between them In the horrour of these Dreams and in this sleep they may lie till â—…hey be awakened by that joyful sound of a Trumpet from Heaven or of an Arch-angel Arise and shine for thy light is come the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee Which St. Paul expresseth thus Awake thou that sleepest and stand up from the dead for Christ shall give thee light Then shall these Bridegroom-Souls with their beloved Brides their Bodies appear after this dark and tempestuous night of their sleep and dreams in the fresh and pleasant morning of a new day as new Heavens and a new Earth with their Beauties all new married anew to each other Some have imagined that these Souls together with their Bodies lying yet in their bosomes above before their descent and fall had a prospect of this terrible dream in that Image of the Divine Wisdom which did then shine clearly in their Natures and Essences It seemed to them an horrible Pit without any bottom a vast and howling Wilderness full of deformed and dreadful Monsters to which their sweet Beauties and Chastities dearer than their Lives would be exposed to be deflowred and defiled by them full of Dearths and Droughts full of fiery Serpents which with stings fixed in them with their infused Poyson would fill them all over with pains and horrors would subject them to that most deformed and most dreadful Monster the King of Terrors death it self Thus were they for their own sakes most averse to this descent and exile from their native home from themselves from their own true sweetest Purities Beauties and Beings But in that Divine Glass in which they saw this Prospect they saw also that this terrible Dream had a Divine mystery of wisdome and love in it that out of it was to arise from every part and circumstance in it a far more transcendent Glory to the supream Love their Father and Bridegroom They saw that this Love it self would go along with them through all though hidden and vailed reserving his own Purities and Sweetnesses in the midst of all They saw that he in the midst of those hidden Purities and Sweetnesses would preserve that Love which he had to them in eternity when he beheld them in that first-born Image of all loves and lovelinesses and that in these loves and lovelinesses he would conduct them and direct their way through this Wilderness They understood that he would be a seed of hope to them by the virtue of which they should certainly in the set time in their proper season ascend out of this Pit return home from this Exile then should they be received with an universal shout of Joys and Glories resounding from all things without them and within them when they should see all these sufferings break up into the most heightned Glories of the supream God the supream eternal Love and themselves with Raptures of highest pleasures transcending all Humane or Angel-like thoughts taken up into the fellowship of these Glories This imagination seemeth to some to be well-grounded upon and naturally to arise from that Scripture The earnest expectation of the Creature or the Creation was made subject to vanity not willingly but by reason of him or for his sake who subjected the same in hope because the Creature or the Creation it self also shall 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 travelleth in pain till now Reader I hope it will not be unacceptable to you that I have endeavoured to divert thee and my self by these Speculations which seem to be very pleasant representing to us the Soul as a Coelestial Bridegroom with its Bride and Bridal Chariot both in one its Body descending and returning as in a Caelestial Dance measured by the Musick of the Divine Harmony Let these things have with thee that weight of probability or truth which thou thy self shalt give to them in thine own judgment However I have thought them proper to my present end the illustration of that truth the harmony of things in the whole and of the several parts as they lie in the whole which seemeth to me to be clearly character'd in all the beautiful and bright lineaments of Reason it self which its essential form is an universal Harmony and to be expressed through the whole Scriptures as their proper design which are a Divine Draught or Description of the Divine Harmony in its eternal Original and in its Figure St. Paul saith That all things work together for good for those that love God The only true love of God is the immediate and proper Birth of the Divine Love its clearest and fullest effulgency and its most perfect reflection upon it self This is the essential Character of a Saint as he is the Spiritual man To this person St. Paul saith All things are yours this world lise and death things present and things to come you are Christ's and Christ is Gods God is the Head the beginning the end the measure of Christ. Christ is the Head the beginning the end the measure of a Saint A Saint is the head the beginning the end the measure of all things All things through the whole World through the whole compass of time in both those bright and black Regions of Life and of Death are exactly tuned each to other and struck with a Divine Hand of Power and Skill with all manner of sweetness to make the most agreeable and charming Musick to God to Christ and to a Saint as they dwell together in one heavenly Image and in one eternal Spirit All things even the most distant and most contrary meet together by a most admirable and ravishing consent in one most beautiful Harmony of a perfect universal eternal good to a Saint as he is in Christ as Christ is in God as all three lie together in the pure the soft the spacious bosome of Divine and eternal Love But I shall speak more fully of this universal Harmony in the Second Part when I shall have occasion to shew what place Sin hath in this Harmony how Disorder it self is reduced into Order by its powerful Charms how the Harmony is made perfect by a full Variety The Variety cannot be full without a Contrariety how in the contrariety the Law ariseth as a ministry of wrath out of which Sin takes its birth as a Contrary which is the proper correlate or mark or object of the Divine Contrariety and Wrath how this Divine Contrariety heightning it self to the utmost upon Sin and Sinners to declare to the utmost their irresistible contrariety to the Divine Nature and prevailing over them in the Person of Christ consuming them consumes it self together with them as a flame with its fewel like a flame it vanisheth into the pure Air Light and Heaven where all things now spring again and are seen new in the beautious Glories and ever-flourishing sweetnesses of an Universal
Persons or to the Sanctification of our Natures 3. The Law which is the Ministry of Wrath is not the first or chief design of God that in which he begins or with which he ends The Divine Love the Beauties of Holiness and the Divine Nature Immortality the Glory of God founded and wrapt up in that one Seed which is Christ from whom together with whom for whose Joy and Glory sake they spring freely fruitfully irresistably subduing all things to themselves These are the first and chief design of God the good pleasure of his Will So St. Paul teaches us Gal. 3. That the promise in the Seed was first and the Law came after that which cannot therefore frustrate the design of the Promise and of the Seed There is a beautiful and rich Scripture opening the Glory of the Divine Design of the Lord to us Rom. 5. 