which Eternal Love bringeth forth to itself within itself as its own Essential Form and Image This Glory this Life-Image of Love is that which it is forming in every Aegypt Sea Wilderness and Canaan The Heathen represented the Nature of this thing by Venus the Mother of Love the Seeds and Life springing by a Cupid Love the Child of this Mother Gen. 1. 2. It is said that the Spirit of God moved upon the Waters The Paraphrase upon that Scripture maketh it to be an allusion to a Dove which is the Bird of love sitting upon her Eggs and hatching her young ones The Holy Spirit is often in Scriptures represented by a Dove Eternal Love is of a Truth that Almighty Spirit which at first sate upon the whole Creation to form it and moveth upon it thorow all times to cherish and govern it Love is the Mother of all above All things are the Off-spring of Love a Race of Seminal and Springing Loves Mercy Love runneth along with the whole with each particular of the whole thorow the length of Eternity itself This is still the Burthen of the Song For his Mercy endureth for ever 2. The Works of Grace These are the second sort of Divine Works and these also are the Works of Love These are divided into three Ranks 1. The constant abode of the Soul in the Heart of God Who remembred us in our low estate v. 23. Thou O broken Heart Art sinking by ignorance by unbelief by thy fall from God thou art sinking still deeper into the Darkness and Filth of this World and thy Lusts. Still thou sinkest into the Power and Horrours of the Devil Now thou sayest the Lord hath forgotten me he hath cast me off for ever Yet he remembreth thee in thy low estate Still thou art in his Thoughts thou art in his Heart as a Pillar in the Temple of the Divine Nature which is Love never to go forth Thy Person is ever before him with a Sweet and deep Impression upon his Spirit never to be rased out What hath done this It is Eternal Love This is the Light of the Divine Mind which continually presenteth thee to it in the dress of its own Beâ—uties This is the sweet force of the Divine Will which holdeth thee fast in itself which beareth thee in its Arms thorow all conditions and will not let thee go for ever This is the Reason why He remembreth thee in thy low estate For his Mercy endureth for ever 2. The bringing us back into the Bosom of God This is the second Rank in the Works of Grace And hath redeemed us from our Enemies For his Mercy endureth for ever v. 24. It is Eternal Love in the Bosom of the Father which hath sent Jesus Christ forth from thence for us and to us that he may be our Sacrifice our Ransom and our Redeemer It is Eternal Love in the Person of Christ which cometh down from Heaven to make itself a Sacrifice for us to the Justice and Wrath of God It is Eternal Love in the Person of our Iâ—sus which descendeth upon the Earth as a Field of Blood to undertake the Fight with the Powers of Darkness that he may reskue us and redeem us from all our Enemies on Earth and in Hell It is Eternal Love in the Person 〈◊〉 Iâ—â—us Christ that gâ—veth itself a Price for us that one Pearl in which Hâ—â—ven and Earth with all the treasures of the Creature and Creator lie to puâ—chase us to itself It is Eternal Love in the Person of our Heavenly Bridegroom that giveth itself to us to cloath us to form us to act us to be a Crown of Divine Glory upon us to be a Fountain of all Spiritual Loveliness Life Grace Purity and Joys in the midst of us Thus it redeemeth us from our Captivity and Shame Thus it maketh us a Bride fit for itself coming forth ready trim'd out of the Heaven of its own Embraces 3. The nourishing of us in the Bosom of God This Work of Grace cometh in the third Rank Who giveth food to all Flesh For His Mercy endureth for ever Mark how these answer one another Mercy Food All Flesh For ever Eternal Love is both the Feeder and the Food If God give Food If everlasting Mercy Eternal Love in the Divine Nature and Form give Food This is Food indeed not the Flood of a Shadow or a lie My Flesh is Meat indeed my Blood is Drink indeed saith our Lord Jesus The Lord speaketh not this of his Humane Nature For of this he saith in another place The Flesh profiteth not but the Spirit quickneth It is Eternal Love which is the Flesh of Christ the strength and substance of the Divine Nature It is Eternal Love which is the Blood of Christ the Life and Sweetness of the Divine Nature This is that Meat indeed and Drinâ— indeed which Love giveth for Food to all Flesh in its Bosom to nourish it to Eternal Life I have passed thorow the second Sort of 〈◊〉 Works the Works of Grace 3. Works of Glory O give thanks unto the God of Heaven For his Mercy endureth for ever v. 26. and last The Psalm begun with Goodness as its ground of Love v. 1. It closeth its Musick with Heaven as the Crown of Love The natural Heavens the Heavens of the first Creation are not intended here These were mentioned in the body of the Song and pass away These are the last and highest Heavens the Heavens of Glory the high and holy places of Eternity These Heavens are all made of Love All the precious and incorruptible Substance all the unexpressible and pure Sweetnesses All the Divine and unfading Beauties of these Heavens are Eternal Love All the Praises given to God as he appeareth in these Heavens with all his Saints and Angels all his Joys and Glories round about him are attributed to Eternal Love the Root the Flower the Fruit the only reason and rellish of all O give thanks to the God of Heaven For his Mercy endureth for ever For his Love is Eternal The midst of Solomons Chariot is pavâ—d or flameth with Love Cant. 3. The Center of Heaven is a Love-fire All the Spirits and Spiritual Glories of it are Immortal flames of Divine Love 2. Argum. Love is the end of all Things with God This is the second Argument to prove Love to be the proper Name of God and full expression of the Divine Nature Love appeareth to be the last end of all things three ways 1 All the Works of God end in Love 2. All the Attributes and Exâ—ellencies of God serve his Love 3. God resteth in his Love 1. All the Works of God end in Love Psal. 145. v. 9. His tender Mercies are over all his Works The word Mercies cometh from the Belly the inward parts the Womb. It signifieth the very heart of Love where it first liveth and never dieth where it lyeth warmest and hath the strongest pulse It signifieth Love in its Center and
only feels God's Spirit only hears It is the Counsel of our Lord Jesus Pray to thy Father in Secret and He shall reward thee openly The most Secret things are the most Serious Dost thou commune with thine own Heart upon thy Bed about the things of God and Eternity Do the workings and Labourings of thy Soul after thy Saviour hold thine eyes waking while others are sleeping Solomon tells us The Heart knoweth its own Sorrow and a stranger intermeddles not with its Joys Blessed is he who hath a sense of a Sorrow for Sin and the absence of God which his own Heart only is conscious to Blessed is he who lives on hidden Manna who hath his Bosom still warmed with a secret Flame of Divine Love and Joy to which all others are Strangers Man hath as St. Paul teacheth a Spirit a Soul a Body So hath Religion God the Eternal Object and Spring of our Religion is the Spirit our Inward Affections are the Soul our outward Actions the Body Outward Actions most glorious if they go alone make but a Dead Religion are a Body without a Soul Inward Affections without God make but a Brutish Religion a Soul in a Body without the Immortal Spirit I now conclude this Application 2. Use For Direction I will divide this into a Threefold Direction 1. Direction Entertain mournful Tempers as Angels Improve them as Treasures When Jonah was in the bottom of the Sea and belly of the Fish his Soul fainting within him then he remembred the Lord Jonah 2. 7. As Pearls are found at the bottom of the Sea so frequently do the Beauties of the Lord Jesus disclose themselves to us in the depths of Grief when we are sunk below the waters of this world and are swallowed up into a Spirit of Darkness It is St. James's advice Jam. 1 4. Let Patience have its perfect work and it shall make you perfect As one Element stretcht to the utmost passeth into another Water into Air Air into Fire as a Cloud big and swelling dissolves it self upon the Earth so thy Griefs if thou wait calmly upon them as they swell and grow will at length dissolve themselves into God As Snow and Frost cherish the Seed in the ground so do biting and binding Sorrows both kill the weeds of Vanity and ripen the Seed of Divinity in Man I can no more want Sorrows for my Soul than the Husband-man can want Winter seasons for his Corn fields As natural Melancholy draws the Soul deeply into her self and her Divinest Principles whence she issues forth again with the most great and glorious Lights so do sad things work upon a holy Spirit sinking her thorow her self into the Depths of the Godhead out of which she riseth renewed to a fresh Spring of Life and Joy 2. Direction Look stedfastly to the end of all Flesh. In every Pleasure Strength Glory see the Worm and the Fire which is bred in all fleshly things the one never to go out the other never to die till Flesh be no more The belly for meats and meat for the belly but God shall destroy them both and I will be in bondage to neither saith St. Paul If thou engage thy Soul in any earthly Content thou puttest thy self into a Prison whence you must come by Death or where Death will find you Why should I put on that which I must keep on with lasting vexations or put off with present Pains The world and my senses were made one for another The Devil hath defiled and disordered both God distractâ— and will destroy both The Joy of my Life and my Life shall depend oâ— neither 3. Direction Preserve Hope towards God ever alive in thy self Hos. 2. 15. We read of the Door of Hope Hope is the Door of Happiness This admits us into the Godhead He that suffers Hope to sink under Despair in his Spirit locks and bars up the Door of Heaven against himself Prov. 13. 12. Hope deferr'd makes the heart sick But Hope cut off kills the Heart and makes it lie dead in Sin and Flesh. He will lay his mouth in the Dust if there may be Hope Give a man Hope and you cast the Seed of a New Soul of God into him What saith one May I the vilest of men the lowest of creatures hope to be pardoned Nay more to be loved to be made partaker of a Divine Spirit and Glory May I thus lâ—st hope this Then will I fear worship serve God do suffer any thing for him or from him I will lay my mouth in the Dust at his feet if I may have Hope Hope declares the most right and most sweet thoughts of God It sets the Soul in the rightest and sweetest frame towards God He exalts God and gives him the highest Glory that dares at worst to hope for the best things from him He that praiseth me he honoureth me saith God Psal. 50. There are Two Grounds for Hope which never fail 1. God is nigh thee Acts 15. Thou hast thy Being in him Thou wer 't made by Jesus Christ thou subsistest in him as in thy Root Thou art the work of his hand the Son of his Handmaid Nature Thy Natural Being is a putting forth a manifestation of Christ. Wait alwaies in Hope for his highest and divinest manifestations which come after this Thine eyes shall see them if thou let not go thy Hope but wait conâ—idently to the end 2. God is Infinite He is All All that thou canst think or wish For thou couldst not think or wish any thing if it were not first in him He is beyond thy Distresses or Desires Hope then ever in this God who is already in thee who is Infinite whose Power is above all thy Pressures whose Love is above his own Wrath. Christ is called our Hope Christ in you the Hope of Glory to signifie that Hope is the Son of God and his Image growing in us that Hope should have no Ground but Christ and then be as its Ground Immortal Inâ—inite Thus much for the Second Part in this Point of Conversion The Circumstances There is yet remaining the Third Part the Causes of this Change 3. Part. The Cause of our Change or Conversion This is manifold Some Causes are essential some only Occasional Some remote some near Yet all are as Links in a Chain one depending on another St. Paul scatters all these Causes within the compass of a few verses 1 Tim. 2. 1. I will therefore that prayers be made for all men 3. For God will have all to be saved and come to the knowledge of the Truth 4. For there is one God and one Mediator the man Christ Iesus 5. Who hath given himself a ransom for all to be revealed in due time All the Causes of our Conversion are in these words comprehended under Five Heads 1. Cause The Relation of God to Man 2. Cause The Mediation of Iesus Christ. 3. Cause The Manifestation of the Truth 4. Cause The Ministry of Man
so plentiful Beams as the Divine Nature When this is brought forth in any Spirit it cannot but manifest itself by beautiful Beams of Love and Holiness as it manifests so it often multiplies itself upon other Spirits When thou art Converted saith Christ to Peter strengthen thy Brethrâ—n It is the Perfection of Life to bring forth its Like When a man is himself made partaker of the life of God The Perfection of this life displays itself with such power and luster thorow the whole man that it many times draws strangers first into the Love then into the Likeness of it 5. Cause Manages of Providence These are often Moral Helps to Man Outward Hints which God is pleased to make and take for the Inward and Spiritual work of our Conversion But as they say of Stars they do not operate but indicate only not produce but point out effects and events in Earthly things So outward Providences when they are most are Concurrencies only not Causes in a proper sense not Living Hands to do any thing in the Truth of this Change but as Hands in a Margin to declare sometimes what God is doing These Workings of Providence by Natural effects in our Bodies civil accidents in our Life Moral Impressions on our Hearts are as the motion of the Waters when the Angel descended into the Pool which motion accompanied but contributed nothing to the Healing Vertue It is not of him that wills nor of him that runs but of God that hath mercy Sometimes God brings forth this Change when the Waters of outward Providence are quite calm as when the Apostles were called from their Nets Matthew from the Custom Gideon from the Flail Elisha from the Plow Sometimes God spreadeth this healing and enlivening vertue thorow the Soul when the Waters of the Natural man work high a contrary way as when Saul was chang'd into Paul he was then surprized with the Love and appearance of Jesus Christ when he was persecuting him Yet it pleaseth our Father very often to manage and forelay outward things so that he takes hold of them as occasions or opportunities to make his way into our Souls There are Two things in outward Providence which God especially makes use of to this purpose 1. Natural Affections 2. Temporal Afflictions 1. Natural Affections As we season Vessels for the Liquor with which we mean to fill them and as the Threshers of old had the Staff for the more tender Corn and the Wheel for the Harder So God made John the Evangelist of a gentle Heart seasoned with Still but Strong affections like a River that runs quiet but swift and deep This John Jesus Christ takes into his bosom makes him his Lute on which he sounds forth his softest sweetest Loves Beauty Delights So he lives so he dies St. Peter was naturally more of the Rock and Flint sharp hard and fiery Jesus Christ brings the Wheel over him and breaks him forely while he first forswears his Saviour near his Cross then afterwards is forc'd to follow his Saviour to the Cross. St. Paul had a vigorous profound Spâ—rit by Nature and Education Jesus Christ flashes upon him a with Glory from Heaven fills him with the deep and high Discoveries of Divine Glory makes him to fill the world with the loud reports of them as the Trumpet of Christ. Our Lord found some of his Apostâ—es Fishing He takes hold of them by this which was their Employment and Enjoyment their Inclination oâ— Education Come saith he follow me and I will make you Fishers of Men. One Man is caught and carried by sensual Beauties and Pleasures Jesus Christ covers the Golden Hook of His Love and Spirit with a Bait of Beauty and Pleasure to take this Man come saith Christ and follow me I am fairer than the Sons of men I have a Beauty beyond that of any Creature I am the Brightness of the Eternal Glory the Lively Image of the Invisible God I am the Light and Life of all Loveliness in all the Creatures They when they shine swâ—â—test are but shadows to me shadows of me I am all Pleasant altogether all Pleasantnesses and Delights together As Jesus Christ whispers this to the Soâ—l he lets fall upon it a Glimpse a Touch a Tast of Himself which makes all this Real So he ravisheth the Soul of this Man from the midst of his Vanities Sensualities Lusts into his own Embraces by the strength of a higher though purer Delight Another man is Rational and Philosophical led by inclination and study to trace the hidden ways of Nature to search the first Springs and continued course of Things The Lord Jesus works Himself into the Reason and speculation of this Man Come saith our Saviour and follow me I am the Wisdom of God by which the whole Creation was contrived came forth and is carried on I am the beginning the way the end of all things Time draws out its Line and runs its Race in me Eternity comprehends itself in its Center and Circle in me All the Treasures of Knowledge are in my Love You shall see all Mysteries all Forms and Motions of God and the Creature bare and naked in my Light As He speaks this He opens something of Himself upon the Soul which gives it a Glance of this Light and Sight Now He that sat before at Gamaliels feet like Paul sets his feet upon the head of all that learning and sits with Mary at the feet of Christ. Now Jesus Christ is the Reason of his Reason and the only Reason to it Now Jesus Christ is all his Philosophy and Study Thus God makes use of Natural Affections 2. Temporal Afflictions You have a Platform of Gods working by these from the mouth of Elihu Job 33. 