them all by their names none of them is wanting every one shineth as a fixed Star in that supream Orb of Glory God hath made all things in number weight and measure Number is here interpreted to be the Character of the species or kinds of things according to their distinct essences The first and supream link in this Chain of essential forms is the Idea or the eternal Pattern or Spring of each Essence in the Mind of God The Pythagorean Philosophy foundeth its heighest mysteries of Divinity upon the nature of numbers as the most agreeable figures of it The Ideas or eternal Images of things in God so seem to shine forth most clearly with the sweetest and fullest beauties in abstracted numbers Our Lord saith That little Children have their Angels which alwayes behold the face of their Father in Heaven Behold here each single hair of our heads which is an excrement only how much more each part of our Bodies each motion of our Spirits each moment of our Lives or circumstance in our affairs hath its Idea its first Image and Truth its Original first true Being and Beauty eternal in the heart of God These at once are the Eyes of God which by day and by night circle round watch over and guide them the invisible Chambers and Treasures of God where they are laid up and kept safe as his Jewels Number hath been reputed the first seat and measure of proportion Harmony Musick and Beauty in every kind Number and Beauty or Harmony are both by Philosophers and Divines appropriated to Intellectual Spirits who alone are capable of them as their proper operations and objects Both agree in this definition which seemeth to comprehend not only the proper objects and operations but the Essence also of immortal Minds an Unity diffusing it self into Variety keeping it self undivided and entire through the whole Variety bounding the Variety with its self and binding it up within it self A great and learned Divine teacheth us That there is a vast difference as between the natures so between the numbers of the Humane the Angelical the Divine Understanding The numbers which men apply to corporeal and material Subjects divide break and lessen the subject In these numbers that holdeth true that the whole is greater than any single part The numbers with which the Angels number things retain through all the indivisibility of the Unity with diversity of forms Here each form or essence comprehendeth under its own undivided Unity all forms of things according to their proper and compleat amplitude agreeable to the Angelical State but under the Character of its own peculiar and distinct property But the Divine number transcending all divisibility and diversity joyneth in one the simplest Unity with the amplest and most distinct Variety Thus after a Divine manner by this Divine Art of Numeration are all the haiâ—… of our head numbred in the mind of God Thus every single hair there maketh up a Divine Harmony composed of a rich Variety of Divine Proportions according to the number of all the other hairs as in the whole so in the several parts and single unities Euery single hair is a center and a seat to the various proportions between it self and all the rest in particular as well as also to the Harmony of the whole I shall now give a brief answer to the Objections alledged against the Universality of the Divine Knowledge 1. No Object however low however base embaseth the Divine Understanding The figures of Mice and Emraulds formed in Gold lessen'd not the lustre or preciousness of the Gold neither did they detract any thing from the sacred Worth Majesty or Divinity of the Ark by being put into it This Ark was tâ—…e Figure of our Jesus the essential Image the Divine Mind Understanding and Wisdome of the Father Lazarus with his Rags his running Sores and the Dogs licking them represented to the life in an excellent Picture done by the hand of Vandike of Titian or some great Master is a worthy and most agreeable entertainment for the eye and fancy of any Princess a rich Ornament and rare Jewel for the Chamber or Cabinet of a Prince The Plague with all its loathsome and horrid attendance conceived in the mind formed to a most exact Image in Virgil's fancy from thence transferred into his inimitable Poems becomes worthy of the Ear the Fancy the Mind of that great and most polite Prince Augustus Caesar yea cloathed thus with this Image the mind and fancy of the Poet transfuse and present themselves to the spirit of that Prince as of all learned and judicious Readers with a heightned Beauty and kind of Divinity That is a certain Rule That every thing received is received according to the nature and manner of the Recipient The Divine Understanding cloathing it self with the Images and Forms of all Objects desormeth not it self but maketh them Divine To the Pure all things are pure but to the Unclean nothing is pure but even their minds the Angelical part their Consciences the Divine part of their Souls is desiled 2. Individuals and particulars together with Universals appear distinctly to the Eye of God at once in one view The Philosopher of old affirmed all things to be in all The shady blueness in the clear Heavens above us which seemeth to terminate our sight is said to be the deficiency of our sight which is uncapable either of extending it self to so remote an Object or of having any Commerce with a Body so pure so glorious and so near to the nature of a Spirit Thus the contraction the obscurity the materiality which seemeth to be the bound of our eye and sense when we look to individual things here below are in truth the weaknesses of our senses falling short of the glory shining in the nature of things The light of God which is alone the true Light having no darkness in it and so the measure of all Truth is stiled by St. Peter A marvailous Light This is one of the wonders in the Divine Light All things here are transparent each particular each part is seen distinctly in the whole and the whole compleatly in â—…h part The Psalmist singeth of this holy and high mystery That with God the Darkness and the Light are both alike Materiality and corporeity as they appear before him are spiritual and Divine forms In the face of each material individual object shineth the whole nature of things This is manifest upon a three-fold ground 1. All things in Heaven above and Earth beneath meet in the constitution of each individual In Jacob's Vision Angels were seen descending and ascending upon each step of the Ladder from the Throne of God Himself above down to the Earth below Thus by the Scale of Praedicaments in Logick and in Metaphysicks we are taught That universal and superior Beings even Being it self in its absolute and unlimited fulness descend into the essential constitution of each inferior Being In them also the
inferior Being is seen ascending again according to their several steps inasmuch as it is eminently comprehended in them Thus the Descent and Ascent of things is presented unto us in the first Philosophy by division composition and resolution Being it self in its absolute fulness divides it self into potential parts which are therefore called potential because it self remaineth potentially and undividedly in each of these parts As in abstracted numbers the Unity divideth it self into many Unities then this Unity or first Being by its own unconfined power and virtue joyneth or compoundeth these several Unities or Parts into the common Unity of one particular form as a particular number Again the first Unity or Being according to the Laws and Measures of all Harmony in it self dissolveth the common Unity of this inferior form into its several parts or unities These are gathered up into their superior Unities and so return to their first Original as they return retaining their distinction still but becoming more and more absolute and universal according to the nature of those â—…perior Unities by which they ascend 2. Each Being in its lowest division and narrowest contraction beareth imprinted upon it and inseparable from it the figure of the first and supream Being For this is the first efficient and exemplar the last final cause of all things Having the figure of the first Being it hath in that the figures of all Beings in all their various Unities and Distinctions As every shadow is inseparable from its proper Body so where the figures of things are there are the truths themselves as the Original exemplar formal causes of those figures which flow by perpetual emanations from them as Beams from the Sun 3. The Omnipresence of God filling all in all even in the fullest sense as the Essence of all Essences as the Form of all Forms as the Being of all Beings in every the most contracted most obscure degree of Being as in a clear Chrystal Glass presenteth Himself with open naked face to Himself and so all things in Himself After this manner God whose Knowledge as Himself is one pure perfect eternal Act at once beholdeth all Particulars in their Universals all Universals in their Particulars according to all their several Modes and Distinctions He to whom all things are naked and bare seeth all things in every one and every one in all forms at once The night of materiality and corporeity before him shineth with a determinate Beauty with a bright Transparency as the day of spiritual substances The contracted shades and darknesses of Individuals and Particulars are as the ample and full sight of Universals From this which I have said here will easily slow my third Answer 3. Nothing is mean and vile seen in a right and universal Light Every degree of Being to the least the narrowest and obscurest Point hath Being it self in its amplitude and majesty in it without which it could not be Every thing that is in any kind or degree hath the Throne of Being set up in it with God the supream King and Fountain of Beings sitting upon it and filling it with the train of his Glories Thus look upon each Being and you will see it as a spacious Palace a sacred Temple or a new and distinct Heaven Being it self in its universal Nature from its purest heighth by beautiful harmonious just degrees and steps descendeth into every Being even to the lowest shades All ranks and degrees of Being so become like the mystical steps in that scale of Divine Harmony and Proportions Jacobs Ladder Every form of Being to the lowest step seen and understood according to its order and proportions in its descent upon this Ladder seemeth as an Angel or as a Troop of Angels in one full of all Angelick Musick and Beauty Every thing as it lieth in the whole piece beareth its part in the Universal Consort The Divine Musick of the whole would be changed into Confusion and Discords All the sweet proportions of all the parts would be discorded and become disagreeable if any one the least and least consâ—…red part were taken out of the whole Every part is tyed to the whole and to all the other parts by mutual and essential Relations By virtue of these Relations All the distinct proportions of all the parts and of the whole meet in one on each part filling it with and wrapping it up in the rich Garment of the Universal Harmony curiously wrought with all the distinct and particular Harmonies Every Distinction and so every distinct degree of Being hath its proper Original its exemplar Cause its distinct Idea in the first Distinction the Son of God in the Trinity the Divine Wisdome or Mind the essential Idea or Image of the Godhead The distinct Idea or original Image of each distinct Being is here in the form of God comprehending clearly and compleatly all distinct Ideas all the Original and eternal Truths or Images of things with their highest Distinctions in a perfect Unity in it self Every thing in its proper form is the figure and impression of this Idea The Idea and its impressed form mutually enfold and wrap up each other The lowest and obscurest form of Being reigneth shineth virtually eminently in its highest Truth with the full and distinct Glories of all the Divine Ideas united in its own proper Idea as a Throne in eternity or as in the bosome of its Father and Bridegroom both in one In like manner the Idea with all the Divine forms of things lieth seminally in each particular Being derived from it like a Divine Sun in the center of it forming it and all its motions every moment drawing its own Picture and figuring its own Glories upon them all Every degree of Being as it is a part of the whole is a Divine Variety springing forth from and comprehended in the Unity of the whole The Unity of the whole comprehendeth all parts indivisibly in it self If it were not so how or where should all the parts be compared each with other How should a judgment be made of their suitableness and proportions to each other The Unity of the whole with the full variety of all the parts resteth entirely in each part In what way or by what force otherwise shall each part be figured bounded acted to an agreeableness and correspondency with all the other parts that the universal Musick may be full and entire Reader I only offer it now to thy thoughts to be determined by thy judgment whether all that which we call materiality and corporeity do not by the charms of this Musick awaken into a Divine Company of beautiful Spirits If this be the proper Character of a Spirit an Unity indivisibly comprehending a Variety all Variety according to its rank and degree in it self diffusing it self through the whole Variety and yet resting entire in the bosome of each Variety Doctor More whose Books full of excellent Wit Learning and Piety I alwayes read with much pleasure and profit
Spirit and Person in heavenly unexpressible sweetnesses This is my first Request to you 2. Study and practise that great Command of Love as the Lesson of thy whole Life with which alone thou art to entertain thy self and all the heavenly Company both here and in eternity This is the first and great Command That thou love God with thy whole self and then That thou love thy Neighbour as thy self which is a second Law a second Love like unto the first Indeed it is so like that it is one with it Be thou thy self in thy whole Person the Sacrifice of a whole Burnt-Offering ascending in a Sacred flame of heavenly love to God the only and eternal Beauty As the zeal of the House of God which is Love flaming did eat up David and Christ so let this heavenly Love of the Divine Beauty which is the Beauty it self descending in a pure and sweet flame upon thee by consuming thee convert thee into one spiritual flame with it self Now live thou no where but where thou lovest in thy Beloved Let thy Beloved alone now live in thee when thou hast thus lost thy self by an heavenly Love in thy Beloved in thy God when thou hast thus by the Sacred and sweet mystery of this Love found thy Beloved thy God in the place of thy self Then love thy Neighbour as thy self Love thy Neighbour in thy Jesus thy God Love thy Jesus thy God in thy Neighbour Let this Neighbourhood of Divine Love be as large as the God of Love himself is Let every other Person and Spirit which lives and moves and hath its being in God within the encompassing upon the Ground and Root of the Divine Being be thy Neighbour thy Brother another self as thy self to thy self the Object to thee of an heavenly and incorruptible Love Upon this Commandment saith Jesus Christ hang all the Law and the Prophets This Love is the Centre and the Circle of all the Works of God of all Motions and Rests of all mysteries in Nature and Grace in Time and Eternity Plato saith That three sorts of Persons are led to God The Musician by Harmony the Philosopher by the beam of Truth the Lover by the light of Beauty All these Conductors to the supream Being meet in this Love of which we speak the first and only true Beauty being the first Birth the first Effulgency the essential Image of the supream Goodness is also the first the supream the only Truth the Original the measure the end of all Truth which by its amiable attractive Light conducteth all Understandings in the search of Truth and giveth them rest only in its transparent and blissful Bosom This also is the first the only the universal Harmony the Mufick of all things in Heaven and on Earth the Musick in which all things of Earth and of Heaven meet to make one melodious Consort While the holy Lover then pursues the tracts of this Beauty through all the works and ways of God he is encompassed with the Light of Divine Truth shining through him and round about him He is carried on in the Spirit by the force of the Divine Harmony He carrieth along this Harmony of things charming all things round about him as he passeth on So he seeth the God of Gods at last on Mount Sion the perfection of Beauty Harmony Truth and Goodness which all Center in the Divine Love the Divine Unity the band of perfection 3. Let no differences of Principles or Practices divide thee in thine affections from any person He who seems to me as a Samaritan to a Jew most worthy of contempt and hatred most apt to wound or kill me may hide under the shape of a Samaritan a generous affectionate Neighbour Brother and Friend When I lie wounded and dying neglected by those who are nearest to me most esteemed by me This person may pour Wine and Oyl into my Wounds with tender and constant care at his own expence bring me back to life and joy How evident hath it been in the History of all times that in Parties most remote one from the other most opposed one to the other Persons have been found of equal excellencies in all kinds of equal integrity to Truth and Goodness Our