with it Heb. 2. 1. So there is a second sort of Witnesses unto the same Principles in substance that is to say to the life of the Image of God in pure Nature wherein man was at first created as it comes again to be renewed and restored with power in the soul by the knowledge of Jesus Christ and the Redemption that is by his Blood through the Ministry of the written Word and the operation of the Spirit of Christ in the use of those Ordinances and Institutions of Worship which he hath appointed and revealed in the Scriptures according to the several measures of their growth up into this knowledge of Christ and faithfull walking with him therein under the variety of Profession and Forms of visible Worships that are extant in that which is acknowledged or witnessed to be the visible Christian Church which by the preaching of the Gospel upon the Ascention of Christ and the Ministry of his Spirit poured forth in the primitive state of it came to be raised up by God's visiting the Gentiles to take out of them a People of his Name that he might substitute unto himself as another Israel and holy People and Church of visible Professors of his Name in the room and place of the Jews and the old Law and Form of Worship that had been in practice among them Rom 11. which made James in Act. 15. 16 17. apply the words of the Prophets unto this new Christian Gentile Church which sayes After this I will return and will build up the Tabernacle of David which is fallen down and will build again the ruines thereof and I will set it up that the residue of men might seek after the Lord and all the Gentiles upon whom my Name is called saith the Lord who doth all these things Now amongst the visible Members of the Christian Church as evidently appears Gal. 4. there were a Generation that under the Name of Christians and hearers of the Gospel and Ministry of the Spirit according to the New Testament chose still to retain the Principles of the Law and first Covenant as the ballance of all their Faith Obedience and Worship desiring to be under the Law and Dominion of it and to cleave to the upholding and doing those things which according to the Judgment of the Apostle Paul made them debtors to the whole Law and struck them clear off from the true Principles of Grace that are by the Law of Faith and of the new and everlasting Covenant and of this they gave but too clear a proof in that they gloried in something that was on this side the Spiritual mind which is set upon things that are above and which ought to be died unto by the Doctrine of the Cross unto which they shew themselves the declared and zealous opposers Not but that in words and profession these pretended as much to own the Principles of Free-Grace and of the New-Testament as any and have their approach to it at least when they please themselves some more and some less but when they are brought to the Tryal they quickly shew that they are not able to endure the bridling and restraint which the New-Testament puts upon them by the Doctrine of the Cross of Christ to the crucifying that wherein they desire and affect to glory from which they are excluded by the Law of Faith and the New-Creature as we shall shew in its place So that in Truth that which these second sort of Witnesses have in their eye is not the being and life of the New Creature but the restoration of the old Adam in his primitive righteous and holy state into which they grow up and are found for the life of their holiness and upon that bottom as a qualification to entitle them to all the Promises and their abode and continuance in Fellowship and Communion with Christ and Interest in his Death for the Remission of sins They do experience such acceptance from Christ and are in themselves so certain of their good Estates to their Eternal Salvation that they will not endure to hear wherein they are in a mistake nor that it is possible for them to be better These do indeed excel the first Witnesses in the doctrinal part of the knowledge of Christ confessing him in that great part of his Priestly Office which the others see not as he bare our Transgressions and made Atonement for the sin of mankind by the Sacrifice of himself in the benefit of which Sacrifice they find their outward peace and joy more than in their righteous works nay when as to the light and evidence of their Sanctification they are at a loss and in the dark they have an adherence to the blood of Christ as the propitiation for their sins and his intercession on their behalfs to the Father for the obtaining new strength against Corruption and the renewal of their former peace and comfort which experience the first sort of Witnesses are strangers to or see no need of but account themselves Justified as well as Sanctified by the inward purity and perfection which they have attained with power over the brutish and sensual Nature that they are more careful and able to keep under than this second sort are Nevertheless The Oyl which is given from Christ under this first Ministry in either of these respects before-mentioned is that Annointing that through the frailty and weakness of the Vessel that receives it is not abiding but at the best is but as a sojourner that finds not in these hearts the new man that is the place of its rest Isa 66. and though it be used by Christ to trim the Lamp of the spirit of man with when renewed and restored to the obedience and subjection that is required by the Law of God in any degree and measure of sincerity or chastity of the pure Lamb-like and virgin Spirit yet being only in the Lamp where it spends and consumes and must be duly renewed and by a frame of heart meet to receive it and cheerish it or else being grieved and quenched it suddenly departs Hence it is that amongst these two Witnesses under this Anointing which is from Christ and the operation good righteous holy and spiritual and the change made by it true and real there are such a number of visible Professors that prove Hypocrites Apostates and fall away from the Grace and enlightening they have felt and experienced deceiving both themselves and others being not able to hold it out in the day of Tryal nor to persevere and endure to the end without on the other hand stumbling on the stumbling stone and becoming prejudiced against any higher and further growths up into Christ or on the other hand through fear of loss by Persecution are terrified from well-doing with amazement or are bought off from it with the reward of unrighteousness as Balaam was and as Demas who embraced this present World And the Reason of this as to the one as well as