19. He is chastned with pain upon his bed the multitude of his bones with strong pain The place of a mans Rest and Pleasure is made the place of his Torment All the several Principles and Strengths of Life are several Springs Seats and Strengths of Pain and Misery 20. v. His Life abhorreth Bread and his Soul dainty Meat The Nourishment of Life is tedious and becomes a Burthen The most pleasant Entertainments the sweetest delicacies of Nature and the Creature are now loath'd 21. v. His Flesh is consumed away that it cannot be seen his bones that were not seen stick out All the cloathings all the Beauties of his Being wither and wear away Those Forms in which he walked disappear The Foundations the lowest Principles of being in him are discovered and left naked like the Sea without waters a Deep having no Face but that of Darkness an Earth void and without Form 22. v. His Soul draweth near unto the Grave and his Life to the Destroyers The Life of the Spirit in the Body is now sinking into a Silent Darkness The Life of the Spirit in itself is almost swallowed up into those Spirits which are the principles of a dark a dying Life or a living Darkness and
moveth as always carried on in the Chariot upon the Wings of this Harmony A Caution Naturalists report a Serpent to be often bred of the Brain and Marrow of a mans back when he is dead So too often that Serpentine Spirit which feedeth upon the dust of sensuality and beareth an enmity to the Holy and Heavenly Dove is engendred from the sweetest and most substantial Truths which are as the Marrow and Brain of Divine Wisdom when they are become corrupted and dead notions in dead and corrupt Spirits How are these two glorious Principles the Golden Pâ—llars on which the Whole Gospel is established That all Fulness dwelleth in Christ That every thing of Christ in Christ is altogether lovely â—mproved by many unto the grossest Pollutions and greatest Profanenesses But these are willingly ignorant that as God is the God of order and not of confusion so all variety lieth in Jesus Christ in that perfect Harmony which is the Beauty of Holiness and the excellency of the Divine Wisdom All natural things stand in Christ in a double Harmony one with another and with the Divine Nature as faultless Figures of that purity and glory in the Eternal Spirit So Jesus Christ is both in one the Image of the Invisible God and the First-born of every Creature Colos. 1. 15. Then this Beautiful Nature of things in Christ is made a Sacrifice upon the Altar of the Cross in Death that it may put off the Negative Imperfections the Shadowy Darkness Slightness Confinement Mutability inseparable from a meer Figure Thus is this State of things subject to a double Law without it and above it one of its Pattern on the top of the mount above Nature the other of Death that it may by putting off itself in the Shadow put on its truer self in the Eternal Original Thus we read that Christ as he was the First-born of the whole Creation became the First-born from the Dead Colos. 1. 18. Thus thorow Death being purified by the Blood of the Lamb the Creature passeth out of that Shadowy State by rending the Vail of Flesh where it is in Bondage into the Liberty of the Sons of God where it is a Royal Law of Life of Love and of Liberty to itself in the Spirit of God and of Glory The Heavenly Person of our Lord Jesus is a Circle within a Circle 1. The first and innermost Circle is the First Image of God in Nature This comprehendeth the whole Creation This is made up of its Day and Night Light and Darkness All things of Light of Truth and Goodness are embraced by a Light of Divine Love All things of Darkness of the evil of sin lye in the Darkness of Divine wrath where the Evil of Sufferings as a Secret Fire consumeth them 2. The Circle which immediately infoldeth this is that of the Death of our Saviour Here the First Image entreth into a Divine Shade where by degrees it loseth it self and vanisheth as to its former appearances in the Figure sinking into its Eternal Seed The Spirit of Glory in this Divine Shade is the Blood of Christ purifying the Heavenly Things in the Creature by washing away the Earthly Forms This State the Jews call the lower Paradise the Paradise under the Earth For as a Seed hath in it self all the Beautyes and Sweetnesses of the whole plant under the vail of a naked Grain so here all things are as Spiritual and Divine Plants full of all Beauty and Sweetness under the covert of this Purple Perfumed Shade of our Saviour's Death to which the Holy Ghost was an anointing of all precious Spices and a Lamp shining in the midst of it This Spirit is also as a Fountain from Eden running along in the midst of this Paradise like a River and Gardens under ground in the Secret of the Earth The third Circle is the Kingdom and Glory of Christ. In this the two other Circles are seen the First thorow the Second as Faces in a Glass of Glory Here the Heaven of the God-Head is open'd and all things appear as Angels of God ascending and descending in the Person of Christ. This is the Spring of the Spirit in which all created Forms flourish like green Leaves and flowry Blossoms in the Tree of Life never to fall or fade the Eye of the God-Head as a rising Sun shedding for ever sweet Beams of Love and Life upon them 4. The last and greatest Circle the Crown of Life and Beauty is the Glory of the Father This is the Autumn and Season for Ripe Fruit. Now is Jesus returned thither where he was at first Now is he revealed who was from the Beginning God is the first and the last all in all All things see and enjoy themselves all things are seen and enjoyed in their unchangeable Originals This is that Spiritual and Heavenly Form of Christs Person into which he is ascended in which he is as on the Throne of the Father which endureth for ever and ever in which he hath gathered up all things into one This is that Head of our Lord Jesus which is of the finest and solidest Gold Thus we have seen the Order in which all things lie in our Saviours Person according to which he descendeth first and then ascendeth within himself The Unity of this first and highest Form which is the Supream and largest Circle the outmost and inmost to all the rest as their Root and their Crown in the bosom of which all the rest lie as Colours and Figures in the Light This so goeth down into the other that it maketh all one and resteth itself entirely upon each point of every one and enfoldeth the whole in itself so that all have the Truth and the true manifestation of their Being and Beauty only as they lie in this pure and perfect Light Every inferiour Circle or Form of things is comprehended in the Superiour and hath there a double Appearance 1. In plain So it is a native Flower in that Mystical Garden a fair feature in that Face of Beauty a Spirit of that Spirit in that Spirit one Spirit with it 2. In Perspective Thus the lower is seen in the higher as at a distance as at the end of a Cave as it was in itself as passed away according to that fashion of it Coloss. 2. 17. St. Paul complaineth of those who intrude themselves into Heavenly mysteries which they have not seen not holding the head These as St. Jude speaketh are Sensual that is men acted only by a natural and common Soul not having the Spirit So in those things of our Lord Jesus which they know as brute Beasts they corrupt themselves They have not anointed Eyes to see the Harmony and Spiritual Beauty of all things in the Person of the Lord. They discern not how the Original and first Glories by fit steps shoot forth themselves into Figures and Shadows how they lie hid as the immortal Seed and Substance in them how like the Invisible and
lovely morning breaketh upon thy Spirit from the midst of the shades of unbelief and thy natural State it maketh a day of Power a day of Armies Jesus Christ appeareth now in the Glory of his Father in his own Glory in the Glory of all his holy Angels He boweth down all these Heavens and with them descendeth from above into thy Spirit With these Armies of Glories he fighteth against all the Powers of Darkness in thee With the Power of these Glories he subdueth thee to himself winneth thy Love transformeth thy Spirit and Person shineth upon and draweth forth to maturity every Seed of Glory in thee The Person of thy Jesus shining out in thee is that Morning from which as from a Beautiful and Blessed Womb falleth the Dew of Christs Youth which is his Spirituality his Eternity ever-full ever-flourishing with all Divine Beauties upon his Person This Dew maketh all Graces to spring in thy Soul powerfully plentifully beautifully pleasantly with State and Majesty As that Vine which hath most of the Sun bringeth the most kindly Grapes the greatest Clusters the fairest and best coloured the sweetest the largest Grapes the most abounding with Spirit and Heat yielding the best Wine so doth that Soul which liveth most in the Eye of the Lord Jesus under the Beams of his Person unvailed bring forth the most kindly Fruits of the Spirit in all these respects 1. All Grace aboundeth most it is as the Dew 2. It is pleasantest Thy people are a willing people There is most of Love of Life and Delight 3. It is most Beautiful There are the Beauties of Holiness 4. Every Grace is greater spreadeth and enlargeth itself more hath more vertue and force in it The Appearance of Christ. maketh a Day of Power 5. It is more Princely hath enstamped upon it more of the Person of the Lord Jesus and so more of the Majesty of the Divine Nature 6. It yieldeth the most excellent wine of Heavenly Joys to make glad the heart both of God and Man It is the Dew of Christs Youth It hath in it a Confluence a Concurrence of all the Lovelinessâ—s Sweetnesses of the Person of our Lord in his Spâ—ritual his Immortal State which is his Youth flourishing in the height of all Divine Pleasantness and Glory never to fade or decline O! Let us all be found in the â—umber of the Watchmen that watch continually for this morning Let us go forth from under the vail from out of the Cave of the Flesh and of the world into the Light of this morning into the sweet breakings of the Eternal Day from the glorâ—ous Person of our Saviour Let us receive the Dew of his Youth falling upon us Let us see the Dew of his Youth falling upon all things round about us making the Deseâ—t to Blossom as the Rose our Hearts all things to us Spring Blossom and Flourish with the Spiritual and Immortal Beauties of our Beloved This Dew is his Sowing his watering them every where Use 2. A Direction to the Knowledge of the Person of our Saviour and his Beauties The Lord himself saith The words that I speak unto you they are Spirit and they are Life John 6. 63. Jesus had been speaking of Himself of eating his Flesh and drinking his Blood He meaneth by words the Things which those words signify The Person of Christ the excellencies and vertues of his Person concerning which he spake to them are not Flesh and Blood which are the Shadows only dying dead yea Death itself nor meerly Spiritual but Spirit Substantially and Essentially which is Life not by Participation but Primitively in the Essence in the Spring This is the ground which I lay for the direction which I am to give you in your study of the Beautiful Person of Christ Christ and his Beauties are Spiritual Now not I but St. Paul giveth you two Rules 1 Corin. 2. 7 8. The Holy Apostle speaketh of the Knowledge of the Wisdom of God in a Mystery Then he expresseth this Wisdom of God in a Mystery to be Jesus Christ the Lord of Glory the Lord whose Person is all Glory whose Principality and Kingdom is Glory in the Abstract Glory in its utmost extent He had said this was unknown to all the Princes of this world the Princes in Wisdom as well as Power the highest ranks and orders of Men or Angels To confirm this he citeth a Scripture in the next verse v. 9. Eye hath not seen nor Ear heard neither have entered into the heart of Man the things which God hath prepared for them that love him Observe by laying these three verses together how St. Paul meaneth one Thing by these three expressions The Wisdom of God in a Mystery the Lord of Glory Things prepared by God for those that love him The Person of Christ is that Image of Glory and of the God-Head in which lieth the entire Mystery Wisdom and design of God from the Beginning to the End with all its way He is a Collection of all those Beauties and Blessedness Loves and Joys prepared by the Father for his Beloved Ones to feast upon to Eternity Of these St. Paul determineth that the noblest highest largest senses understandings hearts of the most excellent Creatures are uncapable of the least Glympse or tast of them This he draweth down afterwards to a Rule which is my first Rule Rule 1. Spiritual Things are Spiritually discerned 1 Cor. 2. 14. This Rule divideth it self into Three Branches 1. Spiritual things are discerned by a Spiritual Eye St. Paul saith The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God for they are foolishness to him neither can he for they are Spiritually discerned 1 Cor. 2. 14. Nature hath a Twofold Eye the Eye of Sense the Eye of Reason The Eye of Sense is common to Man with Beasts and is the Bestial Eye This discerneth the Beauties of Flesh and Blood We have histories of Beasts Birds and Fishes which have been in love with Beautiful Virgins and Youths But this Eye is blind to Spiritual Objects A Material and Corporeal Object if it excel and be transcendent in Sweetness Harmony or Beauty destroyeth the Sense as the Sun dazleth darkeneth and putteth out the Eye How much more unable are our Senses to take in or bear Immaterial and Spiritual Glories Nature 's other Eye is that of Reason of the Mind the Intellectual Eye which is common to Man with Angels This is the Angelical Eye in Man This can discover can take some measure of the Invisible things of the Creation and maintain some Commerce with Angels But the Darkness of this Eye to the Beauties of Christ is painted forth in a lively manner by that sweet and sublime Prophet Isaiah c. 6. v. 1. The Lord Jesus appeareth sitting upon the Throne of His Spiritual and Divine Form His Train of Glories filled the Temple v. 2. The Seraphims themselves which are â—eputed the Highest Order and Degree of Angels cover their faces