most Orthodox Divines who have been heated and heightned with the greatest zeal of Opposition to the Pope as the Antichrist yet have believed a Pope to have ascended from the Papal Chair to a Throne in Heaven Had my Education my Acquaintance the several Circumstances and Concurrances been the same to me as to this person from whom I now most of all dissent that which is now his sense and state might have been mine Have the same just equal tender respects and thoughts with the same allowances of another which thou requirest from him to thy self It is a Rule in Philosophy That there is the same reason of Contrarieties Two opposed Parties or Persons by reason of the opposition for the most part looking through the same disturbed and coloured Medium behold one another under the same uncomely form in the same displeasing Colours Hath there not been frequent experience of those who by being of differing Parties alienated exasperated having their fansies filled with strange Images of each other when they have been brought together by some intervening Providence have discovered such agreeable Beauties of Morality and Humanity such an harmonious agreement in essential in radical Principles of Divine Truth of the true and ever lasting good that they have conversed with highest delight they have departed with an higher esteem of each other their Souls have been inseparably united with Angelical kisses and embraces Some entertaining Strangers have entertained Angels Do thou so believe that in every encounter thou mayest meet under the disguise of an Enemy a Friend a Brother who when his Helmet shall be taken off may disclose a beautiful and a well known face which shall charm all thy Opposition into love and delight at the sight of it But now Reader I fall at thy feet I take hold of thy knees by all things moving and obliging I beseech thee If there be any Bowels or comforts of Love any Peace Pleasantness Strength Prosperity in Union any good in Unity that thou wouldst take deeply into thine Heart and treasure up safely there and frequently with fixed studious eyes contemplate this as I humbly conceive it most sure and reconciling Truth which I shall now as I am able represent to thee Often yea for the most part two opposed Parties have something on each side excellently good something exorbitantly evil although perhaps in unequal degrees Both mutually set after an unmoveable manner before their eyes their own good the evil on the other part Thus they blind their minds to all sense or belief of any good there Thus they lift up themselves above all sense of their own evil So they heighten themselves by self-justifications by mutual Condemnations unto an extinguishing of every beam
first place with this Beatifical Vision Doth not He much more certainly with a delight proportioned to a God behold all things in this Glass of the Trinity in the supreamly beautiful face of our Jesus his own eternal Birth his own essential Image the full reflection of himself upon himself Is not this first and full birth of the Godhead its most universal Birth where by bringing forth him he brings sorth all things at once in him according to their first and fairest Births as beautiful lineaments composed of Divine Lights and Shades in this face and Divine Form where all pleasantnesses dwell Thus of a truth God co-exists with all Creatures hath in Himself in his Essence Existence and Duration the exact measure of all Essences Existencies and Durations but this is according to the manner of the Divine and Uncreated not of the created nature as he comprehends all in himself 5. I come to that now which I promised as my chief and concluding Answer Here I shall endeavour to make it appear that all this established in the most desired sense falls short or flies wide off our present Argument leaving it altogether untoucht For let it be that God doth exist together with the Creature in the proper and formal existence of each Creature yet still we fall upon this Dilemma The knowledge of each Creature in the Divine Understanding arriveth from without or ariseth from within The first of these hath following it an horrid train of direful inconveniencies represented above such as I may well tremble to mention and the holy Angels stand amazed to hear the passibility mutability dependency imperfection of the Divine Essence in it self compositions divisions in the Divine Nature in a word the desposing of God from being God The Devil indeed in all forms practiseth this as his chiefest Artifice the establishing of such imaginations and opinions in our Spirits as by the dividing of the Godhead in it self may divide God from Himself in our sense of Him and so in truth separate us from the supream Unity the only Crown of all Righteousness Rest and Joy that by dividing he may Reign If I deceive not my self thus this imagination of Gods receiving his Knowledge of created things from the objects themselves existing in their own proper forms out of their causes and present before him is thus attended with such a troop of infernal Monsters as cannot but affrighten us from entertaining any such conception The first part of the Dilemma being then removed the second is established namely that the knowledge of all things in the mind of God hath no spring from which it streameth besides God Himself All the Attributes of God all the sense which all Nations all Spirits have of God from the light of Nature or of Revelation his All-sufficiency his Being the beginning the end of all things testifie with great concurrence to this Truth It seemeth to me indeed Impertinent to use many words to clear or confirm it If then God have his Knowledge of every Creature from within he comprehendeth all the Creatures in his own Divine Essence either formally in their own proper Natures and Existencies or virtually and eminently as in their first cause No other way seemeth to me imaginable by which the Divine Mind should be at once both the Eye and the Glasse to behold all things in it self If we place any Creature according to its proper form in the Divine Essence we place it upon the Throne of the Godhead and cloath it with the form of God It remaineth then that the Divine Knowledge is the intuition or view of things in their first and eternal Original Moreover Knowledge is the Imâ—…ge of the thing known in the understanding of him who knoweth it There are only three sorts of Images 1. The Original Image the exemplar cause and pâ—…ttern 2 The essential form which is the thing it self 3. A Copy or Figure of this as the Picture taken from the life and the shadow cast from the substance Thus the Lord Jesus in his spiritual Glories as He is the Divine Understanding is the Original form of the Sun the Suns Sun To him agrees that which Plutarch delivereth to us from the ancient Philosophers that the God of the Sun which inhabits the Sun excels the Sun in the sweetness beauty and glory of his Light ten thousand times more than the Sun doth this Earth or the darkest Cloud The Sun it self shining in these visible Heavens is the essence or essential form framed by this pattern sprung forth from it The Light the Sun-shines and Suns which we severally take in with our eyes are so many figures and pictures or shadows rather of this Sun flowing from him If we believe the Creatures in their essential forms or in their shadowy figures to inhabit the Divine Understanding we either exalt them to an heighth too far above them by bringing them into the Divine Unity and so making them one God with God or we debase the Divine Nature by bringing it down to a composition with things forreign and inferior to it The Philosopher teaches us that Science or clear and certain Knowledge is only the knowledge of things in their causes The first and most perfect Spirit is only capable of this knowledge which alone is most perfectly clear and immutable the knowledge of things in their first and universal cause Thus the Divine Essence in the Person of our Jesus the Divine Wisdome and Understanding the brightness of the Divine Glory the Image of the Godhead pure naked full substantial eternal is both the only Object of the Divine Eye worthy of it and compleatly suited to it and also the Species or Image in which and by which alone all Creatures all forms of things in Heaven Earth and Hell are presented to it This is that Unity which in its pure simplicity being free from all division of parts or diversities of forms is absolutely unbounded and so diffuseth it self into the most perfect and unconfined Variety comprehending it entirely altogether undivided within it self as in a spiritual most spacious Palace of Light and Paradise of the Divine Life upon the high and flourishing Mount of Eternity This is that Unity in its first distinction and so in the most full Variety our Jesus in whom all fulness of Nature Grace and Glory dwelleth in its sweetest repose in the most perfect Harmony of all the most heightning Beauties and Delights This is the Beatisical Vision in which God clearly contemplates compleatly enjoys Himself and all things in Himself as in the Christalline Fountain of the Godhead Let me now bring home to my present mark this present Argument by drawing up my whole Discourse upon it into three short Propositions 1. God who knoweth all things distinctly and exactly knoweth every Act of the Will every actual determination of it in each Act. 2. God who only knoweth all things by beholding them in the Glasse of his own Essence in the
the Celestial Gardens of the Divine Mind in the eternal Spirit then they with a pleasure unexpressible sit and sing in those Gardens Now we drink in the Christal Streams of all Truth now we drink in the Light as warm Milk most sweet and lively from the warm and living Breasts of Truth now we eat the living Honey of Divine Wisdome as it drops and distills upon our Lips from the Honey-comb it self of the Divine Nature 2. God is the Pleasantest the only pleasure of all Objects He alone is the proper Object the true and perfect Pleasure of all Faculties of the Understanding and of the Will the only sweet Rest the only and full Feast of them both God as He is the Light which hath no Darkness in it so is He Love without any allay He is that Love which is Goodness it self Beauty it self Sweetness it self all alone unmixt at the utmost heighth of purity sweetness and simplicity all in all of Him and all one in Him This is that Trinity which is the fulness and majesty of the Divine Essence out of which all the Attributes Properties and Perfections arise to our Understanding and into which in the clearest Light they most clearly resolve themselves Goodness here is Beauty and Sweetness in their spring Beauty is Goodness in its proper native and compleat form Sweetness is Goodness and Beauty flowing or in motion or goodness as it springs up into beauty and in the delicious bosome of that beauty multiplies it self endlesly into innumerable births and forms Goodness is the ever flourishing ever youthful Father and Bridegroom Beauty the most lovely Daughter and Bride Sweetness the Marriage of these two Goodness as it is the spring of all Beauty and Sweetness is power in the abstract in as much as Evil the only opposite to Goodness is the weakest of all things weakness it self Beauty being the essential and full form of Goodness being the abstract and exemplar of Harmony is Wisdome it self the only Intellectual Beauty of which all the inferior Beauties of sense are only shadowy impressions and foot-steps The Divine Sweetness being Goodness and Beauty in motion is upon this account the first and highest Activity The Fowler draws the soaring Larks to his Net by the reflection of Heavens Light from a piece of glass upon the Earth Thus the best Spirits whose Musick and Flight excited or directed by no earthly Interest no force of Flesh mount upward to Heaven and eternity are most properly most powerfully drawn to any Opinion when it appears as the pure unmixt reflections of the Divine Beauties falling from their heights of eternal Glory upon any Understanding and from thence diffusing themselves to enlighten the darkness of this inferior Region The first Beauty and the first Truth are one Being both the first Form or Image in which the Godhead represents it self to it self in the most full and entire Harmony of all Perfections at their utmost heights as they rise up immediate and fresh in their eternal spring and of it self with it self as the first Image with the first Original Thus every Truth in all its descents springing from the first Truth is also a Divine Beauty in the Face of which the Divine Goodness shineth smileth and poureth forth it self in the most charming and attractive sweetness If then it were rightly represented and rightly seen it would by irresistible Charms draw at once the Understanding and the Will of every Spirit into its embraces We easily believe that which we desire Reader Set before the eyes of thy Spirit a God whose Essence is Love Represent to thy self a Love which subsisteth in a Trinity of Beauty Goodness and Sweetness all three raised to the uttermost heighth of Purity and Holiness that being altogether without any mixture or allay they are also without any bounds all three so absolute and unbounded in Perfection that they mutually unfold one another most compleatly and most clearly all three so heightned to the supream Point of Intellectual or rather Superintellectual Life that as they are Love the band of all Perfection and Pleasantness and so every Perfection in the Abstract and Unity they are also in like manner compleat living and immortal Persons When thou hast thus represented God to thy self most perfectly most universally amiable in all Lights of Nature and Grace in every posture in every glance dost thou not at once most ardently desire this God to fill all to be all in all in this work The work of some excellent Painter is known by this that it is a finisht piece Every part every point hath its just and full proportions as from a spring of life opening it self there as if Nature her self were a vital sense This gives the life the beauty the sweetning to the whole piece a living form to the Workman Can we then think that God who is beauty and sweetness it self who works immediately and alone by beauty and sweetness in the highest Perfection in as much as he works only and immediately by his Essence which is one and the same with its Operations will leave any point of his work without the sweetning touch from his own hand Can we think that God whose Beauty is his Wisdome whose Goodness is his Power whose Sweetness is his Life his Joy his Glory will leave this piece his Creation which he hath drawn from Himself to be in the whole a Divine Picture of Himself unfinish'd Will he suffer any part of it to pass without its just and full proportions in an inviolable order to the whole and to the parts upon which the life the beauty the sweetness of the whole depends We read in the Canticles That the heavenly Image of God that new Creation which is the spiritual Bride in a Saint the joynts of the thighs are like Jewels the work of the hands of a cunning workman Cunning in Hebrew is there properly word for word trusty and faithful It implies a truth of skill and care in the workman by which he exactly answereth the relation in which he stands to his work the trust in him the dependance upon him and expectation from him Motion is the chiefest part of Beauty in as much as it is the most proper expression of Life and the spring of Variety This first Creation the work of Nature taken together in its invisible and visible parts from its beginning to its end is a living Image of God his Daughter and Bride although it be a shadow only of the heavenly Image or the heavenly Image in a shadow Are not the Wills of Intellectual Spirits here the joynts of the Thigh of this Image the manifest and most principal Instruments of motion by which it ascends or descends it turns it self about and moves every way Shall not then the faithful Creator whose Truth whose Goodness whose Skill is the Idea of all Beauty in Himself infinitely transcends all trust all expectation make these Joynts Jewels Shall he not here express the