unto him unto whom as he is his Equal for saith he I and the Father are one So also he is his Servant and hath his Office of Ministry under him For the end of Christ's Ministry is to unvail the Glory of his Father and to shine with him as second in the Throne which he prefers much before the drawing of all men to himself to depend and rest on him only and not on the Father in and through him as well those do that rest in the knowledge of Christ according to the flesh and behold not that vail rent upon his spiritual Cross in order to live to him that died for them and rose again By what we have already shewed we have or may have the sight of him who is the Holy and Invisible One from whom as from the Head all Natural as well as Spiritual good doth flow 2. The next thing propounded is to set forth the two distinct Branches and Administrations of this Headship exercised by Christ as he is the Son of Man glorified ministring the Inspiration Anointing and Image of God which is given according to the Principles and Law both of the first and of the second Covenant The influence and effect hereof upon all rational beings whether Angels or Men in their mutable estate or immutable doth proceed from Christ as he is the second Adam that quickening Spirit who is Lord from Heaven And hereof he hath his living and undeniable Witness in the Hearts and Consciences of his Subjects and Followers from the beginning of the World to the end thereof 1. The Headship which Christ exerciseth by the first of these Ministries is that of Supream Natural Lord and Sovereign over all Creatures by the breath of whose mouth they were made Psal 33. Rev. 4. 11. and redeemed by his Blood Rev. 5. 9. So that his right of Rule to them and over them is indisputable and their obligation for duty and service to him indispensable and perpetual The Angels that fell are charged Jude 6. with defection from and rebellion against this their Prince and Sovereign Lord leaving and deserting him who was their appointed Habitation and Object of Worship and Duty by the very Law of their Creation And unto the same Disobedience and Revolt from Christ was the first Adam tempted who was subjected at first to none but God While God the Mediator ruled and man obeyed all went right For God being most perfectly wise and just could not erre in commanding but man though innocent yet being free and mutable was capable to be tempted from his Obedience as it fell out Satan that by his disobedience had overthrown himself knew thereby the way how to overthrow man He perceived God could not be corrupted nor tempted to unwise or unrighteous Government And if neither King nor Subject could have been corrupted the Kingdom must needs have stood But he quickly found man was frail though holy and had not yet attained to his incorruptible estate though upright and was therefore capable to be wrought upon and corrupted in his mind from the simplicity that is in Christ Man would be as God have no guide but his own understanding hating that just restraint which was needful as a bridle to be put upon him to keep him from falling and which God provided to offer to him as the means to remain innocent and pass out of his mutable into an immutable holy state without sin But this would not go down nor be born The resignation of his Will and absolute resolution of it into the Will of his Sovereign by believing who required it for his good would not be hearkened unto He could not or would not or would not think he was such a fool as stood in need of being so absolutely at the will and dispose of another when as yet he was his own man free to continue under the guide of his own self-rule a thing very beautiful and good as he thought to be put into practice This was the Choice God had given unto man in this his righteous mutable state either to trust to his own guidance for the ordering of his steps according to the Rule set before him and the conditional Terms of the Law of Nature and first Agreement or Covenant made with him at his Creation or else to distrust his own Wisdom as insufficient to be his guide and his own power of Will that was mutable and uncertain in its best state and thereupon commit and resign himself through Faith unto the guidance and power of his Natural Head Lord and Sovereign to do as by the sight of Faith he should find him do and cleave close to him whatsoever he should go before him in The first of these the first man determined himself in and in that Act chose for his whole seed as well as for himself who if God pleased might have been then concluded by it without any new offer of Grace made unto them or their ever being brought to so fair a tender again But so far was God the Mediator from applying himself speedily to any severe course of proceeding against the first Adam and his Posterity that sinned with him in his loyns as that he takes this occasion to renew his first Offer upon the experience Man now had of trusting to his own wisdom and strength God freely of his own accord makes a Promise to man of a Redeemer that should come in his own Nature and be made flesh to recover him out of his sinfull corrupted state and bring him and his Posterity once more into a state of Reconciliation with God that what the Law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh might be done by God's sending his Son in the likeness of sinful flesh who by the sacrificing of himself condemned sin in the flesh that the Righteousness of the Law might be fulfilled in all such as walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit And here behold the Righteousness of God which is and declares it self by the Faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all that believe making no difference but as all have sinned and come short of the Glory of God in the Act of our first Parents disobedience So all should be restored and brought into a capacity of being justified freely by his Grace through the Redemption that is in Jesus Christ and made the Righteousness of God in him against all that can be objected by the Malice of Satan or from the Justice of God's Law that hath been broken and must be satisfied either by the person offending or some other proper to make Atonement by his Obedience in the imputation whereof we may be accounted righteous as by the Act of disobedience in the first Adam we were made sinners This is done by the Redemption which is wrought for all men and forgiveness of sins through the Blood of Christ either conditionally or absolutely Col. 1. 20 23. Hereupon God expresly and sincerely declares he
