy Word a fruitful Land was turned into barrenness for the wickedness of them that dwell therein As the first Rebellion of Adam brought a curse upon the whole lower Creation so this wicked off-spring by sin often invert the order and harmony of the Elements and makes malignant the influence of the higher Orbes causing those Coelestial Planets which were Created for blessings to Man-kinde to be Executors of thy righteous Judgments Of this these Three Years Prodigies are clear and sufficient witnesses when as that only Magazin of light and heat to the Universe thy glorious Sun which chears and delights Man and Beast and gives in our Northern Regions in the Spring as it were new life to Vegatives was made by thee for England's iniquities a terrible Curse as occasioning deadly Diseases Feavers and Murrains upon Men and Beasts through its constant and excessive heat and like a Globe and Furnace of Fire withered and burnt up all Grass and Vegitives especially our Grain the staff of life destroying by this Heavenly Fire our Earthly blessings As thy Sun so thy watering Pots the Clouds which like swelling Pappes used to distil streams of fruitful Rains according to thy Ordinance were now vanisht or rather banisht to the Antipodes or if any appeared they were but dry breasts and true symptomes of the barren Womb of England yea thou madest the Heavens contrary to their Nature to become as Brass and the Earth as Iron that the one might be as the Hammer the other the Anvil whereon to forge thy many Darts and sharp Arrowes of insuing Plagues As thy Rod of Justice O Lord hath three Cords or Lashes which thou callest thy three sore or greatest Judgments Viz. War Pestilence and Famine whereof this last is the greatest as being usually the dregs and the effect of the two former So thy mercy also hath a three-fold time or Plea as in the Gospel Lord let the Fig-Tree alone this third Year also to try it whether or no it will bring forth Fruit before thou cuttest it down Lord as England's sin called for and deserved this greatest Judgment Famine so thy mercy did during these three Years successively threatning this grievous Plague give her three years warning and space of Repentance Yea did offer thy Peoples Prayers unto thee by the hand of our Mediator for a reprieve and obtained it and which is much more wonderful a pardon and dismission of so justly deserved and so long impending a Judgment for which great condiscention I will bless thee as long as I have a beeing And that the Generations to come may praise thee also I have in all humility and thankfulness returned and recorded in this and the following Meeters thy never to be
one Lord one Faith one Baptism one God and Father of all who is above all and through all and in you all I beseech you by the mercies of God by the excellent effects of charity by the fruits of the spirit by the examples and commands of the Lord Jesus and the Character of his Disciples be meek and lowly and love one another So shall the Plots of Rome and Hell be prevented and all Sectaries shut their Mouths Why should it be spoken to our shame that there is not a wise Man amongst us No not one that is able to judge between his brethren But Brother asperses and declaims against Brother and that before the Antichristians Now therefore there is utterly a fault amongst you Know ye not that Revilers shall not inherit the Kingdom of God But some will answer that they have received a new light O be cautious that novelty Eclipse not truth since the last Days foretold and forewarn'd of by our Saviour are at hand wherein iniquity abounds and the love of many waxes cold hence Father against Son and Son against Father betraying one another and hating one another hence the Judgments of Famine and Pestilence Nation rising up against Nation So that the whole World seems to be on Fire before its time These Days not I but the Lord Jesus the great Prophet of his Church dictates and points out to be the time when many false Christs and Prophets or Teachers of Christianity shall arise who by their applause or excellency of parts and external holiness by which they shall shew forth as it were signs and wonders and gather a Multitude of Disciples Declaring that in such a Meeting be it in Woods or Deserts or in secret Chambers the true way of Christ is to be found deceiving as it were if possible the very Elect. Our Lord teaching us from hence how neer a similitude these new Doctrines shall have to truth and true holiness But be they as Paul or Cephas in the Church or as Angels from Heaven believe them not for as the Lightning comes out of the East and shines even to the West so shall also the glorious coming of the Son of Man be that is as I humbly conceive that his Gospel which at first broke out like Lightning in the East shall in this last Age upon the ruines and through the Clouds of spiritual Babylon dart it self and shine gloriously in our Western Churches even to the Indies that the other parallel Prophesie may be fulfilled by the subjecting and uniting Kingdomes of the Earth unto the Kingdome of the Lord and of