20 21. But the Law came in by the by that Sin might abound but where Sin abounded Grace hath abounded much more That as sin reigned unto death so Grace might reign by Righteousness unto eternal life through our Lord Jesus Christ. Two things are remarkable here 1. The way of the coming in of the Law 2. The end of bringing in of the Law 1. The way of bringing in of the Law is most elegantly and amply expressed in that one word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Law was not brought in first from the beginning nor for its own sake that it should be the end Grace the Divine Love the everlasting Righteousness eternal Life in the Seed the eternal Son of God the Image and fulness of the Godhead the brightness of his Glory Jesus Christ was the great design for which all things are constituted to which all things serve In which God beginneth and endeth all his Works all his Counsels and in which he eternally resteth In the stream and current of this Design the Law it self is brought in as subservient to it In Dramatick Poems which have the design laid in some one entire great and glorious action the continuance is set off heightned by two eminent parts in it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a knot tyed fast in the course of the action then the uniting of this knot which makes the action more full of Variety more glorious more delightful Thus in this great action of time and eternity the bringing of the Sons of God to Glory by their glorious Captain Jesus Christ the Law is brought in in the course ofit as a knot tyed fast which no created Power is able to unty or to understand how it should be loosed This is the way of bringing in the Law 2. The ends of the Law are of two sorts 1. The proper and next ends 2. The extrinsecal and Ultimate ends 1. The proper and next ends of the Law are Sin Condemnation Death and the Divine Wrath. So that St. Paul saith in this Scripture That the Law came in that Sin might abound 1. The Law let in Sin so St. Paul teacheth us expresly Rom. 7. 8. Sin taking occasion by the Commandment wrought in me all concupiscence Again as the 11. verse Sin taking occasion by the Commandment drceived me and slew me 2. The Law heightens Sin so that expression testifieth The Law came in that Sin might abound 3. The Law by bringing in Sin bringeth in upon us a spiritual Death in Sin St. Paul speaking as by a figure of all Mankind in his own person Rom. 7. 9 10. I was alive once without the Law that is in Paradise but the Law coming sin revived or sprung up into life but I died These three ends of the Law flow from it not by it self nor from the nature of the Law but by accident from the weakness of the Flesh and of the Creature So you read verse 10. The Commandment which was unto life in its own nature was found to me unto death in the effects of it verse 13. The holy Spirit opens the design in these effects of the Law Is then that which is good namely the Law made death to me But sin that sin might be made manifest wrought death to me by the good that sin might become excessively sinful by the Law God having a design which he intended to enrich with the fullest the highest Glories of his Godhead brings forth in the course of this design a dark scene of all evils Sin Death Wrath The evil in this scene is carried on to its utmost extent and heighth Thus the Variety becomes more full in the whole design and the chief design is heightned in its sweetest Glory God through his infinite Wisdom so bringeth in this scene of sin and evil that himself is perfectly pure and good in the contrivance and conduct of it He setteth up a Law good holy and spiritual but such that sin inevitably may take occasion from it through the frailty of Flesh and of the Creature to spring up by it unto an overflowing Flood to display it self over all things in its fullest foulest Forms and Births 4. The Law hath for its proper end the conviction condemnation and death of all men 1. The conviction of the Law is two-fold 1. Man is convinced of his frailty and consequent mutability in his Primitive state before the Fall So saith the Psalmist Man in his best state is altogether Vanity He is the shadow not the very Image the true Glory He hath a shadow of Righteousness of Wisdom of Power a shadow only of Life a shadow of Being Christ only in his heavenly Image and eternal State is the Life it self the truth of all these Man in Paradise had no Being Life or Motion of himself or in himself As a meer shadow is no more than it is in its proper substance on which it depends If it be any thing in it self it is no more a shadow but the substance The Spirit saith of the Heavens and the Earth That God turneth them as the Wax to or by the Seal The Divine presence and appearance in man newly created was the Seal to this Virgin Wax which as it changed changeth the impressions upon it together with its whole form 2. The Law convinceth man of his faln state of the evil of this state that there is no good or power of good at all in him That the whole person and nature of man is only evil and altogether evil Thus St. Paul chargeth Mankind universally Jews and Gentiles There is none that doth good no not one The poyson of Asps is under their Tongue they are altogether corrupt They have not known the way of peace He presseth this charge universally by these words Now we know That that which the Law saith it saith to those that are under the Law Now we know that all Mankind according to the state of nature and in the first Creation is under the Law if there be any difference found among men it ariseth not from nature or the principles of
Creation but from common Grace supernaturally communicated by virtue of the heavenly Seed all along sown and springing up in the nature of man Now to this conviction as to their proper end are directed The precepts the vehemency of exhortation expostulations comminations and allurements which God maketh use of to man through the whole Scriptures That man may be sensible if he be capable of any sense that he is dead in sin that there is no principle no power of good at all in him which may be a ground to receive this good seed cast from without upon him that it may take root in it and bring forth fruit by it 2. The Law is a ministry of condemnation so St. Paul expresly stiles it This conviction and condemnation both the holy Apostle presenteth clearly to us when he saith That the end of this whole ministry is That every mouth might be stopped and the whole world become guilty before God 3. The last end of the Law is Death Death upon all Mankind upon the whole person of man a spiritual and natural death Death here where man is truly dead while he seem to live Death in the departure out of this life death after this life in Hell in torments This death is without any Ransom or Redemption within the compass or power of the whole Creation These are the proper and next ends of the Law Before I come to the remote and Ultimate ends I shall make my way clearer by answering an Objection which may here set it self in our way Object Is it not the proper and next end of the Law to be a rule of Holiness and a guide to it Answ. Indeed not rarely the form of each thing being its perfection is called the end of it But if we distinguish the formal and the final cause this is not the end but the essential form of the Law The true form and essence of the Law is a proposal of good and evil to man as the object of his choice In the Law we have before us the good of Holiness with its Divine Nature and Beauties with its attendant joys and blessedness The evil of sin with its hateful form and the monstrous disorders in the nature of which an Angel becomes a Devil and which is the proper constitutive form of a Devil together with the consequent horrors and torments extending themselves to the nethermost Hell Thus is the Law as now we speak in its essential form a convenant of works presenting to man holiness and sin with life and death accompanying them that he may make his choice by embracing holiness taking life in it and together with it Or by entertaining sin receiving death into his whole person and all his solaces round about him From this essential form of the Law see how the Law is directed to the fore-mentioned ends Man is composed of the light of God and his own proper darkness These two the Schools call the Act and the potentiality the form and the matter being and not being which constitute every Creature The darkness or nothingness which is the Creatures own is the proper ground of sin which is its own form and is a privation or deficiency a falling to nothing While the Divine Glory shines upon man tempering forming and confining this darkness by its own light to an harmonious Union with it it becomes the Daughter and Image and Spouse of this Light Now sin lies dead in us but the man lives This Divine Life shining in the darkness and through the darkness is to him a Divine shadow of the Divine Light While these two stand undivided and undistinguished to man in the Unity of the Divine Image and in the simplicity of this Divine Unity sin finds no