of Nature to this Truth the Unity of the Divine Seed in Nature God is One not in Regeneration only but in the Creation also We also are his Off-spring Thou who art hitherto Earthly and Natural an outcast of Nature cast down to the nethermost parts of the Earth in Lusts Unbelief Blindness of Mind Hardness of Heart Profaneness Enmity seek thou also after God feel after him Thou also mayest see him and feel and find him in every motion in every act and part of thy Life in every point of thy whole Being Every Motion Act and Part of thy Life every Point in thy whole Being is that Field in which is hid the Treasure of the Divine Being Beauty and Blessedness Thou livest and movest and hast thy Being in him He liveth and moveth and hath his Being in thee He is thy Seed in thee For thou also art his Off-spring Believe the Love of God open all the parts of thy Being and Powers of thy Soul to take in this Love Thou hast in thee the band of the Love-union the Divine Love-spring the Unity of the Divine Seed For thou also art his Off-spring Blessed is he who believes and seeks for this Pearl more than Silve and diggeth for it more than for hidden Treasures Blessed is he who findeth it and goeth and selleth all that he hath to purchase it Thou hast this Pearl in thine own Field the Divine Seed in thine own Soul and Being Let this be the only Seed in thy Soul Then hast thou sold all for it Then will it spring up into a living Palace of one Immortal Pearl in thee which God himself and all Glorious Spirits will inhabit together with thee filling it with the sweet Lights of their Divine Beauty with the Eternal Flames of their Divine Loves and Joys Obj. But you may say if this be so why are not all saved If all be of one Seed which is Christ why doth not one Life of Grace and Glory spring up in all from that one Seed Ans. My Answer to this Objection shall be a threefold use a Reproof to Sinners a Root of Comfort a Reason for Holiness Use. 1. A Reproof to Sinners The Sin of the Devil was the first and Fountain Sin In that therefore the evil Nature of Sin in the whole Kind and in every individual Act is most manifest St. Jude painteth it out in its black and bloody colours after a most lively manner Jude 6. The Angels not keeping their first Principle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and forsaking their proper Habitation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 O Man Thy God is thy first Principle Thou didst stand in him as in thy Root Thou wert filled with Sap from him Thou didst partake of the Fatness and Sweetness of the Divine Nature Thou wert a flourishing and fruitful Tree All the Birds of Heaven the Holy Spirit the Blessed Angels delighted to sit and Sing in thy Branches All visible things rested under thy Shadow How art thou fallen to the ground How dost thou lie withered and dead upon the face of the Earth No good thing cometh near thee Sin hath done this Thou hast not kept thy first Principle O Man The Divine Image was thy proper Habitation This Image in thy Person was a Sun of Beauty shining in every part of it and a Shield of Power defending it on every side In this Image all Blessed things were united to make a Paradise for thee which thou didst carry about in thine own Person as thy proper Form thine inseparable Habitation like to God who carryeth his own Heaven into every place with him Alas Thou art now naked in the Eye of God and all the Creatures Thou art exposed to shame to every storm of Rage Malice and Wrath from all Sin hath done this By Sin thou hast forsaken thine own thy proper Habitation Beware O Men Of the Evil of Sin You cast out anew the Divine Seed out of your Garden by every new act of Sin You cut off anew the Divine Form Flower and Fruit from every Plant in your Garden by every new Act of Sin As oft as you Sin so oft you make a fresh wound upon the Divine Unity you make it to bleed afresh and dye in your Persons But besides this there is yet a greater Evil in Sin The Seed of God is one the Divine Unity the Love-spring of Eternity The Seed of the Serpent the Devil is Enmity the Hellish Spring of Hate and Death Every Sin is this Seed of the Serpent in thee Enmity to the Heavenly Seed the Unity of God In the Law the Jews were forbidden to seethe a Kid in his Mothers Milk for the Cruelty and Unnaturalness O the cruelty of every Sinner in every act of Sin O the unnaturalness Thou makest a Fire of the Kid that thou mayst burn its Mother in it Thou changest the natural Image the natural Life in thee into a fire of Wrath and Lust to burn up and consume in it the Heavenly Seed out of which it springeth Solomon in his Proverbs telleth us that he who curseth his Father and despiseth his Mother the Ravens of the Valleys and the young Eagles shall pick out his Eyes This hath its highest truth here go on in Sin But know that now in each Act of Lust of Wrath of Profaneness of Unbelief thou offerest despight to thou cursest thou killest the Seed of God in thy self the Divine Unity the purest and perfectest Love thy Father which hath begotten thee and thy Mother which bare thee which brought thee forth What will thine End be The Ravens of the Vallies and the young Eagles Unclean and devouring Spirits from Hell below Spirits of blood of death of horrour and slaughter shall eat thy Flesh consume all the Light of Life and Beauty in thee shall swallow up thy Spirit into the Bottomless Pits of Darkness Dread and Death within themselves Use. 2. The Root of Comforts in Believing the Root of Faith that we may believe and have Comfort is the Divine Unity The Unity of God is thy Seed in thee The Seed is one and that one Christ. The Unity of God is the highest and purest Love The Unity of God Divine Love is the Seed of all Things thy Seed Believe this Love believe in this Unity that is in Christ who is this one Seed of Love Let these Arguments persuade thee to believe 1. Argu. The Unity of God is the Fountain of Love The Unity is the Simplicity the Purity of the Divine Nature God in the nakedness and simplicity of his Divine Essence is Love Lean stay thy self upon this Rock of Eternity the Divine Unity Simplicity Purity of Love 2. Argu. The Unity of God is Love How strong is this Love All the Attributes Powers Excellencies Vertues of the God-Head are united and centred in Love How great is the force of Divine Love What is its Vertue its Excellency its Sweetness O Almighty O Supream O Soveraign Love All Things Good Great and Divine
of that Sacrament pointing out the Truth figured in that Type The Lord Jesus is a Husband to Thee in his own Blood Thou must also be a Spouse to him in thine own Blood St Paul saith Ye are dead to your first Husband by the Dead Body of Christ that ye may be married to another to him who is risen from the Dead Rom. 7. 4. You must come thorow the Death of Christ into his Marriage-Bed You cannot lye down in the Embraces of his Love in Glory except ye be first married to his Crucified Body and united to that in the Embraces of Death Flesh and Blood saith St Paul cannot enter into the Kingdom of God into the Kingdom of Spiritual Love If a Fleshly a Natural Spirit striveth to enter into the Love of God in the Glorified Person of our Lord Jesus it â—alleth short of the Truth the Life it attaineth to a Similitude only The Love and Glory of the Father of Christ of Heaven to the most raised Spirit of this Creation is an Enchantment Delusion a Dream This Gâ—ace of God in the Figure this Divine Love in a Dream is for the most part turned into Wantonness Lust. So men become in the heighth of the Purest Notions of the Sweetest Images no more than Filthy Dreamers The Death of Christ in the New Birth in Purity and Power of the holy Ghost is the Angel with a Flaming Sword turning every way which keepeth the Entrance into the True Paradise the Way to the Tree of Divine Love as well as of Divine Life The Eternal Spirit is the Flaming Sword Death here in its outward form is an Angel ministring to this Spirit He that dieth by this Sword and Flame in the hand of this Angel cutteth off burneth up all Fleshly Forms and Lives is in the same moment new-born into a Divine Immortal Spirit In this Spirit he entereth into the Paradise of Love in the Third Heavens above the Heaven of Sense or all things Visible above the Heaven of Reason Angels all things Invisible Intellectual of the First Creation in the Glorified Person of Christ. Here nothing entereth which hurteth or defilâ—th But be not discouraged when ye hear of a Baptism in Death before the Heavens open and the Dove Divine Love descend to rest upon you to give you rest in itself It is Love itself which is the Baptiser which leadeth you and goeth down with you into Death It is a River of Love which is the Jordan the Death into which you go down and are baptised We are baptised St. Paul saith in the forementioned place into the Similitude of Christ's Death The Death of Christ was Death in Truth a Substantial Real Death The Death of Christ in a Saint is Eternal Love Eternal Life in the Likeness and Form of Death a Similitude onely of Death in a Substance of Immortal Love and Glory in the Person of our Jesus ascended Use. 4. Take heed of mingling the Lusts of the Flesh with Spiritual Loves Jealousy is the Rage of God as well as of Man It burneth to the Foundations of the Earth A Fly bred out of Dung so infested the Eagle that it forced him to lay his Eggs for safety in the Lap of Jupiter the Heathen-God The Fly mounteth up aloft carrieth up some Dung with it letteth it fall into Jupiter's lap He arising and shaking the Dung out of his Lap shaketh ouâ— the Eagle's Eggs with it which fall broken to pieces upon the ground This is a Fable The Moral is good Thou art a Saint Thou layest the Births of the Divine Spirit in Thee thy Graces Hopes Joyes with thy self in the Bosom of Divine Love O take heed that thy Flesh that Dung-Fly mingle nothing of its Filth with these Births of the Spirit in the Pure Bosom of Heavenly Love If it do assure thy self that Love will cast all the Filth all Flesh out of its Chast and Spiritual Embraces As that falleth to the Ground thou also wilt fall with it and have many a broken bone many a broken heart We read in the Revelation of the Dragon and his Angels in Heaven together with Michael and his Angels But they fought there till the Dragon and his Angels were cast out Thou O Believer art a Heaven in which God dwelleth as Love where all the Angels as Angels of Love where all Forms of things are as Heavenly Angels of Pure Love round about him ministring to him Shall there be now seen in this Heaven in thy Person O Believer silthy Lusts furious Passions the Dragon and his Angels together with the Lord Jesus Divine Love and its holy Angels How hateful how horrid a Wonder What a Prodigy is this If it be so let there be no rest in the Heaven of thy Spirit let there be a continual Fight until the Dragon with his Angels the Fleshly Spirit with its Lusts and Passions be cast out When the Unclean Dog and the fiery Dragon are no more Thy Lamb will feed and lye down to rest thy Turtle will make its Nest and enjoy its Mate its Beloved in quiet Nothing shall disturb or make them afraid in all the Paradise of Divine Love Use. 5. Comfort your selves O Believers You travel thorough the Valley of Baca Baca signifieth a Mulberry Tree and Weeping You travel thorow a Valley of Tears a Mournful Valley where all the Trees that grow are Mulberry Trees Emblems of Grief and Wo. You are frequently overspread with the black Shades of Fear Unbelief Doubt Distrust Despair You often fall into the hands of violent Robbers Evil Spirits in the forms of various Temptations Corruptions Passions These spoil you leave you naked wounded desolate You dig up pits in Duties Ordinances But many times no Rain no Descent of the Spirit from Heaven filleth these Pits Yet be not discouraged all you who believe the Love of God in Jesus Christ. Strengthen the feeble Knees You shall go on from Strength to Strength from Light to Light so you shall come every one of you at last to a Clear Sight to a Compleat Fruition of the God of Gods on Mount Sion of God in his Supreme Glory in the Nakedness Purity Simplicity Unity of the Eternal Spirit Lift up the feeble hands These weak Graces of yours mixt interrupted with so much Corruption These weak Persons Bodies and Spirits wearied wounded stained with so many Sufferings Sins and Sorrows shall be crowned with perfect Glory For why Pure Love Almighty Love That Love which is itself God over all Blessed for ever This Love comes forth casting off all vails pouring forth itself from all its Eternal Springs in all its Infinite Fulnesses in the Glorified Person of Christ This Love hath begun and shall it not make an End As Certainly as it hath laid the Foundation and you have cried to it Grace Grace Pure Love Preventing Love as Certainly as it hath gone on to build you up thus far and still you have cried to it Grace Grace Pure Love
Principle he stood under the curse receiving and feeling all the stings and bitterness of the curse to the utmost extremity 4. Propos. This our Jesus as he at the same time with his Divine Nature in his Humanity stood in a Supernatural and Eternal Principle he in his Humanity comprehended his Humanity itself in its natural Principle together with the natural Principle itself the Curse all the stings and bitterness of the Curse in a light of Divine Glory in a life of Divine Love as so many varieties of pure Love Joy and Glory with Immortality 5. Propos. The Curse with the stings and sense of it upon the Natural and Temporary Principle as also the conflict between the Natural and Temporary the Supernatural and Eternal Principle in the Lord Jesus through his whole Person as it lived in a Humane Soul and Body were highest at his Death These are the five Propositions which set forth the trouble of Christ at his Death In the other two followeth his Triumph 6. Propos. This Eternal Person our Jesus with his God-Head in his whole Humanity both Soul and Body in the moment of Death by dying went entirely forth from the Natural or Temporary Principle and so from under the Curse 7. Propos. This same Jesus in his whole Person with his whole Soul and Body in the moment of Death by dying went forth entirely into the simplicity and singleness of his Supernatural the Eternal Principle and so into a State of pure Eternity unmixt Joy and Glory I shall briefly open these Propositions in their order 1. Propos. It was the most glorious and eternal Person of God himself in two Natures Divine and Humane which was our Jesus John 1. 14. The Word was made Flesh. The second Person in the Trinity from which the other two Persons the Father and the Spirit are inseparable the eternal and essential Son of God which hath the fulness of the God-Head in himself in its most express Image and greatest Glory he in his own Person in this Eternal Person and Sonship was made Flesh. This Eternal Person this Essential Son of God was that Flesh. This Flesh was that Person that Son which had the Father and the Spirit inseparably with himself and was essentially one with them O Christians study this union of the two Natures Divine and Humane in one only Divine Unchangeable and Eternal Person which is the most glorious and Ever-blessed God This is the deep and rich ground of the Christian Religion out of which as the true ground of the Heavenly Paradise the God-Head itself makes to spring all the precious mysteries of the Gospel all Evangelical Truths Graces and Joys in their most Spiritual Beauty Sweetness and Life Understand this Pray for the understanding of this for a sight sense and feeling of it within your own Spirits that it is God God himself in his own only Divine unchangeable undivided Person in your own Form in your own Nature in your own Persons and Spirits which is your Jesus your Saviour Redeemer Husband and King your Ransom Atonement and Righteousness your Beauty your Life your Joy your Root Branch Flower and Fruit. This union between the Divine and Humane Nature in one Person in our Lord Jesus is the Original and Reason of the union between you and this Jesus which is God in Person to which Person thorow this union you also are immediately eternally united in one Spirit in one mystical Person which is Christ as St. Paul speaketh as there is one Body and many Members so is Christ. A Spiritual knowledge of this union of two Natures in one Person and that God himself is this Person will sweeten all sufferings of life to you and perfume the Grave Open the Eyes of your Spirits and behold with joy and wonder the going of your God and King in the Sanctuary of this Earthly Body It was the ever-glorious and immutable Person of God in the most high and holy Trinity which made itself Flesh in the Womb of the Virgin which was that Flesh which in that Flesh eat drank slept talked and walked upon the Face of this Earth which passed under all the clouds thorow all the storms of life here which hung upon the Cross dyed and lay down in the Grave O with what a Divine and delightful Glory hath this Divine presence and Person silled and cloathed this Flesh this Earth all the natural actions and passions of this Flesh on this Earth Clouds Storms the Cross Death and the Grave to the Spiritual Eyes of Believers What living Plants of Paradise how beautiful how laden with most pleasant and Immortal Fruits are all these springing up out of this Root this Divine and Eternal Person What Jewels are they of incomprehensible virtue sweetness and lustre hanging upon this Person See your selves O all ye Saints even the lowest and the least conformed to this Image It is the immortal Seed and Son of God in you it is your Jesus the most glorious Person of God himself in this Seed in you which is made partaker of Flesh and Blood which walks on Earth and acts all the parts of the natural Life here which passeth thorow all the Clouds and Storms of life which suffers dies and lies in the Grave The Spoase saith of Christ he is a bundle of Myrrh he shall lye all night between my Breasts Thus the Humane Nature of Christ saith to the Divine Nature Thus the Earthly Nature saith to the Heavenly Nature to the Divine Seed to the Lord Jesus to the Divine Nature in the Lord Jesus thou art my bundle of Myrrh thou liest all the night of this life and death between my naked Breasts What corruption can I see in the Grave itself What Divine Sweetness breaths forth itself in all States What Divine Treasures of Life and Immortality fill and overflow all while we thus lye most intimately united entirely wrapt up in each other in the most sweet and glorious Unity of one Divine and Eternal Spirit one Mystical Divine and Eternal Person 2. Propos. God in his own Person as the Divine Nature lived in our Nature here on Earth stood at once in a twofold Principle the one Natural and Temporary the other Spiritual and Eternal The Lord Jesus was truly and really a man in every point like unto us sin only excepted as the Scripture speaketh in the Epistle to the Hebrews Thus he did bear in himself the Earthly and Natural Image he stood in an earthly and natural Principle He came forth from the Father into the World So was he made a Servant and made under the Law But the Lord Jesus was in Person the Eternal Son of God In this Person alone did the Humane Nature of Christ with its Natural Principle and Fleshly Form in this world subsist The second Person in the Trinity was the Glorious and Invisible Root which through the Divine Nature sent forth sustained lived and appeared in the spotless Flesh of the Lord Jesus Thus