power the pattern the meritorious the efficient the formal cause of all this in his Humiliation and Exaltation If Jesus Christ be a created form living immortal glorious containing in himself the whole Creation with all its Vicissitudes of Lives and Deaths in one entire Beauty more fresh more fair more full then ever it can be in it self if it be seen at one view at the uttermost heighth of all sweetness softness amiableness lustre that it is capable of although that be true which some say that the World in the whole is the most beautiful of all things or which others say that it is an Angel This created form then hath a Prototype its Original Image its exemplar Cause in eternity in God on which it depends and from which it flows otherwise it is not a created form but uncreated absolute and eternal This Original Image is one with the first the supream Image of eternity and of God For all things are there as in the fullest Variety so in the most entire Unity This then is the Godhead of Christ that essential Image of the Divine Nature in which Jesus Christ with all his created Glories pre-exists in eternity from whence he descends into a created state and hath there an existency antecedent to every other Creature If this Jesus be the first and universal Creature the whole world in one Spirit and Person who takes flesh of the Virgin Mary then doth the whole world live die and rise again in him Now is his Death the Death of the whole world his Resurrection is the universal Resurrection of the whole world in its Divine Head and in its immortal Root Now is Jesus Christ a Sacrifice for our Redemption Sanctification Salvation not by an imaginary notional arbitrary Imputation but a judgment founded upon the Divine Nature of things and a real immediate Union between Christ and the World as a Divine Seed and a Divine Plant which with a Divine eminency is comprehended in that Seed and virtually produced out of it receiving every moment its alterations from it according to the seminal and Divine proportions treasured up in it Thus Christ takes away the Sin of the World thus he makes all things new These are only glances by the way 2. The second Consideration which moved me to touch this string is the perfection and the heightning which it seems to give to the whole mystery of Divine Truth in the Scripture and in the Gospel A sweet and beautiful line would probably arise from this Point to illustrate many and principal Scriptures many and principal Mysteries of the Gospel if it were found consonant to the letter of the Scripture to the Analogy of Faith and so generally received I will now therefore offer in few words a reason or two in this case leaving the judgment of it and the full prosecution to those who have either Humane or Divine Learning in these things above my self 1. The first or rather cluster of Reasons lieth in that Scripture Col. 1. 15 16 17. 1. Christ is here described in the proper Character of his Divine Person as the general ground of his Mediatorship by these words Who is the Image of the invisible God He is the Image of God by way of eminence the first the supream the most perfect Image representing the Essence the Substance the Unity of God to himself within himself essentially substantially in his own proper Unity He is the Image of the invisible God as he is invisible in that Glory of his own eternal form in which he is visible by no Light to no Light to no Eye in no Spirit besides his own He is the only Image of God in every Image the Image of God in its first state upon the Throne in its descent through all states in the Grave unto the nethermost parts of the Earth until it return and re-ascend above all Heavens thither where it was at first 2. Jesus Christ is here described in the two parts of his Mediatorship one relating to the state of Nature the other to the state of Grace At the 25. verse he is stiled the first-born of every Creature at the 18. verse the first-born from the dead These two being contra-distinguished from each other seem to point at and paint forth Jesus Christ in two different forms agreeing both in this that they have their ground in his eternal form and are subordinate to it These two being contra-distinguished and answering each other seem to be interpreted one by the other Jesus is the first-born of the Resurrection in a two-fold sense He is the first of those that rise from beneath the shades of this Creation into the true Heavens the Holy of Holies the unvailed Glory of God He is the fulness of the Resurrection He as a Divine Head comprehendeth clearly compleatly eminently in himself all these who are to rise as Divine Members of himself inseparably joyned in the Unity of the same Divine Spirit They all rise together with him at his Resurrection He is the Fountain of the Resurrection Every one in his own proper person and season riseth up out of him by his Power in the Virtue of his Resurrection After the same manner is Jesus the first-born of every Creature He is the first the fulness the fountain of the Creation He is the first Creature So in the 17. verse in the illustration of this state as he is the first of every Creature it is said He is before all things He pre-existed in a created form when there was yet no other Creature formed All things were made in him whether visible or invisible Principalities Powers or Thrones things in Heaven or on Earth and all things stood together in him saith St. Paul verse 17. So the Greek words in both verses are most properly rendred Great men in the mystery of Philosophy and Divinty affirm That which is below to be the same with that which is above Every Flower on Earth is a Star in the Firmament Each Star an Angel in the Heavens above If this be St. Paul's sense which we have represented from these words the Elements with all of them the visible Heavens with all in them the innumerable Company of Angels in their invisible Heavens have all met and subsisted together in one created Form in one Divine Spirit and Person which is our Jesus In this Person they are not Flowers of Beauty not Stars of Light not Angels of Glory but Divine Forms antecedent and transcendent to the brightest Cherubims the highest the most flaming Seraphims Thus they exist in Christ. Thus with the unsearchable Riches of all agreeable Varieties they make up the Body of Christ as he is the created Head of all Thus as he is the first of all Creatures so is he the fulness of the whole Creation He is also the Fountain St. Paul addeth also this All things were made by him verse 16. All Creatures flow from him as second Lights are cast from the first
one breath one beam one stream from the eternal Spirit succeeds new in the place of the other sprung forth from it in the point of time immediately preceding The whole Creation each particular Creature is no more the same hath no continuance hath no Unity with it self save only as it is in Jesus Christ in its first and eternal Form its truest Form its truest Self in Him who alone is the true the substantial the universal Image of God the express Image of his Substance Unity and Eternity All created forms are so far only the same and one in a figure or similitude as they are sealed with the impression of their Ideal and Original form in Christ as they subsist in this Root as they are Garments with which this their eternal Truth and Substance cloathes it self In the my stical Fables of the Heathens the Goddess of Wisdome contending with the God of the Seas for the tutelage of Athens made suddainly at once to spring up out of the Earth an Olive-tree in its perfection with its branches and leaves all green laden with ripe Olives When an Olive-tree or an Apple-tree riseth up by degrees from its Kernel to a perfect Plant when it successively putteth forth it self thorow the Spring and Summer in buds in leaves in blosomes in fruit unto a fulness in Autumn then in that state of maturity with its leaves and fruit in full growth and beauty upon it it standeth up immediately and entirely out of its Ideal or first Cause out of the Divine Omnipotency or Almightiness as if it had never before existed as if no Summer no Spring had ever gone before Yea the whole Creation round about that Olive-tree in its present posture with all Plants on Earth with the present face of Heaven with the present configuration of all Bodies of all Humane or Angelical Spirits comes forth from God as immediately entirely absolutely as when on the third day all Herbs Flowers and Trees first appeared and rose up in a moment at once perfect out of the Earth or as if this present Autumn had been the first and the beginning of the World as some suppose that season to have been All things in the Creature upon this ground have their order and connexion not by virtue of any dependance upon each other but by the force of the eternal Order the inviolable Harmony in the first Cause the Ideal or exemplary World in the Divine Mind If the Being of the Creature be an emanation or beaming forth from the first Being then as the emanation or flowing forth is distinct new and fresh every moment so is there every moment a new fresh distinct World or Creation If man thus with his Soul his Powers his Operations with all the modifications of his whole Person Body and Spirit in each moment spring forth fresh and full that moment from his first and universal Cause as Philosophers say the Sun and his beams were concreated at the beginning of the World What then is the liberty of the Will in determining it self Is it any other than this the truest the happiest the only desirable freedome of coming forth as it is sent forth from God the first and the best of all things in a conformity to its eternal Truth its Original Form in the highest Beauty the highest Bliss the Divine Wisdome and Will Reader if any difficulties arise in thy mind about the reconciling of the appearances of things in the World so mixt with Good and Evil the evil of Deformity the evil of Sin the deformity of Intellectual Spirits the most hateful Fountain of all Deformity the evil of Sufferings consequent to this Deformity with this proceding of the Creature distinct and new every moment from God the pure Fountain of Good I entreat thee to carry this along in thy thoughts that the second part of this Discourse is designed for a clear stating and full examination of all Objections I am unwilling therefore to disturb my method to prevent my self or make Repetitions by bringing in these things here which are there to be treated of I entreat thee here only to mark with a skilful and curious eye whether the foundation of Truth be firmly laid and whether the building arise regularly out of it In the second Book it will be thy part to see whether this building stand fast against the assaults of all contrary appearances which like the Rivers the Wind the Rain from above from below on every side beat upon it This is enough upon this Head the universal Nature of the Creature 4. My fourth Head from which I draw my Reasonings upon this Subject of Free-will is The Nature of the Soul From the Nature of the Soul we thus reason the Essence of the Soul and its Faculties the Understanding and the Will differ not really but formally alone All three are one and the same Every one is all three in one They are distinguished according to the distinct forms in which they appear ever appearing with all their forms in each form 1. The Essence of the Soul is immaterial a substantial Act an undivided Unity and essential Form which comprehends the forms of all Essences essentially in it self We speak all this while of the Intellectual Soul This Soul then essentially comprehends it self reflects upon it self and all forms of things in it self Thus it springs up into an essential Image of it self and of all Essences to it self within it self Thus is the Essence of the Soul it s own Understanding by virtue of its immaterial Substance and its substantial Unity 2. The Understanding of the Soul differs from the senses in two things 1. The Senses touch and take in their Objects only by material accidents as shadowy figures The Understanding toucheth taketh hold of and embraceth the Substances themselves incorruptible immutable in their eternal Truths 2. The senses take in the Images of their Objects from without but the Understanding brings forth its Object in an essential Image from within which is therefore called Verbum mentis The Senses being material are thus passive but the Understanding as an immaterial power altogether active If the Understanding bring forth from it self and comprehend within it self the essential and substantial forms of things it can be no less than a substance it self and one substance with the Soul in the essence of it For nothing unsubstantial can receive into it self that which is substantial We have also said before that the Soul in its essence or substance essentially comprehends all things in their essential and substantial forms Let me add this upon the same ground that if the Soul understand it self the understanding is every way adequate and equal to the Soul in as much as it adequately comprehends it The Will is described by Thomas Aquinas to be the Inclination of the Soul It is also a Rule That every Power or Faculty is distinguished and defined by its Object The Object of the Will is Good Good is
essential Form I design and hope so to open and establish these Propositions that the true Liberty of the Soul in its Operations may all along shine clearly forth from the Divine ground and form of its proper nature 1. Proposition The Intellectual Soul in Man is an indivisible Unity comprehending Variety Diversity Contrariety of Forms This is the first Proposition There is a three-fold Unity 1. There is an Unity in the Division of Parts This is the most imperfect Unity or rather a shadow of Unity the Unity of shadows of Corporeal substances or bodies 2. There is an Unity in Diversity of Forms or Essences above all divisibility of parts This also is an imperfect Unity This is the Unity of Essences of Intellectual Substances of all created Spirits The Unities of this sort are the Essences of things in their created state which are said to be indivisible 3. Above all Divisibility or Diversity is the first the supream the perfect Unity having in it self the first the fullest Variety and distinction This is the Unity of the Divine Nature or the Divine World This for its infinite heighth above all expression or comprehension by any created Image or Understanding for the equal concurrence of the first the most entire Unity and the first the most full Variety both alike boundless and infinite is well termed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Above an Unity The Humane Soul is an Unity of the second Rank whether you ascend or descend in the number of Intellectual Substances like the Angels above all Division but subject to Diversity This is an Unity in a Diversity Diversity which is Variety contracted and obscured by a mixture of the Contrariety with the Unity overshadows the Unity of the Soul and rendreth it a shadowy Unity The Divine Unity and Variety lie hid and vailed beneath the Diversity in the shadowy Unity of the Souls natural Form This Diversity as it over-shadows so it also bounds the Unity and renders it finite infinitely beneath the first and supream Unity in the Divine Nature This is the Unity of the Intellectual Soul an Unity free from raised above all Division or divisibility of parts lying one without another as they appear in Bodies or Corporeal Substances The explication of this Unity in the Intellectual Operations of the Soul as I humbly conceive will be a full demonstration of it There seemeth according to common sense and language to be manifest in us a Life a Power which compareth and judgeth things which discerneth the differences of things relations proportions agreements disagreements which is delighted with Harmony Beauty Musick which taketh in entertaineth it self with the Essences of things the whole Universals as its most native and most suitable Companions which adorneth it self with Sciences The Sciences are an Angel-like building which this Life or Power hath framed by single notions or forms of things regularly composed into Propositions by Propositions in a most beautiful order laid one upon another and by fit joynts like Jewels knit together into one Body of Divine Light which setteth its Feet on the Earth and raiseth its Head into the unseen Glories of the highest Heavens This Power and Life within us which makes good all this or a similitude of this with more or less degrees of Perfection is that which we call the Intellectual Soul in Man If the Object or its Image be extended and so composed of parts which lie all one without another if the Subject which receives into it self the Object or the Image be of the same nature Now the one part of the Object is taken into and seated in one part of the Subject Another part in another Thus all lie diffused differently in different parts not only divisible but actually divided from each other Now they no where meet together in one they are no where compared and judged the Discord the Harmony the Whole is no where understood Yea These are no more in the nature of things There is no such thing as Picture Prospect or Person Life Love or Joy Death or Suffering All is an unimaginable heap of unconceivable Atomes which have no Relation to no Commerce with each other if there be no indivisible Unity in which things meet in which they are compared judged and proportioned How an Atome it self or any thing of whole or part can be without Unity which constitutes it which connects it into which it Ultimately resolves it self from which it first ariseth is of all things to me most hard to comprehend But this is a digression and more than is necessary to my present design Let us return The two essential Operations of the Intellectual Soul are to understand and to will The Objects of these are Truth and Goodness real or apparent 1. Truth is a representative conformity of the Image to its Original 2. Goodness is a mutual perfcctive Conformity or suitableness of the Original and Image or of the Object to the Faculty Power or Spirit to which it relates These two are the Divine Meat and Drink of the Soul like the Ambrosia and Nectar of the Gods or separated Spirits with the Poets But where there is any impression any sense or relish of these two Truth or Goodness in the lowest forms of things These three must meet undividedly in one The two terms or bounds of conformity or suitableness the relation between these two their suitableness and conformity to each other The Intellectual Soul riseth an higher pitch according to the Doctrine of all the Schools and its own innate testimony of it self in all its Motions in all its Virtues and Vices It is carried up upon these two soaring wings as the wings of an Angel quite out of the sight of sense above all the tumult of Individuals and particulars to the invisible Glories and Harmonies of universal Forms The universal Truth and Good are its only mark and rest where its motions terminate The heavenly Beauty of the universal Truth can be no where seen the heavenly sweetness of the universal Good can be tasted by no Spirit but that alone where all Truths all kinds and degrees of good all things in their friendships and enmities are met and concentred with a full with an exact Harmony in one indivisible Point or in a perfect Unity It is indeed a Divine Unity running like the Spirit of Musick through all these terminating them all by it self recollecting them all entirely with their several Divisions after the most undivided manner into it self which makes this Harmony the Joy the Glory the Divine Life of Angels of God and God-like men This Divine Unity can be no where received but into an Unity like it self This Unity in the Intellectual Soul makes it a Divine â—…ye Ear and Spirit capable of taking in the Beauty enjoying the Musick being entertained at the heavenly Feast of the universal Truth and Goodness in the Society of all blessed and immortal Spirits Keep the Unity of the Spirit saith St. Paul in the