way can take no occasion to bring forth it self into life The Law comes this distinguisheth between the Light of God and the darkness of the Creature in man This is the temptation and the state of tryal Abide saith the Lord to man with thy darkness in the Divine Light as a shadow of the Divine Glory in the simplicity of the Divine Unity so shall this Unity this Glory be a Tree of Life to thee thou shalt eat of it and live for ever Thou thy self shall be as the fruit upon this Tree which shall never fail nor fall But if thou choose to thy self thine own darkness if in this darkness thou distinguish and divide thy self from the Divine Light seeking to captivate this Light in thy darkness and to turn it to a glory to thy self as if thou hadst in thy self and in thine own darkness the root upon which this Divine Light with all its beauty force and sweetness grew This division in thy self will prove to thee the forbidden and that cursed Tree of knowledge of Good and Evil in eating of it thou shalt immediately die God thus in the Law presenteth this trial to man That he may discover man in the earthly Image of the first Creation with all his Strengths and Beauties to be altogether shadowy That he may make way for the dissolution of this shadowy Image in order to the springing up of the heavenly Image as its proper seed through it into its ripe fruit and perfect form God with-holds his Divine presence appearances and influences from man during this trial Now the darkness which alone is mans own discovereth it self in its own proper deformities and confusions it predominateth in man captivateth man entirely to it self becomes his choice and his Lord. Thus now sin springs up thus it takes life to it self bringing forth death together with it which is the perfection of sin and of the Original Darkness dividing it self from the Divine Light heightning it self to an enmity against the Divine Light making it self by this means as a Mark and a Butt of opposition to the Divine Light against which it shooteth all the fiery Arrows of the Divine Displeasure and Wrath. This seemeth to be the proper meaning of St. Paul's words before cited I had not known concupiscence if the Law had not said Thou shalt not covet I was alive once without the Law and sin in me was dead But when the Law came sin lived and I died Sin taking an occasion by the Law deceived me and so slew me That of mans own the darkness was the Womb out of which sin the delusion of sin and death by sin spring forth into life There is one note upon this Scripture which is very necessary for the enlightning of the whole sense Some Copies read in the 9. vers 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sin revived this supposeth a former life of sin this seemeth uncapable of any sense agreeable to the Text the Context the Design of the Apostle in this place But other Copies as that interlineary Greek Testament of Arias Montanus readeth it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sin lived now first took life This reading alone furnisheth us with a sense in which all the expressions of the holy
Apostle scattered throughout this place fall into a most beautiful Harmony St. Paul here setteth himself in the place of all Mankind in Paradise He describeth to us as in a figure the nativity of sin its esssential form or life if we may have leave so to speak of a privation the occasion and manner of its first appearance and taking life I have now finished my Discourse upon the ends of the Law which are of the first sort proper and immediate which are called by Logicians the ends of the work I pass now to the remote and Ultimate ends which are stiled the ends of the Workman I shall make my transition by this consideration A Poetical History or work framed by an excellent Spirit for a pattern of Wisdom and Worth and Happiness hath this as a chief rule for the contrivance of it upon which all its Graces and Beauties depend That persons and things be carried to the utmost extremity into a state where they seem altogether uncapable of any return to Beauty or Bliss That then by just degrees of harmonious proportions they be raised again to a state of highest loy and Glory You have examples of this in the Divine pieces of those Divine Spirits as they are esteemed and stiled Homer Virgil Tassâ—… our English Spencer with some few others like to these The Works of these persons are called Poems So is the Work of God in Creation and contrivance from the beginning to the end named 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God's Poem It is an elegant and judicious Observation of a learned and holy Divine That the Works of Poets in the excellencies of their imaginations and contrivances were imitations drawn from those Original Poems the Divine works and contrivances of the eternal Spirit We may by the fairest Lights of Reason and Religion thus judge That excellent Poets in the heighths of their fancies and spirits were touched and warmed with a Divine Ray through which the supream Wisdom formed upon them and so upon their work some weak impression and obscure Image of it self Thus it seemeth to be altogether Divine That that work shineth in our eyes with the greatest Beauties infuseth into our Spirits the sweetest delights transporteth us most out of our selves unto the kindest and most ravishing touches and senses of the Divinity which diffusing it self through the amplest Variety and so to the remotest Distances and most opposed Contrarieties bindeth up all with an harmonious Order into an exact Unity which conveyeth things down by a gradual descent to the lowest Depths and deepest Darknesses then bringeth them up again to the highest point of all most flourishing Felicities opening the beginning in the end espousing the end to the beginning This is that which Aristotle in his Discourse of Poetry commendeth to us as the most artful and surprising untying of the knot 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or by a discovery This is that which Jesus Christ pointeth at in himself who is the Wisdom of God The manifold Wisdom of God in whom all the Treasures of Wisdom and Knowledge lie hid in whom all the Divine contrivances are formed and perfected What will you say when you shall see the Son of Man return there where he was at first In this God himself seemeth to place the highest Beauties the sweetest Graces the richest Glories of his whole contrivance and work in bringing things down by the Ministry of the Law to the last point to the lowest state to the most lost condition to the nethermost part of the Earth to the nethermost Hell And in ways unexpected by uncomprehensible to Men Angels to raise things again by the Gospel to that first supreamGlory which was their Original Patern in eternity The Law was brought in that sin might abound That where sin had abounded grace might superabound So the Wisdom of the Heathen and of the Scripture both instructeth us That God entertaineth himself universally and divinely with this great and pleasant Work of making high things low great things little of making little things great and low things high He sendeth the rich empty away and filleth the hungry with good things He grindeth man through pain to dâ—…st and then he saith return again ye Sons of Men. But I have made a long transition I come now from these proper ends of the Law which were the deepest descents which comprehended the reign of sin by the Law unto Death an Universal Death the most killing death a spiritual never-dying death of immortal Spirits as well the natural death of Bodies separate from their Spirits to the Ultimate ends of the Law in which some glimmering lights begin to dawn of the most desired and delightful day shining from this black and hellish night All these Ultimate ends of the Law are generally comprehended in Christ the Ultimate end of the Law The end of the Artificer and of the Agent of the eternal Spirit in the Law is Christ. So saith the Spirit in the Scriptures The end of the Law is Christ Rom. 10. 4. He may well be the end of the Law who is the end of all things for whom all things are made The Law was given by Moses but Grace and Truth were by Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ came full of Grace and Truth saith St. John in the same Chapter Joh. 1. 