Sing This is Spiritual Musick the working of Spiritual Joy to Shout and to Sing We read of a Two-fold Song which Spiritual Persons sing Revel 15. 3. They Sing the Song of Moses and of the Lamb. The Song of Moses is the Law the Song of the Lamb the Gospel When the Children of Israel had passed thorow the Red Sea and saw their Enemies lie dead on the Shore then they Sung the Song of Moses who drew them out of those Waters according to the Signification of his Name When the Soul hath escaped out of the Sea of Blood mingled with Fire which is the Dissolution of her Natural Principles in Troubles and Terrours by the Baptism of the Spirit when shee sees her Spiritual Enemies slain on the Dry Land of Christ Spiritual Appearance then she Sings the Song of the Lamb who was dead but is alive and lives for ever the Song of Peace Singing naturally with the outward voice is the highest and fullest Activity of the Natural Spirits So Singing Spiritually and with the Inward Man is the highest Activity of the Spirit in our Spiritual Part. This Spiritual Musick or Singing which is the working of the Wine of Spiritual Joy in the Soul consists of Three Things 1. The Heightning of the Soul towards God 2. The Tuning of the Soul to God 3. The Exercise or Entertainment of the Soul upon God and with God 1. The Heightning of the Soul towards God This is one Piece of that Activity of Spiritual Ioy which is the true Musick of the Soul In that place cited before Psal. 65. 13. Singing and Shouting are put together 1 Thessal 4. 16. The Lord Jesus is said to descend from Heaven with a Shout This Shout is the Awakening and the Elevation of the Soul or Body towards the highest State of things by the Powerful breakings forth of the Glory of God upon them Psalm Psal. 57. 7. David had said I will Sing and give Praise Then he calls upon himself v. 8. Awake up my Glory awake my Psaltery and Harp I my self will awake right early Some say Davids Glory was his Tongue but then sure it was such a Tongue of Fire as sat upon the Heads of the Apostles a Tongue of Spiritual Manifestations and Heavenly Glory like a Flame enlightning and heating both at once Man is the Glory of God saith St. Paul 1 Corin. 11. 7. The Spiritual Man is the true and Spiritual Glory of God The Natural Man is but a Shadowy Glory David calls upon his Glory to awake as distinct from himself and then he saith I shall awake like that of St. Paul Galat. 2. 20. I live not but Christ in me there is the Glory awakening itself and the Life that I live is by the Faith of the Son of God there is himself awakened in that Glory Then the Soul sings when the Life of Jesus Christ which is her Glory awakens itself in her and awakens her together with itself into the Light of God to a Contemplation of and fixing upon his Beauties Now the Soul is above her ordinary Pitch as Waking is above Sleeping Now she sits above herself upon the top of her Spiritual Principles as a Bird upon the Top-branch of a Tree Singing in the Sun-shine the highest Light of Divine Discoveries This is the First thing in this Activity or Spiritual Musick 2. The Timing of the Soul to God In that fore-mentioned Psal. 57. 7. David speaks of awakening three distinct Lives His Glory His Psaltery and Harp Himself The Glory is Jesus Christ in the Soul Self is the Soul The Psaltery and Harp those Heavenly Principles and Powers which as Ministring Spirits go forth from Jesus Christ into the Soul suiting fitting and tuning the Soul to her Saviour Revel 15. 2. St. Iohn saw the Saints that had gotten the victory over the Beast stand upon a Sea of Glass mingled with Fire and the Harps of God in their hands Then in the next verse they Sing The Sea is this Creation especially the Invisible the Angelical Part of it In this State it is a dark troubled foaming Sea But in the Kingdom of Christ it shall be a Sea of Glass a Chrystalline Sea clear calm fresh taking in and holding forth the Lord Jesus the Image and Face of God as a Glass as a pleasant Stream The Fire with which it shall be mingled shall be the Spirit of God and of Glory resting upon the Creature The Saints standing upon this Sea shall have the Harps of God in their hands Angels are the Trumpets of God This State of the Saints which is here described is their Angelical State when they shall be like the Angels These Harps of God then are Angelical Tempers and Principles which Jesus Christ brings forth and puts into the Soul as Harps into their Hands by which they are tuned and fitted made ready for Him to sing to Him Thus the Soul is tuned to God being put into a Spiritual and Heavenly Temper like an Angel beholding the Face of God and in a readiness to Sing forth to Sing aloud his Glory Coloss. 3. 16. St. Paul speaks of Spiritual Songs which they were to Sing with Grace in their Hearts This is that which David calls his Harp This is the Harp of God in the hands of the Saints the Grace of God in their Hearts This is the Tuning of the Soul to Christ the Receiving of Grace for Grace from Christ the winding up of Grace in the Heart to a pitch of Conformity and Communion with Jesus Christ like the Tuning of two voices or Instruments one to another that so Christ and the Soul may make Musick each to other and have their Joy fulfilled in one another So much for the Second Thing 3. The Exercise and Entertainment of the Soul upon God and with God This is the Third thing in the Souls Singing for Ioy. David saith in one place I will Sing of thy Righteousness and in another I will Sing of thy Power The Spiritual Joy and Musick of a Saint is to fly abroad among the Excellencies of the Divine Nature to enlarge and act his Spirit to the Height upon the Beauties and Brightnesses in the Face of God the Uprightness Truth Perfection in the Heart of God the Freedom Fulness Fruitfulness Infiniteness in the Spirit and Life of God David hath often expressions to this purpose I will Sing to thee I will Sing to the Lord. So St. Paul speaks Making melody to God The Holy Soul Sings of God to God Spiritual Joy is the Free letting forth of the Spirit with God concerning God It is often the Work and Delight of a Holy Soul to open her mouth wide to take in to the utmost the contemplation of God the communications of his Greatness Fulness Sweetness Glory and then when she is fullest to pour forth herself again into the Ear and Bosom of her God You may see this in the Psalmist Psalm 45. 1. My Heart is enditing a good matter I
the Running out of Things from the Glory of God the breaking of the Harmony of Divine Love Beauty and Wisdom by a Discord Sorrow is the Return of Things into this Glory the bringing of the Discord into a Harmony again Both these Evils are the Matter of Spiritual Mourning 1. The Evil of Sin We are to grieve for the Evil of Sin in our selves and in others 1. We are to grieve for Sin in our selves Psa. 51. 3. David cryes to God I acknowledge my transgression my sin is before me When Sin appears in its right shape to us it brings forth sorrow as its Image in our souls as naturally as the face of God begets a face of Joy in our hearts Mourning is as the Mouth by which we confess our corruptions It is the Image and Form in which the sense of guilt holds forth it self in the Spirit He that grieves and glories not in the Glory of God calls Good Evil and Light Darkness He that is merry and mourns not under guilt he calls Evil Good and Darkness Light Both lye under a Curse one for turning the Glory of God into a Lye the other for Boasting himself in a Lie against the Truth Not to feel a Sorrow for Sin is to deny the Nature of it to destroy the Person of Christ to make void his Cross to confound and dissolve the Mystery of God 2. We are to grieve for Sin in others Psal. 119. 53. David complains Horrour hath taken hold of me because of the Wicked that forsake thy Law When the Sun the Light of the World laboureth under an Eclipse by the Moon the Sight of it naturally strikes a kind of Horrour upon the Spirits of Men. For it portends Blood and Ruine in one Kind or another In each Sin there is a more Dreadful Eclipse The Image of God which is the True Life and Light of all Creatures laboureth and groaneth being opprest under and darkned by the Image and will of Man He that understands this Sight sees in it a certain Presage of Wrath and Desolation which fills him with Astonishment Ephes. 4. 30. Grieve not saith St. Paul the Holy Spirit of Christ. Sin grieves the Spirit of Christ. As Jesus Christ Sympathizeth and Suffereth with us having a fellow-feeling of our Infirmities by a Union of Spirits So a good man hath a Sympathy and fellow-feeling with his Saviour when he sees his Spirit grieved by the Sins of other men Thus we are to Mourn for the First Evil the Evil of Sin 2. The Evil of Suffering We are to mourn for our own Sufferings and the Sufferings of others 1. We are to mourn for our own Sufferings Es. 22. 12. In that day did the Lord God of Hosts call to weeping and to mourning What Day was this It was a Day of Calamity when Death was before their Eyes So you may see at the 13th verse They said Let us eat and drink for to morrow we shall die The Providences and Appearances of God are his Language in which he speaks to us God requires of us that we should have an Ear to hear and a Tongue to answer him in his own Language It is said in one place that the Heaven should hear the Earth Is it not much more fit then that the Earth should hear the Heavens The Heavens are the Image of God the Heart of Man is the Earth Shall God speak to us in Wrath and Ruine and shall not we hear and answer him with Fear and Trembling Shall God speak to us in Thunder Storms and Blood And shall not we hear and answer him with Tears and Broken Hearts 2. We are to mourn for the Sufferings of Others 2 Corin. 11. 2 9. Who saith St. Paul is sick and I am not afflicted who is offended and I burn not Every good Man is like his God and Father All Things are his because he is the Spouse of Christ the Child and Heir of God one Spirit with Christ and God So he suffers in all As St. Paul said I make up the Sufferings of Christ in my Flesh So saith he All Things that Suffer add to my Sorrows and make up my Sufferings in their Flesh. A good Man is One spirit with Christ. Thus he is like Christ a Spirit of Univeral Sweetness which longs and labours to bring forth itself in Peace and Pleasures every where When it meets with a Soul shut up in Griefs it is straitned and afflicted there and burns like a Fire to be at liberty in that Heart This Spirit suffers with each Heart till it can make every Heart to rejoyce with itself It is never entirely Risen from the Dead while there is any one in the Grave of Sorrows That One is a Member of its Body and it is ever present with the whole Body being all of itself in every Part of that all in the Sorrows of the Militant and Suffering Part as truly as it is all in the Joys of the Triumphant and Rejoycing Part. This is the Matter of our Mourning Evil in both kinds of Sin and Suffering 2. The manner of our Mourning This is the Second Particular My way in this shall be to give you some Distinctions and then some Rules drawn from those Distinctions The Distinctions are Three First of the Appearances of God Secondly of the State of Things Thirdly of the Life of Man 1. Distinction of the Appearances of God These are Two-fold 1. The Supream 2. Subordinate Appearance 1. The Supream Appearance of God is One Blessed for ever perfect in Glory Unchangeable This is Jesus Christ the same Yesterday to Day and for Ever Heb. 13. 8. This is that Heavenly Image of the God-Head which gathers up into one in itself all Images of things in all Times David speaks of this Psal. 16. 11. In thy Presence or Face is fulness of Joy at thy Right Hand are pleasures for evermore In these words are Four Things 1. The Presence or Face and the Right Hand of God Both these expressions signify God in his Naked Highest and Rightest Appearance 2. Pleasures are here doubly exprest by Joy and Pleasures 3. There is Perfection in those Pleasures a Fulness of Joy This fulness intimates a Solidity or Substantiality of Joy for the kind and Abundance and Satisfactoriness for Degree 4. A Perpetuity is added to all this The Pleasures are for evermore This is the Description of God in his Supream Appearance in which there is all Variety but no Mixture all Communion and Communication but no Chance This Appearance is Light without any Darkness 2. The Subordinate Appearance of God is Manifold God in this respect is called the Lord of Hosts because he comes forth in an Army of Appearances which are his Ten Thousand Chariots his Millions of Angels God in his Supream Appearance is Light in his Subordinate Appearance a Fire He is in this Appearance a Mixture of Light and Darkness He hath various effects Cherishing and Consuming Drawing forth all Things and