desires not the death of a sinner having sent his only begotten Son into the World that all should live through him and none perish or die in their sins for want of a possible and sufficient Remedy even him whom God hath fore-ordained and set forth to be a Propitiation through Faith in his Blood for the remission of sins that are past And this is so far from making void the Law or first Covenant between God and man that it doth establish it and much clear up the Justice of God in exacting the Debt of Obedience and Allegiance due to him from Man according to the Law when so much Clemency and Forbearance hath preceded and an Act of Oblivion freely and of Grace hath been passed the benefit whereof is conditionally extended unto all Hence it is that the Office of giving and putting in execution the Law of God as it is a Ministry that works wrath is committed by the Father unto Christ as he is the Son of Man First to dispence Judgment with Mercy great patience and long-suffering and afterwards without Mercy as that fiery Indignation which is reserved for wilful and hardned sinners This Christ doth plainly intimate Luke 12. 10. where he saith Whosoever shall speak a word against the Son of Man it shall be forgiven him but unto him that blasphemeth against the Holy Ghost it shall not be forgiven For what else can be the meaning of these words but that Christ would have his Disciples know that Judgment was first committed to him as he is the Son of Man made the chief Officer and Dispenser of God's Justice whether distributive or revenging the exact Rule whereof is given and contained in the Law of Nature or Covenant of Works The Transgressions against this Law are capable of remission and forgiveness through his Blood the Intercession whereof speaks better things than that of Abel and prevails for gifts even to the Rebellious so that they receive not God's grace nor take his Name in vain if they do he will not hold them guiltless nor continue any longer to extend to them the benefit of his Sacrifice Secondly Therefore Judgment was committed to him without Mercy in reference to such sins by which the doers of them blasphemed and resisted the Ministry he was intrusted with of giving the Holy Ghost or inspiring the hearts of the Regenerate with the new Name and that saving knowledge of God which is communicated according to the Law of Faith and of the new and everlasting Covenant This is the Royal Office and Dignity which Jesus as the Son of Man is exalted unto by the personal union which he hath with the Word being made a meet Minister in all respects through his Death and Resurrection to dispence God's sovereign Justice and to execute Judgment and Equity according to the Law of Nature renewed and confirmed in his own Blood Herein he is King of Kings and Lord of Lords the great and Universal Monarch that is appointed Law-giver and chief Judge in Heaven and Earth to and over all Natural Beings whether Angels or men and is the rewarder of every man according to his works with the same measure that any man metes unto another he measures out unto him again and strictly doth insist upon and require that which is just and due to be paid unto God or man by the Law and Principles of the first Covenant He therefore hath the Gifts and Abilities incident to that Communion with God committed to him to dispence being the Head of God's distributive as well as his revenging Justice and will make it appear that he desires not to reap where he hath not sown nor to gather where he hath not first strewed and dispersed abroad in his bounty and liberality none being a more chearful giver and lender of his Goods than He looking for nothing again where there is no ability to pay not happening through our own default This is the Ministry which worketh Wrath that is to say contracts a debt of Punishment and of the Curse to every one that joyns issue with God upon the terms of this Covenant and continues not in all things written in it to do them And although by this Ministry and that from Christ himself as he is the Son of man there be a life and communication of God's Image given which in it self considered is pure holy righteous spiritual and good yet it is but upon such terms that it may be again withdrawn and revoked by the Giver if he please or may be corrupted or forfeited by the Receiver and so end in death and wrath The proof of this was seen at first in the Fall of our first Parents and is since in all the Children of Perdition who after all their great and high enlightnings and clensing from all their old sins fall into a relapse that is irrecoverable so as to become trees twice dead finally to be pluckt up by the roots and burned It is Christ in the exercise of this his first Ministry that we intend when we say that he is the Lord of Nature and Fountain of all Justice upholding a powerful and lasting Witness of himself in the very Natural Conscience where he begets and sets up that knowledge which declares God Just and the Justifier of him that either is perfectly righteous in his own person with the righteousness that his Law requires or that in default thereof is righteous in another that God hath given to be made a Sacrifice for them that they thereby might be made the Righteousness of God in him such as he is willing to accept on their behalf and to reward not of Debt but of Grace In one of these two wayes it is for all men to seek to be justified to answer the end of the Law and to receive the reward of it But as to those that neither in the one nor the other of these wayes desire to approve themselves and be found righteous they are justly convinced of all and shall be judged of all as meet objects for God's revenging Justice to be shewed upon them as the Judgement that is final after which no place is left for Mercy So then in and by this Ministry that begins in Justice distributive which is founded in God's bounty and liberality by which he giveth to all their being life and motion and filleth the desire of every living thing and which endeth in avenging and punishing Justice upon mercy and bounty abused as the known natural Principles of all Law and righteous Magistratical Government God manifests himself the Fountain thereof in the Person of Christ the Mediator And in this kind of knowledge of God and obedience to his Law all mankind are and must be conversant whether they will or no and are to shew themselves either his obedient Subjects whom he countenanceth protecteth and rewardeth in their well-doing or his rebellious and disloyal Subjects over whom he will glorifie himself in his avenging Justice and dispensation