14 17. Grace is the Divine Love opposed to the ministry of wrath by the Law Truth is the naked Face and Beauty of the Godhead the Light the brightness of the Glory of God in the Face of Jesus Christ as he is opposed to the Vails and shadows of the Law Thus Christ that is God in the nakedness and simplicity of the Divine Essence as he is Love as he is Light the Light of Immortality and Glory in which there is no darkness is the end of all the darknings dividings and destructions of all the shadows and severities of the Law But this general end is to be subdivided into its several steps or degrees 1. The end of the Law is to be a prison for faln man till Christ comes This is the language of St. Paul Gal. 3. 28. But before the Faith came we were kept in custody under the Law being shut up unto the Faith to be revealed Faith is the evidence of things not seen and the substance of things hoped for The Divine Faith is a Divine evidence of Divine things divinely invisible from an excess of Divine Light and Glory too great for every natural eye or understanding The Divine Faith is the Divine substance of Divine things the objects of a Divine hope Christ is said by St. Paul to be the hope of Glory and the end of the Faith of all the Saints He also is the Light and the Life This then is the Faith and the Revelation of the Faith of the Gospel in the Saints Christ the Light of the Glory of God eternal Life the quickning Spirit the fountain of Life the heavenly eternal truth and substance of all Good
our Hope our End comprehending all the Objects of our Hope all our blessedness in himself This Christ thus coming to us forming a Divine Nature a Divine Light a Divine Eye a Divine Understanding in us shining forth in the midst of us setting all things good and desirable in an invisible and eternal Glory in their heavenly truth and substance before us open and manifest in the midst of us with their naked shining flowing Beauties and Sweetnesses to be possessed to be enjoyed by us to become one Spirit with us to form themselves upon us to transform and to translate us into one Spirit and Image with themselves in the fore-tasts and first-fruits as the earnest and pledge of our hopes springing up to a full fruition This is our most holy and most precious Faith the Faith of the Gospel opposed to the Works of the Law This coming of the Faith in this verse is expressed before verse 9. by the coming of the seed why then was the Law It was added because of Transgressions until the Seed came The Law then is a Prison In this Pâ—…ison all men are kept bound in Chains shut up with Locks and Bolts and Bars which no force can break until the Seed which is Christ come This heavenly Seed alone springing up into a new Nature a new Creature a new Person into an heavenly Image and a Son of God in him alone brings him forth into the Liberty of the Glory of the Sons of God Now before this Jesus thus springing up and shining forth in him the Prison of the Law is dissolved and vanisheth like an enchantment The place in which it stood is known no more for all is covered and filled with the Light Liberty and Love of the eternal Spirit over-flowing and encompassing this Son and Heir of God this fellow-heir with Christ. So saith St. Paul to Timothy 2 Tim. 1. The appearance of Christ in the Gospel abolisheth death and bringeth life and immortality to light 2. The end of the Law is to be a shadow of Christ and a Vail upon Christ. In the Epistle to the Hebrews we read That the Law had a shadow only of good things to come not the very Image Chap. 10. vers 1. Jesus Christ the Image of the invisible God is the very Image of all good things to come in the Spirit and in eternity The Law had a shadow of this Jesus with these good things contained in him The Law was also a Vail upon this Jesus who with all these invisible eternal beauties and blessednesses lay hid and lived after an hidden manner in these shadows and figures of the Law as beneath a Vail You may see this 2 Cor. 3. 15 16. St. Paul saith of the Jews While Moses is read the Vail lieth upon their hearts But when there is a turning to the Lord the Vail is taken away He goeth on But the Lord is that Spirit where the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty that is freedom from the Vail There is a beholding with open face the Glory of the Lord Jesus a transforming of the Soul into the same Image with an encreasing Glory by the Lord this Spirit Thus Jesus with all his Glories was vailed in the Law By the removal of the Vail the Law becometh Gospel The naked Glories of our Jesus flow forth upon us and form us into one Glory with themselves St. Paul teacheth us 1 Cor. 1. 10. That the Fathers were all baptized into Moses in the same Cloud and in the same Sea eat of the same spiritual Bread drank of the same spiritual Rock that followed them and that Rock was Christ. Upon the same account that Bread that Sea that Cloud was Christ. Christ was shadowed upon all these and vailed beneath all these The Clouds Thunders Fires Tremblings and Earth-quakes at Mount Sinai were shadows of Christ and vails upon Christ in his most glorious Person suffering and dying The top of Mount Sinai where God and Moses conversed familiarly with Faces shining mutually one upon another being mutual Feasts one to another was a shadow of Christ and a Vail upon him in his Resurrection and Ascension Divines teach us That the Law is the Gospel vailed and the Gospel the Law unvailed The Jews say That the Ten Commandments are founded upon the Name of God The Name is the Image of the thing Christ who is the very Image is the true Name of God and of all true things comprehended in God The Moral Law with all the Precepts and Duties of it is Christ in his heavenly and Divine Nature in us but vailed with the Letter with the darkness of the Letter yet in that darkness doth the heavenly Image figure it self making the darkness it self a shadow of its Glory How rich and how sweet is our Jesus and the mystery of God in him through all his works The Law it self hath no Darkness no Death no Fire so full of Dread Horror and Destruction which looked upon with a right eye is not unexpressibly beautified and sweetned by this that Jesus Christ with all the treasures of eternal Love Beauty and Joy is shadowed upon it and vailed beneath it The Fathers under the Law acquainted with this mystery conversed with Christ saw his day grew up into him through this shadow beneath this Vail seeing and embracing him shadowed also in their own persons and lying hid as under a Vail in their Hearts and Loins in their Flesh and Spirit 3. The Law prepared the way of Christ. John the Baptist who came to restore all things to their Primitive purity in the Ministry of the Law is represented as an Angel sent before the Face of the Lord to prepare his way The Law is a three-fold preparation for Christ. 1. By Conviction Condemnation and Death which all discover a necessity of Christ make him precious make him the desire of all Nations make all wait for him as the only blessed One and their only Blessedness Crying Blessed is he blessed is the Messias the Christ blessed is Jesus who alone comes in the Name of the Lord in the Form Power and Glory of the Godhead 2. The Law is a preparation for Christ by the Righteousness of Morality and of the Letter 3. By setting Christ before us in a shadow and under a Vail So the Law fills up the Vallies and makes the Mountains plain It humbleth and bringeth down every high thing it raiseth up every dejected and dispairing spirit It turneth all reliance or glory in our own Righteousness or Strength in our own Reason or Will into shame It takes away our distrust and despair turning that into hope and a joyous expectation It first burieth all the beauty strength excellency and life of the Creature in a grave of Sin Death and Wrath as deep as the nethermost parts of the Earth as the nethermost Hell Then it shadoweth Christ upon this Grave and sheweth him hidden beneath it as under a Vail and as a Seed of