his Christ. Let us not then be carried about with every mind of Doctrine but hold fast the Gospel delivered to us by Christ and his Apostles in the Unity of his Spirit and the bond of peace since other Foundation can no Man lay it being a sin so much as to doubt much more to defend that the Fundamentals of our Religion some of which are mentioned by the Author to the Hebrews and received by the Churches in all Ages are not to bind as de futuro as having a possibility upon new notions to be null'd or chang'd which is to make God a lyar to undermine his Church and to pull down the Pillars thereof For if the Foundations be destroyed What shall Nay what can the righteous do Wherefore my humble suit unto our Master-builders is to keep the Foundation unmoveable not permitting a Resurrection to ancient Hereticks before the time that so whatsoever Men build thereon whether it be Gold or Stubble may be brought to the Test in this Fiery Tryal Stand fast therefore Brethren in that liberty wherein Christ hath made us free not making your liberty a Cloak for maliciousness not for an occasion to the Flesh but by love serve one another judging thus of one another that he that loves his brother abides in the light but he that hates his brother whatsoever he may boast of new discoveries walks in darkness and knows not whether he goes Because that darkness hath blinded his eyes and that whatsoever seems to be religious and yet bridles not his Tongue he deceives his own heart and his Religion is vain But that I may not only perswade but offer my Mite I shall in all humility propose a medium which if found agreeable to the Word of God may through the blessing of the Almighty make up the breach and reconcile your greatest difference I conceive you both agree in these particulars That all shall be Members and have right to vote in your Churches from which Votes Women are excepted shall not only be free from just scandal that is prophaness and the impenitent practice of any known Sin but be indowed with a sufficiency of knowledge to which end since your accord in the principles of Religion I hope there will be speedily set forth and establisht one short Catechisme for Information and Examination Next in condescention to the impediments I hear it is mutually resolved that the Government of their respective Members reconciling of inferiour differences and ordering their Conversations even as far as Ordination and the Censure of Excommunication respect being had in Appeals to the Advice and Results of the Classes and Provincial Synods and saving to the Presbyterians their right be ordered by their particular Congregations Thus far we are knit together in one spiritual building and Temple of God The great difference if I understand it is the Tegument and Covering which is indeed the Ornament coupling and strength of the whole Aedifice as where shall rest as to us under the same Scepter the determinative and concluding Power the end of Appeals the regulation of that unlimited Plea and over-much extended liberty of Conscience that so we may be one as Christ and his Father are one this some of you fix in a general Assembly others limit to a particular Congregation The first pleads not only Scripture analogically but prudence for preserving union and preventing of Tumults as also antiquity from the parallel in general Counsels and Parliaments affirming that the other way hath no Grounds in Scripture since Churches were necessarily independant no State being then Christian that this way by reason that our corrupt Nature hath no check is destructive to the Unity of Religion Since according to the number of the Congregations will their Opinions as also pernicious to Common-wealths there being no Fewds so bloody and irreconcileable as those that break out about points of Faith instance in the Warres between Turke and Persian Papists and Protestants in the Lutheran Contestations and Arian Persecutions Lastly They conclude an inconsistency in this way with Relations and Callings disaffection and departure from Bed Board Families and Imployments being experimental consequences of Religious differences On the other side the contracting party affirm
Kingdome Nor are we only Kings but dignified above such expressions the Image of the only true God being renued and imprinted in us For through our Lord Jesus Christ 's most great and precious promises are given unto us that by them we should be partakers of the Divine Nature Hath Saul chosen David to be his Son in Law yea and he esteemed it an honour worth the hazarding of his life But behold what love the Father hath given to us that we should be called the Sons of God Was Mordecai so publickly honoured by Ahasuerus God doth far exceed in his free favours towards his Witness St. John saying I saw round about the Throne four and twenty Seats and upon the Seats four and twenty Elders sitting clothed with white Rayment having on their Heads Crowns of Gold Come hither O thou loytering Soul that carest not to ascend the Mount with Abraham and Isaac but stayest below with his Servants and Asses that