proper shadow Some think this following sense to be intended by St. Paul in these words Christ is the Image of the invisible God the first-born of the whole Creation or of every Creature Col. 1. God in that same second Person which is the Godhead in its essential Image which in the fulness of time took flesh of the Virgin Mary in the beginning of Time came forth from the secret and unaccessible Light of Eternity in a shadowy Image This Image was the full figure of his Person with all its Divine Glories according to the capacity of a shadow This was the whole Creation compleat in its first Draught All the Glories of the Divine Nature which are imitable were here first distinctly figured in the primitive and pure forms of all the Creatures Thus was he the Image of the Invisible God the first-born of the whole Creation in general and of each Creature in particular Thus was He in the Language of the Jews the great Adam who brought forth the little Adam in his own likeness Thus was Jesus Christ in Adam at once the life of all in his essential Glories the Original Copy or first Draught of the Creature in the whole compass of it of each Creature in particular All this in the Humane Soul in Adam as the only perfect and proper Figure of this Original I understand nothing in this interpretation of St. Pauls words contrary to the Analogy of Faith or the Scriptures There seemeth to be in it a compleat Harmony and order in the nature of things according to this sense 1. All things stand first in an Uncreated Subsistence and Essence Then in an Uncreated Subsistence or Person they come forth into Created Essences or Natures Lastly By this medium uniting all they pass in Created Subsistencies and Essences into created Persons and Natures 2. Jesus Christ gradually descends from his essential Glories into an Universal Original Figure of himself of the whole Creation of each Creature Through this He passeth into the particular form of faln man in the Womb of the Virgin So he descends to the nethermost parts of the Earth ascends again through all forms of things with all united in his own Person above all Heavens and fills All. After this manner the Lord Jesus is the Mediatour of the Creation as well as of the Reconciliation and Regeneration All things are made by him and nothing that is made or brought forth from the beginning of things to the end comes forth without him As according to his appearances in Grace or Glory the Saints appear together with him so according to his Appearances in Nature all things appear together with him He lives and subsists in the form of every Creature Every Creature subsists by its transcendental Union with him in Nature Thus it is most true That we are in this World as he is in this World We are Sojourners together with him in his Land He suffers in all our Sufferings is straitned in all our straitnings He is in all things made like unto us Sin only excepted He carries along in every particular form the Universal Harmony the Divine Glory even in all the sufferings and straitnings of every Creature The Universal Harmony and Divine Glory is to him the liberty the joy of Paradise Heaven Eternity in each straitning and suffering Sin only is the breach of this Harmony the violation of this Glory not by a privation only but a Contradiction and Enmity founded in the privation This can bear no part in the Divine Harmony save as it is reduced into Order and the Harmony carried on through the Wrath and Righteousness of God in the Death and Resurrection of the Lord Jesus But I desire to leave my self and my Reader free in this Point I have now finished in four Distinctions my Answer to the first part of the Objection made against the Variety of forms in the Unity of the Soul In this part of my Answer I have endeavoured to state the presence of God with and in the Soul of man as perspicuously as my dark and narrow mind is capable of taking in and expressing a Divine Mystery of so great an amplitude and such an heigth of Glory I pass now to the second part of my Answer which concerns the Angels 2. Answer Angels with the whole Company of invisible substances or separated Forms and immortal Spirits are contained in the Unity of the Soul these two wayes 1. They are Superior and Universal Causes subordinate to the first Cause Thus they are most intimately and inseparably present in the Constitution of the Soul As Entity or Being and substantiality in their Superiour and Universal Nature descend into incorporeal Spirits and through these into Corporeal Shapes and Bodies so do all the Angels greater in Might and Glory cloath themselves with the Incorporeal Form of the immortal Soul communicating all their divers Virtues Powers and Glories to this Form in which themselves subsist and live together with it being an head of Glory to it 2. All Angelical Immortal Spirits are another way in the Soul as making up the full diversity of all Forms in it and so composing its Essence Thus all Angels all Essences all Forms of things in their immortal Substances as Intellectual Spirits meet in the proper Unity under the peculiar Character and Diversity of each Intellectual Soul as in some obscure resemblance Variety of colours in a particular colour or as all the Elements in each Element in each mixt Form under the proper Character of the predominant Element or Form 3. Answer The Intellectual Soul containeth all Corporeal Forms or Bodies in it self two wayes 1. Virtually 2. Formally 1. The Soul hath in it self all Bodies virtually from the Angels above it as the shining Bosome where the eternal Spring through Jesus Christ powres forth its living streams Here the Soul drinketh in the Essences and essential forms of things in their Angelick Truth and Goodness These feast and fill the Understanding and the Will In the Understanding or Angelick Light of the Soul they shine as the Exemplars or Patterns of all below in the visible World In the Will as in the Angelick Love of the Soul they lie as in the Womb or in the seminal Virtue or executive Power which brings them forth 2. This Soul comprehends the Corporeal World in it self formally The Essences of all Bodies as they are Objects only of the Understanding and not of Sense so are they according to the Nature and Law of all Essences Intellectual Unities and Forms in the Unity or essential Form of this Intellectual Spirit The Soul in these distinct Essences floweth forth into these shadowy forms with which our Senses the shadows of the Intellectual Light are entertained The Intellectual Unity diffuseth it self into the continued parts of these divisible Forms This Unity formeth the Proportions of the parts in their mutual Correspondencies knitteth them together unto a mutual sympathy in each natural Body For as I have
externae pepulerunt singere Causae Materiae fluitantis opus verum insita summi Forma boni livore carens Tu cunct a superno Ducis ab exemplo pulchrum pulcherrimus ipse Mundum mente gerens similique in imagine formans Perfect asque jubens perfectum absolvere partes Tu numeris Elementa ligas ut frigora flammis Arida conveniant liquidis ne purior ignis Evolet aut mersas deducant pondera terras Tu triplicis mediam naturae cuncta moventem Connectens animam per Consona membra resoluis Quae cum sect a duos motum glomeravit in orbeis In semet reditura meat mentemque profundam Circuit simili convertit imagine Caelum Tu causis animas paribus vitasque minores Provehis levibus sublimeis curribus aptans In Caelum terramque seris quas lege benigna Ad te conversas reduci facis igne reverti Da pater Augustam menti conscendere sedem Da fontem lustrare boni Da luce reperta In te conspicuos animi Desigere visus Deiice terrenae nebulas pondera molis Atque tuo splendore mica tu namque serenum Tu requies tranquilla piis te cernere finis Principium Vector Dux semita terminus idem The English O thou who by the golden linked Chain Of reason's Musick with an even strain Conductest all from thy bright Throne on high Father of shady Earth and shining Skie By undiscovered Tracts Time's stream and spring Thou from Eternity's vast Sea doest bring Motion and change ever unknown to thee From thee deriv'd and by thee guided be This work of floating matter which we see By inbred form of good from envy free By sweetest force of Native Loves rich seeds Without external cause from thee proceeds In Loves eternal Garden as its flowers Flourish in their first forms and fullest powers All Beauties These are the life the living Law From which thou dost all forms of Being draw As light to dazled eyes all things below From these pure Suns in fading circles flow A World all fair from thee supreamly fair Shines in thy mind above controul or care In an harmonious Image thou the same By perfect parts dost to perfection frame By potent Charms of sacred numbers bound The waving Elements keep their set round Fire Aire Earth Water in mysterious Dances Move to thy Musick through all times and chances Mixt into various figures with sweet grace In each form undivided they embrace Earth sinks not nor doth fire to Heav'n fly Frosts Flames Droughts Floods meet in an Unity The three-fold Natures golden Knot mid-band The Soul thou tyest in one by Love's bright hand Then it by thee unloosned spread doth lie In Limbs well suited to a sympathy Of motion and distinct melody Diffus'd through things below or those on high This is the Spring and Circle ampler far And purer than the Christal Heavens are The universal Beauties charming face Where sweetly spring and dance each lovely grace Within it self divided this great Soul Into a double Globe it self doth roul One hidden from us by excess of light One with shades sweetly temper'd to our sight As thorough these it moves it still returns Into it self still with Love's fire it burns By force of this it still doth circle round Th' eternal minds great deep Heav'n thus doth found And in like figure of those unseen Lights Doth turn about these Glories in our sights Brought forth from causes like Souls and less lives Thy will aloft in airy Chariots drives And sows in Heaven in Earth which by Love's Law Turn'd back to thee thou to thy self dost draw By the innate returning flame Grant Father to our minds thy glorious Mount To climb to view of good the sacred Fount In thine own Light which doth within us shine To fix the clear eyes of our Souls on thine Cast down the mists and weight of earthly mold The joyous splendors of thy face unfold Thou art to holy minds the golden Calm The sweet repose the grief appeasing Balm To see Thee our Beginning is our End Guide Chariot Way our Home to which we tend I mean to take no notice of any thing in this Poem besides that alone which immediately concerns the Soul In that part I shall after the manner of a brief Commentary present the Reader with some few Notes upon the several Passages for the illustration and confirmation of my fore-going Discourse upon the Nature of the Humane or Intellectual Soul 1. Passage The three-fold Natures golden knot Mid-band The Soul Thou tiest in one Triplicis Naturae mediam Connectens Animam  1. Note The three Natures here are manifestly The Invisible Incorporeal Nature Immortal Spirits The Visible Corporeal Nature Bodies Mortal or Immortal The Soul the middle between both these 2. Note The Soul is a middle-nature between both these not by Abnegation or Separation but by Participation and Connection So that word imports Connectens the Golden Knot lying all in one The Soul is a middle-nature three wayes 1. The Soul extendeth her self through both Natures to their utmost Heighths above and Depths beneath by her Idea which is her Golden Head by her Angel which is her Arms and Breast of her Silver her immediate Image and Birth as she springs forth from her Idea her incorruptible Essence above all motion the first seat of her Life Understanding Virtue Power as they flow from her Ideal Spring Thus Plotinus believed the Soul her self in her Essence in her Intellectual Form at its first abstracted heighth and purity to be her own good Angel But the Soul dissuseth her self also by her Coelestial Garment or Body through the wide-spread Heavens These are her Belly and Thighs of Brass the Springs of Generation the first seat of Motion Division and successive Forms By her Elemental Body she swims in this uncertain Sea of Generation and Corruption The Elements in their Orbs compose her Legs and Feet of Iron Here is the lowest Region of Division Motion and Change Here is the scene of Corruption here is the Soul most obscured In the lowest parts of this Earth is she resolved into a shade 2. The Soul is a Nature distinct from the other two Angelical Spirits are Omniforme or Universal Bodies are extended into divisible parts The Intellectual is composed of both universal and particular Forms all which it contains in an indivisible Unity The Soul circles through all forms of things universal and particular as they subsist apart or united appearing mutually infolding each other within the undivided Unity of its own Essence whilst in the Unity and Majesty of its undivided Essence it rouls through all forms and parts of it self as the Sun through the whole compass of the Heavens In this is a more glorious Sun and Heaven that it is in each point of it self at once as a distinct Sun in its full glory and every Sun a spacious transparent Glass in which the whole Heaven of its Essence with all its
the Soul The Mind they call the Son the World of God the first seat of all Ideas But with us Christians this Mind is the Angelical Nature the chief of those ministring Spirits to which we in the Language of the Scripture give the Name of Angels The Son of God the World of God in the first and most proper sense is the Uncreated Mind and Wisdome the Lord Jesus who as he is the second person in the Trinity is the supream Unity the one only true God The Godhead in its essential Image where first are seated and shine all forms of things in their Original Glories in their eternal Patterns as they are the Variety in the Divine Unity every one God entirely in it self in all the full Glories of the Godhead and all one God ever undivided indivisible Plutarch calleth Life a Depth This Mind is exprest by a Deep inasmuch as it is Life it self the first unbounded Life which hath no ground no limit the fountain of Life where endlesly spring up in an unconfined Circle in a bottomless Depth forms of Glory innumerable one within another Thus St. Paul speaketh That the Spirit of God in the Spirit of a Saint is a Spirit of Revelation which takes the covering off from this Deep of Light and Glories in the Soul searching out the Depth of God The Soul circleth round this Deep of the Divine Mind not after a Corporeal or Local manner but as one Spirit encompasseth another without Circumscription extension or distance 1. The Soul without consinement or adaequation contains in its Unity and Center this glorious Deep of the Divine Mind through the Angelical Mind as the Unity of its Unity the Center in its Center 2. The Soul springs forth by a continual emanation a continual irradiation or process from this Divine Mind into an entire Image of it As it â—…ees the various Glories in the circle of this Deep So doth it spring up within it self into the similitude and forms of the same Glories in the same Order and Harmony to the filling up and compleating of the same circle within it self The Lord Jesus in the Gospel at his Transfiguration appeared as the Sun in its strength and his Garments as the Light Thus the same Jesus the Divine Mind is here a Circle a Depth of substantial Light and Glories filling the Light with all Variety of forms The Soul springs forth from him all round about him as a Garment of Light a Circle of Beams all wrought with the beautiful Figures of those Glories Plato saith That there are three Kings round whose Thrones all things dance God the Mind the Soul this continual procession of the Soul from the Divine Mind through the Angelical Mind in the entire Image of it with all its Divine Forms and their Order their Harmony their Unity in the whole compass of their Variety is the mystical Dance of the Soul round the Throne of her King her Bridegroom by which at once she contemplates enjoys springs up into his Divine Form in all its Beauties and is filled with him He in like manner hath