Mourning at the highest then say my Soul there is yet a Sight of God higher than this into which if thou couldst raise thy self thou shouldst find all their Love and Delight It is a Rule among Divines that there is no Supream Evil. Evil hath its Root in the Subordinate Manifestations of God in his Clothings and Disguises Travel on to the Naked Person to the open Face of God and thou Travellest beyond all the Fountains and Heads of Grief or Evil. 2. Rule Understand well that the Object of all Sorrow is the State of Things in flesh not in the Spirit The Law is the Ministry of Death and Condemnation 2 Cor. 3. 7. Sin comes in by Occasion of the Law Rom. 7. 8. The Law is the Occasion of Sin and the ministry of Death by reason of the Flesh Rom. 8. 3. What the Law could not do that is to make us Holy or Happy thorow the weakness of the Flesh. The weakness of the Flesh is the Ground on which all wickedness and woe is wrought The Flesh is the Shadow the Vail Hebr. 10. 20. Whatever evil is the Object of thy Grief so grieve as knowing it to be in the Shadowy part in the Out-side of Things only 'T is but a Leprosie in the Skin Job calls the Fleshly State of Things in themselves and not in the Spirit but Skin Job 19. 26. So doth the Devil in the Proverb Skin for Skin The Inside the Substance the Spiritual and Life-part of those Things over which thou so sadly breakest thy heart is Peace The Altar for Sacrifices was without the vail all thy Evils are without the vail let thy griefs then abid without the vail like the Servants of Abraham at the Foot of the Mount But let thy Spirit enter within the vail and let Isaac only go thither with thee the Child of Mirth and Laughter The Sea and Storms are without the Vail only in the Shadow The Anchor and the Rock Rest is within the Vail in the Spirit and Truth of Things 3. Rule Grieve so as having thy Head still above the Clouds of Grief in a clear Light of Peace and Joy Thy Head is Christ thy Head is thy Heavenly Principle thy Life hid with Christ in God Colos. 3. 3. This is your Head hiding itself in a Divine Light and Glory above all Storms and Changes Divide your self then in your Sorrows Let your grief be upon your Inferiour parts but let your Head be in Joys And as your Inferiour Parts are subordinate to your Head So let the Joys of that be as the head of your Griefs They that are washt need to have their Feet only washt said our Saviour Let your Feet only be washt with Tears And then remember that the Anointing of Glory and the Oyl of gladness is upon your Heads So mourn as that you may be like the Description of Christ Revel 1. 14. 15. that your Face may shine like the Sun in its Strength while your Feet are in the Furnace Feel your God stroaking your Head with his right hand while his left hand is striking your Feet with an Iron Rod of Affliction See how Job in a Tempest of Miseries yet Glories in his Head lift up above the Storm Job 16. 18 19. O Earth cover not thou my Blood and let my Cry have no place Also now behold My Witnes is in Heaven and my Record is on High When thy Tears and Blood run down upon the ground when thy Cries fill the Earth then raise thy self like Job and say even now behold My Head is in Heaven now I have a Life in my Heavenly Principle which is an Eternal Record of my Glory and Blessedness This testifies of a Beauty and Joy to me in these very Sorrows 4. Rule Let the Heavenly Principle as it lives in the Earthly be the Spring of your Sorrows Let not thy Griefs be an Oppression to the Spiritual Man in thee but an Oblation from it Thy Griefs will be an oppression to it if they proceed not from itself Originally For then its Joys in the Flesh are taken away from it by another by the Fleshly Principle Thy Griefs are an Oblation by the Spirit when they flow Primarily from the Spirit For then itself layeth down its Joys as Christ speaketh of his Life The Blood which our Saviour shed is called in Scripture the Blood of God Though the Blood ran thorow the Humane Nature Yet the Person or Principle that bled in that Nature was God Our Divinity ordinarily teacheth us this that Christ was Man that he might Suffer God that he might Merit His Blood had been of no value with God if it had not been the Blood of God In like manner your Tears cannot be Heavenly and Divine if they be not the Tears of the Heavenly and Divine Principle in you Though the Earthly Principle be as the Earth in which these bitter Waters bubble up and run along yet the Heavenly Principle must be the Spring in this Earth out of which they arise Otherwise they will be of no use to you nor value with God 5. Rule Let the Mourning of your Earthly Principle be a Subordination and Submission to your Heavenly Principle This makes your Sorrow a Sacrifice when without this your Mourning is but Murmuring Heb. 10. 5 6 7. Jesus Christ is brought in speaking to God his Father Sacrifice and Burnt-Offering thou wouldst not but a Body hast thou prepared mâ— Then said I lo I come to do thy Will O God Thus the Heavenly Principle speaks the same Language in every St. Thou wilt have no more Sacrifices of Beasts The Time is past in which thou hast taken pleasure to have the Inferiour Earthly Principle to be Sacrificed to and by the Superiour Heavenly Principle while thine Image was present only in the Type and Shadow But now thou hast prepared a Body for me thou hast brought me into the Earthly Principle that I should make a Burnt-Offering of my self to thee as of my own Body They were to bring no Strange Fire to the Sacrifice but to wait till Fire from Heaven fall down upon it and consume it In like manner is the Earthly man to lay itself on the Altar by the Power of the Heavenly Man and to wait till that bring forth a Flame of Sorrow upon it The Earthly man should say alwaies to the Heavenly I mourn that I may do thy Will and not mine own Est quaedam flere Libido There may be a Lust in weeping and so there is when the Outward Man fulfils his own will in weeping and not the Will of the Inward Man which is one with the Will of Christ and God 6. Rule Let the Earthly Principle as it is in itself be only a Slave to you in your Griefs If the Flesh have a Power of its own to make you Grieve to qualifie or measure your Griefs it will bring the Curse of the Serpent upon you it will make you to go upon your Belly
to sink altogether into your sensual and Corruptible Part. It will make you feed upon Dust seek a merit in and a Nourishment from your Sorrows When the Flesh hath Liberty to interpose it self in our mourning it makes our mourning Brutish or Devilish It makes our mourning Brutish by deriving it from outward and Temporal Things by terminating it on these So our Lamentations are as the howl of Dogs and cry of Bears It makes our mourning Devilish by mingling it with discontent and despair So the Roarings of our Spirits are like the yellings of Devils to Christ Art thou come to Torment us The Flesh is to be kept as a Hewer of Wood Drawer of Water We are to make use of the ways and weaknesses of it to help to break our Hearts and bring forth Tears at the direction of the Spirit in us The work of our Grief upon our Natural Part as it is in itself must be to keep it under to beat it as a Slave to destroy it as an Enemy This is the Ass which is not for Sacrifice but to have its neck broke except it be redeemed by its Subordination to the Spiritual Part. I have done speaking of the manner of Spiritual Mourning I come now to the Third Particular in the opening of the Nature of this Grief which is the Measure The Measure of Spiritual Grief hath Three Limits 1. Limit The casting out of Filth 2. Limit The casting down of Flesh. 3. Limit The clearing up of the Face of God towards us 1. Limit The casting out of Filth St. Paul 1 Corin. 5. 3. in the case of the incestuous Person blames the Church that they had not mourned that he who had done this Thing might be cast out from among them The Case is the same in our own Persons We are to mourn that every Evil Thing may be cast out of us We are to keep our Hearts in a melting temper till our Lusts be quite melted down till the Gold and the Dross be separated one from another We are to weep till we have washed our selves clean in our Tears Obj. But you may here ask What Power is there in our Tears or Sorrows to cleanse us from our Filth shall we say with the Papist that our mourning merits Grace if not of Desert yet for desire out of Congruity Or shall we say with the Arminian that our griefs are a moral way of working upon our will to mortifie that and make it weary of the Pleasures of Sin for the Pennance of Sorrow Ans. I answer to this that there is neither any merit in the Tears of any Creature to move God For if thou be Righteous it is to thy self And the Heavens with all their Hosts are Folly and Filth before Him Neither is there any Efficacy in the woes of man to purge the will of man For who can bring a clean Thing out of an unclean Can any one redeem his Brother from Death Can one Passion or affection in Man by a Death in Sorrow redeem his Brother another Passion or affection from the Death of Sin They must let this alone for ever But the Spiritual Griefs of a Saint are the Buddings of Aaron's Rod of the the Cross of the Lord Jesus in him And from hence they have their value with God and their Vertue on us 1. First my Sorrows have a value with God as they are the Sufferings of my Saviour in me St. Paul saith of himself 1 Colos. 24. I rejoyce in my Sufferings while I fill up that which is behind of the Afflictions of Christ in my Flesh for his Bodies sake All the Sufferings of Believers are the Sufferings of Christ propagating themselves thorow his mystical Members We are one Spirit with our Lord Jesus in our Tribulations as well as in our Consolations Our Groans as much as our Gloryings are the Breathings of that Spirit As the Soul is all in all the Parts of the Body making every Member a part of the Humane Nature putting upon it the Beauty of that Nature So is Jesus Christ in every Thing of the actings or Sufferings of Christ any where giving a Divine Beauty and worth to it by vertue of the Union 2 Corin. 4. 10. Always bearing about in my Body the Dying of the Lord Jesus that the Life of the Lord Jesus may be made manifest in my Body This St. Paul saith of himself The Tears from our eyes are the Blood from the Heart of the Lord Jesus Though not as our Tears yet as his Blood they have Power with God to bring forth his life in us Jesus Christ dies over again in thy griefs that so he may act his Resurrection over again in thy Graces The Father makes a Promise to the Lord Jesus Es. 53. 10. When he shall make his Soul an offering for Sin he shall he see his Seed This is an Everlasting Covenant between the Father and the Son that when he hath descended to the lowermost parts of the Earth he should then begin to ascend When the Image of the Invisible God hath put itself off into the Strange Forms of Darkness and Death then is it to spring up again out of these and again to behold itself in its own proper shape and power which is its Seed Thy Saviour and Husband makes his Soul an Offering for Sin in all the Sufferings of thy Soul Therefore mayest thou now challenge it of the Father in the name of Jesus Christ that he may see in thee his Seed which is the Power of an endless Life Thou mayest say behold O my God! by him whose the Signet and the Staff is the Glory and Power of thy God-Head by him am I in these Pangs and Sorrows Let then a Man-child be born in my Heart which may be called after his name that I may rejoyce in it and remember my Sorrow no more Thy Benjamin is come before thee into the Land of Aegypt as thy servant in my servitude Thy Darling hath brought himself into my guilt and griefs he stands before thee in them The Lamb of God a slain in my sufferings O then let it be a Passover that the evil Angel of Lust and Misery may pass from the house of my Spirit when he sees the blood of this Lamb in my Tears sprinkled upon the Posts of the Door 2. Secondly Our Sorrows have a vertue on us as they are the Sufferings of Iesus Christ in us Galat. 6. 14. God forbid saith Paul that I should glory in any thing save in the Cross of our Lord Iesus by which the world is crucified to me and I to the World As the Person of Christ is the Seed of God which springs up into many Sons to God so is the Cross of the Lord Jesus a Seed that remains not alone but brings forth much Fruit. It grows up into a multitude of Crosses a Cross in each good Heart a Cross in every Creature of this world This Cross of Christ is the wisdom and
this Light is a Divine Wonder a Divine Mystery Incomprehensible for the greatness of the Glory to sense and reason but familiar and plain to the Spiritual Eye as bred up with it and continually before it known to it from the Beginning The Spiritual Bride meeteth her beloved here with all his Beauties in this Light and kisseth him as her Brother as born of the same Mother There is no strangeness between them This Light is indeed the Temple the Palace of the God-Head of Eternity The Father and Christ are here upon the Throne of their Kingdom in the Glory of their Divine Nature But a Saint is a Royal Priesthood a King and a Priest So he is taken in called by God into this Sacred Palace and Temple to behold the Beauties to contemplate the vertues of both the Father and the Son that they may declare them by the Divine Power of their words and the Beauty of Holiness which is the Sun-shine of the Divine Nature in their Lives We are now by this Circuit of Scriptures brought back to that First on which we grounded this Second Branch of our Rule and for the explication of which we have taken this compass If we walk in the Light as he is in the Light we have Fellowship one with another and the Blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all Sin Who are these that have Fellowship one with another St. John had said before These things we write that you may have Fellowship with us And truly our Fellowship is with the Father and the Son v. 3. Philosophers tell us that we must come within all the Beams of the Sun to the Body of the Sun itself if we will see the Sun in his true and proper Glory Some speak of a Blessed world in the Sun the Rarities and Beauties of which are seen only by the Inhabitants of the Sun Gods own Light is a Divine World in which the Father the Son all the Saints dwell together eternally have their proper life of Divine Sweetness and Blessedness appear in their proper Forms of Divine Purity and Beauty If ye will be admitted into this Society to a sight of these you must go beyond you must come within every Light of the Creature all Beams into the Bosom of God himself into the Brightness of the Divine Essence which is the Living-looking-Glass of the Holy Trinity Here you shall see your Jesus as he is You shall see him as you are seen by him For now the Blood of Christ cleanseth you from all Sin This Light of the Divine Nature which is the Light of Life and the Spirit Himself is the Blood of Jesus eminently in the vertue of it as it is Incorruptible This is that which poureth forth itself thorow the Humane Nature into the lowest Forms of Dust Darkness Wrath and Death in the place of Sinners as a Ransom of Infinite value This is that Precious Blood of the true Vine which when Justice and Wrath have drunk of they are satisfied sweeetned and changed into Grace and Glory an over-spreading Loveliness and an overflowing Love This is that Blood in which the Life is which as it is let forth in Death wrappeth up all things in it self washeth them from filth and flesh then riseth up again as high as its own Spring in the Heart of the Father and carrieth up all things with it self into the Newness of the Glory of God Nothing is so directly contrary to the Divine Light as Sin Therefore it is expressed by Darkness and the Night As the Light of the Day cleanseth all Forms of things from the Darkness of the Night which lay upon them that now they have fellowship one with another mingle their Beams and Beauties with mutual Joy so doth this Blood of the Lamb the Light shining in the Person of Christ when it breaketh forth from the Shades of Death in the morning of the Resurrection sanctifie the Heavenly things themselves bring forth from under every cloud stain and dust the Heavenly Persons of a Saint of Jesus Christ of God the Heavenly Truths and Lives of all Things that they may in the Unity of this Light maintain a precious commerce and traffick of all interchangeable Sweetnesses Excellencies with Immortality unto a full Joy Psal. 4. 6. David thus openeth the Hearts of the multitude and his own Heart Many will say Who will shew us any good But Lord lift up thoâ— the Light of thy countenance upon us When all thy faculties and Affections all the Powers of thy Soul cry Who will shew us Iesus Christ in Glory Let thine Heart answer to God and say Lord lift up thou the Light of thy face upon me In the Shinings of thy Face is my Iesus hid and in these Shinings alone will He be seen by me Thus the Spiritual Beauties of Iesus Christ are to be discerned only in the Spiritual Light of His own Person 3. Spiritual Things are to be seen in Spiritual Forms This is the Third Branch of the Rule Joh. 20. 30. When the Lord after his Resurrction had appeared to the Apostles in a Body of Flesh as He had been cruciâ—ied the Holy Ghost addeth And many other Signs did Jesus in the presence of His disciples Observe this expression well His Appearance in a Natural Body the same in which He had formerly lived with them was not the Truth it Self but a Sign of it Luk. 24. 38. Jesus shewing Himself after the same manner to His Apostles raiseth them from their fears that This was the Apparition of some Spirit by these words Behold my hands and my feet that it is I my self A Spirit hath not Flesh and Bones as you see me to have The Lord seemeth to speak to them after this manner You have not yet received the Spirit but are hitherto carnal If I should shew my self to you as I am now in the Glory of my Resurrection in which I am altogether Spiritual and a Spirit you would not know me you would not believe that I were the same Person you would be afraid of me I have therefore wrought this Miracle and given you this Sign in a tenderness towards you and a Condescention to your present weakness By that Almighty Power over Heavenly and Earthly Things which I am now cloathed with by the virtue of that Spiritual Divine Form and Substance into which I am now raised which comprehendeth within it self all Form Substances and Virtues I present my self to you in that same Body composed of the same Flesh and Bones in which I lived with you and dâ—ed upon the Cross before your Eyes with the same Wounds which I then received And because this is a Sign therefore do I accompany it to your Senses and to your Spirits with a Double Evidence and Seal from my Divinity One that this is no Imposture or Apparition with which Evil Spirits have power to deceive your Sight your Hearing your Touch all your natural Faculties but that