of Judgment at last without Mercy A remarkable example of this we may see in the Case of Jacob and Laban Gen. 31. 44. Laban a Righteous man at least pretending to it in his appeal to the God of Justice conversing with God in and under the Law of Nature and what of God is to be known under that Ministry saith to Jacob Come now after all our difference and unkindness thou shalt see I will deal righteously with thee and put thee to the proof who shall be found more righteous thou in thy way of serving God or I in mine Let us strike a Covenant I and thou and let it be for a Witness between me and thee Let Him whom I know and serve by the Light and Law of Nature and whom thou servest by a higher Law and Light that of Faith which doth not destroy but establish the Righteousness of the Law let him whose eye only seeth and before whom we cannot be hid either from his knowledge or his vengeance watch and mark our carriages in pursuance of our Covenant and Agreement and accordingly be a Witness for or against us upon the breach thereof Unto this Jacob chearfully agreed upon his Principles and Laban upon his In which it is evident that the same God and Christ may be conversed and walked with upon differing Principles and that righteous Agreements may be upheld and maintained by those that own and call Christ to witness as he is the Sovereign Minister of God's Justice whether their knowledge of him be according to the first or second Covenant in both which Christ comes forth as to his Communications and enlivening Presence in the hearts of the sons of men which is the point that we are now upon and have cleared in the first branch of it The Second being that which consists in a knowledge and manifestation of God that is beyond and above Nature that which man in his natural make at best reacheth not or hath a mind or will to receive is more difficult to be expressed and when expressed to be understood For after this manner God is not seen or communicated unto any but in a secret and hidden way which he makes not common but reserves for peculiar kindness to those that find grace in his sight upon their coming as Esther did into the inner Court to have this golden Scepter held out to them by promise or else they die God's first Voice and Manifestation of himself unto the Creature speaks and declares him as we have shewed to be just in a way of Law and righteous Government which he exerciseth over his Creatures He is their Soveriegn they are his Subjects in order to receive the reward of Love or of Wrath That which this Second Voice ministers and speaks is that Love and the knowledge of God in it which he spreads abroad in the hearts of his good and loyal Subjects after the proof made of the Loyalty and stedfastness of their Love to him Not that they love him first but of his own Will they are begotten by the Word of Truth into this Love of his which comprehends them long before they apprehend it and God in it But he that shall come will come and will not tarry if by Faith we are taught to wait for him Whom having not seen yet we love or have secret cleaving to and earnest longing after In whom even whilst we see not but find our selves altogether in the dark and at a loss as to what may be seen and known of him by natural Light and Reason yet believing and having thereby given us the evidence of things unseen by the natural eye they become so real and are made so certain to us as we rejoyce with joy unspeakable and full of Glory We could do no more were we at the end of our Faith and did see as we are seen as we shall at the compleat Salvation of our Souls From him then that is thus the Love and Joy of the believing Soul that is to say Christ the Minister of the Spirit and giver of the holy Ghost and that new Name which none know but they that have it is this Second kind of Knowledge of God and Communication of Life from him that we desire to open and lay before you You have already heard that Christ is the only begotten of God as he is the Building and Sanctuary which he that is the builder of all things sets up in himself for his own use as his Temple and speaking-place where to give and whence to deliver his lively Oracles and Inspirations of both sorts with which he fills all things In this Heavenly Habitation God records his Name and hath the place of his Throne and of his Footstool with which he will dwell and tabernacle among his People for ever Again By this workmanship and heavenly building Christ the Mediator hath a Creature-being given unto him in spirit before the World was and is he who was before all things and by whom all things consist is the Angel of God's Face and Presence that is by God and with him First As his chief Messenger and Servant his Messiah and then as his Spouse and Equal that lies in his bosom knows all his secrets and is retained in the most intimate bond of spiritual marriage-union that is possible for Creature-nature to be taken into with God even by personal union as the body is with the soul And thus Christ is found even as a Creature in the form of God and is called Michael God's Fellow and Equal after such a manner as the body is to the soul both making but one person Now Christ as he lies in the Father's bosom and is the Spouse to the blessed Trinity is a higher manifestation of God than he hath sent out from God as the Messiah that bears God's Name only by figure and representation as his single Image which yet speaks truly what God is and as fully as the Creatures first vessel of Receipt and Measure knows how to bear and receive but doth not speak out all God's fulness nor shew the Original it self whereof it is the figure and character which in its single standing and appearing out of God as a thing distinct from God and not at the same time known to have any abode in him after that intimate manner of union and conjunction before-mentioned the finite and short-sighted understanding of the Creature is ready to imagine that manifestation and sight of God's Glory to be all that is to be known and inherited of God And to desire as the Israelites did Exod. 20. in the Person of Moses as the Type that God would not add to speak more or shew forth his naked and unvail'd glory to them but they would content themselves to hear God speak under the Vail which Moses had put upon his face and not look out after any higher attainment When God had spoken once and shewed the Creature as much of himself as it