her ever before him as the Looking-Glass of his own Beauty lying and playing in himself as the Image of a Flower or Tree in the water every way circled in by him as she is centered in him As the Divine Mind through the Angelical is in the Soul so are the Divine the Angelical Mind through the Soul in this visible World centring it in themselves riding forth upon the Circuit of the Heaven and the Earth as the lowest figure of themselves at once standing up out of them and standing in them The Soul as the Exemplar Form as the Unity the inmost center the outmost Circle sendeth forth this Corporeal Image as a figure of it self formeth moveth acteth it throughout sustaineth it in it self filleth it with it self every way boundeth and containeth it within it self The vast all-containing Unity of the Soul figureth it self the circular globous round form of the Heavens and the Earth in the Union and Harmony of all the parts suffering no where any discontinuity or vacuity nor any deformity or discord in the whole From the variety of invisible Forms within it self the Soul springeth up into all the innumerable Army of heavenly Bodies in the Coelestial Orbs into all the diversity of Elementary shapes and figures in the Regions below The Harmony and Order of the Soul in all its forms and motions through them floweth forth figureth it self as a Light of Beauty shineth as a Divine Musick soundeth through all the parts and changes of the Coelestial the Elementary Sphears charming those Souls that have awakened and purified senses to take them in As the Soul within it self springeth up into each form in its proper Order bringing forth it self at once with the entire Unity of its whole undivided Essence anew in that distinct form so doth the Soul from that Original in the likeness of the same Image each new moment spring forth anew according to the innate Law of the universal Order and Harmony into the whole Heavens and Earth in a new posture and figure Thus after the similitude of its own circlings through all forms within it self the Soul incessantly turneth round the Heavens and the Elementary Orbs which by their perpetual circling through each other turn about by day and by night the restless wheel of Generation and Corruption as of all change Thus as the Soul danceth round the Throne of the Divine and the Angelick King these Heavens and the Elements dance round the Throne of their King the Soul Before I pass from the Authority and Testimony of this great Philosopher concerning the nature of the Soul give me leave to direct this Arrow to the white and mark which I aim at through this whole Discourse According to this Doctrine the Divine the Angelick Mind the Soul the Coelestial and Elementary Orbs through all their powers parts forms and motions meet in make up one Universal and Divine Harmony one Beauty one Musick All exactly in the lowest the least the weakest stroak touch or shade in most exact measure and proportion answer one another As the Face in the water answers the living Face So doth every lower Orb or Circle of things answer the superior As the reflection of it self in its own water or lustre shining forth from it and abiding in it like the water of a precious stone Each Orb or Circle of things is filled with knit together by bounded in its own Unity which floweth through all as the Spirit the Life of Order and Harmony disposing all the parts and motions in a most just measure to preserve it self and its figure entire in the whole The supream the Divine Unity sits upon every one of these subordinate Unities rideth forth in them uniteth filleth bindeth up boundeth in it self all the Orbs and Circles all in them all This shines through them runs with its beams playing over every form as one
universal Beauty one sparkling Image of the supream universal Good in the whole face of things This is a Musick sounding through all where each various form the obscurest the most minute is a string upon the golden Lute of the whole Image of things Each motion a touch of the chief the invisible Musitian The Spirit of the whole the Spirit of Unity and Harmony each touch a part of the Musick exactly answering in all Musical proportions to every other part and to the whole making perfect the Divine Consort in which all the Angels all the Ideal the first Glories in the Divine Mind bear a part with every Worm and Dust on the Earth every Wave and Drop in the Sea every Dragon and Owl in the Desert every flake of Snow in the Air. How beautiful now is the Work of God in all how worthy of a God! As his Glory is above all Heavens the highest and purest forms of Light so is his Name which is that Glory in the full expression and fair Images of it excellent through all the Earth to the lowest shades Plato saith That there is that which is the least of all things which cometh between the lowest Divisions the least parts of things which uniteth all one to another Ficinus in his Comment teacheth us That this in the sense of Plato is God who by the absoluteness and simplicity of his Unity is at once the Greatest and the Least the Highest and the Lowest the Outmost and the Inmost of all things the Band of all that can no where be excluded If this be true where now through the whole Universe of things is there found a place for that Liberty which breaketh the Band of the Divine Unity and Harmony which discontinueth the Links in this Golden Chain by uncertain arbitrary independant motions and forms arising from those motions What jarring Motion or Division springeth up without its Divine Ground without its orderly Connexion without its Patterns and Spring above to which it answers without its fellow Notes round about it to which it is tuned Where is this motion which thus jarreth with disturbeth and spoileth the universal Musick Certainly it lies without the supream the all-comprehending Unity It excludes from it self that Divine Unity which filleth all which bindeth all up into one Aristotle expresseth the Soul by a word which seems to have a full and deep sense to this present purpose Those that followed him have with great labour and pains digged in it with their sharpest wits as in a Mine from which they expected much fine Gold of Divine Wisdome and Truth It is reported of one That he raised a Spirit to intepret this word to him It is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which seemeth most properly and clearly to express that Divine Unity of the Soul replenished with all Variety Forms in the most beautiful Order as we have described the nature of it It is that which hath its perfection its end and so its beginning and so its whole way in it self This Perfection of the Intellectual Soul is the comprehension of all Truth in its Understanding the fruition of all good in the Will The universal Truth and Good are then the beginning of the Soul its Original all forms of things in the Beauties of their clearest and fullest Truth which is the eternal Light of their Ideal Glories smiling in the face of them all forms of things in the sweetness delightfulness joy in the unexpressibleness of Good the true Good all Good which is the eternal Life The eternal Love of those Original Beauties in their sacred Spring rising up fresh in the bosome of each Form this is the end this is the perfection of the Soul Thus all things were made for Christ in him by him who is the universal Truth and Good How St. Paul explains it All things are yours and you are Christs All forms of things meet and unite in the Humane Soul as their Perfection their Beginning their End Jesus Christ as he is the first the fairest the fullest Image of all Forms in one in their most exact Order and Harmony is the Father the Brother the Bridegroom of the Soul her beginning her exemplar Form or Perfection her End That Definition of the Soul the Act of an Organical Body contains the same Doctrine of the Soul in it An Organical Body is a Corporeal or visible Image composed of various members various parts and forms to be instruments and expressions of the various Beauties Powers and Virtues of the Soul by which they propagate themselves in an inferior Birth and figure themselves in a new but narrower Orb in a new but obscurer light of sense Thus the whole visible World is one Organical Body of which all particular Bodies are so many Organical parts Beauty is described to be the predominancy of the form over the matter A substantial or essential Act is all form a pure form separated from every thing of Corporeal matter The Soul then as it is an Act is all Beauty Beauty abstracted from matter a pure Light of Beauty the Essence the substance of Beauty and so of Harmony of Order It is a Maxim in Nature That the last the lowest the least in a superior Order or rank of things every way excels the first the highest the greatest in a lower rank and order According to this Rule every Soul in the excellency beauty virtue compass of its Being transcends this whole Corporeal World in the widest Circuit of its Form and largest extent of its Duration Thus the Intellectual Soul is the Act of this Universe of Sense the whole Corporeal World The Intellectual Soul is all this World with all Forms of things contained in it with all their courses and changes according to their Connexion and Order from the beginning to the end in one essential substantial undivided Act One pure Act of transparent Beauty and Order which is the Souls Unity and Essence By this the whole Coelestial and Elementary World in the emanation and springing up of all forms of things in all their motions and orders are uncessantly acted In this they subsist as shadows which have no ground of substance in themselves In this they actually are that which they are As Mathematical figures in the mind the Soul it self alone filling those figures being all the Essence Substance Power Virtue and Form in them Like shadows they vanish as they go forth from this Bosome where alone their Essences which are so many distinct substantial Acts and Unities shine and move together in a most beautiful Harmony as fixed incorporeal Stars in their proper Heaven Thus is each man a compleat world in himself Thus doth each Soul cloath it self with an Aethereal Aerial Robe on which it puts on this earthy Garment Like the Tabernacle of white Linnen wrought with all fine and rich Colours with the figures of Cherubims which had three Coverings one over another upon it of Goats-hair of Ram-skins died red of Badgers-skins
the substance of the Soul into the inward the common sense the phansy or imagination Now it is as a full Moon in the night of this visible and Corporeal World It is replenished with all the shady Forms of this night which shine in the face of it as in a Glass where they all meet and make one pleasant Night-piece Last of all The eternal Spirit the inward former and workman of the Soul contracts it and divides it into the outward senses into innumerable particular Forms These are as so many living Stars or Star-like eyes sparkling and dancing round about the Queen of this Night the Moon the common sense or imagination Through these Stars and this Moon in the Night-piece of these shady and Corporeal Forms is seen as in a Perspective as at a great distance the Intellectual and the Ideal Land of Angelical of Divine Glory which seem to cast forth these less and contracted Lights as faint-glimpses of themselves or like small sparks the seeds of the great flames As the Soul accompanied with her Original Pattern and Principle by its force thus descends so doth it by the same force in like manner ascend All the particular Forms of the outward senses the Beauties of the Eye the Musick of the Ear all Perfumes and delightful Odours the various Delicacies of the Tast the softnesses firmnesses the agreeable rests motions aequalities inaequalities in the Touch. All meet more pure and heightned in the common sense in the inward senses as in that Moon which is described to be an heavenly Earth or an earthly Heaven From thence they raise themselves resining themselves as they rise to the Intellectual Region As some believe the Sun to be the Habitation of the Blessed and to have the Blessed Fields Paradise in it So here in this Intellectual Sun all shady forms break up out of the mists of matter and corporeity into clear Suns into Angelical Essences and Spirits From hence the Soul as a bright Skie set with innumerable Suns of sweetest Light and most temperate pleasant vital warmth or as an Heaven replenished with Angels entertaining each other in a Divine Consort with Dances and Songs returns into its first Nest and its final Rest the Bosome of its Idea the Bosome of Christ in God In this Bosome of a truth hath it ever abode hath it circled round descending and ascending without going forth from it Thus hath God manifested himself in all possible Forms to the Soul according to the first part of the Apostles sense 2. God as the Souls proper Idea or exemplar Form every where present with it in every Form sets himself as a seal upon each form and upon the Soúl in that form So he is to the Soul the Impression the Evidence of the truth of each appearance by himself and of himself in each appearance Thus it is said of the Lord Jesus as he is the eternal word the Idea of all Ideas the proper Idea of man In him was life and that life was the light of men Joh. 1. The first life as it is in its Ideal Spring in the Person of the Lord Jesus the first the essential Image of God and so the Fountain of all Images shines forth into a Light of which is framed the Substance and Essence of the Soul Then it figureth this Light with its own Glories in their Divine Harmony and Order This Light these Figures are in themselves empty without force or efficacy All fullness dwells in Christ the Ideal Life in him forms and fills them This is the face of Beauty that looks forth through these Lattices This is the never-fading Flower in the heavenly Paradise which springs and puts forth it self through these Windows This rides forth upon every form into the bosome of the Soul and gives it self reception in the Soul As this first life in Christ is the Divine Seal upon every Form upon the Soul through every Form so is it the Divine ground in the Soul which receives and sustains this Seal which dissuseth in its Divine force and impression through the Soul by virtue of its Ideal Unity and Omnipresence The Original and Exemplar Life in Christ is the light of man objectively and formally It is the light in the Object which sheds it self on the Humane Spirit It is the light in man the form of his form the eye in his eye the power in his powers which taketh it in All sense is founded in a suitableness between the Object and the Faculty all suitableness in an Unity 3. Proposition God cloaths every created form in the eye of the Soul with an Intellectual or Angelical Image of himself By the things that are made are seen being understood the invisible things of God his eternal Power and Godhead saith our Evangelical Philosopher that word understood is carefully chosen and emphatically brought in The word is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 derived from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the peculiar and proper word by which the most Divine among the Philosophers in St. Pauls time expressed the Angels or Angelical Minds These Spirits were the chief Springs Powers Glories of the whole World in the number of the Creatures They were the Gods of this Creation and had the name of Gods given to them in the Holy Scriptures The Presence the Power the Authority the Glory of the Godhead next to Jesus Christ resided in them Jesus Christ the Lord and King of all reigned acted and appeared in these Angels of Might and Glory as the highest Representation of himself in his Divine Form and Majesty All this was not for their own sakes but for man as they were Guardians and Tutors to this Heir the Lord of all Each Angel was a diverse Figure of a distinct Variety in the eternal Glory in that diversity the full Glory in its Universal Image rested upon every Angel as a ministring Spirit to minister to man the full Glory He was the Heir of God the perfect Harmony the Unity in the which the whole Variety was most perfectly one married together with the Unity into the most perfect Beauty and Melody of the Universal Image of the whole Creation most exactly with the most charming agreeableness answering the Beauty the Melody of the Divine Nature as the Face in the Glass the living Face the liveliest Eccho the living Voice Each Creature hath as it s Ideal Glory in the Divine World so its Angel in the World of Angels In the pure state of things every inferior Creature had its Angel visibly sensibly present with it It s Angel formed it a Figure of it self in the diversity of its own proper Essence It s Angel cloathed it with an Intellectual Angelical Image of the Supream the Universal the Divine Beauty It s Angel dwelt constantly within this Image and shined through it After the same manner the Ideal Life and Glory in Christ made the Angel its Tabernacle in the Heavens and through the Angel each Creature below on Earth Every