within and without in the glorified Person of the Lord Jesus There he taketh his first view of thee There his Eye and his Heart are fixt Eternally to thee Here he maketh choice of thee here he falleth in love with thee and his Soul resteth with perfect delight in thee For he beholdeth thee as a spectacle of all Divine loveliness lying in the Bosom of him who is the brightness of all Divine Glory As a Vessel in the Sea is filled with the Waters and overflown with the same Waters so art thou before the World was in the Person of thy Jesus as in a Sea of Spiritual Heavenly Beauties all full within all covered without with these Glories quite thorow transparent with the riches of their lustre entirely swallowed up into the Sea of these pure and bright Glories This is Electing Love of which St. Paul speaketh Ephes. 1. He hath made us acceptable in the beloved one It is a significant expression which no language can answer for the Sweetness and Fulness of it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 made acceptable The phrase hath this force in it God embraceth thee with the Arms of the dearest and tenderest loves finding thee entirely cloathed and encircled with the height of all loveliness in the object of all loves and the first sâ—at the essence itself of all lovelinesses the Lord Jesus His Soul is well-pleased with thee to the utmost of all Content he hath his fill of Pleasures in thee enjoying thee in the Center of all Pleasantnesses his own Son 2. Part. Dâ—vine love in the second Part is a love of Benevolence While thou art a desolate Wilderness where nothing appeareth but Dearth and Drouth but Bush and Brake the love of Eternity descendeth and soweth itself as a Heavenly Seed in thee It cometh down in Heavenly Showers It breaketh forth in Heavenly Sun-shines upon thee The same love springeth up into all manner of Spiritual loveliness in thee Now the Grass groweth the Roes and the Hinds play where the Dragon lay The Bramble bringeth forth Roses The Stony Heart is now made the Garden of God The Soul which wallowed in the â—ilth of the Devil is washed by Eternal love in its own Blood redeemed by its own life made to bear the Fruit of its own loveliness and ready trimmed for a Bride to itself 3. Part. Divine love in the third Part is a love of Complacency and delight in thee in thine own Person Now Heaven is opened to thee God with all his holy Angels are continually descending and ascending between Heaven and thine Heart which is become as it were another Heaven on Earth God resteth in his Love to thee and rejoyceth with singing over thee The Marriage-feast of the Lamb and his Bride is kept in thee and thou art that Bride God with all his loves resteth in thy Bosom All his desires who is infinite are terminated in thee All his delights are consummated in thee All the Quires of Angels round about sing of his love to thee All his Excellencies and Glories all his works on every side sing for his Joy in thee Ah! Dear Souls When God shall thus bring back your Captivity how will your Mouths be filled with laughter How will you be as those that Dream But why should these glad Tydings seem to you too good too great to be true God is able to do all this for you and in you For his Power is Infinite God is as willing as he is able For his Power lyeth in his Will and his Will is Love Only wait thou for him and keep thine Eye upon the first Link in the Golden Chain of Divine love which is fastned to the Throne of God the Person of Christ in Heaven above all thy frailties folly and filths before thy Being in Flesh. This Link is that which draweth after it the other two inseparably and infallibly This is the Circle of Heavenly love First God loveth thee in Eternity with that love with which he loveth the Lord Jesus For he beholdeth thee in the light of the same loveliness in which he beholdeth Jesus Christ. Then he bringeth down the Treasure of this love and loveliness which is his beloved Son into thee soweth him as a Seed of the Divine Nature and Sonship He springeth up in thee transformeth thee into his own likeness groweth up in an inseparable Union and Fellowship with thee Now God hath another Son in which he seeth his Son in conjunction on Earth as he saw them before in conjunction in Heaven Lastly God embraceth this Son on Earth in whom he seeth his Son He giveth him the kiss of a Father with all the Joys of a Father He taketh him into his Arms carrieth him up into Heaven changing him still as he carrieth him up till this Union begun below be at last made perfect in and swallowed up into that Union which was at first in Eternity Then shall the Lord Jesus see himself in a Saint after the same manner in which a Saint is seen in the Lord Jesus both being made perfect in Each and all made perfect in one Follow on to know the Lord and his love and ye shall know this love of the Lord. 1. Use. See the Evil of sin upon two Accounts First Sin is an Aberration from the Will of God Secondly Sin is an Opposition to that Will 1. The first Evil of Sin is that is it an Aberration from the Will of God The Will of God is love In every Sinful path thou losest the Love-Presence of thy God What is this Love-Presence and what is thy loss in being deprived of it In the Love-Pâ—esence of God are these Things 1. A Light of Glory shining round about thee This Light of Glory cloatheth thy Person all over with its living lustre as with a Garment of pure Gold of Divine Loveliness This Light layeth all things open and naked to thee in their Heavenly Beauties in their Eternal Truths and Substances This light is a mutual Union and Fellowship between thee and all things in the light all the Children of light all Spirits and Forms of light This light is a Spiritual Paradise in which thou springest up and flourishest as a Plant and Flower of light This Divine Light is a new Wine which thou continually drinkest in and art filled with pure Spirits of all Life Excellency Loves and Joys Lastly This pleasant and triumphant Light chaseth away all the shadows all the darkness deceits melancholy and fears of the Night 2. In the Love-Presence is the Face of God unvailed naked and smiling God is as a King and a Bridegroom in his Ivory Palace Thou art as his Queen and Bride at his Right hand in Garments of Needle-work wrought by the Eternal Spirit with all manner of Beautiful and Delightful Flowers and Figures Here they make these two glad with all manner of Pleasures as on their Marriage-day 3. An innumerable company of Angels make up this Love-Presence These are thy guard They
thou settest before him his Love himself in various Manners in various Mysteries The Onely Coin the Onely Currant Money the Onely Means of Commerce in the Kingdom of Heaven is Love the First Supreme Eternal Love the Gold of Eternity the most high and most Glorious Unity in all varieties stampt with all Figures 2. The Father in giving his Love maketh no Condition with Sinners He doth not say I give thee my Love for that Sinner upon Condition that he be humbled that he accept of my Love that he believe in thee The Gospel is a Covenant of Grace The Covenant is All Love The Covenant is Compleat in the Person of Christ who is The Divine Love Eternal Love in a Divine Infinite Eternal Person I have given him saith the Lord by the Prophet Esaâ—ah for a Covenant to the Natiâ—ns All Preparations Qualifications Acceptations are not Conditions of This Love but Infallible Consequents not Causes without which the Covenant hath no Force but Irresistible Immutable Effects of it By Grace ye are saved Ephes. 2. The whole Work of our Salvation from the Begining to the End from the first Design in Eternity to the last Act in Eternity is Pure Love Divine Love shineth in upon a Dark Spirit Enlightneth Awakneth Convinceth it by Its own Heavenly Brightness Divine Love burneth up flameth in a Defiled Dead heart raiseth a Divine Life and Sense in it melteth it consumeth its Dross maketh it new The Love of the Father in the Bosom of the Lord Jesus is the Golden Mine out of which a Saint is first taken the Flaming Mint where he is Melted refined made pure Gold and stamp't with the Divine Image Rev. 1. 5. 6. He saith St John of our Lord Jesus hath loved us and washed us in his own blood and made us Kings and Priests to God his Father The Love of the Father in the heart of Christ is our onely Fountain All the Blood which streameth from the Wounds of Christ to wash us runneth down from this Fountain This Love is the Costly Ointment running down upon all our Persons anointing us for Priests and Kings Poor Soul which lyest in thy Sins which lyest a Slave in Chains at the bottom of a Dark Deep and Miry Dungeon The Love of the Father in the Person of the Lord Jesus cometh to thee It taketh thee into itself as a Bath of most pretious Blood in which It cleanseth thee from all thy filth cherisheth all thy parts bringeth thee to thy self to a Divine Beauty to a Divine Warmth sense and Life This Love setteth itself as a Priestly and Kingly Crown upoâ— thy Head It infuseth itself as a Priestly and Kingly Spirit into thee 〈◊〉 changeth itself in thine Iron Chains into Bracelets of Gold upon thee in thâ— Dungeon into a Temple and Palace It filleth thee this Temple this Palace round about thee with Its own clear and Proper Appearance in the Glory 〈◊〉 God Thus it dwelleth with thee Eternally Thus the Love of the Fatheâ— in the heart of Christ softneth enliveneth washeth thee with Its own Blood maketh thee by itself a Priest and King to itself Eternally I have done with the first Property in the Effusion of Divine Love Freedoâ— Use. 1. The Gospel is compared to a Marriage-Feast for a King's Son Goâ— the Father is The King His Son is the Bridegroom Eternal Love attendeâ— with all The Lovelinesses and Joys of That Love are The Feast Thou 〈◊〉 Man O Sinner Thy Soul is invited to this Feast of Love not onely to 〈◊〉 Guest but The Beautiful Blessed Bride The Ministers the Angels The Spirit of Love himself are sent forth as Eâ—bassadours to bring thee to This Marriage 1. Obj. Say not I am Unworthy Unlovely in my Sins and shame Answ. This Love is free It seeketh not but bringeth Loveliness along with it This Love is itself The Wedding-Garment and the Marriage-Crown This Feast as thou eatest giveth thee strength Beauty and a Right to it This Feast of Love maketh Its Guest This Marriage of Love maketh a Bride Obj. 2. How can I leave my precious and pleasant Things for This Love Answ. Canst thou not part with a single dying Flower in thy hand for a Root of Flowers to set in thine heart in thy Garden The Love of God is The Root of all Precious and Pleasant Things in Eternity Canst thou not part with a Shadow for the Substance a Picture for the Life a Counterfeit for the Truth a glass Diamond or Pearl for a right Diamond the true Pearl All thy Pleasant Things here are Shadows Pictures counterfeits This Love is All Pleasantnesses all Preciousnesses in their Substance Life Truth Obj. 3. I am weak I shall dishonour This Love I shall be disloyal to It. I shall return to my Lusts. Ans. This Love requireth no Qualifications but worketh all Give up thy self to be the Creature of This Love This Love will make Thee a Heavenly Bride to itself out of Nothing out of Contrariety Enmity This Love will be both a new a Divine Creation of Thee and a Continual Preservation This Preservation shall be a Continued Creation of Love Resign thy self to This Love which is the onely Fountain of Life and of all Loveliness Use. 2. Love again Who planteth a Vine and drinketh not of the Wine The Father planteth Jesus Christ his Love his Vine in thy Soul Let him drink of the Wine of thy Loves Love thy God with the same Freedom Simplicity and Sweetness with the Same Naturalness Nakedness and Force with which he loveth Thee Use. 3. Love one another as God loveth you Pour forth all your Love into the Bosom of Christ. There let it run into the Bosom of every Saint of every Creature There love one another without Distinction without Condition Freely receive one another into embrace one another in the Riches of the Grace and Glory of Jesus Christ as the Father receiveth and embraceth you Use 4. Abide in the Love of the Father 1. Abide in the Father's Love by Faith in the Lord Jesus The Glorified Person of Christ is the Land of Life the Land of Love the Love of the Father is the Sweetness and Fatness of this Land Faith is the root of thy Soul in this Pleasant Land By Faith thy Soul is vitally fixed in this Divine Soil in the midst of all the Sweetnesses and Pretious Sap of Divine Love By Faith thou drawest the rich heart of this Glorious Earth the Love of The Father to thy self Thou feedest upon It nourishest thy self by It and growest up to an Entire Tree of Love 2. Abide in this Love by holiness Holiness is the lovely Fruit which springeth up out of the Love of the Father and is Its Food Holiness is the Purity of the Spirit by which the flame of heavenly Love liveth and spreaded itself there Holiness is the Spiritual Chastity of the Soul to her heavenly Bridegroom 3. Abide in the Father's Love by keeping his Commandments The Commands of
Jesus by the Immediate Embraces of Divine Love incloseth comprehendeth thy Person entirely with the Sweetness Beauty Immortality of his own Glorified Person The Soul in the Bosom of Christ lieth as a Pleasant Island in a Sea of Love The Sea bringeth to an Island Pleasure by its prospect and by sayling upon it Safety by inclosing it Riches by Traffick unto all parts Thus thou O Saint art seated in the midst of a vast Ocean of heavenly Love This Ocâ—an of Love is thy Prospect on every side Which way soever thou lockest thou seest Waves of Love rolling and tumbling one upon the neck of another sometimes rising up as high as heaven sometimes again falling as low as Heâ—l All Storms are The Workings of this Lovely Sea of Love and Delightful Entertainments to Thee thou lanchest forth and sailest round about thy Island which is thy self upon this Sea of Love These are thy Pleasures How safe art thou How great and impregnable is thy Strength Nothing can come to thee but by a Sea of Love Divine Almighty Eternal Love Thou art inaccessible but this way by the Sea of Love No vessels can pass upon this Sea nothing can pass thorow it but Divine Forms of Love heavenly Angels and Ministers of Love Whatever other Form of things attempteth This Blessed Ocean of the Father's Love poureth forth in Jesus Christ is swallowed up by it and never seen more Thou hast Traâ—â—ick and Commerce by this Sea of Love with all things holy heavenly Beautiful and Bâ—essed every where with all Lands of Life and Joy Thou sendest forth thy Spirit thoughts and Affections into all Parts Thou bringest home all the Precious and Pleasant things of Heaven and Earth of Time and Eternity of God and the Creature Thou hast a Love-Union and by this Love-Union a Communion of Love with all the Treasures of the Godhead in the Sun and in the Moon in the Heavens above and the Deep which lieth below This is the Purity the Sweetness of the Father's Love in Christ the nearness of the Love-Union 2. The Sweetness of the Love of God in Christ sheweth itself in the Firmness of the Union What the Spouse of Christ saith of her self in the Canticles that is the Language of this Love to the Soul in Jesus Christ I took hold of him I will not let him go The Love of the Father hath taken hold of Thee will never let Thee go St. Paul Rom. 8. v. 35. maketh a Challenge What shall separate us from the Love of Christ Affliction Danger Sword the Love-Union between God and the Soul in Jesus Christ is so close so fast that the Point of the sharpest Sword cannot pierce between them the subtilest Flame cannot divide between them If it wound or burn one it must wound and burn the other also There is no Vein of Blood in the Body of Man which hath not running along beneath it an Artery a Vein of Spirits to preserve the Warmth Motion and Life of the Blood There is no Vein of Divine Providence in the whole Life of a Saint there is no Vein of Life or Death in the whole Person of a Saint which hath not a Vein of Divine Love running along inseparably with it to sweeten it to give a Spiritual a heavenly Tincture of Life Joy and Glory to it To me to live is Christ to dye is Gain saith St. Paul Philip 1. v. 21. There is nothing so Dividing as Death The Life of a Man is the Union between Soul and Body Death dissolveth this Union The Life of a Saint is the Love Union between his God and Spirit in Christ who is the Glorious head and the Golden knot of this Union Death maketh this Love-Union faster and sweeter more close more clear more compleat Dâ—ath is a Gain here The Death of a Saint is like the Tabernacle in the Wilderness Without was a course Tent of Badgers Skin exposed to the Injuries of all Weathers This was seen by the Common Eye But this was not the Tabernacle This was onely the Tent the Covering upon the Tabernacle The Tabernacle within as it appeared to the Priest's Eye