old ere ever the Earth was And what is true in Christ who is not only the Root but the chief and principal Branch hath its Witness and is declared in the Work which he begets and shines forth in amongst his Members knit to him by an abiding or indissoluable union all that are Branches in this true Vine whose Fruit is such as is cheering both to the heart of God and of Man that is to say of Man considered in his higher or lower attainments and growths up into the knowledge and love of God as he is Man and no more partaking of the Spirit of God by measure And secondly of Man made the only Begotten of God that lyes in the bosom of the Father and is anointed with the Oyl of gladness above his fellows which Christ's exalted Manhead is and that after such sort as not to have and inherit the dignity of it to himself single and alone but as the Head and Husband to that General Assembly of the First-born whose Names are written in Heaven and have right to the double portion The right opening of this is the great Key to all our practical and experimental Knowledge of God which is found amongst the dispersed Seed of God that are either of the one or other birth Children of the first or second Covenant in every Nation Tongue Language or Form truly searing God and working Righteousness and therein accepted of God either through Faith or with that common acceptance declared Gen. 4. If thou dost well shalt thou not be accepted whilst in the mean time they may be great strangers unto if not much prejudiced against one another for not walking together in one and the same way of Profession and external Communion Give me leave then to distinguish this Seed of God into Four sorts Two that are Witnesses unto Christ's first Ministry as he is the Author and Restorer of the Law and Principles of pure Nature and is the dispenser of God's Image and the manifestation of his Will upon the terms of the first Covenant And other two that are Witnesses unto the truth of Christ's second Ministry as he is the new Creator that regenerates and makes over again his first work anew is the Author of Life from the dead and bringer of Immortality to light which is not done by the first Covenant nor can be but by this second knowledge and Image of God begotten and wrought by and according to the tenor of the new and everlasting Covenant The first sort of Witnesses we shall speak unto and rightly to have the knowledge of them we must yet further consider Man in his first make and in the primitive constitution of being that was given to him in his state of Innocency before sin entred So as to enquire upon what terms Man then stood with God and in what respect he was pronounced good in God's eyes and might be said to be accepted of him Man then had the perfect knowledge of God and of Christ as his Creator and Law-giver for God created all things by Jesus Christ by the Word of God's mouth in the Mediator did all things live move and had their being so that what might be known of God even of his Eternal Power and Godhead by the things that were made that is by the means of any created beings visible or invisible it was manifested in man and was shewed to man by that mixt com pound being which was given him of an intellectual and sensual or animal Soul which furnished him with inward and outward senses proportioned for such a knowledge and which were retained in due subjection and subordination the one unto the other From such a prospect and survey of things as Man at first was fitted to receive both from within and without him the invisible things of the Godhead were clearly seen by him rendring him without all excuse being thereby instructed in the duty of his obedience and subjection to the Law of God under which he was made to the glorifying him as God which as God expected and required from man so he owned a liking and acceptance of from man with whom he treated and agreed upon the terms of his personal obedience and entire observance of all his Commands and continuance therein Three things man in this state might and did experimentally find in himself First The light and manifestation of God's Mind and Will as a Law within him called in Scripture The Candle of the Lord the Oyl with which God furnished the Lamp of man's spirit which he was to take care that through his default he did not let it go out nor diminish but quicken and renew it as it should need by such means God instituted The second thing which man experienced was the life of a rational and intellectual Soul that is to say a superior part in the same Soul affording the use of inward senses that by keeping open and awake he had as it were an intercourse with the spiritual and invisible beings of Angels and saw the intrinsick natures of the Creatures And thirdly He found also a brutish nature of which he was compouuded and made which furnished him with the use and operation of outward senses by which he might go abroad and walk up and down in converse with earthly things and inhabitants The fountain of these outward senses his inferior part to be in his soul or spirit With these he came to perform and put in execution that which the superior and directive part of him judged right and fit to be done This was the inward and outward order of actings that Man at first was created in with a freedom to make use of this Light within himself which God as a Talent had committed to him to imploy according to his will and rely upon his guidance and the sufficiency of it to attain the end God set before him in the way of his perfect obedience and keeping out the entrance of sin or else upon the sense of the instability he might discern in these Principles of Freedom that leave him alone and to himself and the Insufficiency to continue by the power of the Grace received in well-doing against all resisting and deceiving temptations to chuse rather to make resignation up of this his Freedom wherein he was at his own guidance and dispose in exchange for a better and more perfect Freedom that is to say in order to be intirely at the will of another and the leading influence thereof in all things even of such another whose service is perfect Freedom and who should be as Surety for the performance of the duty to God's Law and secure us from the penalty of the Curse therein threatned against the Transgression thereof which was pointed out to Adam in the Tree of Life as John interprets by the Promise mentioned Rev. 2. 7. To him that overcometh which is done through Faith will I give to eat of the Tree of Life or Immortality which is fed on