19 20 21 22. For the earnest expectation of the Creature waiteth for the manifestation of the Sons of God For the Creature was made subject to vanity not willingly but for him who hath subjected the same in hope Because the Creature it self shall also be delivered from the bondage of Corruption into the glorious liberty of the Children of God For we know that the whole Creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now Observe here that Creature and Creation are both the same word in Greek Where you read the Creature in the 19 20 21. verses you may as well read it the Creation that which you read the whole Creation verse 22. is as properly every Creature There are two Questions which here naturally arise and are absolutely waved by me as having no necessary Connexion with my present purpose Quest. 1. The first Question is this In what sense the Creature or Creation is understood by the holy Apostle Is the whole Creation one entire living sensible Image of the Divine Nature in which every Creature as a part of this Divine Image partakes of the same life according to the Doctrine of Campanella Shall we say with Plato Every thing that is is an Act of Life and so nothing of Being without life Or may it seem agreeable to the Scriptures that all the Creatures stood together at first before the breach made by the Fall in the Unity of the Spirit in Christ the Head of the Creation without whom or apart from whom nothing was made that was made as St. John teacheth us Did every Creature stand now in Union with its proper Angel through its Angel with its proper Idea in Christ the Divine Mind and the Universal Idea Was every Creature thus cloathed with the Angelical Image partaker of the Angelical Life Did it through these receive the Divine Image the Divine Life of its own Idea That the whole Creation might seem a Contexture of Angels filled with Ideal Lights all meeting together in one chief Angel and one Universal Idea which is the Lord Jesus Had every Creature thus a sight and sense of the Divine Design in the Fall was it thus capable of a willingness and an unwillingness in its submission to it as it considered that particular state or the general design with the Divine end of all As it considered it self in this dark part to be acted by it or the eternal Spirit in its universaâ—…â—…ontrivance and the Mark the heighth of Glory to which it directed all Do the Creatures still though bound in Chains of Darkness retain so much of this Angelical Ideal Light and Life as to hope to groan for a return from their Captivity into these Angelical Ideal Forms and so into the glorious liberty of the Sons of God whom St. James saith to be the First-fruits of the Creation Whether this be so or all these terms of Will of Hope of Groans be by a figure attributed to Subjects without life or sense or some other sense be righter than either of these I consider not now as being unconcerned Quest. 2. The second Question is whether the individual Creatures did all pre-exist being together in Paradise before the Fall in their Angelical Spirits and Forms Was among these Mankind with all individual Persons not only in a Representative but a Collective Adam unto whom Adam in his own distinct Person was the Head and the first born Did those thus who now groan under the ruines of the Fall then fore-see it in the Divine Design having an aversion to it in it self yet subjecting themselvns to it for God Are these who now through all Generations groan and travel in pangs for the delivery of the Divine seed in them unto the Birth of a new Glory the same who then had this Divine Seed of a sure Hope sown in them for their return And not for their return only but for their Resurrection unto a sight of the Face of God with a new and fuller Glory shining forth without any shadow or Vail purely and immediately upon them all through them taking them up into it self as a new Super-Coelestial eternal Paradise as far excelling their first Paradise as the Heavens are above the Earth as Eternity transcends Time But these then where have they been since the Fall Were they thrust down to the nethermost parts of the Earth imprisoned in the deep shades of the Earth below and bound there in Chains of Darkness Are they there reserved in the silence and sleep of that Death which came upon all by the Fall until as Seed buried in the ground they according to their several seasons spring up into Corruptible Forms and a wretched Life for a moment upon the stage of this World to act new parts in order to a refining through a Baptism with Christ in the fire of his Sufferings of his Death and the making of all new by this refining in the Glory of his Resurrection Dear Reader these Questions may be thought by some curious and difficult without use fruit or ground in the Word of God To others perhaps they may seem of great moment to open the mystery of God to unvail his Glory in the wonder of his Works which are sought out by all those who love him Some may esteem them of great advantage to enlighten the Daknesses and make easie the Difficulties about Principal Doctrines of the Christian Religion as that fundamental Truth of Original Sin that most sweet and sacred Mystery which is the Antitype to this Type Our justification by Jesus Christ the Return of all to life in the last Adam as all died in the first Others may believe that as God sheds abroad richer Anointings of the Light of his Spirit we shall see lying fair before us greater and stranger things than these which now like fresh colours in a beautiful Object appear not at all for the want of light in the Air in our Spirits As the eternal Sun shineth as the Heavens in the Scriptures and the Spirit shall open themselves they expect to see the Angels of Glory and of God the Divine Glories descending and ascending upon the Son of Man the Person of the Lord Jesus as a mystical Ladder reaching through the whole Creation from the top to the bottom where each rank of Creatures is a step in this Ladder a Divine Glory in the Angelical Form upon the Wings of its proper Angel descending and ascending But I leave these things to the freedome of every Spirit as bringing no weight to my present purpose begging thy pardon Christian Reader for this mention of them as being fairly led to by the present Scripture and willing to take the occasion of diverting thy self and me as I hope not without some spiritual pleasure and profit through the candour of thy Mind I shall take hold of that alone which seems to lie clear in the words of the Text and gives a full confirmation to my Proposition which is this That
motions of things spring and flourish as Divine Plants in a Divine Order to open it to the view of the Sanctified Beholder and at the same time to defend it from prophane Spirits by the flaming Sword by the sparkling penetrating consuming or refining beams of a Cherubim We will therefore penetrate so far as we may into this bright Deep which so delightfully swalloweth up the most Angelical Understanding may our dependance be upon that Spirit alone which moveth upon the shining Face of this Deep and is a Baptism of heavenly fire purifying the beloved Soul illuminating with an heavenly Light the purified Eye enflaming with heavenly Love the purified Heart and so initiating him into these holy mysteries But keeping off every profane Eye and Heart by darkning dazeling affrighting and burning upon them Divine Truth is as a Rose-Tree which as it hath its beautiful and perfumed Roses so it hath prickels to guard those Roses from rash and rude hands My Answer then to the fore-mentioned Objection shall be divided into these gradual steps First No Sinner in a sinful state no Soul in any act of sin can see the Divine Order in the Work of God which Order is Jesus Christ the Image the Wisdom the Glory of the invisible God figuring himself upon the whole Work from the beginning to the end as one entire lively living Picture of himself himself being the Life of it and shining in the face of it Sin is the Souls falling short of the Glory of God into the darknesses below being unable to raise its Understanding to the Beauty of this Light Sin is the violation or breach of this sacred Harmony by which the Soul cuts off and separates it self from it by which it over-casts the Glory with a deep stain and a black Cloud which take it altogether out of its sight all defilement is an undue mixture Every sin confounds the Soul it wraps it up in an universal confusion sin is an enmity to this Harmony of things It is a dark confusion from below rising up as a poysonous vapour to over-spread the pure Light of this heavenly Order The Divine Order then and all things as they lie in the Divine Order fight against sin and the sinner their common and only Enemy As the Stars in their courses fought against Sisera St. John the beloved Disciple having first declared God to be Light without the mixture of any Darkness at all Then testifieth That if we say that we have fellow ship with him and walk in darkness we lye and do not the truth Sinners universally in the Scriptures are stiled Children of Darkness and not of the Light The Light of the Divine Order and Glory the acting of a part in this Divine Order in the light and truth of it are inconsistent in any Spirit with the darkness of sin 2. If any Spirit by the highest improvement of its Intellectual Powers by Angelical assistances and heightnings by the more sublime and supernatural though common illuminations of the Spirit of Grace himself form to it self an heavenlâ—… Image of this Divine Order and that anointed by the same Operations of the same Spirit with an heavenly Beauty Sweetness and Virtue This Spirit thus far will be sanctified by this sacred Light being taken up out of the tempestuous Seas of its sins into the sweet and pure the calm and clear stream of this Harmony as into a River of Milk and Honey But if this Spirit do take from hence arguments to sin encouragements to sin now it no more seeth a right Image of this heavenly Glory no not in the notion of it As St. Paul speaketh of the Gospel that which shines in this Spirit now this Image perverteth and so the Order is changed into a disorder and confusion That Divine figure sprung from the holy Spirit is withdrawn together with that Spirit a Spirit from below is sprung up as by an hellish Magick or Inchantment into a counterfeit but perverted representation of that heavenly Beauty Thus sin deceives this Spirit then defiles it and so slays it by extinguishing the sweet of sight of its true Light Let such Spirits tremble lest they be found in the number of those unhappy Spirits who having tasted the good Word of God and the Powers of the World to come tread under their feet the Son of God that good Word of God that Wisdom of God that golden Chain of heavenly Harmony in Divine Providence and offer injury and dispight to the Spirit of Grace by which the Son of God sweetly lives and shines in the sacred order of things and by which they were once sanctified having been washt in this Spirit of Grace the Fountain of this lovely Order from the Pollutions of the World Are not these the Spirits upon whom wrath is to come so long as Christ shall Reign 3. My two first steps have been as the preparatory to my Answer like the Porch to the main Building my third step will bring you into the House it self which I shall endeavour to present to you as perfectly and perspicuously as I can In this will consist the strength the beauty of the Answer If I be able to set it forth in its proper strength and beauty I am sensible how far I am below this I therefore intreat those that read or hear this Discourse for their own sakes and the Truths sake to assist my weakness with the utmost strength of their candor attention and understanding Dionysius the Areopagite saith in one place That God reduceth into order those things which are out of order and so establisheth all in good and beauty There are two Rules and Maxims concerning Harmony and Order 1. The Order and Harmony is there perfect where the Variety is full Contrariety is an eminent part of the Variety which enlargeth the Variety and heightens the Harmony Contraria juxt à se posita magis elucescunt Contraries illustrate and heighten one another 2. The Order or Harmony is there most compleat where the Unity is preserved most entire and conspicuous in the fullest Variety To this it is necessary that there be no where any leap or gap This makes the Beauty this makes the Musick to which all Spirits sensual and Intellectual on Earth or in Heaven spring and dance with sweetest and liveliest motions of delight and wonder when the Unity unfolds it self into its amplest Variety by just degrees even numbers and exact proportions When one extream passeth not to another but through all the middle terms that stand between these extreams When one passeth not to three but by two Now the Unity is preserved the middle term being as the band or the connexion of the two extreams which joyneth them in one Now the Variety lies in the explication of the Unity as it lies complicated in the Unity when as the Ternary by being first gathered up into a duality lieth folded up in the bosom of the Unity so the Unity from the bosom of the
Lamb that was slain where his wounds appear in his glorified Person not as Wounds but as Beauties not as Fractures or Stains but as Diamonds or Pearls in the Crown of his Righteousness and Glory Perhaps I may seem too long upon this part of my Discourse but we read of a Sanctuary into which the Holy Spirit entreth when it is perplext with the outward face of the Divine Providence in the evil of sin and Sinners and of Sufferings to the Saints There it seeth the end of all There the mystery openeth it self into an universal Uniform piece and prospect of Divine Beauty and Delight Psal. 73. If I be not deceived Jesus risen from the dead in this order and manner is this Sanctuary this Temple of Grace and Truth He hath now rent the Vail of his Flesh and opened himself into an universal eternal Spirit He now shines out with a sweet amiable clearness and glory into an universal eternal Light In this Spirit which is this Light of Life the whole course of his Work in the Creation and in Providence his Incarnation Sufferings and Death present themselves in all the smallest threads and contextures of them as one Diâ—…ine piece as full of Divinity every where Here all in the whole and in the parts present themselves to the spiritual Eye as beautiful and blessed Spirits in numberless troops by a Divine sport figuring their immortal Glories in all Varieties of lights and shades hiding their Glories beneath these figures breaking with their Glories out of these figures as so many Suns out of their Clouds shewing their figures themselves as Glories Like the Palms and Lilies and Cherubims of the Temple carved first in Cedar and then covered with massy Gold In the mean time all these numberless Spirits in their whole play from the beginning to the end are comprehended in this one Spirit the universal Spirit of Harmony Order Beauty and pleasantness in all Jesus risen from the dead the first and the last the same yesterday to day and for ever O the Wisdom the Power the Grace the Glory the unsearchable Riches of the mystery of God in Christ What a depth is this without any bottom What an heighth without any bound What a breadth what a length without any measure How doth it stretch forth it self beneath all above all through all beyond all things or thoughts Who can ever satisfie himself with any the richest the fullest forms of words or conceptions in conceiving or expressing this Mystery this Jesus But I have now brought to an end according to my weak manner the reducing the disorder it self into order in the Person of Christ by these three sacred steps of Expiation Compensation Abolition of the Disorder in the Order or which is the same the Renovation of the Order in all I have endeavoured to shew how every thing of partâ—…cular order and disorder hath been made beautiful in its season keeping its time in the Universal Harmony of this Song of the Lamb in the Musick of the eternal Word I have also attempted to open that mystery how this Work of God in every part of it with its Beauty is for eternity the light of eternity being the only light of Truth with a golden Calm an unstained Sun-shine of purest perpetual Peace Pleasantness and Glory In this light of eternity alone is the Work of God seen aright in the entire piece in the whole design from the beginning to the end As all times appear in this Light less than a moment a point nothing being as eternity in the undivided Unity of eternity so are all the disorders of time no more not so much as a shadow in a dream that is past but as the highest and sweetest Harmony in the undivided Unity of the eternal Harmony All this is true in the Person of Christ to which the Scriptures give a clear Testimony All things are gathered together in one in Christ both which are in Heaven and which are on Earth Ephes. 1. 10. Having made peace through the blood of his Cross God hath by him reconciled all things to himself by him whether they be things on Earth or in Heaven Col. 1. 20. These are true in us as Christ springs up in us Then only are we our selves baptized Then only do we see all things unto us together with us baptized into the sweet shining boundless bottomless Sea of this universal aâ—…d eternal Harmony when we are baptized into Christ. As many of us as are baptized into Christ are baptized into his Death and into â—…is Resurrection from the dead How then can we live any longer in sin being now dead to it How can we live any life besides that of Holiness and Heaven being now risen again with Christ into the Glory of God Thus St. Paul excludes all pleas of the Flesh for a licentiousness in sin from this Doctrine of the free and rich Grace of God in Christ Rom. 6. 1 2 3 4. I am now come to the end of my design upon this Scripture Eccles. 3. I have been large in the prosecution of my design upon this Scripture my purpose was to reconcile the absoluteness of the Divine Sovereignty Wisdom and Power through this whole Work with the Divine Justice Goodness and Glory in the determination of the Will by its essential Principles by the uninterrupted order and connexion of causes by the first and universal Cause which is most intimate to every effect and worketh most of all Secundum modum naturae in a natural way as being the nâ—…tura naturans I promised two other Scriptures for the making good of this design I will lightly touch them and so hasten to an end of my Discourse The Lord hath made all things for himself yea even the Wicked for the day of evil Prov. 16. 4. There are four parts clear and distinct in this Scripture 1. An efficient cause or beginning The Lord Jehovah 2. The final cause or end For himself 3. The universality of the effect and influence of these Causes The Lord hath made all things for himself 4. A confirmation of this universal influence of these Divine Causes upon every Effect by a particular and most eminent instance Yea even the Wicked for the day of evil Three things are remarkable in this particular instance 1. It is brought in as an anticipation of an Objection and with a two-fold Asseveration Yea even Here in this point men are apt most of all to doubt the continuation and universality of the Divine influence What say they hath God made all things for himself What the evils of Sin and of Suffering Here men of greatest wit through all Ages have been at a stand not knowing how to fasten the golden Links of the Divine Chain in the Work of God one within another Here they have broken the Chain of the holy and heavenly Order Here therefore the Divine Wisdom by Solomon peculiarly fasteneth the Links and maketh the Chain entire that he may enclose