which entred into it was Silk Silver Gold and Precious Stone Fine Linnen Scarlet Crimson Sky-Colour Cherubims richly wrought Be not deceived That is not the Death of a Saint That is not a Saint in Death which appeareth outwardly to the Eye of Sense so affrightful so mournful so dark so deformed so Dividing from all the Joyes of Life No. This is the Covering onely upon Death to hide the sacred Mystery from common Eyes That which is within which presenteth itself all along to the Eye of a Saint that entreth into this Death is indeed a Tabernacle of Immortal of Divine Love with all rich and pleasant Appearances wonderfully heightened The Love-Union between God and the Soul in Christ opening itself taking the Soul entirely into itself as into the true Heavens where all things which are seen are the highest Forms of Beauty in the highest Lights of Divine Glory all things that are heard tasted or felt the highest Joyes of the Divine Life with the most heightned Sweetnesses of Divine Love 3 The Sweetness of Divine Love is manifested in its Efficacy in its Sweetning Operations as it is poured forth in the Lord Jesus St. Paul saith Philip 3. l. We have our Conversation in Heaven from whence we look for the Lord Jesus who shall change these Vile Bodies these Bodies of our humiliation and make them like his own Glorious Body according to that Power by which he is able to subdue all things to himself As the Flowers put forth unfold all their Beauâ—ies send forth their several Sweetnesses to the Sun so do all the Excellencies Joyes and Glories of the Godhead display themselves to the Divine Love God in the Presence of his Love is the highest the Truest Hâ—â—ven This is the Heaven which containeth and hideth Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ cometh forth from this Heaven as a Bridegroom from his Chamber he cometh forth in this Heaven with this Heaven round about him he maketh this Heaven every where as he cometh forth as the Sun maketh a Glorious Sky He boweth this Heaven and cometh down upon It into the broken heart To this broken heart he changeth the vilest the Bitterest Image of things the Body of its humiliation the Body of this Darkness and Death in which it dwelleth here into the Likeness of his own most Glorious Body the Body of the highest Heaven in its Brightness the Pure and clear Body of Divine Love This Love of the Father is that Power by which our Jesus subdueth all things to himself that is to the Brightness and Sweetness of the Glory of this Love to the Express to the Naked Image of this Love in its own Divine Substance in 〈◊〉 own most Lovely Person This is the transfiguring Efficacy of the Love of the God-Head poured forth in the Glorious Person of Christ and making for him
Lamb hath seven Eyes and seven Horns which are the seven Spirits of God sent forth into all the Earth Seven is a Perfect Number the Power of all Numbers which multiply themselves endlesly by the Marriage of the Two First Numbers Three and Four the Numbers of the Trinity upon the Throne and the Four Living Creatures most immediately to the Throne and from thence spreading themselves thorow all things being in the midst of the Throne and round about the Throne on every side Revel 4. 6. The seven Spirits of God sent forth into all the Earth are the Holy Ghost that one Manifold Infinite Spirit which divideth Itself into Innumerable flaming Tongues Eyes Horns into all Forms of things according to its own Good Pleasure ever Containing all within itself ever filling all with itself See now the Lamb with seven Eyes and seven Horns seven Spirits sent forth into all the Earth The Lamb is Jesus risen from the Dead The Lord the Spirit who hath Innumerable Living Lights of Glory in himself Innumerable Living Springs of Light and Glory with which as with so many ever-waking Eyes he shineth and seeth thorow all things who hath innumerable Powers Almighty Powers Fountains of Power as so many Horns with which he ruleth and reigneth in the midst of all things A Poet in a bright Night taken in a Wood by Robbers which would kill him said to them As many stars as shine in the Sky so many Eyes now look upon you and will be witnesses of this Murther O Sinner who art hatching who art practising any lust in the most secret corner of thine heart or Closer be awake be aware See the Lord Jesus with ten thousand with a Numberless Number of Eyes Shining Flaming Eyes of Pure Glory looking forth full upon thee from every point of the Walls the Roof the Floor all things round about thee from every point of thine own Heart and all that is within Thee See the Lord Jesus with as many Horns of Divine Power from every Point of things running upon thee to break Thee off from thy Lusts or to break Thee in pieces O Saint who mournest sitting in Darkness Lying in Prison encompassed with black thoughts with Enemies Invisible or Visible be awake be aware See thy Jesus thy King thy Beloved with ten thousand a Numberless Number of Eyes sweetly-shining sweetly-Flaming Eyes of Pure Love from every Point of the blackest Darkness of the darkest Prison of thy Darkest thoughts themselves looking forth upon Thee See him with as many Golden Horns of Divine Power from every part from every side running upon thine Enemies to ruine them to cast them down to the Ground down to the bottom of the Pit until they rise no more whether they be things Visible or Invisible See him with the same Innumerable Golden Horns from every part of things from the thickest Darkness round about thee running to Thee to raise Thee up to set Thee on high upon the Rock of Eternity in the midst of the Throne of God Revel 1. 14 The Eyes of the Lord Jesus are compared to a Flame of Fire A Spirit is all one Entire Eye and full of Eyes The Lord Jesus is the Supreme Spirit spreading himself thorow all things from the height of Heaven above to the Depth of Death and Hell beneath The Firmament is not set so thick with Stars as the Whole Earth the whole-Creation all things are set with the Eyes of the Lord Jesus These Eyes are so many Suns of Love to the Flowers the Wheat the Gold the Diamonds to increase their Beauty draw forth their Sweetness ripen their Fruit make them sparkle and shine more pleasantly But to Stubble and Thorns to Vanity or Enmity they are a flame of Fire burning upon it until it be consumed O Fear the Wrath of the Lamb. 2. Application Fear to look with a Vailed Heart upon the Vailed Face of the Lord Jesus If thou seest the Shadow the Letter of the Gospel if thou seest the Vail the Flesh of Christ if thou seest not to the End of these as things to be done away if thou seest not thorow these beyond these the Lord the Spirit which is the Heavenly Body and Substance to the Shadow the Naked Face the Naked Unchangeable Eternal Person of Christ hid under the Vail it is not Jesus Christ but Moses in whom thou trustest Thou art not in the Arms of a Lovely pleasant Bridegroom but at the feet of a severe Judge This is the Law from Mount Sinai which engendreth bondage which trembleth and shaketh for fear where Thunders roar and Lightnings fly abroad from the midst of a thick Darkness This is not the Lord Jesus full of Grace that Perfect Love which casteth out fear the Perfection of Beauty on Mount Sion which standeth firm for ever which may be touched kissed and embraced Take heed to thy self O Temporary Believer Thou Jew thou Christian outwardly in the Letter onely This is not the Sun of Righteousness on which thou lookest but the Cloud which covereth the Sun If the Eye of thy Spirit stay here and pierce no further out of this Cloud will come down upon thy head a tempest a Whirlwind and Flames of Fire The Vail is upon your Hearts while the Gospel is read even to this day 3 Application Blessed art thou who lookest with a Naked Heart upon the Naked Person of Christ. He who is fixed in the Letter the Outward Form the Flesh of the Eternal Word is One of the People of the Jews who stood below at the Foot of the Mountain having in their Eye the Outside onely of things These saw nothing but the Blackness of Darkness and the Flashes of Lightning these heard nothing but the dreadful claps of Thunder He who ascendeth and entreth into the Truth the Spirit is with Moses within upon the Top of the Mount He talketh with God face to face as a man talketh with his Friend He seeth the Divine Light and Calm of Eternity in the naked Person of the Lord Jesus He receiveth the Language of Divine Love the Musick of Eternity with kisses of Love immediately from the Lips of the Lord Jesus He feeleth the Fountain of Life all Joys flowing from the Heart of the Lord Jesus running nakedly thorow his whole Body and Spirit being a better Feast than that of all meats and Drinks filling him with Spirit and pleasantness cloathing him with a fresh Lustre Beauty in a more excellent way The Lord Jesus saith of himself in the Gospel I have a Baptism to be baptised with and how am I streightned till it be over The Loves the Lovelinesses the Divine Life the Delights the Glories the Lord Jesus all the Treasures of the Eternal Word are streightned in the flesh of Christ as the Beauties and Sweetnesses of a Flower the Fruits of a Tree are shut up and imprisoned in the Seed When the Lord Jesus by Death is baptised into a Divine Form and Glory when he cometh
truly and properly itself is intirely for ever gathered up into the unity of the Eternal Spirit the heavenly Body and Bosom of our Lord Jesus In the Epistle to the Hebrews ch 9. 23. The Blood of Lambs and Goats were said to cleanse the figures of heavenly things in the Tabernacle but the Blood of Christ the heavenly things themselves The Soul and Body of a Believer are the heavenly things themselves For these are that true Temple of the Holy Ghost of which the first Tabernacle and Temple were figures As the death of a Saint is a conformity to Christ and a fellowship to Christ on his death so doth the Blood of Christ that is the divine virtue and the life of the God-Head in the death of Christ cleanse these heavenly things the Soul and Body of a Saint at his death from all their dust rubbish and filth from all mixture with the fleshly Principle and Image Thus now the Body of a Saint as well as his Soul is made compleatly a pure and heavenly Temple of the Holy Ghost It subsists alone in an immediate entire and mutual union with this blessed Spirit It lyeth wholly in it as in the Fountain of life immortality love peace and joy It is filled with it as the Temple with the smoak of the sweet incense and with the Glory of God How unhappy are you How bitter is death how full of deformity how dreadful how dark how dismal to you who leave this life before the Fountain of Eternal Life hath opened itself in you Death to you is a devouring fire from below which burns upon your Spirit and flesh consuming the order the beauty the sweetness of both and changing them into a ruinous heap of utter darkness desolation and confusion But blessed are you thrice blessed are you whose Souls and Bodies are both married by one Spirit unto Jesus Christ before Death comes to separate them one from another whose Souls and Bodies are become Temples of the Holy Ghost and are inhabited by the Holy Ghost before Death comes to demolish the fleshly frame and building Death to you is a lovely form it which your Jesus himself comes into your whole Person both Soul and Body as into his Garden or Vine-yard to drive out the wilâ— Beasts all the powers of darkness to pluck up by the roots and to caâ— out the Weeds every thing of this worlds of a fleshly Spirit and Image that the Divine Shades the Spiritual Plants the fruitful Vine of his own Life and Love and of his own heavenly Image may alone flourish here and himself alone may delight himself in the midst of these as in a Garden shut up Jesus Christ comes by Death to your Bodies and Spirits aâ— to a Beloved fountain to cast out of it every thing of filth of earth and flesh which polluteth it that he may see his own face clearly all over it that he alone may drink of it that he may lye in the midst of these waters for ever bathing in them that you in both may be a fountain sealed up to himself Death is to you who believe a rich Marriage-bed of Gold and Purple into which your naked Souls and Bodies quite stripped in the twinkling of an eye of all their râ—ggs are taken to lye in the naked bosom and imbraces of your beloved Bridegroom the Lord Jesus Thus much for the twofold Body 2 Dist. The 2. Distinction next to this of the twofold Body in a Saint is that of the twofold dust in Death In the last chapter of Ecclesiastes v. 7. we read That in Death the dust shall return to the earth as it was and the Spirit to God who gave it Gen. ch 3. 17. God passeth this Sentence of Death upon Adam after the Fall Thou shalt return to the Ground For out of it thou wert taken Dust thou art and to Dust thou shalt return There was a Dust before the Fall out of which the Body of Man was made Gen. 2. 7. God formed man of the dust of the ground First observe here by the way that the ground from which the dust was taken of which the Body of Man was formed was the ground of Paradise For so we read immediately after at the 9th v. That out of the ground God had made to grow every Plant that was pleasant to the eye and good for food with the Tree of Life in the midst of them The Jewish Doctors teach us that the dust of which the Body of Man was made was a fine and precious powder in which all the excellencies of the whole Creation were exactly tempered and mingled together in one Body The Scripture seemeth to give us a foundation for this belief When Moses saith That God made out of the ground to grow every Plant pleasant to the Eye good for food and the Tree of Life in the midst of them he seemeth to signifie that this was a divine ground in which God from the beginning had sown the divine seeds of all the beauties pleasantnesses sweetnesses and of all the beautiful and pleasant Lives of Paradise itself and of the whole Creation as it was in a Paradisical state The dust then of this ground which composeth the Body of Man was the manifold beauty sweetness virtue and life of Paradise of the whole Paradisical state of things gathered together contracting themselves into one and shading themselves like the beauties sweetnesses and virtues of a flower in its precious seed But that which is chiefly to be considered here is the state of all things before the Fall Sin was not yet entred which brought in Death The Unity of the Creature among themselves between God and the Creatures was yet entire The divine life and Image flourished thorow the whole Creation All the Creatures stood upon their divine root and were filled with a divine Sap like flowers upon their stalks and trees at the height of the Spring St. John gives us a sweet and beautiful Image of the whole Creation in its first state before it lost its life sweetness and unity by Sin Joh. 1. 3 4. All things were made by him that is Jesus Christ and without him nothing was made that was made In him was life and that life was the light of Men. There are two things observable in this Scripture 1. That which we read without him was nothing made 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifieth properly nothing was made apart or separate from him The Holy Spirit seemeth here to point out the primitive union of the whole Creation and all the distinct parts of it with the Lord Jesus the living Root the glorious Head of all and in all 2. Where we read Without him nothing was made that was made this latter clause that was made addeth nothing to the sense and looketh like a vain repetition Some therefore place it at the beginning of the following verse and read it thus that which was made in him was life This describeth to us the