by the Law which he consents and agrees to as that which is righteous and holy and spiritual and good and a will to put it in execution as that which in the doing thereof he doth but his duty and which he is obliged to by GOD and his own voluntary Engagement and to continue therein under the danger of the Curse upon failer Here the Command is a Lamp and the Law is Light to instruct man in his Duty and the Spirit and Mind of man keeping to this Light and walking up to it and faithfully in it is in a good and perfect state by God approved and justified so that there be but a continuance in it And this Christ seems to acknowledge to him that put him the Question Luke 10. 25. What shall I do to inherit Eternal life In the Answer he gives bidding him do that which is written in the Law which sayes Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart with all thy soul with all thy strength and with all thy mind do this and thou shalt live Where then lies the difficulty what is it that is yet wanting The difficulty lies in man's part whereof he is not enough sensible and the want is that of a Guide and Surety to set and to keep man's spirit right in the doing of that which the Law requires in the manner God prizes and most esteems For there is a way that is right in man's eyes even in yeelding obedience to the Law of God wherein man glories and is puffed up in himself but hath no praise from God and this is from that spring and principle of activity which is seated in the freedom of Will which is natural to man in his first righteous Nature and was found in him before his Fall and is capable of Restitution since nay is actually restored through the benefit of his Death more or less in every man by that common Light and Grace which Christ doth no more withhold from any man than he doth his Rain from raining upon the Just and Unjust but in way of further bounty doth confer in large proportions where he pleaseth a distribution of his Goods and Spiritual Gifts in which he causeth the Receivers thereof to differ one from another according to the use he intends them unto By which enriching of man's nature upon this his restored natural bottom of a free active righteous spirit according to the Law whilst the primitive mutability is still continuing with him he is so far from being made a New Creature and truly regenerate as is but too generally conceived that nothing but passing under the new Creation-work translating man out of his primitive natural freedom and activity into an activity and Freedom of another kind is capable to hinder this first freedom from engendring to bondage and the righteousness accompanying it from failing and ending in the death of Hypocrisie and final Apostacy which made Christ in Joh. 8. 31. to deal so plainly with the Jews that in this wavering spirit were for the present such as passed currant for Believers and were so called by the Evangelists but Christ knew they were not of continuance and so told them ver 31. together with the Remedy which he had by him for the cure of it For they stood in need to be made free by the knowledge of the Truth or rather to be known of him that is True the Son that abides in the house for ever who is able to bring them into that state of freedom that shall make them free indeed with an impossibility ever to be imbondaged more or to serve sin as their lord and master This mutable state wherein man did at first receive God's Image by Creation and doth in the way of Restoration again partake of it by vertue of the Ministry of Christ's first anointing and comforting Presence in which he takes up his habitation in the soul as a so journer and passenger although there be given that knowledge of God's Will and Mind to man which is true and as perfect and full as the Vessel that takes it can bear yet the weakness of the Vessel is such that it is like the wave of the Sea tossed with every wind when temptation arises and is either of it self apt to mistake and misunderstand the Rule given him to walk by or to close and fall in with a false deceitful spirit transforming himself into the Image of Righteousness and imbrace him for the True one for whatever Image of God that which is a meer Creature and no more is found in the old Serpent knows how to imitate and personate the same in the very likeness wherein it shines forth in Christ's own Person and with the same to seat himself in the hearts of his followers as in the Temple of God and to shew himself as far as that will go for proof and demonstration that he is God to the imbondaging and carrying captive by this deceit all that receive not the Truth in the love of it Whereas the Image and knowledge of God and of his Will which is given by the Truth or by his coming into the Soul who is the true One doth anoint and impress the Soul with that Name of God which doth exclude by the very Nature of its evidence all possibility of falshood deceit or uncertainty as doth the Dayes-spring of Light to the natural eye which by its self-evidence assures it It is that Light wherein is no darkness at all but is able to distinguish it self as that which is separate from the darkness of every counterfeit and false representation This comes only by the Law of Faith and true Regeneration that Gift of the Holy Ghost as he is the Second and better Comforter the Spirit of Truth which the World neither doth nor can receive Christ therefore calls himself the Truth as he is the receiver and giver of this Anointing as these Rivers of Living Waters flow from him that fail not but are a well-spring unto Life Eternal as it is written Joh. 7. This spake he of the Spirit for the Holy Ghost was not yet given that is in this Ministry and by the means of Christ's Manhead because Jesus was not yet Glorified Jesus was a man and the most perfect righteous natural man which ever was the form of which is made in him Incorruptible having its first mutability fixed by being subjected and made a Servant though the elder unto a New-spring of Light and Divine Birth that was added to him as he became the engrafted Word and wherein he and the Father are One and not he but the Father doth the work Therefore he sayes in Rev. 1. 18. I am he that liveth and was dead and behold I am alive for evermore and have the Keyes of Hell and of Death According to this pattern of man's Natural Perfection made in Christ incorruptible and brought forth in perfect subjection and subservency unto and agreement with a more excellent birth