choosest rather to stand still and become a barren and unmovable Pillar of Salt with the faithless Wife of Lot then with no less hast than good speed to travel toward Zoar a place of safety with her righteous Husband The Poets tell us a Fable of one Tantalus whose hunger-starved Mouth covetously gasped after Golden Apples which continually fled from him I would O half Believer thou hadst his hunger his thirst then would our Saviours loving invitation be joyfully obeyed If any Man thirst let him come unto me and drink such living Waters which shall not flie from but into the longing Soul Art thou Adam's Son O here behold a Tree of Life whose Root is only transplanted from Paradise to Heaven that so the Fruit might hang down to Earth Here is now no prohibition to restrain thy ambition but a commission to warrant thy affection Take and eat O take it even Christ in his Word and Sacraments not carnally as Adam but spiritually with the hand of thy Soul which is a saving and applying faith Next relish it by Meditation and digest it by prayer Then shall thine eyes be enlightned and thou shalt perceive thy nakedness that so Christ may cloath thee with his righteousness here and his glory hereafter Then shalt thou behold the vanity of earthly pleasures riches and honours confessing that God is all these yea all in all unto thee That the happiness of Divine knowledge consists most in fruition That it is better to acknowledge God to be Immanuel with Isaiah then Daniel's God with Darius To imbrace Christ in our armes by faith with Simeon than to see his Star afar of with Balaam To rejoyce in God our Saviour with the blessed Virgin then to confess Jesus to be the Son of the most high God with the Legion of Devils Then shall that virtual and spiritual Figure of God which according to our capacity the holy Spirit hath shadowed out by attributes in his Word and Works be appropriated unto us by Faith That so those glorious rayes of his to wit his Holiness his Justice his Power which before our Souls were Eagle-fighted our minds illuminated rather scortcht than cherished dazled than enlightned us meet all in the centre of his mercy Jesus Christ and from him as it were by reflection powerfully work upon us and comfortably refresh the whole Man renewing justifying and sanctifying thee here and glorifying thee hereafter All this while O my Soul thou hast been viewing the first draught of Faith rudely painted after a Landskip fashion and therefore ever beheld at distance Now observe a second model limb'd out more exactly having in every part a seeming perfection O that the Colours would be but as lasting as lively The defect then of this Pourtraiture is a false ground manifested and proved by its short continuance The truth of which since it cannot aptly or charitably be demonstrated or discovered by any extant piece I know lest I should seem to be my own Judge or judge my Brother I will with reverence look into our Ark the sacred Scriptures wherein as there is the two Tables of the Law for our instruction so there is a Pot of Manna to encourage and strengthen our obedience An Aaron's Rod to tell us what we have been are and should not be There I doubt not but to finde some Antiquities of the infant Age before the Law or the middle Age under the Law and some in the old Age of the World that last measure of time under the Gospel Which although dusted by death survived in those living characters for instruction and our purpose All humane judgments may erre Neither is there any Seat of Judicature upon Earth no not Peter's Chair altogether free from injustice and false opinions If it be the certain condition of Man to be uncertain in all his ways Nam humanum est errare it is his Custome to erre How can he then which is a stranger at home make a true discovery abroad He that stumbles in a known and even path cannot choose but fall headlong if he ascend craggy passages He that is ignorant of earthly things cannot be spiritually judicious The best oft-times are deceived by their own hearts For the heart of Man is deceitfull above all things who can know it much more by others Those which in the false Ballance of our understanding have seemed down weight being placed in the Scales of the Sanctuary have been found wanting as may appear in these following examples Who although they out-went the prospect of Men in the right way towards Heaven in the outward acts of Faith yet afterwards either stood still or wanting Oyl for their Lamps were benighted and strayed in the broad Paths of prosperity Cain the first draught of humanity that ever Man drew the first born to whom hereditarily belonged the blessing and the double portion the fourth part of the then visible Church and a sacrificing Priest before God viz. by his birth education offering proved to be a Member of the Church a Professor by his Prayers implyed as the inseparable Companions of Sacrifices the fruits of that profession are manifest so that to the superficial view of Man he seems not only practically Religious but also to parallel faithful Abel Yet behold in process of time his want of perseverence shewes his defect of Sincerity the murder of his Brother his former Hypocrisie and afterwards concluded of and punished with the Curse of God the Hatred of good men and his self Despairation Lots Wife was a member of the apparent Church and as it is probable forsook her native Country her Fathers Gods to be a sojourner a stranger in a remote Land with Abraham And no doubt while she lived in that sinful Sodom was a frequent Hearer of that Doctrine of Repentance which her Righteous husband Preached with so unhappy success Yea in conclusion she forsakes Sodom being not only aided by the presence but led by the hand of an Angel