God in it is a Divine secret and mystery of Grace and Glory which hath such recesses such endless Varieties in it that it cannot be traced by the Foot or discovered by the eye of any Creature St. Paul foundeth this incomprehensibleness in the Work of God upon the incomprehensibleness of the Divine Mind He foundeth this unbounded Treasure of Divine Goodness and Glory in the Work of God upon the absoluteness freedom of the Divine Nature ver 35. For who hath known the mind of the Lord and who hath been his Counsellor or who hath given first to him that it may be given again to him by way of return or exchange As are the Riches of the Divine Mind which first forms in it self the Ideas of all its work and then forms every work according to that Idea which rests upon every Work as the Seal upon the Print in the Wax such are the Riches of God in every part of his Work As is the absoluteness unlimitedness of the Divine Nature which consulteth with nothing considereth nothing in the Creature but taketh the measure and the manner of all his Works from eternal patterns in his most glorious Essence and is put on and taketh the rise of all his Works from the ever-ful ever flowing over-flowing fountain and boundless Riches of his Godhead such are all the operations and emanations of the Divine Nature Thus St. Paul concludeth and justifieth the Divine Wonders of incomprehensible Riches Wisdom Knowledge The Divine Wonders of an absolute unconfined freedom in all the Works of God by the cause of all verse 36. Because of him and by him or through him and to him are all things Plato maketh three Causes alone the Efficient Formal or Exemplar and Final St. Paul wraps up all these in one in God alone He is the beginning the way the end of all He is the Fountain out of which they all arise in their several streams He is the Chanel in which every stream runs along He is the Sea into which they all flow where they lose not their Distinctions but rise up to the perfection of them in this Marriage with the first the full and unbounded Glory To what unbounded expectations of Divine Riches surmounting all expectations in every Creature may we now raise our thoughts when the beginning the way the end of every thing thus lies in the Godhead when this Bosom the Treasures of all Glories and Sweetnesses is to every thing its Fountain in which it riseth its Chanel in which it runs along its Sea in which it ends How justly doth St. Paul set a Crown of Glory upon the Head of the Deity in all its Works To him is glory in the Generations so may we most properly read the words How sweetly doth he seal up his own Faith Understanding Love in sweetest Rest and fullest Joy with this Glory Amen Of him through him and to him are all things To him be Glory for ever Amen Thus this last Scripture in a clear Harmony with the other two seems to give a sweet and full close to the Divine Musick of this heavenly Truth and leaves these divinely-delightful touches upon our Spirits 1. God the only Good is equally absolute entire universal in shutting or locking up all men in Unbelief the Prison the Dungeon of deepest darkness as in shewing mercy which is the opening to them the taking them into the Palace of eternal Light the Light of Life the Light of Love the Light of Glory He shuts and none can open he opens and none can shut These are the two Cardinal Acts the shutting up under belief and the shewing mercy Upon which the whole work of the Divine Providence moves through Earth through Hell and Heaven through Time and Eternity 2. Shewing mercy is the end shutting up in unbelief is the means or way to this end Mercy is one of the sweetest names of Love the shutting up in unbelief is then an Act of Divine Love For all motions to the end are in the virtue of the end the end is the light the life the loveliness of the means All means and ways to the end are first comprehended in the end The end by it self immediately formeth them upon the Spirit of the Agent The end through the Spririt of the Agent bringeth forth it self into them as so many tendencies to it self as so many gradual orderly springings forth of its self The end at the last comprehendeth them all again in it self as making up the perfection of the end and having their perfection in the end Thus the severity and wrath of God in its severest Act the shutting up men under unbelief is Love and divinely-lovely 3. God and Love in this Work of his appear to be both one For Love is the end of Wrath By being the end it is also the beginning and the way So also is God For of him and through him and to him are all things to whom is the glory through all Generations The highest expression of God unto our capacity as he is in the simplicity of his Divine Essence is Love This is his Glory as he is unvailed unclouded This is that that darkens and thickens it self into every Vail or Cloud This is a sweetning a gilding upon every Vail every Cloud God as he is Love is the beginning the way the end of every Work through every Generation and so the Glory in every Work to all generations 4. God in his Work is absolute and absolutely free He taketh no counsel he is touched with no motive from any thing without himself The reason and rule of all his Works is alone from himself from within All within is the Unity the simplicity of the Divine Essence uncapable of any mixture or composition all meer clear pure Love 5. The Work of God in shutting up in unbelief and shewing mercy is an unfathomable Depth But is a shining Depth of most perfect Beauty and sweetest Light For it is a Depth of Divine Wisdom it is a Depth of Glory and unsearchable Riches It is a most delicious Depth of Divinest Love the unsearchable Treasure of all the most lovely and most loving Sweets and Joys The work of God is unsearchable incomprehensible infinite but an unsearchable â—…ncomprehensible infinite Love and Glory Let us therefore eâ—…pect in this Work to meet with Difficulties too great for our Understanding Let us be content to say Here is a Depth unfathomable not to my Spirit alone but to every finite Spirit of Man or Angel Then let us add from our knowledge of whom whose the design and the work is It is a lovely a delightful Depth a Depth of purest Glories and richest Loves So let us gladly cast our selves into it to be swallowed up by it concluding all with these words I cannot receive nor comprehend thee Do thou receive and comprehend me O Depth infinitely too glorious to be comprehended by me O my self infinitely blessed in being comprehended by thee I
its whole Pilgrimage Thus is the eternal Spirit and the Divine VVisdom unstained conducting this heavenly Seed through all these diversities and contrarieties while they keep their spiritual their Divine Beauties entire by keeping the entire Unity and so the Order the Harmony of the Divine Variety VVe read Rom. 8. That the Saints which are in the heavenly Seed are predestinated to be conformed to the Image of the Son of God Of this Son we read Eph. 4. That he who ascended is the same who descended first That he descended into the nethermost parts of the Earth and ascended far above all Heavens that he might fill all That the Variety might be full in his Person and that he might fill each part of the Variety from the nethermost parts of the Earth to an heighth above the highest Heavens by carrying the Unity and so the full Variety and so the Universal Harmony into each step and form of this Variety whether it were as a shade or a light as a crooked or streight line in this Divine Face whether it were a Discord or Concord in this Universal Musick In this Divine Glass we see the Law in the midst of the love contrivance and glory of the Gospel rising up as a tragical scene with all the black and fiery shapes of sin and wrath acting their parts to the uttermost in this shaded scene spring up from the womb of darkness opening it self in the Bosom of the eternal Light as it was now opening it self in the Gospel to an heavenly Marriage-day between the ever glorious Bridegroom and this spotless Bride All this was done that the Variety might be full That he who cometh after this King might find nothing to add to his Work Yet through this whole scene of the Law with all its mournful and affrighting Apparitions the purity the sweetness the life of the Gospel runs along sowing it self in it vailing it self beneath it casting it self into this shade and sleep and dream springing up through it making it all a shadow a Divine though obscure Figure of it self by which also it heightens it self while the Unity in this part of the Variety also preserveth it self entire tuning it and composing it binding it up into one Universal Harmony of the Divine Beauty and Melody in the whole Variety in which it is set according to the Order which is the Divine Unity diffusing it self through all in its proper place and time Here the Author concludes the last part of his Discourse of the Freedom of the Will but the Reader will in the following Pages find the the enlargement which was before promised upon the Argument taken from Christ's Mediation which is here continued under the same Title because it aims at the same design with the rest of the whole Book A DISCOURSE OF THE Freedome of the Will An enlargement upon the Argument taken from the Mediation of Christ. I Intended to have passed lightly over this Argument But being moved by some Friends who by their Understandings have an authority with me and by their Loves a power over me I reflected again upon it in my thoughts and found as I humbly conceive that nothing would more confirm and illustrate the Subject of which I treat than the Mediatorship of our Lord Jesus rightly understood I do therefore resume it and shall attempt to unfold its Glories in order to my present design as clearly compleatly and compendiously as I shall be able I shall take for the ground of this part of my Discouse that Scripture Colos. 1. Vers. 15. Who is the Image of the invisible God the first-born of every Creature or of the whole Creation Vers. 16. For by him were all things created that are in Heaven and in Earth visible and invisible whether Thrones or Dominions or Principalities or Powers all things were created by him and for him Vers. 17. And he is before all things and by him all things consist Vers. 18. And he is the Head of the Body the Church who is the beginning the first-born from the dead that in all things he might have the preheminence Vers. 19. For it pleased the Father that in him all fulness should dwell Give me leave to make some notes upon the version of these words vers 15. In Greek it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifieth both the whole Creation and every Creature Vers. 16. That which we read by him is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in him This in the beginning of the verse In the end for him is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unto or into him Vers. 17. By him all things consist is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 All things stood together in him In these Verses we have in a lively Draught or Portrait with incomparable Sweetness and Glory set before us Jesus Christ with a two-fold Mediatorship One in the Work of Nature The other in the Work of Grace In respect to one he is stiled The first-born of the whole Creation In respect to the other The first-born from the dead vers 15 18. The first Mediatorship is described vers 15 16 17. The second verâ—… 18. Both are crowned with a double Epiphonema or Conclusion vâ—… 1. That he in all things have the preheminence vers 18. 2. It pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell In order to my treating of the Mediatorships of Christ I shall lay down briefly these four grounds 1. There is no vaâ—… no breach no gap in the Divine Wisdom or Work Wisdom is defined by Proclus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A fulness of things If there were any 〈◊〉 in the Wisdom or Work of God which is the â—…rth and Design of his Wisdom There would be a wound upon iâ—… and a deformity in the face of it by the dissolution of the Continuity of the Unity of the Harmony 2. There is no leap in the Divine Work no passing from one extreme to the other without a passing thorow the medium the middle-space or middle-state This would make that vacuity a breach in the whole which we before-mentioned as altogether unsuitable to a Divine or to any wise Contrivance 3. There is a two-told Medium or Mediatorship One Medium participationis A Medium of participation The other Medium abnegationis A Mediator of separation and abnegation In this last sense the Seas are Mediums between the Lands which they divide and keep from meeting So sin is a medium of separation between God and the Creatures partaking of neither inasmuch as it is a privation of Being dividing both as an unpassable Gulf between them while it remains After the first manner all middle-colours are mediums of Participation and Union between the two extreme colours white and black So the Soul is a medium of Union and Participation between things invisible and visible comprehending both in it self and so joyning both in One. Such a Mediator is Jesus Christ. 4. The Lord Jesus then as a Mediator of Union by Participation toucheth both