continuance is measured out by the time of the six Trumpets that is to say in the exercise of these three distinct Powers under the Name Christian the one Imperial and Magistratical the other Spiritual and Ecclesiastical in the two Horns and branches of it pretended unto of Divine Right and Institution or whether it be more diffusive in a Collective Body of Church-Rulers and as more particularly it is expressed to last twelve hundred and sixty Prophetical dayes that is to say years in the 11 12 and 13 Chap. of the Revelations and by comparing what is spoken and described in the foresaid Chapters with Chapter 17 concerning this Constitution and Face of the Christian Church and State that was fore-seen to rise up out of the dissolution of the Heathenish Roman Empire and the driving into the Wilderness the Spiritual part of the Church made up of those who are said for the heavenliness of their Principles and Converse to be those that dwell in Heaven chap. 12. vers 12. and chap. 13. 6. It seems very plain that upon the Disputes that was likely to arise in the Christian Ecclesiastical State and Government upon the bottom of the Papacy and Rule in the Church by one universal visible Head under Christ here upon Earth as one of the Horns belonging to the second Beast by Daniel called the Little Horn mentioned single because he was most Potent and for a long time was able to uphold his Authority without any considerable cruelty and division that was visible But in process of time the separation and division happened as John in mentioning of the two-horned Beast did fore-tell there would alwayes be within the bowels of the visible Church of the outward Court-worshippers a more and a less corrupted and backsliden part the one of which compared with the other would or might be likened to the earthly Jerusalem in the temper it was in when Christ was upon Earth for persecuting the Prophets and killing the Heir himself when he came amongst them As the other might be to Samaria and the worshippers of Jeroboams Calves after that he had headed the ten Tribes in their defection not only in the Civil State but from the Purity of God's visible Worship kept up according to God's Ordinances This latter being the lively resemblance of the Papacy and all that acknowledge the Papal Authority as the chief Ruler and Head of the visible Church throughout the several States and Dominions of the Christian Empire the other figuring out the Jerusalem that now is and is in bondage with her Children distinguishing her self from Popery on the one hand and from them that dwell in Heaven as the true Citizens of the Jerusalem that is above the Mother of all those that are Heirs according to the Promise on the other hand accounting the one Babylonish Antichristian and Heretical and the other Schismatical and Erroneous Fanatical and Blasphemous And because the Woman as the Apostle calls the earthly Jerusalem which was amongst the Galatians in his dayes as being in bondage with her Children to the Law and worldly Rudiments that perish in the using Touch not taste not handle not as Objects of Divine Worship which feed most the outward senses doth make a very fair shew in the flesh having the Form of Godliness but denying the Power of it and withdrawing from and disowning the Children of the Promise that are of a more heavenly birth and of the free Woman Therefore we shall find this sort of Professors described by John in his 1 Epist 2. 19. They went out from us but they were not of us for if they had been of us they would no doubt have continued with us and not have made a manifest distinction of themselves from us that is to say from being followers 1 Thess 2. 14 15. of the Churches of God which in Judea are in Christ Jesus that are the Circumcision in Spirit and have no confidence in the flesh For which cause sake the Thessalonians in adhering to the primitive pattern which shewed it self in those Churches did suffer the like things from their own Country-men the Jews among whom they lived as those Churches of God in Judea did from the Jews there who both killed the Lord Jesus and their own Prophets and chased out the chiefest of the Apostles from amongst them and they pleased not God and are contrary to all men forbidding under pretence of too much familiarity with the Heathen and prophane World that the Gospel should be preached unto the Gentiles whereby they might be saved every way filling up their sins and bringing wrath upon themselves to the uttermost This is the Woman which John saw in Rev. 1. that was drunk with the blood of the Saints ver 6. and with the blood of the choicest Martyrs of Jesus at which he wondred with great admiration as little expecting to find what he saw or to reade that name written upon her forehead which he did of Mystery Babylon the great the mother of Fornications and Abominations of the Earth with whom the Kings and Inhabitants of the Earth commit Fornication and have been made drunk with it For at last her false unchaste whorish spirit to her Lord and Husband is discovered and made manifest by the open rejection of him in his Members and by the Combination and Conjunction which she is found in with the seven-headed and ten-horned Beast and his Adherents under the Papacy thereby to make War with his Witnesses and slay them and expose their dead bodies to shame and reproach in the streets of this earthly Jerusalem who for her exceeding Apostacy and fierce Enmity against the true Temple-worshippers is spiritually called Sodom and Egypt where also our Lord was crucified and though she have strengthened her self as one that sits upon many Waters and who is the City that reigns over the Kings or chief eminent Persons men of Name of the Earth which the Children of the earthly Jerusalem are yet sayes he God determines to bring her to Judgment and in order thereunto the Instruments he will employ therein are the several Potentates and Kingdoms that have given their Power to the Papacy who at the time appointed shall find it their Interest to agree and become of one mind in hatred of this Whore or unchaste Spouse of Christ that sitteth upon Peoples and Multitudes and Nations and Tongues and shall therefore combine together to make her desolate and naked and shall eat her flesh and burn her with fire For God hath put it into their hearts to fulfil his Will in this Judgment which they are to execute as Nebuchadnezzar formerly did upon the earthly material Jerusalem in his days until which be fulfilled they shall agree and hold together giving joyntly their Counsel Authority and Strength in support and maintenance of the Beast that is the first and chief Horn of the two-horned Beast which is the Papacy And how to give a right interpretation of the things in