toward Zoar that Type of Heaven But no sooner did the Angel leave her but her eyes reversion discover her minds aversion Which her self would have seconded had not the Almighty in Favour to her Husband and in Mercy to Us made her an examplary Monument in a Pillar of Salt Next under the Law behold Saul not only a Member but chosen of God to be the Captain over his Church A man every way well qualified first for his Body his Proportion was so excellent that there was none like him amongst all the people And for his Mind it was endowed it seem'd both with Divine and Moral Vertues witness his joyning in Prophesie his performance of many Pious Duties as his Sacrifices at his Coronation his asking Counsel of God and inquiry after Sin confession and humiliation after Samuels Reproof his humility at his Election his patience and mercy at his Rejection and Defamation his Fortitude against the general and open Enemies of the Church the Ammonite his Zeal against the private and secret Enemies of Religion viz. all Witches and Wizzards Here then is a spring of Piety a profession and expression of Religion a Gourd whose glory may not only serve as a Canopy of state to Saul but as a shade to one of the Prophets A gourd indeed and so it faded For the eave of his last day ruined that frontispiece of Vertue which his whole lifes best Actions had raised towards Heaven For had he been with the Prophets and joyn'd with them in Prophesie His ignorance and wants now send him to enquire of the Devil Did he Sacrifice before to God Now behold the reward of Divination and Witchcraft are in his hand He whose custom was to ask counsel of God now seeks after a Witch and he whose seeming Zeal condemns his Righteous Son for tasting of an Honey-comb although ignorant of any restraint now contrary to his Oath and Covenant made with God without humiliation and judging of himself or confession of his fault willingly and wilfully swallows down the very gall of Sin His Humility did not more grace him when he lay buried in the peoples Stuff than his Pride did debase him when he presumed to be one of Gods Council That patience fortitude and mercy which abounded yea was extended towards others is now deficient to himself For he falls all along upon the Earth becomes sore afraid no strength is left in him and yet he refuses to Eat For having no conscience towards God no wonder if his Body wants the charity of Nature When the Creature abuses the Mercy of the Creator he must expect to taste of his Justice And when he ceases to know Himself he shall be made to know his Punishment Saul hath forgotten both his God and himself and therefore justly is he now forgotten and hears his Funeral censure pronunced by him who never spoke nor wished better to man To morrow shalt thou be with me Forewarning fore-armes not Sinners he that doubted of his Choise though from the mouth of Gods Prophet credits his refusal and death from the Devils Oracle Extraordinary Blessings are the free and voluntary gift of God and not believed of Sinners before enjoyed But his punishments are the due Burden of sins desert and therefore are expected before divulged The Soul being often-times aforehand sensible of that which the Body afterwards endures None but a false or temporary Faith hath a final cessation but such is this of Saul he now beleeves onely that he might dispair The first degree of a true Faith being usually the false ones last step God lifting up the one from the sense of judgement to the faith and sight of Mercy Sin dragging the other from the belief of punishment into the gulf of Despairation Though Saul hath his last day marked out even the morrow yet neither the love towards his Sons whose Lives bore the same date with his nor care for himself begets the least endeavour by delay or otherwise to out-live the fore-going Prophesie inevitable are the Judgements of God nay rather he hastens it shortning his flight that he might shorten his life And that sin according to its nature might have a companion he moves his Armour-bearer to be a traitour to his own Soul by example whom his precept could not force to be a traitour to his Prince For he falls upon his Sword which instead of Defence becomes a weapon of Offence So often-times God deals with the Wicked who as in life themselves are their worst Enemies so in death they prove their own Executioners Thus the Sacred Annals before and since Moses hath by the Deads