the Spouse of this heavenly Bridegroom whom he marrieth unto himself for ever in righteousnesse and in judgement and in loving kindnesse and in mercies Esai 62. 5. Hos 2. 9. and this match thus made up fulfils that decretive word of the Almighty They twain shall be one flesh Eph. 5. 31. Gen. 2. 24. O happy conjunction of the second Adam with her which was taken out of his most precious side Oh heavenly and compleat marriage wherein God the Father brings and gives the Bride Gen. 2. 22. All that the Father giveth me shal come to me saith Christ Joh. 6. 37. wherein God the Son receives the Bride as mutually partaking of the same nature and can say This now is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh Joh. 1. 14. Gen. 2. 23. wherein God the holy Ghost knits our wils in a full and glad consent to the full consummation of this blessed wedlock And those whom God hath thus joyned together let no man no Devill can put asunder What is there then which an affectionate husband can withhold from a dear wife He that hath given himself to her what can he deny to impart He that hath made himself one with her how can he be divided from his other-self Some wilde fancies there are that have framed the links of marriage of so brittle stuffe as that they may be knapt in sunder upon every sleight occasion but he that ordained it in Paradise for an earthly representation of this heavenly union betwixt Christ and his Church hath made that and his own indissoluble Here is no contract in the future which upon some intervenient accidents may be remitted but I am my welbeloveds and my welbeloved is mine Cant. 6. 3. Cant. 2. 16. And therefore each is so others that neither of them is their own Oh the comfortable mystery of our uniting to the Son of God! The wife hath not the power of her own body but the husband 1 Cor. 7. 4. We are at thy disposing O Saviour we are not our own Neither art thou so absolutely thine as that we may not through thine infinite mercy claim an interesse in thee Thou hast given us such a right in thy self as that we are bold to lay challenge to all that is thine to thy love to thy merits to thy blessings to thy glory It was wont of old to be the plea of the Roman wives to their husbands Where thou art Caius I am Caia and now in our present marriages we have not stuck to say With all my worldly goods I thee endow And if it be thus in our imperfect conjunctions here upon earth how much more in that exquisite onenesse which is betwixt thee O blessed Saviour and thy dearest Spouse the Church What is it then that can hinder us from a sweet and heavenly fruition of thee Is it the loathsome condition of our nature Thou sawst this before and yet couldst say when when we were yet in our bloud Live Ezek. 16. 6. Had we not been so vile thy mercy had not been so glorious thy free grace did all for us Thou washedst us with water and anointedst us with oyle and cloathedst us with broidered work and girdedst us about with fine linnen and coveredst us with silk and deckedst us with ornaments and didst put bracelets upon our hands and a chain on our neck and jewels on our fore-heads and ear-rings on our ears a beautifull crown on our own heads Ezek. 16. 9 10 11 12. What we had not thou gavest what thou didst not find thou madest that we might be a not-unmeet match for the Lord of life Is it want of beauty Behold I am black but comely Cant. 1. 5. what ever our hiew be in our own or others eyes it is enough that we are lovely in thine Cant. 1. 16. Behold thou art fair my beloved behold thou art fair yea pleasant Cant. 1. 16. Thou art beautifull O my love as Tirzah comely as Jerusalem How fair and how pleasant art thou O Love for delights Cant. 6 3. 7. 6. But oh Saviour if thou take contentment in this poor unperfect beauty of thy Spouse the Church how infinite pleasure should thy Spouse take in that absolute perfection that is in thee who art all loveliness and glory And if she have ravished thy heart with one of her eyes Cant. 5. 16. 4. 9. how much more reason hath her heart to be wholly ravished with both thine which are so full of grace and amiablenesse and in this mutuall fruition what can there be other then perfect blessedness SECT 6. The resemblance of this union by the nourishment and the body THe Spirit of God well knowing how much it imports us both to know and feel this blessed union whereof himself is the only worker labours to set it forth to us by the representations of many of our familiar concernments which we daily finde in our meats and drinks in our houses in our gardens and orchards That which is nearest to us is our nourishment what can be more evident then that the bread the meat the drink that we receive is incorporated into us and becomes part of the substance whereof we consist so as after perfect digestion there can be no distinction betwixt what we are and what we took Whiles that bread was in the bing and that meat in the shambles and that drink in the vessell it had no relatian to us nor we to it yea whiles all these were on the Table yea in our mouthes yea newly let down into our stomachs they are not fully ours for upon some nauseating dislike of nature they may yet go the same way they came but if the concoction be once fully finished now they are so turned into our bloud and flesh that they can be no more distinguished from our former substance then that could be divided from it self now they are dispersed into the veins and concorporated to the flesh and no part of our flesh and bloud is more ours then that which was lately the bloud of the grapes and the flesh of this fowl or that beast Oh Saviour thou who art truth it self hast said Joh. 6. 