like to the blindness the barrenness the cold of darkness and death than the life and fruitfulness the warmth of beauty life and love which all have their Perfection and their Joys in the propagation of themselves into most distinct forms and the reflection upon themselves from these forms This is the first and so the most universal Image the first seat of all Images of things In this all the fulness the unchangeable riches of the Godhead display themselves in their first their fairest their fullest glories All forms of things are here most proper most perfect most distinct substantial and true Philosophers and Divines call the first Images of things as they rise up from the Fountain of eternity in the bosome of this universal and eternal Image Ideas The Idea in this sense is the first and distinct Image of each form of things in the Divine Mind The universal Image of which we speak is that Divine Mind or Understanding This is the proper Idea of the Godhead the universal Idea the Idea of Ideas and so that Mother of us all which is above Every Idea of each Creature is this Idea bringing forth it self according to the inestimable Treasures of the Godhead in it into innumerable distinct figures of it self in the unconfined Varieties of its own Excellencies and Beauties that so it may enjoy it self sport with it self in these with endless and ever new Pleasures of all Divine Loves Thus in every Idea of each Creature doth this universal Idea dwell at large and freely shine forth with all its fulnesses and sweetnesses in a distinct form as it self in another form The Ideas or Images being the only and eternal Truths of all things do from themselves as the true Heavens in eternity send forth as shadowy figures the Heaven of Angels these visible Heavens the Earth all the Elements with their Inhabitants and Furniture Each Idea containeth its own created figure as the proper place of it giveth it its essence and existence in it self sustaineth it and supporteth it in its own bosome by new Births or emanations from it self every moment it filleth it throughout as the Light doth the Air or rather the beams in the Air. This alone is the unchangeable Truth the true substance of each thing the golden Head above the inward spring below the Christal Vessel which holdeth and encloseth every created Being the living water of all Truth and true Being which filleth every created Vessel Place is affirmed by the Jews to be one of the Names of God Christ saith in the Gospel In my Fathers house are many Mansions This universal and eternal Image of which we speak is a Divine Person This is our Jesus the God of all Glory in the clearest the fullest effulgency or brightness of all his Glories in his own most proper and most glorious form This is the House or Palace of the Father upon the Mount of Eternity the House of Ideas or the first and eternal Images of things which are at once as so many Children of this Great King the Father of all and as so many Mansions in this House Here in this House of God as David speaketh each Bird hath its Nest hath its place to sit and sing near his holy Altar Thus God in each of these distinct and eternal Images is the distinct and eternal Place of each thing As the golden Seals were the only place of the Impression if there were nothing besides the golden Substance and the Impression so is the Idea or the Divine Image in our Lord Jesus the only place of each thing How sweet a Contemplation is this Every created Being as a Figure or an Impression which hath no ground no foundation to sustain it besides the Seal which makes it riseth flourisheth fadeth and falleth hath the whole compass of its beginning way and end in the soft and beautiful bosome of its own Divine Image or Idea in the Person of our Lord Jesus Thus all things live move and have their being in Him It is the Rule of the Philosopher That all motion is made upon something unmoveable We read in the first of the Hebrews a place cited out of the Psalms where it is thus said to Jesus Christ The Heavens and the Earth are the work of thine hands they perish but thou remainest They all wax old as a Garment as a Vesture shalt thou fold them up and they shall be changed but thou art the same thy years fail not Behold Jesus Christ as he is the eternal Image of the Godhead containing the first Images of all things eternally in Himself is the Divine and unmoveable ground upon which the Heaven the Earth with all things in them whose whole being is a perpetual motion and change perpetually move Jesus Christ is the Wisdom of God as he is the first and most perfect Image of the Divine Essence within it self and in this Image contains those Images which are the first Patterns the eternal Grounds Truths Measures of all things The same Jesus is the Power of God in respect to that seminal or propagative Power in those first Patterns by which as sacred Springs they multiply themselves by various streams receiving all along from them the continuation of their Beings in continual motions till by circling about they return to and rest in the bosome of their Fountain This is that pure and clear Sea of Ideal Lights and Lives from which all their Rivers of Being go forth and into which they return again while that still is equally full and capable of no diminution or increase This ground of the Work of God in Christ and of the Mediation of Christ seemeth to be the fundamental sense though perhaps not the only one nor that principally intended by the Apostle in those words where he saith That our Lord Jesus is the Image of the invisible God and the First-born of every Creature This last expression is divinely contrived to be both in one a collective and a distributive with equal propriety of sense you may read of all Creation of every Creature The holy Scripture in the Epistle to the Hebrews distinguisheth between the shadow and the Image the very Image the self Image of good things to come The whole Creation with the Law in its Angelical Glories as it is the Crown and Ground of this Creation according to the Doctrine of the Jewish Masters and of all the Scripture is a shadow of good things and no more Jesus Christ alone is the Image of God and so of all good things the very Image the self Image that Image which by its exactness is one self with its Original God in all those Glories in which by reason of their excess of Light He is in this Image equally glorious and perfectly visible to Himself Jacob stileth his first-born the Excellency of Dignity and the Excellency of Strength Jesus Christ being the first Image of God is also in that the first Image of the Creation in the
Therefore the School-men say of the sending giving powring forth the coming of the Spirit to us to be in us That it is only Novus modus apparendi A new manner of appearing The Holy Spirit the third Person in the Trinity from whom the other two Persons are ever undivided God blessed for ever is ever in every Creature in every Spirit He only changeth his Appearances and Effulgencies there By the change of his Appearance he changeth and formeth each Creature each Spirit in all its Changes Thus he turneth to himself the Heavens and the Earth as the Clay to the Seal according to the Language in the Book of Job How divinely pure and pleasant a prospect or living Picture is now the nature of things while God himself according to the distinct Idea or eternal exemplar of each Creature cometh forth and appeareth together with it as Twin-brothers as Twin-Loves 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one the reflection of the other while a Third Love breaks from both these in which they are blest and made perfect with a mutual Union and the fruition of each other The ever-glorious and eternally-joyous Trinity of the highest and first Love seems to multiply and figure it self in each Creature All Creatures now seem to be in a lively and living Beauty represented by the two Breasts of the heavenly Spouse Like two Twin-Roes of a lovely kind two Twin-Loves the Births of their heavenly Mother the Universal and Divine Image in the Person of Christ feeding among the Lillies the Ideal eternal Lights and Beauties of her soft and shining Bosome But all this is to be understood of simple Nature abstracted from the Corruption by Sin with which in the midst of the pure peaceful pleasant Varieties the charming Harmonies the golden Calms and Gardens of Divine Love cometh in a scene of War and Death of tempestuous Seas fields of Blood Contrariety and Enmity God willing to shew the