example given most lively arguments to prove this falshood of the deadness of this seeming life of faith O admire here the infinite extent of the Mercy of God! who out of the carcase of this Lyon Sin this Eater Death brings forth both meat and sweetness for his Sampsons his Nazarites making the Downfal of the Fathers the Rises of the Children their Ignorance our Knowledge their faults and blindness apt spectacles to help the weakness of our sight It now remains that the holy Records of the faithful and powerful Gospel as the Eccho of the Old Testament consort in the like precedents that by so consonant an Harmony the dissonant and ungrounded judgement of the most hypocritical and temporary Believer may be convinced if not converted The purest Gold hath its Dross the best Wheat its Tares Yea the Moon is then most full of Spots when least empty of Light The Church of God in the Primitive times in its Infant Age had many who although they were deemed Members of Christ had not yet put off the Old man The Old Adam Many whose Image and outward Superscription seemed to be our Cesars yet proved to be false and unvaluable Coyn when they came to their test or exchange Witness Ananias and Sapphira a pair doubly united by Sin and Wedlock who before their trial were esteemed as Members of the True Church as Beleevers of the Apostles Doctrine and no doubt baptised in that Faith the effects of which seemed to lead them on to forsake the world for they sold their possessions to works of Charity and Piety And laid it at the Apostles feet Who would not here have parallel'd these with sincere Joses since both parties did the same duty though not with the same heart the one acting truly that Christians part which the other only play'd Mans natural light is comparatively darkness and the height of his Knowledge advantageth him only with a larger prospect of his ignorance he knowing most that confesses to know nothing The conscience of our want being the perfection of our science Only thou O Lord art the Fountain of Knowledge and Wisdom thou triest the Heart and the Reins and seest not as man seeth Shalt not thou who planted the Ear hear Thou that formed the Eye see Thou that teachest man Knowledge know Thou O
did raise my admiration but not my devotion After this having heard extolled the wit and language of our English Poets and that their Playes a fit name for such Airy Poems were much Visited and by the Youth of our Nation preferred above the best of Sermons As also that they were acted to the life in the publick Theatres I weâ—t thiâ—ther and was both an Auditor and Spectator where I heard wiâ— and language abused Being told of the Noble Buildings of both Exchanges and of the great concourse to them of Coaches and Persons of the best Quality I expected better things there but found in that place an Exchange but as for the Company the like or the same The Shop-keepers and their Feminines being like the Company of Players I saw lately that know how to act all parts currantly and sedantly especially those of lying equivocation dissimulation and over-reaching when they meet with Country Ignoramuses After some time I adventured at the instance of some of my acquaintance not therein my friends to go into a Tavern I stopt and thought the fair structure rich Sign-bush and Bason had some resemblance to the Roman Tryumphant Arches But my admiration was soon chang'd into a detestation for the roaring and singing bawling and swearing of their Tenants at will the knocking of Pots the scraping of Fidlers the gaping of Tapsters at the Bar not of truth and Justice but too often of the contrary made me think it to be a Bedlam a place full of mad-men or the House of Circes where by mixt intoxicating and adulterated Liquors rational Men are changed into Swine Dogs Goats and Lyons yea into all kind of Beasts and bruitishness My mind tasting no good nor finding any satisfaction in these things I thought to entertain it with more private and as most think although therein deceived harmless delights and recreations such as Complemental Visits of fair and vertuous Ladies Balls and mixt Dancings yea I assaid by chast and modest Rules or Bonds to bind Cupid as I vainly held forth in an Herogliphical Order But for and after all these carnal pleasures my heart was and is sad yea I found my soul empty of that Rest and happiness I sought after and being seasonably and graciously taught by the same spirit of wisdome that instructed Solomon I sealed and that experimentally with him to that truth of God Vanity of Vanities all is vanity and vexation of Spirit And though I saw an end of all perfection in Earthly things with holy David yet the Law and Word of God is exceeding broad which caus'd me diligently to attend upon some living Oracles of God in those times Seraphical Holesworth devout Taylor pious Gouge eloquent Shute with others by whose holy wooings and love-tokens my first love to my Spouse begun about a year before in the Country was now renewed increased and confirmed and these great temptations of the World and my Enemy Sathan prevented