51. I am the living bread that came down from heaven v. 55. My flesh is meat indeed and my bloud is drink indeed and thereupon hast most justly inferred v. 56. He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my bloud dwelleth in me and I in him and as a necessary consequent of this spirituall manducation v. 54. whoso eateth my flesh and drinketh my bloud hath eternal life Lo thou art bread indeed not the cōmon bread but Manna not the Israelitish Manna alas that fell from no higher then the region of clouds and they that are it died with it in their mouthes but thou art the living bread that came down from the heaven of heavens of whom whosoever eats lives for ever Thy flesh is meat not for our stomachs but for our souls our faith receives and digests thee and
makes thee ours and us thine our materiall food in these corruptible bodies runs into corruption thy spirituall food nourisheth purely and strengthens us to a blessed immortality As for this materiall food many a one longs for it that cannot get it many a one hath it that cannot eat it many eat it that cannot digest it many digest it into noxious and corrupt humours all that receive it do but maintain a perishing life if not a languishing death but this flesh of thine as it was never withheld from any true apperite so it never yeelds but wholesome and comfortable sustenance to the soul never hath any other issue then an everlasting life and happinesse O Saviour whensoever I sit at mine own Table let me think of thine whensoever I feed on the bread and meat that is set before me and feel my self nourished by that repast let me minde that better sustenance which my soul receives from thee and finde thee more one with me then that bodily food SECT 7. This union resembled by the branch and the stock the foundation and the building LOok but into thy Garden or Orchard and see the Vine or any other fruit-bearing tree how it growes and fructifies The branches are loaden with increase whence is this but that they are one with the stock and the stock one with the root were either of these severed the plant were barren and dead The branch hath not sap enough to maintain life in it self unlesse it receive it from the body of the tree nor that unlesse it derived it from the root nor that unlesse it were cherished by the earth Lo Joh. 15. 5 6. I am the Vine saith our Saviour Ye are the branches He that abideth in me and I in him the same bringeth forth much fruit If a man abide not in me he is cast forth as a branch and is withered were the branch and the body of the tree of different substances and only closed together in some artificiall contiguity no fruit could be expected from it it is only the abiding in the tree as a living lim of that plant which yeelds it the benefit and issue of vegetation No otherwise is it betwixt Christ and his Church the bow and the tree are not more of one piece then we are of one substance with our Saviour and branching out from him and receiving the sap of heavenly vertue from his precious root we cannot but be acceptably fruitfull But if the Analogie seem not to be so full for that the branch issues naturally from the tree and the fruit from the branch whereas we by nature have no part in the Son of God take that clearer resemblance which the Apostle fetches from the stock and the griffe or cion The branches of the wilde olive Rom. 11. are cut off and are graffed with choice cions of the good olive those imps grow and are now by this insition no lesse embodyed in that stock then if they had sprouted out by a naturall propagation neither can be any more separated from it then the strongest bough that nature puts forth In the mean time that cion alters the nature of that stock and whiles the root gives fatnesse to the stock and the stock yeelds juice to the cion the cion gives goodnesse to the plant and a specification to the fruit so as whiles the impe is now the same thing with the stock the tree is different from what it was so it is betwixt Christ and the beleeving soul Old Adam is our wilde stock what could that have yeelded but either none or sowre fruit we are imped with the new man Christ that is now incorporated into us we are become one with him our nature is not more ours then he is ours by grace now we bear his fruit and not our own our old stock is forgotten all things are become new our naturall life we receive from Adam our spirituall life and growth from Christ from whom after the improvement of this blessed incision we can be no more severed then he can be severed from himself Look but upon thy house that from vegetative creatures thou maist turn thine eyes to those things which have no life if that be uniform the foundation is not of a different matter from the wals both those are but one piece the superstructure is so raised upon the foundation as if all were but one stone Behold Christ is the chief corner stone 1 Pet. 2. 