Power of his Wrath. That God who is the God of Love that Will which is Love it self All Love in the beloved Soul to the beloved Soul here in its faln state puts on this strange person of an Enemy Under this dark Disguise and horrid Vizat he hideth all his Beauties and Sweetnesses he acts a part of Wrath. But this it self at last appears to the beloved Soul to be a most delightful Love-part While by it the Variety is made more full being extended to the greatest Contrariety and utmost extreams While in the reconciling of these the Divine Harmony is more full and ravishing The Divine Love heightned to an excess of Sweetness and triumphant Joys The Wisdome of the Design more admird and adored in its rich and glorious Depths All expectations of Men and Angels are suspended most happily deceived and in the end infinitely transcended But how have I wandred and delightfully lost my self by drinking in eagerly this Wine of Angels and glorified Saints the Sweetness of this Divine Light and Love I will now pass from this second Distinction to the third for the illustration of the Divine presence in the soul. 3. Distinction God is one with the Soul not formally but transcendently God is not one with the Soul formally as the formal and proper Essence of the Soul or of any created Spirit much less as a Constitutive part of its Essence This would make God and that Spirit essentially one The Essence of that Spirit would reciprocally be the Essence of God That Spirit would be essentially God Is not this the utmost heighth of Ignorance Profaneness Impiety Blasphemy Giant-like Lucifer-like to war with God for the Throne of his Godhead Besides all this evil how great were the loss to every Spirit of Angels and Men Their Sun which makes the eternal Day and Spring were now set in an hopeless Night of Clouds and Confusions All their Loves Hopes and Joys aspiring to an infiniteness above themselves would now all droop and die in their own Bosome The beginning the end of them all is taken away That distinction of things which is the Mother of all Lives Loves Beauties and Pleasures as Unity is the Father of them would now sink into a rude undistinguished Darkness the first and the fountain of all Distinctions being taken away in taking away the Distinction of the Divine Nature from the created form of things How unpleasant were it to the Eye below to be perswaded that there were no Sun besides it self above it self Now the joy in beholding the face of the Sun and of Heaven the taking in of the sweet Light of Heaven and the Sun the charming Delights in the Varieties of Lights and Shades of Colours and Pictures in the Light and the Sun-shine were no more 2. God is transcendently one with the Soul as he is with all things by the transcendency of his Unity and his Infiniteness He comprehendeth all things in one in Himself after a manner altogether incomprehensible As he is the first the Universal Cause the most immediate the most intimate the inseparable the Ideal Cause of all things He is the Unity of every Unity the Being of Beings the Essence of every Essence not formally but transcendently not after a finite but an infinite manner Cusanus saith God is the Sun in the Sun not formally finitely but after a transcendent infinite manner He is so the Sun in the Sun that he is all things with the fulness of the Divine Nature and eternity in that form 4. Distinction God is present with and in the natural form of the Soul as in an earthly and shadowy Image He is present according to his heavenly his eternal form in this shadow as vailed and hidden beneath it As Jesus Christ at his Incarnation so the first man by his Creation was made under the Law the Law the Glory of the created Image improved and heightned The Holy Spirit saith of the Law That it is a shadow of good things to come not the very Image It is commonly said That the Law is the Gospel vailed the Gospel the Law unvailed Jesus Christ as he is the essential Image the brightness of the Glory of God is the first Adam vailed beneath a shadowy Image He is there as the Truth the Original the Root of this shadow bringing it forth bearing it in himself comprehending it He is in it as the Spirit and beautiful form of a Plant in the Seed ready to spring forth through it to transfigure it into the similitude of its own Beauties to fill it so transfigured with its own Divine Life Virtues and Fruits in the proper season St. Paul makes the first man in his pure State and in his Fall a Type or Figure of Him who is to come Jesus Christ Rom. 5. God in the Light of his Glory Jesus Christ according to his heavenly Image hidden in God The Soul according to its Divine Life in the state of Grace are all present vailed in the natural man as in their
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
rule of Justice and Goodness by which this is to be tryed The general Rule or Law of Justice is this To give to every thing its due or its own Solomon expresseth this Rule of Justice from the Mouth of God in his Proverbs after this manner With-hold not good from them to whom it is due or from the Owners thereof when it is in thine hand to do it Divines interpret those Owners to be all persons in want all Subjects in any capacity of receiving any good from us Beneficence or a disposition to do good to all is with the Heathen Philosphers a branch of this Vertue of Justice The Law of God which is the Rule of Justice commands to love our Neighbour as our self St. Paul interprets this Neighbour to be every other Rom. 13. 8. He that loveth another hath fulfilled the Law The Jews teach us that the Law is founded in the Name that is in the Nature of God Man was made in the Image of God The Perfection then of the humane Creature is the Image of that Perfection which is in the Divine Nature the Law of the humane Nature is the transcript of the Divine Nature Our Lord Jesus interprets this Universal Law of humane Commerce and Justice among men Thou shalt love thy Neighbour after this manner Love your Enemies do good to them that hate you He layeth the ground of this Universal Justice in the Divine Nature That you may be the Children of your Father which is in Heaven He adds for a clearer Conviction If you love them that love you do not even the Publicans the same He concludes by referring the perfection of men to the Divine Perfection as its Original and Law Be ye therefore perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect Thus we see the Rule of Justice with God and with men to give our Love and all good according to our utmost power to every other as to the Owner of that love and good to whom they are due 2. The second Rule or Law is that of Goodness The Law of Goodness and its Essence is to diffuse and communicate it self The law of each thing is to act according to its nature of Light to shine of sweet Waters to send forth sweet waters of good to do good This Law is most deeply rooted and highly radiant in the Divine Nature inasmuch as God is the Chief the Universal the only good Accordingly he makes his Rain his Sun both Coelestial and Supercoelestial in their season to fall and to shine upon the Just and the Unjust Having stated the Case between Free-will and the Will predeterminated in its Causes and having set the Rule by which the Case is to be tryed Let us come to the Point in which we must joyn Issue 1. Both Cases agree in four grand Circumstances First In both Cases God makes man and the Will of Man from nothing according to the absoluteness of his Will and Power Secondly The event which is eternal ruine and torment to the greatest part of Mankind is alike certain to both by a certainty of infallibility 3. God before and in the making of his work clearly seeth and perfectly understandeth that this will be infallibly the event of his Workmanship Can it then with any reason be thought that the event of the work of an infinite Wisdom fore-seen should not be agreeable to the design of that Wisdom and the Will of that infinitely Wise Spirit whose Power is as infinite as his Wisdom 4. God could have made man otherwise in a Divine necessity of being good and blessed like himself in a confirmed state of Grace and Glory like the Elect Angels and Saints These are the Circumstances in which both Cases agree 2. The grand dâ—…fference