and overcome who thus a while after my first Conversion assaulted me as he did my Saviour as soon as he entred upon his Office deceitfully shewing to me in these Cities as in a time and contracted Map the Vanities of all the World and the empty glory thereof insinuating to me the enjoying of them would I fall down and worship him that is yield to his temptations and enslave my self to him by the wicked possessing of all these sinful Lusts and delights But blessed be the Lord who hath broaken the Snare and I am escaped For which great deliverance and manifold mercies accept O Lord in my dear Mediator's hand my multiplied praises both here and in this following Psalm of Thanksgiving The METROPOLIS Ejaculation or Hymn on the former Subject LOrd thy Word is Verity Child hood Youth are Vanity Else had not such Troops of Vice Waited on me in Disguise Blest be that Power which from thee Made them Gibeonites to me So that they shall hence-forth be Hart-hewers Water-drawers In my Sacrifice to Thee When in Courts I saw Men rise On Prides Wings by Flatteries View'd dear God their Luxury Sinful Lusts and Gluttony Through thy help I left that place As a School of Vice not Grace A Quag-mire where the rich of 't Lose Estates spent at Court-rates When Poor Beggars mount aloft When Sins Parks Vicinity Had almost impailed Me And those Heards of Women spies Had neer filtcht away my Eyes Then thou shewest me Lord that time Was not mine to lose but thine And that those that spend a Day On such sights and vain delights Do but with white Devils play In the Garden call'd the Spring Where the Flowers and Fruit are sin In which Bound by Day and Night Devils walk like Angels bright Where young Adams by their suit Eat again forbidden Fruit. There thou call'st me Lord to thee From those Groves Of wanton Loves Promist better things to Me. Thence to Theatres I went Where vain Wits their Poems vent Heard and saw such Ribaldry As defiles both Eare and Eye For Man's mind inclin'd to ill Runs not up but down the Hill There thy spirit to me told He 's asleep that comes to seek In a Cole-pit veins of Gold To Exchanges Old and New I repair'd as worth my View There my Eares were deft with Cries Lackt you Sir what will you buy Pride and Conscience in that place I saw sold all things but Grace Lord thou kept'st my wit and purse From deceits And lying Cheats And their Females which were worse Then to Taverns I went in Which I found the sinks of sin There the Devil's Revels be Lust and Drinking Gluttonie Swearing Dancing Carding Dice Cheating and all other Vice On their Doors Lord set a Cross To keep me All that love thee From Souls Bodies Plague and loss Last I thought of a reserve How to please and yet preserve Me from all unchast delights By a choice of vertuous wights Who agreed aâ— modest â—â—lls Oft to meet by mutual calls By mixt Dancing will not quall Sathan's wiles Who Vs beguiles Give an Inch He 'l take an â—ll Blessed Lord that mâ—dest me see Sin and dangers misery And that all things here below Are but Ciphers in a row That a Father was to me When my Parents left me free In my Youth and in a place Where all Vice Hath its rise And true vertues in disgrace Yet where Sathan hath his Thrones Thou hadst Churches precious Ones Vnto which thou leddest thy Youth And declared to me thy truth There thou gavest to me thy love Kist me call'd me Spouse and Dove And imbrac't me in thy Armes Made me tast Thy delicates And deliver'd me from harmes Is thy love Lord set upon Such an Aethiopian Did'st thou take me from the Pâ—ts Cleanse me from my Leopard's spots Let me a chast comfort be Now and ever unto thee Till I be by Angels led My first rise To Paradise
Then to Heaven thy Marriage â—ed ARGUMENT Vpon God's goâ—dness and gracious Providence to me in his choice and gift of a rich beautiful fruitful and which is above all faithful and religious Wife Soliloquium or Discourse HAving expended above the third part of my life in a single condition both God and Nature taught me that it was not good for Man to be alone no not in innocency much less in a state of corruption and temptation Wherefore after many motions interviews and disappointments the good and all-wise ordering Providence of my most gracious God and Father chose for and gave to me as a fit loving and helpful consort and yoke fellow The eldest Daughter and Co-heir of a worthy Person that was a Knight Alderman and Lord-Major of London a Wife not only fruitful in Children but in many other blessings As being a builder up of my Family by a large Portion One of Natures best Pieces for beauty and proportion The Psalmists Olive and Vine for fruitfulness And which is above all and the rarest perfection of that Sex a Person chast faithful and religious For favor is deceitful and beauty is vain but a Woman that feareth the Lord she shall be praised Of whom as far as my Observation reaches at this Day I can truly say with Solomon Many Daugâ—ters have done virtuously but she hath excelled them all An eminent Witness of this her Vertue was her publick spirit care and love to me and her family In her