6. elect and precious neither can there be any other foundation laid then that which is laid on him 1 Cor. 3. 11. 2 Pet. 2. 5. we are lively stones built up to a spiritual house on that sure and firm foundation some loose stones perhaps that lye unmortered upon the battlements may be easily shaken down but whoever saw a squared marble laid by line and levell in a strong wall upon a well-grounded base flye out of his place by whatsoever violence since both the strength of the foundation below and the weight of the fabrick above have setled it in a posture utterly unmovable Such is our spirituall condition O Saviour thou art our foundation we are laid upon thee and are therein one with thee we can no more be disjoyned from thy foundation then the stones of thy foundation can be disunited from themselves So then to sum up all as the head and members are but one body as the husband and wife are but one flesh as our meat and drink becomes part of our selves as the tree and branches are but one plant as the foundation and wals are but one fabrick so Christ and the beleeving soul are indivisibly one with each other SECT 8. The certainty and indissolublenesse of this union WHere are those then that goe about to divide Christ from himself Christ reall from Christ mysticall yeelding Christ one with himself but not one with his Church making the true beleever no lesse separable from his Saviour then from the entirenesse of his own obedience dreaming of the uncomfortable and self-contradicting paradoxes of the totall and finall Apostasie of Saints Certainly these men have never thorowly digested the meditation of this blessed union whereof we treat Can they hold the beleeving soul a lim of that body whereof Christ is the head and yet imagine a possibility of dissolution Can they affain to the Son of God a body that is unperfect Can they think that body perfect that hath lost his lims Even in this mysticall body the best joynts may be subject to strains yea perhaps to some painfull and perillous luxation but as it was in the naturall body of Christ when it was in death most exposed to the cruelty of all enemies that upon an over-ruling providence not a bone of it could be broken so it is still and ever with the spirituall some scourgings and blowes it may suffer yea perhaps some bruises and gashes but no bone can be shattered in pieces much lesse dissevered from the rest of the body
Were we left to our selves or could we be so much as in conceit sundred from the body whereof we are alas we are but as other men subject to the same sinfull infirmities to the same dangerous and deadly miscarriages but since it hath pleased the God of heaven to unite us to himself now it concerns him to maintain the honour of his own body by preserving us entire Can they acknowledge the faithfull soul marryed in truth and righteousnesse to that celestiall husband and made up into one flesh withthe Lord of glory and can they think of any Bils of divorce written in heaven can they suppose that which by way of type was done in the earthly Paradise to be really undone in the heavenly What an infinite power hath put together can they imagine that a limited power can disjoyn Can they think sin can be of more prevalence then mercy Can they think the unchangeable God subject to after thoughts Even the Jewish repudiations never found favour in heaven They were permitted as a lesser evill to avoid a greater never allowed as good neither had so much as that toleration ever been if the hard-heartednesse and cruelty of that people had not enforced it upon Moses in a prevention of further mischief what place can this finde with a God in whom there is an infinite tendernesse of love and mercy No time can be any check to his gracious choice the inconstant minds of us men may alter upon sleight dislikes our God is ever himself Jesus Christ the same yesterday to day and for ever Heb. 13. 8. with him there is no variablenesse nor shadow of turning Jam. 1. 17. Divorces were ever grounded upon hatred Mal. 2. 16. No man saith the Apostle Eph. 5. 29. ever yet hated his own flesh much lesse shal God do so who is love it self 1 Joh. 3. 16. His love and our union is like himself everlasting Having loved his own saith the Disciple of Love Joh. 13. 1. which were in the world he loved them to the end He that hates putting away Mal. 2. 16. can never act it so as in this relation we are indissoluble Can they have received that bread which came down from heaven and flesh which is meat indeed and that bloud which is drink indeed can their souls have digested it by a lively faith and converted themselves into it and it into themselves and can they now think it can be severed from their own substance Can they finde themselves truly ingraffed in the tree of life and grown into one body with that heavenly plant and as a living branch of that tree bearing pleasant and wholesome fruit acceptable to God Rev. 22. 