new upon the supream Goodness in its heavenly Image of the eternal Truth that here by its Will it may lie down for ever with a most blissful Rest with the fulness of all unexpressible complacency in the fruition of the supream Goodness shining forth upon it immediately clasping and enfolding in its own naked immortal most precious most pleasant Form the perfection of Beauty the Essence of all Beauty Truth Goodness and Love in One But it is time now for me to pass from this second Excellency in the Mediatory Form and Person of our Jesus the Harmonious Order and Proportion of the parts The third Excellency in this Mediatory Form of Christ is the Unity of the whole and of the parts as in themselves so with the whole The ground of this Unity is two-fold 1. The Spiritual Nature 2. The Divine Person 1. One ground of this Unity is the Spiritual Nature of all things here St. Paul speaking of the Lord Jesus in this his proper Kingdom and Glory saith of him The Lord is that Spirit That Spirit in the same place he describeth to be the Spirit in which the Vail the Shade and Cloud of Flesh is entirely removed where all things are with open face in the Liberty of the Divine Light and Glory The Lord Jesus faith of himself The words that I speak unto you they are Spirit and they are Life It is the Spirit which quickneth the Flesh profiteth nothing Jesus in his Mediatory Kingdom and Glory casts off the Vail of Flesh as from his Divine so from his Humane Nature The days of his Flesh are now past He is a quickning Spirit all Spirit and Life His Humane Nature is now all Spirit and by having the Godhead hath the Fountain of Spirits and Life in it self All his words in this spiritual state are substantial living immortal Spirits springing forth from and abiding in himself as their heavenly Root and Element After this manner do all Forms of things arise and flourish in him being his words of Power and Glory as the Images in Humane or Angelical Understandings are the words of those Minds Spirits are Unities There is with them no distance of Space or division of Parts All Spirits intimately entirely throughout penetrate possess and inhabit each other transcending all this Image and measure of space of place of corporeal extension The streets in the heavenly Jerusalem are said to be Gold and Glass If I conjecture aright Jesus Christ in his Mediatory State is this glorious City where the great Assembly of the First-born all Spirits born of the Father of Lights Humane or Angelical on Earth or in Heaven dwell together in One. It is expresly said That this City hath the Glory of God that the Glory of the Lord 〈◊〉 it and that the Lamb is the Light thereof How agreeth all this with that Description of Christ the brightness of the Glory of God In this City of glorious and immortal Spirits which is it self the Spirit of Unity and of Glory where Jesus Christ is built up not only into a Temple but into a City in this Spirit the streets the lowest Forms of things are Gold and Glass Such gold as hath the transparency of glass Such glass as hath the substance the solidity the glory the incorruptibleness of Gold Thus is the Unity in the spiritual Nature of things most beautifully and most agreeably figured to us Like Gold it is every where full of it self compact and uniform sending forth continually all various Forms as Beams of Glory Like Glass it discovereth all Forms of things within it self in every point of it self by a perfect transparency all Forms of things endlesly appear in each form At every single view at every single glance the eye of the Spirit is every where terminated no where bounded every where at rest no where restrained 2. The second ground of the Unity in this heavenly Image is the Divine Person All things here are joyned by an hypostatical or personal Union all are one Person A Person is an Intellectual Unity an Intellectual Essence compleatly existing and subsisting in it self The Unity here is not that only of an Intellectual but of a Divine Person God is the Person here As is the Person such is the Unity both are supream The eternal Spirit God himself in the height of Eternity makes both Natures the Uncreated with the Created one in our Lord Jesus without any confusion or lessening the Distinction between the Natures themselves The Unity of a Person is understood by these three Maxims concerning it in Metaphysicks 1. The Person is the Subsistence or the Existence that Unity which is both the Spring and the Chanel the Center and the Circle of the whole Essence or Nature by which it is one by it self and distinct from all other things distinct from it self as it lies in its Causes and is there one with them 2. All Operations are from the Person 3. All denominations belong to the Person The Person then is the indivisible Unity which within it self according to its amplitude springs up into all Varieties of Forms Operations Denominations through the whole Essence and Nature in its utmost extent This is that which works all in all Operations which appears in all Forms which hath all names and denominations which in all these is one and the same hath one Form one Name which comprehendeth all entirely clearly distinctly undividedly According to these grounds we shall see a three-fold Divine and Personal Unity in this Mediatory Form of Christ. 1. The whole is one entire and Divine Person altogether compleat all over divinely beautiful and pleasant All Distinctions Diversities Distances Divisions Contrarieties meet here without distance diversity or division in the supream Unity of one Divine Person onc all-glorious Spirit one Life one most harmonious Image one Love one eternal Joy Behold the Beauty of this more than heavenly Person in these several Elements which compose all Beauty 1. Here is the Variety of lines and colours All forms of things in their richest Variety lie together here 2. Here is Light The substance of the created Image in this Person is the Flower of Light the most immediate sweetest freshest Sun-shine from the Face of the Godhead it self 3. Here is Life esteemed the chief part of Beauty Here is the Life of Love As it is Life which heightens so is it Love which sweetens all A Divine eternal Spring of Life and Love openeth it self in every part and from every part with most pleasant intermixtures diffuseth it self through the whole Thus are all the Beauties here perpetually in sweetest motion in the liveliest and loveliest activity of mutual fruition and the delightful exchange of their Divine Sweetnesses their never-fading Pleasures 4. All this Variety Light Life and Activity are composed into and governed by the most charming the most exact the most universal Harmony 5. The eternal Sun of Beauty it self the eternal Spirit of Harmony the
him If any man be in Christ saith St. Paul he is a new Creation old things are passed away 2 Cor. 5. It is a known story recited by Plutarch That of a great Cry with dreadful shrieks and groans to Thamus a Pilot as he passed by a desolate Island in the Reign of Tiberius under whom Christ was put to death Great Pan is dead this great All is dead The Heathen figured the whole Creation in the Person of their God Pan the Angelical Coelestial and Elementary parts of it 2. The Death of Christ is an universal Resolution or Return of all things as they stand in Christ into their first and Divine Principles The Light the Life the Forms the Essences of all things return into their Ideal Forms their incorruptible Originals and Patterns their pure eternal Springs in the Mediatory Form and Divine Nature of Christ. The shadowyness returns into that blessed shade that fell immediately from the Person of Christ in Glory that Primitive and Divine Darkness which was before the first Day the Womb of the first Light and of the whole Creation which composed those Nights of Beauty Peace and Pleasure the Nights of the six Days the Night of the seventh Day and all the Nights of Paradise Thus was Jesus with the good Thief and all things with him in him in Paradise at his Death The Jewish Rabbins distinguish Paradise from Heaven thus Heaven is a state of Divine Glory and Pleasure above in the open Light of â—…e Godhead Paradise is a state of Divine incorruptible Glory and Pleasure below beneath the shades of the Earth This is that pure primitive Divine Darkness of which I speak which was the shade out of which the pure Earth with all the unstained Forms of things at first arose and into which they now return again in Christ. This is the Divine sleep of all things in the Death of Christ their retirement into their Divine Patterns their sweet and entire rest in them their contemplation and fruition of all the immortal Joys and Glories of their Patterns and of themselves in those Joys and Glories as a Divine dream in this sleep within this sweet this amiable this more than Angelical shade which over-spreads them Here they desirously and delightfully wait for the Day of the Resurrection from the Face of God which they see by degrees dawning and rising upon them when the sweet Peace of this lovely shade shall break up into the more full and glorious sweetness of the supream Light and that eternal Day St. Paul expresseth all this to us when he teacheth us That Christ hath gathered up all things into one in himself Col. 2. The Greek word properly signifies there the Resolution or Return of things back into their first Principle their Original Spring and Pattern 3. The third and last part of the Mediation of Christ in our Redemption as it was accomplished in his own Person is his Resurrection and Ascension These two agree are the same in nature and kind differing only in degree The Resurrection of Christ is the breaking up of that primitive shade which over-spread him into a clear Light of Glory Now he springs up and flourisheth throughout his whole Person and all things together with him in his Person in the Beauty and Immortality of his Mediatory Form He is now become an entire Spirit in his Humane Nature both Soul and Body This two Scriptures make clear to us Jesus Christ saith to Nicodemus Joh. 3. 6. That that which is begotten of the Spirit is Spirit The word there is a Substantive 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a spiritual substance or substantial Spirit Now it is manifest in the Scriptures that the Resurrection of Christ in the Body was an immediate Generation by the eternal Spirit So Divines interpret and apply those words Heb. 1. 5. cited from the second Psalm Thou art my Son this day have I begotten thee Suitable to this is that Scripture Rom. 1. 4. Declared the Son of God with power according to the holy spirit by the Resurrection from the dead Two things are manifest from this Scripture 1. That Jesus Christ was raised from the Dead by the immediate Power and Operation of the holy Spirit 2. That this Resurrection was a Divine Generation by the Spirit through which he was brought forth into the proper Form of the Son of God That which we read declared 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifieth properly defined or determinately formed This receives further Light from St. Peter 1 Pet. 3. 18. Being put to death truly in the flesh but quickned in the spirit We read it by the Spirit but in Grâ—… the Flesh and Spirit do so exactly answer one another in the construction and manner of expression that one would think nothing to be plainer than the intention of the Holy Ghost to signifie that the Flesh and the Spirit had both the same relation to the Person of Christ in those different states of his dying and rising again that by this change the Spirit came in the place of the Flesh and that the Flesh was changed into a Spirit as by a natural Generation that that was Water or Air is made Fire The words are these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 In the same sense in which he died in Flesh or to the Flesh So he rose again in the Spirit or to Spirit That same Body which died a fleshly compounded mortal substance rose again a simple pure immortal Spirit As the Humanity of Christ rose again a Spirit so it rose in an immediate inseparable Union with the eternal Spirit upon the same Root into the same Life and Image St. Paul instructeth us in this mystery 1 Cor. 15. 45. The first Adam was made a living Soul the last Adam a quickning Spirit vers 45. The subject of St. Paul's Discourse there and in many verses before is the Resurrection of the Body He said immediately before It is sown a natural Body 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Body proper for a Soul It is raised a spiritual Body a Body proper for a Spirit vers 44. He illustrates this afterwards The first man is of the Earth earthly the second man is the Lord from Heaven vers 47. Then he distinguisheth them by the names of the earthly and the heavenly man or the Super-Coelestial vers 48. He likewise distinguisheth their two Images the Image of the earthly and the Image of the heavenly or super-coelestial vers 49. Then he concludes with a a positive and emphatical Declaration But this I say brethren that flesh and blood cannot enter into the Kingdom of God vers 50. From these Scriptures laid together these particulars seem evidently to arise 1. Jesus Christ by the Resurrection in his whole Humane Nature both Soul and Body is a supernatural super-coelestial Spirit far above the nature of Souls or Angels in the first Creation 2. The humanity of Christ hath now its Root in Heaven in that Heaven out of which it comes forth
and appears as Lord of all the Heaven of the Fathers Bosom the Heaven of the eternal Spirit and of the Godhead where it hath the Root of its Personality and its Life hidden with God from the natural eye of every Creature 3. The whole Manhood of Christ is cloathed with an heavenly or super-coelestial Image an Image suitable and proper to that Heaven out which he springs 4. The Manhood of Christ is so immediately entirely mutually united to the eternal Spirit the Godhead it self that Christ as he is man is said to be a quickning spirit The Humane Nature and the Divine in the Lord Jesus are so far now become one Spirit as in a mystical Marriage where at the height of their Unity they keep the distinction as high and clear 5. â—…us Christ in his Humane Nature in his Body as well as his Soul is thus become a Spirit in opposition to the earthly and fleshly substance of the natural Body of the first man which is declared incapable of entring into the Kingdom of God 6. This spiritual and super-coelestial state above the natural Body and above the natural Soul of the first man in his primitive state and so above the Creation in its visible or invisible part when it was most pure is properly the Kingdom of God to which that of St. Paul agreeth when he placeth the Kingdom of God in the eternal Spirit Thus the Resurrection of the Lord Jesus is his Return with his Humane Nature with his shadowy Image with the whole Creation in himself into the Immortality and Glory of his Mediatory Form to be there as he was at first This is the Object of his Hope the subject of his Prayer Now O Father glorifie me with thy self with that Glory which I had with thee before the World was Joh. 17. 5. What time that now relates unto you may understand by the fore-going verse I have glorified thee on Earth I have finished the Work which thou gavest me to do Jesus Christ speaketh this by a Prolepsis or Anticipation having his Eye upon the finishing his Work upon the Face of the Earth by dying and finishing his Work in the Heart or nethermost parts of the Earth by lying the appointed time in the Grave Jesus Christ points out to us three eminent Circumstances in his Resurrection 1. The first is a Glory with his Father an Union and Fellowship with the Godhead and with the Person of the Father in his own proper and Divine personal Glory He expresseth this twice over as the chiefest sweetness of his Hopes and the principal Glory in the Glory Glorifie me with thy self with the Glory which I had with thee 2. This Glory transcends that of the whole Creation in its greatest Perfection as it also antecedes it as it also is a Glory which was before the World was 3. Here are three states distinctly represented to us 1. Jesus Christ in Glory before he came into this World before this World was 2. Jesus Christ coming forth from that Glory into this World and being without that Glory all that interval of his Life here 3. The return of Christ at his Death and Resurrection into the same Glory These three states must necessarily respect Jesus Christ in the same form under the same relation to accommodate this sense and make that proper The Person of Christ in his shadowy Image in which he was the Head of the whole Creation and comprehended this all in himself as he took flesh of the Virgin Mary and set himself in the place of all in their fallen estate So He was without the Glory Before all this in his Mediatory Form he stood together with God and his Father in his shadowy Image in Flesh and Blood with all the changes accompanying him after a spiritual manner filled and cloathed with a super-coelestial and eternal Glory Two Scriptures laid together give more light and strength to this place and this sense Jesus Christ having spoken to the Jews of eating his Flesh and drinking his Blood Joh. 6. 56. Of his being the Bread coming down out of Heaven vers 58. Understanding the Jews to murmur and be offended at the hardness of this saying vers 60 61. makes this Reply to their murmurs What if ye shall see the Son of man ascending thither where he was at first or before It is the Spirit quickneth the Flesh profiteth nothing The words which I speak they are Spirit and Life The other Scripture is that Rom. 1. 4. Christ was raised from the dead by the Glory of God From these two Scriptures compared the Truth of this mystery shines forth in these parts 1. The flesh and blood of Jesus Christ in the proper sense of Christ's words are Spirit and Life 2. They were Spirit and Life in the Glory of God before the coming down of Christ upon the Earth 3. From that state they came forth into their shadowy appearance here in this shadowy Image 4. They returned again together with this shadowy Image into that first state where casting off the Vail or rather converting the Vail into the same Nature and Form they were again all Spirit and Life by the Glory of God in the Resurrection springing up in them coming down upon them and taking them into it self Lastly The flesh and blood of Christ even when they are come forth from this spiritual and immortal Glory while they are in this shadowy state upon the Earth abide unchangeably in this Glory and are there still all Spirit all Life without any Vail or Cloud Thus are they the food of a Saint The Lord Jesus expresseth this sense No one hath ascended into Heaven but he who comes down out of Heaven the Son of Man who is in Heaven Two things are remarkable here 1. The being in Heaven is expressed by the Participle of the present Tense a present and constant Act. 2. The Title of the Son of Man is particulary added to that clause of the being in Heaven constantly without interruption while he comes down out of Heaven while he ascends into Heaven in the interval or space of his being on Earth between both these Jesus Christ as he is the Son of Man comes down at first out of that Heaven into which at last he returns and re-ascends In the same Heaven also hath he his present and constant abode while he is on Earth As the Heaven of Christ's Mediatory Glory and of the Fathers Glory which are far above all created Heavens the Heavens of this Creation come down together with him upon the Earth obscured beneath the Vail of Flesh and in this Flesh act all the parts of his living and dying here So do these Heavens also at once comprehend this Earth in the Person of Christ his flesh their obscurity before it All the parts of his Life and Death in the flesh as parts of Glory in these Heavens As Spirit and Life as spiritual and immortal Glories in the Fountain of Life and