voluntary sale and parting with her Jointure and own Land yielding a considerable Revenue and an unparallel'd House and Seat for the payment of Debts and making provision for our Children yea which is much more to her perpetual honour she was blessed be God to be his great and chiefest Instrument for the restoring part of the estate to the Heir and for the maintenance of the Family to which during my above Eight Years separation she remains to be under God a most careful Supportress Which great blessing O Lord continue to me and the Family in giving her health and long life that she may eat the labour of her hands and see her Childrens Children and peace upon Israel And as my thankful and perpetual acknowledgment and remembrance of such a plenitude of blessings Accept this my humble Hymn of Praise in the hand of my dear Saviour in whom thou hast given me these and all other Mercies Amen The Good WIFE Ejaculation or Hymn upon the former Subject O Lord that out of Man the Woman made And in blest Marriage her to him repaid Making two one a new That he and she Might be one Cabinet of Chastity A choice Elixar of Society And fruitful Seed plot of Posterity I bless thy Name that dost me dignifie Not only to declare and testifie Thy gracious wisdome in this mysterie Of Wedlock But me Tenant made in Fee To these rich blessings by thy choice and lone Of all these Mercies Treasur'd up in one When in this Worlds couzening Lottery Where for one Prize a hundred Blanks do lie My self I ventur'd Thou O Lord draw'st out For me a Ring of Gold set all about With precious Stones One was a Diamond Of Chastity next it in the same round Saphires of Faith and Hope with the Onyx Stone Of Sun-like Charity divinely shone A fift was a fair Rubie of sweet modesty Joyn'd with a Jasper of Fidelity An Emrauld next was set of Constancy With a rich Topaz of true Prudency Sweet Ametists of Loves which loyal are Incircled this Ring and Jewel rare And for to give a splendor to each Eye All those were fill'd with much Humility With this thou didst me Wed givest me to wear Till now neer Six and Thirty Year Blest be thy Grace no Hearts dividing far Disturbing Vs by a Domestick War She is O Lord that blessed Vine by which Thou dost o're-spread my House and it inrich With Sixteen hopeful Branches unto whom Drie Breasts thou gavest not nor miscarrying Womb Yea thou allaidst to her the curse of Sin The pains of births and breeding she was in And which doth much exceed all Earthly wealth Thou gavest Vs both a great degree of health Pelican-like thy Instrument of good Did feed her young ones thrice with her own Blood When others lessen portions through expence She made hers greater by her Providence And was thy help during my happy faâ—e To more than double our Patern Estate And when thou mouldrest it to nought her pains Was thy blest means for to restore again A part of what was lost that she might be Mother and Father to her Family To Vs from Parents Lord descends our Land But prudent Wives are gifts from thy own Hand What 's wanting here to her perfection View in her Picture drawn by Solomon Lord hast thou multiplied thy loves And thus By doubling Vnits caus'd an Overplus Of blessings Let me not divide by Sin Thy Mercies nor substract them in And by Ingratitude Let my sum be Addition of Praises unto Thee And pious fruits so shall my Tongue and Life Be one like Soul and Body Man and Wife A living Sacrifice of Thankfulness A free-will Offering till I thee possess And in that Vnion there most clearly see Of holy Marriage the great Mystery Amen ARGUMENT Vpon the great and Holy Mystery held forth to Vs by God in Marriage Soliloquium or Discourse MArriage is honourable amongst all Men and the Bed undefiled but Whoremongers and Adulterers God will Judge Wherefore Wives submit your selves unto your own Husbands as unto the Lord For the Husband is the Head of the Wife as Christ is the Head of the Church Therefore as the Church is subject unto Christ so let Wives be unto their own Husbands in every thing Husbands love your Wives even as Christ also loved the Church and gave himself for it so ought Men to love their Wives as their own Bodies For no Man ever hated his own Flesh but nourisheth and cherisheth it even as the Lord the Church For we are Members of his Body of his Flesh and of his Bones For this cause shall a Man leave his Father and Mother and be joyned unto his Wife and they two shall be one Flesh. This is a great mystery but I speak of Christ and his Church Nevertheless let every one of you in particular so love his Wife even as himself and let the Wife see that she reverence her Husband Thus far the Apostle Eph. chap. 5. vers 22 23 24 25 28 29 30 31 32 33. From whose words especially his conclusion This is a great mystery I infer that Marriage although not in a strict and Popish sence yet as to a larger meaning and construction of the Word may be called a Sacrament as holding forth by outward and visible signes and things spiritual mysteries and instructions Of this nature in Scripture and many instances as the Ark Rain-bow Red Sea Rock Manna