2. and beneficiall to men and can they look upon themselves as some withered bough fit only for the fire Can they finde themselves living stones surely laid upon the foundation Jesus Christ to the making up of an heavenly Temple for the eternall inhabitation of God and can they think they can be shaken out with every storm of Temptation Have these men ever taken into their serious thoughts that divine prayer and meditation which our blessed Redeemer now at the point of his death left for an happy farewell to his Church in every word whereof there is an heaven of comfort Joh. 17. 20 21 22. Neither pray I for these alone but for them also which shall beleeve in me through their word That they all may be one as thou Father art in me and I in thee that they also may be one with us And the glory that thou gavest me I have given them that they may be one even as we are one I in them and thou in me Oh heavenly consolation oh indefeasible assurance what room can there be now here for onr diffidence Can the Son of God pray and not be heard For himself he needs not pray as being eternally one with the Father God blessed for ever he prayes for his and his prayer is That they may be one with the Father and him even as they are one They cannot therefore but be partakers of this blessed union and being partakers of it they cannot be dissevered And to make sure work that glory which the Father gave to the Son of his Love they are already through his gracious participation prepossessed of here they have begun to enter upon that heaven from which none of the powers of hell can possibly eject them Oh the unspeakably happy condition of beleevers Oh that all the Saints of God in a comfortable sense of their inchoate blessednesse could sing for joy and here beforehand begin to take up those Hallelujahs which they shall ere long continue and never end in the Chore of the highest Heaven SECT 9. The priviledges and benefits of this union The first of them Life HAving now taken a view of this blessed union in the nature and resemblances of it it will be time to bend thine eyes upon those most advantageous consequents and high priviledges which do necessarily follow upon and attend this heavenly conjunction Whereof the first is that which we are wont to account sweetest Life Not this naturall life which is maintained by the breath of our nostrils Alas what is that but a bubble a vapour a shadow a dream nothing as it is the gift of a good God worthy to be esteemed precious but as it is considered in its own transitorynesse and appendent miseries and in comparison of a better life not worthy to take up our hearts This life of nature is that which ariseth from the union of the body with the soul many times enjoyed upon hard termes the spirituall life which we now speak of arising from the union betwixt God and the soul is that wherein there can be nothing but perfect contentment and joy unspeakable and full of glory Yea this is that life which Christ not only gives but is he that gave himself for us gives himself to us and is that life that he gives us When Christ which is our life shall appear saith the Apostle Col. 3. 4. And Christ is to me to live Phil. 2. 21. and most emphatically Gal. 2. 20. I am crucified with Christ Neverthelesse I live yet not I but Christ liveth in me Lo it is a common favour that in him we live but it is an especiall favour to his own that he lives in us Know you your own selves saith the Apostle 2 Cor. 13. 5. how that Jesus Christ is in you except ye be reprobates and wheresoever he is there he lives we have not a dead Saviour but a living and where he lives he animates It is not therefore Saint Pauls case alone it is every beleevers who may truly say I live yet not I but Christ liveth in me now how these lives and the authors of them are distinguished is worth thy carefullest consideration Know then my son that every faithfull mans bosome is a Rebeceaes womb Gen 25. 22. wherein there are twins a rough Esau
offer any thing to you which you are unwilling to receive nor put any thing upon you which you would disclaim as prejudiciall to your Creator and Redeemer It is abundant comfort to us that some part of us is in the fruition of that glory whereto we the other poor labouring part desire and strive to aspire that our head and shoulders are above water whiles the other lims are yet wading through the stream SECT 25. A recapitulation and sum of the whole Treatise TO winde up all my sonne if ever thou look for sound comfort on earth and salvation in heaven unglue thy self from the world and the vanities of it put thy self upon thy Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ Leave not till thou findest thy self firmly united to him so as thou art become a limb of that body whereof he is head a Spouse of that husband a branch of that stem a stone laid upon that foundation Look not therefore for any blessing out of him and in and by and from him look for all blessings Let him be thy life and wish not to live longer then thou art quickned by him finde him thy wisdome righteousnesse sanctification redemption thy riches thy strength thy glory Apply unto thy self all that thy Saviour is or hath done Wouldst thou have the graces of Gods Spirit fetch them from his anointing Wouldst thou have power against spirituall enemies fetch it from his Soveraignty Wouldst thou have redemption fetch it from his passion Wouldst thou have absolution fetch it from his perfect innocence Freedome from the curse fetch it from his crosse Satisfaction fetch it from his sacrifice Cleansing from sin fetch it from his bloud Mortification fetch it from his grave Newnesse of life fetch it from his resurrection Right to heaven fetch it from his purchase Audience in all thy suits fetch it from his intercession Wouldst thou have salvation fetch it from his session at the right hand of Majesty Wouldst thou have all fetch it from him who is one Lord one God and Father of all who is above all through all and in all Eph. 4. 