of their Wilderness-condition Yet this earth or miry clay cannot when all 's done cleave heartily and thorowly to the heathenish prophane Spirit of the first Beast but at last is preyed upon by it This Earthly Jerusalem is unexpectedly surprized and overflowed as with a flood by that prophane Interest it ventured to call to its assistance against the true Seed of the Woman in which respect it is said that the Earth helps the Woman the wrath of the prophane party of Antichrist's Kingdom or of the ten-horned Beast being chiefly spent and poured out upon that Professing Party that make up the second or two-horned Beast 11. By the Inhabitants of the Heavens of the Earth and of the Sea chap. 12. 12. are meant First The Citizens of the heavenly Jerusalem who are under Grace Secondly The Citizens of the earthly Jerusalem who are under the dominion and curse of the Law And Thirdly The prophane Party who live under sin moving therein as in their Element past feeling by reason of the blindness and hardness of their hearts This state of Sin is nevertheless not unchangeable nor those that are Captives under it in a condition irrecoverable for Christ died to redeem men out of it 12. By the seven-headed and ten-horned Beast arising out of the Sea is to be understood the Empire or Governing Power of the World in whose hands soever it be found as it is made the Seat and Throne of Satan and promotes the Interest of the Devils Kingdom in corruption of manners and prophaness even by the countenance of humane Laws or at least in the execution of them 13. By the two-horned Beast arising out of the Earth we are to understand the Usurpation of the Prophetical Office of Christ by a false Spirit or the said Office as deceitfully executed in a private Spirit of self-byassed Reason in disjunction from the Spirit of the true Head undertaking to counsel and lead men in the interpretation of the written Word or other evident signification of God's Will This once joyned with worldly Government and Power made its vassal and ridden by it is that Spirit and Principle for promoting of worldly Religion which is founded in and supported by humane Laws under the Name and Form of Christianity The two-horned Beast and the false Prophet are therefore the same as by comparing chap. 13. vers 14. with vers 20. of chap. 19. is most clear And the ten-horned Beast is wont also to be called the Image of the Beast where ever therefore the Beast and the false Prophet are mentioned together as they are three times there by the name of the Beast is meant no other but the ten-horned Beast as by the false Prophet the two-horn'd Contrarily where with the Beast we find coupled the Image of the Beast as chap. 14. vers 9 11. chap. 15. vers 2. chap. 16. vers 2. chap. 19. vers 20. chap. 20. vers 4. there by Beast is to be understood the false Prophet and by his Image the seven-headed and ten-horn'd Beast as restored For this Beast seeing he acknowledgeth the false Prophet as his Restorer and suffereth himself to be guided by him as his supream Lord chap. 13. vers 12 14 15. he is not without cause called his Image not as representing or bearing the similitude of the two-horn'd Beast but he is the Image which the two-horn'd Beast speaking like the Dragon did restore and which he challengeth for his own To justifie this that very Image of the Beast which the false Prophet did give life unto did cause that whosoever would not worship the Image of the Beast should be slain To conclude of the self-same is the Image of the Beast and the Name or Number said to be chap. 15. 2. The Name and Number seem not to be called the Name and Number of any other Beast than of the two-horn'd as of the principal Founder and Lord. 14. The Number of the Name of the Beast being said to be the Number of a man signifies that it is the sensual part of man's Wisdom or Reason become devilish by joyning in combination with Satan in his revolt from his true Head and in exercising enmity against all Righteousness upon one account or other This sensual part of man's Wisdom savours and minds Earthly or seen things and delights in corporeal fleshly objects whether actually corrupt or only corruptible This is the Wisdom that is prevalent with the generality of men in the World according to the Principles of which the Empire and Government of the World is managed and the judgment and interpretation of the very Law and Word of God is made for the Rule in matters of Faith and Worship This Wisdom is in its best estate unstable and unfixed so as from the top and height of its honour there is suddenly a being made like the Beast that perishes and so a falling short of the true Rest This was the case of the first Adam who was created on the sixt day and whose unstable perfection is therefore numbered by six thrice repeated This sensual part of man's Wisdom is the executing or performing Power of the Soul in reference to the dictates and enlightnings that declare themselves in the intellectual and angelical part of the mind which many times serves and approves the Law of God whilst the sensual part serves and obeyes sin and as with a Law of common consent from the Members opposes and resists the good and right Rule which shines forth in man's intellect and which we call sound or right Reason But as this sensual part in its movings and actings holds agreement and is in conjunction with the intellectual part as its Ruler and Guide following the dictates thereof so far the actings thereof are sound and right holding conformity to the Law of God Thus even the sensual part as subject to the right dictates of the intellectual is it self a Rule unto humane action and is the principle and foundation of righteous Magistratical Government amongst men Now when this Principle in Magistrates ceases to be any longer found in a state of down-right Paganism and comes to be healed and restored out of darkness and prophaness by receiving of the Scriptures or written Word of God opened and interpreted by such as pretend to be commissioned and gifted for that purpose unto which it owes its healing and restoration it doth by way of acknowledgement receive and set up that prophetical Office in an administration countenanced by humane Laws and the Magistrates Power Where-ever this kind of Magistracy is in both the branches of it both Civil and Ecclesiastical setting up for themselves and their own Interests in their own wills in disjunction from Christ and his Spirit the true Head and in opposition to the Remnant of the Womans Seed and their testimony in word and action there is the Kingdom and Seat of the Beast and Antichrist leading the People over whom it is exercised into servitude both of Soul