between the two Cases where they joyn Issue is this In that Case of Free-will Man perisheth because God with-holds the good which he hath in himself and might have given to him that is a confirmation in good In the other case of the Will predetermined Man perisheth because God withdraws the good which he had once given him There are two Fathers with their two little Children one Father setteth his Child down so that he may run into a pleasant Field or a devouring Flood He fore-seeth that he will certainly run not into the Field but into the Flood he suffers him to run and perish in the Flood when he may as easily prevent him by laying his hand upon him or taking him into his arms The other Father holdeth his Child fast and safe in his arms for a while over the cruel Flood then he casteth him not in but he taketh away his arms and leaves him by his own weight necessarily to drop into the Flood and perish there I appeal now to every equal and impartial Judge whether both these Fathers seem not both guilty or innocent Whether they be not both likely to be cleared or convicted if they be tryed by those fore-mentioned Rules of Justice and Goodness Is not the two-fold Plea of both these Wills of equal force against the Justice and Goodness of God 1. Why hath he made me thus certainly to perish What is it to me whether this certainty be a certainty of infallibility only from the mutability of my nature or a certainty of inevitableness from the necessity of nature while I certainly perish 2. Why is he yet angry who hath resisted his Will Is not the certain event of his Work clearly fore-seen by him from the beginning interpretatively his Will Which Opinion shall we prefer That of the Will predetermined gives to God the full Glory of his Soveraignty Absoluteness Wisdom Power making his work in the whole and in every part from the beginning to the end one entire piece altogether dependent upon himself wrought throughout by himself and conducted from one supream principle by one universal Form of the Divine Understanding and the Divine Image to one Universal and Ultimate end the Divine Glory But it seemeth to cast an imputation upon the Divine Justice and Goodness The other Opinion of Free-will seemeth to violate the Soveraignty and Absoluteness of God making his actings dependent upon the actings of Creature The Power of God in giving to the Creature the determination of it self with an independence upon him in these Cardinal Acts of the Will upon which the whole Circle and Globe of things in the Divine Love Justice and Wrath in the happiness or misery of Man from eternity is turned about His Wisdom while his work hath breaches and gaps in it like a Chain whose links are not fastned one in another while the Harmony is thus broken while all the great effects and end of his work are casual uncertain in their Causes and in their Nature inasmuch as all depend upon the free and fortuitous motions of the Will independent upon and undetermined by all preceding or superior Causes even the first and universal Cause it self Together with all this Cloud which the Opinion
come now to the third Reason I am to answer Reason 3 The Language of the Scripture in the whole current of it seemeth generally to run along upon this ground of an undetermined freedom of the Will of Man The Divine Will is cleared from the evils of Sin and Suffering The Will of Man is charged with them Agreeable to this are the Divine Precepts Prohibitions Promises Threatnings Admonitions Reproofs Complaints Expostulations which compose a great part of the sacred Writings Answ. I answer by a distinction This manner of Language As I live I desire not the death of a Sinner Why will ye die O house of Israel with all expressions like to these are either 1. Proper and plain 2. Figurative and mysterious 1. If they be proper and plain two great Difficulties arise 1. The true and living God thus represented appears like Homers Gods and the Gods of the Poets Weak querulous passible ever in contentions and combates 2. While the Divine Will in that on which it fixeth it self with so great truth and intention is capable of being opposed and defeated it appears destitute of Wisdom Power and Blessedness 2. If they be figurative and mysterious The figures first are to be determined and the mystery vailed beneath the figure to be discovered before we can establish any certain or clear sense upon them 1. The figure made use of in this manner of Language is by the consent of Divines complicated of an Anthropopathy and a Metonymy 2. The Anthropopathy is then when passions proper to man are attributed to God 2. The Metonymy is of the cause set for the effect and the things signified in the place of the sign So those changeable passions in created Spirits which bring forth and express themselves by changes of good or evil the effects and signs of those passions are applied to the unchangeable God when he bringeth forth the like changes in his Work So the Jews say That the holy Scriptures speak with the Tongue and in the Language of a Man But all such figurative expressions concerning God are to be understood with this Caution Every thing indeed in the Creature is a figure which hath its Original pattern answering to it in the Divine Nature But all imperfections attending the figure are to be removed All perfections in their utmost heights and most absolute fulness are to be attributed to the Original pattern when by the shadowy figure in the Creature you look to the exemplar and primitive truth in God So by these changeable and diverse passions in man you are to represent to your selves in God a Goodness a Power an unsearchable Riches of Variety and manifoldly various Wisdom and all these apart and together with the most absolute simplicity and highest Unity in the Divine Essence producing all diversities of accidents all changes of good and evil in the Divine Design which cometh forth at once as one piece divinely Rich in all Varieties from him and as one entire Image filled with the riches of all distinct Beauties of him who is unchangeable and most perfectly one 2. Having thus determined of the Figure Let us try to lift up the Vail and discover the Divine Mystery beneath this Figure I shall endeavour to take a Prospect of this Divine Secret and hidden Glory by several steps or degrees 1. The letter of the Scripture in the general â—…ream and current of it is the Ministry of the Law So St. Paul in divers places distinguisheth the Law and the Gospel or the Covenant of Works and the Covenant of Grace 2 Cor. 3. 6. Who hath made us able speaking of God Ministers of the New Testament or the New Covenant not of the Letter but of the Spirit for the Letter killeth but the Spirit giveth life In the following verse the engraving of the Law in Tables of Stone and Moses are mentioned Again in prosecution of the same Discourse Moses with his Vail is brought in To this are opposed in the 17. and 18. verses The Spirit of the Lord the liberty of the Spirit the sight of the Glory of the Lord with an unvailed Face the tranfiguration of the Soul into the same Image from glory to glory and all this by the Lord the Spirit These things laid together seem to make it clear that in the sense of the holy Apostle the letter the proposal and pressing of any truth or goodness upon us in a literal and moral way only whether outward or inward amounteth to no more then the old Covenant the Ministery of the Law on the other side the new Covenant the Gospel is the Spirit himself ministring himself through the letter to us taking off the Vail which lies upon the letter and upon our hearts bringing us forth into the Liberty the open Light and the Divine Life of the Spirit giving us a naked view of the Face of Christ in his spiritual and heavenly Glory and by this view transforming us into living Images of the same Glory springing up and encreasing in us unto the perfect day of eternity Suitable to this is that of St. Paul Rom. 10. 