5 6. And as thy faith shall thus interesse thee in Christ thy head so let thy charity unite thee to his body the Church both in earth and heaven hold ever an inviolable communion with that holy and blessed fraternity Sever not thy self from it either in judgement or affection Make account there is not one of Gods Saints upon earth but hath a propriety in thee and thou mayst challenge the same in each of them so as thou canst not but be sensible of their passions and be freely communicative of all thy graces and all serviceable offices by example admonition exhortation consolation prayer beneficence for the good of that sacred community And when thou raisest up thine eyes to heaven think of that glorious society of blessed Saints who are gone before thee and are now there triumphing and reigning in eternall and incomprehensible glory bless God for them and wish thy self with them tread in their holy steps and be ambitious of that crown of glory and immortality which thou seest shining upon their heads AN HOLY RAPTURE OR A PATHETICALL MEDITATION OF THE LOVE OF CHRIST By J. H. B. N. The Contents § 1. THe love of Christ how passing knowledge how free of us before we were § 2. How free of us that had made our selves vile and miserable § 3. How yet free of us that were professed enemies § 4. The wonderfull effects of the love of Christ 1. His Incarnation § 5. 2. His love in his sufferings § 6. 3. His love in what he hath done for us and 1. in preparing heaven for us from eternity § 7. His love in our redemption from death and hell § 8. His love in giving us the guard of his Angels § 9. His love in giving us his holy Spirit § 10. Our sense and improvement of Christs love in all the former particulars and first in respect of the inequality of our persons § 11. A further improvement of our love to Christ in respect of our unworthinesse and of his sufferings and glory prepared for us § 12. The improvement of our love to Christ for the mercy of his deliverance of the tuition of his Angels of the powerfull working of his good Spirit for the accomplishment of our salvation AN HOLYRAPTURE OR A Patheticall Meditation of the love of CHRIST SECT 1. The love of Christ how passing knowledge how free of us before we were WHat is it O blessed Apostle what is it for which thou dost so earnestly bow thy knees in the behalf of thine Ephesians unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ Even this that they may know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge Eph. 3. 14. 19. Give me leave first to wonder at thy suit and then much more at what thou suest for Were thine affections raised so high to thine Ephesians that thou shouldst crave for them impossible favours Did thy love so far over-shoot thy reason as to pray they might attain to the knowledge of that which cannot be known It is the love of Christ which thou wishest they may know and it is that love which thou sayest is past all knowledge What shall we say to this Is it for that there may be holy ambitions of those heights of grace which we can never hope actually to attain Or is it rather that thou supposest and prayest they may reach to the knowledge of that love the measure whereof they could never aspire to know Surely so it is O blessed Jesu that thou hast loved us we know but how much thou hast loved us is past the comprehension of Angels Those glorious spirits as they desire to look into the deep mystery of our redemption so they wonder to behold that divine love whereby it is wrought but they can no more reach to the bottome of it then they can affect to be infinite For surely no less then an endless line can serve to fadome a bottomelesse depth Such O Saviour is the abysse of thylove to miserable man Alas what dowe poor wrethed dust of the earth go about to measure it by the spans and inches of our shallow thoughts Far far be such presumption from us Onely admit us O blessed Lord to look at to admire and ad ore that which we give up for incomprehensible What shall we then say to this love Oh dear Jesu both as thine and as cast upon us All earthly love supposeth some kinde of equality or proportion at least betwixt the person that loves and is loved Here is none at all so as which is past wonder extreams meet without a mean For lo thou who art the eternall and absolute Being God blessed for ever lovedst me that had no being at all thou lovedst me both when I was not and could never have been but by thee It was from thy love that I had any being at all much more that when thou hadst given me