5. Moses describeth the Righteousness which is of the Law That the man which doth these things shall live by them Whatever imposeth upon us any thing to be done by us as an antecedent condition to any consequent good is the Law opposed to the Gospel The Law maketh Precepts the ground of Promises He that doth these things shall live by them But the Gospel maketh Promises the sure the sweet the precious pleasant ground of Precepts So St. Peter 2 Pet. 1. teacheth us That by the Glory and Virtue of the Godhead calling us to it self most great and precious Promises are given us that by these we may be made partakers of the Divine Nature So St. Paul engrafts Evangelical Precepts upon Evangelical Communications of the Divine Nature through Evangelical Promises Work out saith he your salvation with fear and trembling for it is God that worketh in you both to will and to do Phil. 2. 2. The proper end of the Law in the design or effect is not Love Righteousness Life and Blessedness but Condemnation Death and Wrath 2 Cor. 3. 7. It is called the ministry of Death At the ninth verse The ministry of Condemnation St. Paul in another place speaketh plainly That if there had been a Law which could have given Life Righteousness should have been by the Law St. Paul instructeth us in two eminent essential differences between the Law and the Gospel First The Law by Descriptions Commands Allurements Terrors setteth Righteousness before us but infuseth not a new Nature a new Life into us which may of its own accord bring forth Righteousness as Plants spâ—…ing up out of the ground and out of their proper root Secondly the Law not giving Christ himself to us to be a quickning Spirit in us to be our Life to be one Life with us cannot give us Righteousness either to the acceptation of our
flow from his unvailed Person his naked presence and appearance As the Sun carrieth along with him in his Circuit a sweet flourishing Spring and Summer When God withdraws himself behind clouds of darkness and of night when he withholds the sweet beams and pleasant influences of his own face and person behind thick coverings strange forms and disguises Now man withers and dyes away in all the beauties and sweetnesses of the Divine Image in the place of these Deformity and Death spring up from that deficiency which is inseparable to the natural principles of the Creature which then discovers it self and overspreads the whole man with the shadow of Death and Hell when those principles are no more fed and supplyed from their eternal springs in the bosom of Christ. In this sense these words are most properly true Thy destruction is of thy self but thy Salvation is of me O Israel saith the Lord. 3. God in himself and in the person of the Lord Jesus as he is the essential Image of God is a most simple Unity comprehending all Varieties within himself In this Unity he is Love it self the first the supream the most pure the most potent unconfined love All pleasantnesses are in his Face and Presence he is the Bridegroom entirely fair and pleasant altogether delightful the Object of all Loves Desires the Seat of all Delights and Glories the Spring of Immortality and Eternity As himself is such in the highest affinity and resemblance is his work as it springs immediately from him his principal design and contrivance with which he begins in which he ends and rests eternally which he carrieth along as his first and Ultimate design throughout all things This then is one entire universal piece comprehending all Variety in it self this is one entire piece of sweetest Loves of riches Lights of purest Glories All scenes all forms of darkness and death are subordinate and subservient to this are parts of this are comprehended in this drawn forth from it terminated in it by a Divine and delightful skill set with a shining amiableness in their proper places overspread with a sweetness and lustre in the Unity of the grand design and finally in a manner most pure most harmonious most ravishing swallowed up into the eternal Lights in which the whole piece terminateth Of him and through him and to him are all things who is blessed for ever How true is it how exceeding large now is this truth in all senses in all languages Humane or Divine That God willeth not the death of a Sinner That Destruction is not of him As the Understanding of God is Truth it self the highest and most universal Truth the measure of all Truth so is the Will of God which is himself the first the highest the most comprehensive the unconsined Good the only reason and measure of all good We have passed through those Reasons which seem of greatest moment and to have greatest difficulty in them We hope that we draw near to our Haven and that with easie and gentle stroaks we shall now soon arrive at it The Reasons on this part which now remain seem to be rather mistakes arising from vulgar or general conceptions unexamined undistinguished than from the exercised judgments of wise and learned Spirits They are derived from the nature of things Moral Physical or Metaphysical I shall continue them in the same order with the precedent Reasons 4. Reason If the Will of Man be not free all Laws seem useless Answ. The force of this Reason seemeth to be entire and powerful on the contrary part If the Will of Man be free undeterminated by the dictates of the Understanding Laws have no more any signification or efficacy For the intent of these is clearly to work upon the Understanding Precepts and Prohibitions are Rules propounded Lights set up to the Understanding to inform what road or course is to be followed what to be carefully avoided in our Navigation through the Sea of this World that we may pass safely free from the danger of Rocks and Shelves to our desired Port. Rewards and Penalties are to be weighed and judged by the Understanding according to whose standard and estimate they have all their value Vexatio dat intellectum The proper end of Punishments and Rewards is to excite the Understanding The proper end of Precepts and Prohibitions is to enlighten the Understanding The excellency and efficacy of every Law is to impress upon us the sense of Good and Evil. So Moses the Law-Giver among the Jews saith to them I have set before you this day Good and Evil Life and Death What effect hath the sense of Good and Evil seated in the Understanding if the Will be guided by an absolute ungoverned arbitrariness within it self without Order without Harmony without Connexion without respect to the dictates of the Understanding How useless how fruitless are all impressions of Good or Evil if the Will be not by the Law of its own Essence by its own essential Principles determined to good sub ratione boni under the formal appearance of good 5. Reason Who meeteth not with this frequent experiment in himself which the Poet expresseth in the person of Medea as I remember Video meliora proboque deterior a sequor Better things I see approve The evil yet I choose and love Answ. This thin mist is easily scattered and cleared into a pure Air by the beam of one distinction between good propounded in the Thesis in its abstracted and general nature or in the Hypothesis cloathed with all its practical and individuating circumstances In the first it is the subject of the Dictamen practicum intellectus of the Understanding in its proposal of general Rules of practice to the Will In the other the good is the subject of the Dictamen practice practicum of the Understanding in its dictates and directions to the Will in arenâ upon the place in the singular and individual action now this moment lying before it with all its circumstances The Schools well distinguish between Act us signatus and Act us exercitus An Act marked out and described by the Understanding or an Act now immediately presenting it self unto a real existency out of all its Causes Whoever vieweth and distinguisheth exactly the sentiments of his Understanding the commerce between those and the motions of his Will maketh this clear discovery if I be not very much deceived That in the general conception and rule in the practical dictate and direction in the exactest contemplation and description of a moral Act one thing seemeth good to us when after this when we come upon the place to exercise the Act it self our sense is altogether changed The practically practical dictate of the Understanding its sentiments now in the moment of action in the presence and immediate impressions of all Circumstances differeth from the precedent Rules and passeth quite to a contrary Point to present that as the present good the good of the