which the Fathers Person shines forth in his Person as in a new Heaven with new and increasiâ—â— Beauties O you that are Followers of Christ what a mystery of Spiritual Joy and Heavenly Glory is there in the life of a Saint if this be to be a Saint to walk on Earth as Christ walked that is in a Spiritual Principle in the midst of the Natural Principle and Fleshly Image of things governing comprehending seeing handling rellishing all in the Divine Light Beauty and Sweetness of the Eternal Spirit When the blackest Cloud of melancholy rests upon thy Spirit when the sharpest Sword of Grief pierceth thy Heart retire into thy Spiritual Principle there thou shalt be as on Mount Tabor the Mount of Transfiguration where the Face of thy God shall be as a pleasant Sun of Joy and Glory shining forth in its strength within thee and the whole Image of things in thee and round about thee as a Garment of Light all weaved and wrought with the freshest and purest Beams of this Sun in all living and immortal Figures of the highest Joys and Glories 5. Propos. The Curse with the stings and sense of it upon the Natural and Temporary Principle as also the conflict between the Natural and Temporary the Supernatural and Eternal Principle in the Lord Jesus thorow his whole Person as it lived in a Humane Soul and Body were highest at his Death The Lord Jesus saith the Prince of this World cometh This is your hour and the power or principality of Darkness The Devil came now to make his two last and most furious assaults upon the Lord Jesus in the Garden and upon the Cross. He therefore comes with all the powers of Darkness and Legions of Devils with all the blackest and most dreadful Furniture and force of Wrath from Hell below from Earth and Heaven above as the Prince of this World and the Prince of Darkness The Battel was so sore against the Lord Jesus that he himself who was the Wisdom and Power of God was amazed He who was the eternal delights of his Father day by day cries out My Soul is very sorrowful even unto Death The word in Greek is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifieth an excess of sorrow and a surrounding sorrow All things round about the Lord Jesus were hung with a blackness of Darkness and amazing horrours that he himself who bears up the weight of all things could hardly sustain the weight of his own fears and sorrows or sustain himself in Life under them He falls beneath them to the ground His whole Person is so prest and opprest with them that through the agony of his Spirits the boiling blood is strained forth through all the parts of his Body He cries to his Father thrice Angels are sent from Heaven to strengthen him and comfort him But after this the conflict upon the Cross was yet sharper Now the Prince of Darkness grows desperate knowing that this is his last effort and that now at once he fights for his Kingdom Liberty and Life that his whole Kingdom of Darkness and his Person too depend upon this one Fight The Earth-quake the rending of the Rocks the total Eclipse of the Sun and the Universal Darkness upon the face of the whole Earth were Types of what Christ the Prince of Glory and the Devil the Prince of Darkness suffered in this last Conflict the like to which never was before nor shall ever be The whole frame of things shook and trembled under the Feet of the Lord Jesus and round about him The Rocks all the supports of his Soul all the Foundations and Pillars of his strength and life were rent in pieces and dissolved The face of the Creature the face of Heaven the face of his Father were all covered with a thick a threatning and an amazing Darkness as in a dreadful Tempest above the course and force of nature The Lord of Life in whom all things subsist is now sinking and ready to give up all for lost How deeply was his Heart pierced how cruelly wounded how were every glympse of Light every drop of Comfort intercepted and with-held when he cried out My God my God why hast thou forsaken me What potent inchantment from Hell was this what power of Darkness what infusion of Wrath what separation ten thousand times more bitter than Death which so wrought that he who is God himself seems divided from himself and totally deserted by all the power and sweet lights of the God-Head Thus you see in this 5th Proposition the trouble of Christ at its height In the two following Propositions you shall see that notwithstanding this dreadful storm in the evening and latest hour of his life this beautiful Sun in his dying moment as in the close itself of the day casts up its cloud comes forth Triumphantly and no night follows Before we pass to the other Propositions let us make a few short observations upon these 1. See how dreadful and hateful an evil Sin is by the effects of it in the Person of God himself our Lord Jesus Let not that be a light thing to us which lay with so great weight upon him neither let us be secure in our Lusts Vanities Covetousness Sloath playing with these which were so many Serpents in the Bosom of Christ and shot deadly stings into his Heart Can we stand under those things which had almost sunk the Son of God into despair and Eternal Darkness It is true God brings good out of the evil of Sin order out of its disorder and reconciles all into a beautiful Harmony of Divine Love and Joy But how by how dear a price by how precious an atonement by how costly how cruel how bloody a Sacrifice by how violent a conflict between all the powers of light and darkness at once by how dreadful a dissolution of the whole frame of things with the blackest Tempest of Divine Wrath from above by what horrours of Death in its ugliest shape with its most venemous stings and all this in the Person of God himself our Jesus 2. Be good Soldiers of the Lord Jesus Endure hardships Endure the fight of Sufferings Think not strange to have the Clouds blackest and the Storm greatest with Thunders and Lightnings round about you in your latest hour in old age and death Thus you bear the Cross of Christ. Thus you fight under the Banner of Love A Husband in Bloods art thou to me saith the Wife of Moses to him concerning the Circumcision Jesus Christ hath been a Husband in Blood to thee O suffering Saint Now art thou also indeed a Sister and a Spouse to him in Blood This Life is the Season of suffering Christ suffered here Can you not suffer with Christ one hour the short Season of this fleeting Life Think how glorious in the Eyes of all the Holy Angels and of the Blessed Saints of Christ and the Father you shall come into Heaven How dear to the Bosom and Embraces
Inhabitant of Paradise was the Divine Nature in the Earthly Image and in an Earthy Person which stood singly in a shadowy Joy and Glory The Heavenly Person and the Heavenly Image which were the Life itself were hidden and Vailed beneath this Shadow like the Glory of a Flower in its seed beneath the Earth when the Plant begins first to appear or like the ripe fruit hid in the Blossom In the New birth that Divine Person and Form which died in the Shadow riseth again in the blessed life and most beautiful Truth of the Eternal Substance As the Accorn which was first an Oak being sown in the Ground and dying springs up again into a fair and flourishing tree But there is this difference the Accorn is not the same Oak which at first it was but only another of the same kind But here the Shadow in its new birth riseth again in that Individual Person and proper Essence of Glory out of which it first descended As Jesus Christ saith I came forth from God into the world again I leave the world and go to the Father So Saith this new-born Child of God I was before the World with my Elder Brother in the bosom of the Father I was with the Father in the bosom of my Elder Brother one Spirit one Heavenly Image one Brightness of Glory together with him I came forth from this Glory into a Shadowy similitude of it into an Earthly Paradise From thence I fell by sin into that Death which is my Life in this present evil World Again through the Death of Christ by the Resurrection of the new Birth I leave both this living Death in the World that Shadowy Life of Paradise return to my first Glory with Jesus Christ in the bosom of the Father Moreover that Earthly Image and shadowy Paradise are not lost These also rise again in their Regeneration They arise again the same Individuals but in a far different Form and in a far differing manner of subsisting The Earthly man of the first Paradise is born anew subsisting in the Person of the Heavenly Man as the Humanity of Christ subsisted in his Divine and Eternal Person The Earthy Man springs up in the bosom of the Heavenly Man It is no more now as at the first a vail on the Sun-like Face and Spiritual Beauties of the Heavenly Pattern and Original But it is to it as the frâ—shest Beams and the most Flowry Light of the Sunshine is to the Sun It Flows immediately from the naaked Form and fulness of the Heavenly Glory it is transparent to it filled and covered with it The Earthly Paradise now flourisheth in the midst of the Heavenly Paradise which shineth all through it bringing it forth as one Person and one Spirit with itself This is the new Heaven and the new Earth the Heavenly Man and the Heavenly Paradise newly and nakedly discovered so as it never before was in this Creation The earthly man also and the earthly Paradise brought forth into a new state and Glory by their Union and fellowship with the Heavenly Man and the Heavenly Paradise as a Bride adorned by the presence of her Bridegroom coming forth like the Sun Thus Jesus Christ makes all things new in the new Creature and brings forth the new Creature together with himself in himself as St. Paul speaks 2 Corin. c. 5. v. If any man be in Christ he is a new Creature or a new Creation For behold saith Christ I make all things new This new birth and Resurrection of the Heavenly and earthly Glories united in one Person in a Saint is excellently represented in that forementioned place of St. John 1. Epist. c. 5. v. Having said There are three that bear record in Heaven the Father the Word and the Spirit he adds There are three that bear record on Earth and saith he these three agree in one The first three were one Heavenly Spirit and Image The last three agree in one Earthly Image with themselves and in one Heavenly Spirit with the Heavenly Image and the Heavenly three A Believer as is before noted is said to have the Record or Testimony of these Witnesses in himself He hath then also the Witnesses in himself for these Witnesses testifying of themselves to the Soul are in their own unvailed persons and Divine presence the Tâ—stimony the Truth of the Testimony the Authority the Witnesses all in one The second Trinity of Witnesses is 1. the Water 2. The Blood 3. The Spirit 1. The Water is the natural or Earthly Image washt as by a Baptism of Water from its filth like a piece of Gold fallen into the dirt The first Creation is exprest by Water It was a pure and clear Sea of finest Christal The Face of God shining forth upon this Sea of Chrystal at once filled it with the sweet Light of his Beams and figured his Beauties upon it which Light and Figure were the Light of Paradise and the Life of the first man in it Sin by a mixture of Earth with this pure Water pollutâ—th it troubleth it changeth the Light into Darkness and the Beautiful Figure of the Divine Glory into Confusion The clear and sweet calm is now changed into a black and foul Tempest The new birth separating the dark dâ—filing Earth from the clear pure Flood gives a Resurrection to the Divine Light the Divine Form the Earthly man in its puritiâ—â— and the first Paradise in its Beauties 2. The Blood is the second Witness joyned together with the Water This is the Earthly Image heightened with a more excellent washing than that of Water which is this of the precious Blood of God himself This Blood taketh away by the vertue of Christs Death the darkness of the vail which interposeth between the naked Glories of the Heavenly Image and the Earthly Image keeping it in the state of a shadow only Now this most precious Blood as a rich Flood of Divine Light and Life breaks in freely and fully upon the Earthly Image in its new birth that it is no more the shadow to that Heavenly substance but the face in the Glass answering to the living face of the supream and Eternal Beauty Thus the Earthly Man and the Earthly Paradise returneth and riseth again in the Regeneration not by Water only but by Blood not as the shadowy Similitude of a concealed Beauty but the shining brightness of a present and unclouded Glory This is the second Witness on Earth The Spirit is the last of the three Witnesses in the Earthly Image This giveth his Testimony joyntly in both Images the Heavenly and the Earthly This Spirit is the same in both the Mother which bringeth both forth from its own Eternal Womb the Life which dwells in both the Glory which fits and cloaths them both the Love which Eternally sports in both which fills both with purest perpetual Pleasures in themselves in each other This Spirit is that band of perfection which
by its Heavenly entire Unity maks the heavenly the earthly Image both one Spirit one Life one Glory one Divine Person one new man in Christ Jesus in whose bosom they lie mutually infolding each other in most beautiful and most delightful Embraces Thus now is the Earthly man and the Earthly Paradise risen again in the Regeneration not single but as a glorious Bride to the Heavenly Image the Heavenly Paradise having her Bridegroom in her arms and being clasped fast in his This is the second difference between the Soul in its Earthly Paradise and in the first Resurrection when it is new born to a life of Grace in the place of that Life of pure nature 3. You have seen two differences between the Life in the state of pure nature in Paradise and the Resurrection of this Life unto a state of Grace in the Regeneration or new birth In these two differences this Life as it is risen again excelleth itself as it was in its pure and primitive state for the kind and nature of it after a wonderful manner by an accession of the most Heavenly and highest Glory together with Immortality But this third difference will shew us this Life in the Resurrection as it is a Life of Grace for its present state and degrees on Earth far inferiour unto itself as it was puâ—ely natural in the first Paradise 1. The Life of Grace in the Regeneration or Resurrection is imperfect in degree while it is on Earth it is in its Infancy in its Childhood under age under Guardians under the Tutorship of Angels as St. Paul speaks It is a Life of Faith not of clear and compleat Fruition It is a dying Life a Life bearing the Image of Christ's Death and not yet brought forth entirely into the Resurrection from the Dead It is a Life subject to many weaknesses by reason of its Infant-state and Childhood It is a Life in Growth and so not arrived to its perfect Stature 2. The Life of Grace in this first Resurrection is imperfect for its state The Spiritual or Heavenly Man in a Believer is joyned in the same Person with the Old Man which is cursed and corrupt with the Child of the Curse and Corruption The Heavenly Image and the Earthly Image new-born Heaven itself and the first Paradise risen again are truly in a Saint on Earth do compose the true Nature Essence and Person of a Saint But there are joyned together with these in the same outward Person the Earthly Image as it is corrupt and the Hellish Image the Earthly or fleshly Image as it is fallen and the Hellish Image in which inseparably do reside the universal Corruption and Curse all the powers of Darkness Death and Hell Thus are all the Purities Sweetnesses Glories of Paradise or Heaven in a Saint mixed and Vailed that they can never appear intire or in their own proper Form but imperfectly darkly and Enigmatically as St Paul speaks or as those men that were seen walking in the forms of Trees by him whose eyes Jesus Christ had touched the first time only Thus the Spiritual Man in a Saint though it have Heaven and Paradise united in itself yet in this first step of its resurrection it hath within the same outward person a continual interchangeable War and Fight with the Earth and with Hell the Flesh and the Devil Sometimes it is made a Captive cast into Chains of darkness laid low with all its Glories in a deep and miery dungeon where no spark of Divine Light appears when it is a Conquerour it is in the field still where its sweetness and Glory are vailed and stained as with the dust of the Earth as with the smoke of the Fight and of Hell as with the Blood of its Wounds In the midst of these it is ever alarmed to new Fights This is the state of a Saint in the first step of the Resurrection which is the new Birth or the Life of Grace on Earth Objection Some that are truly Saints may now say to us Alas how are we excluded from the new birth if they who are new born have Heaven and Paradise in an Heavenly Form brought forth within them and they themselves are after an Heavenly manner brought forth into these as by a Resurrection from the dead How far are we from discerning any thing so sweet so great so Glorious in our selves Ans. I shall give five answers to this Objection to comfort the lowest of the Saints who least of all seem to themselves to be such 1. The Lord Jesus lay in the Womb was laid an Infant in the Manger slept as a man had all the Light of Heaven Visible or invisible withdrawn from him being deserted by the God-head itself in respect to any sensible presence assistance or enjoyment of it died on the Cross was shut up a dead Corps in the Grave Yet in the Womb in the Manger in his sleep in his Desertion on the Cross in the Grave had he Heaven and Paradise with their divinest sweetnesses and fulnesses in himself he himself was after the sweetest fullest and Divinest manner in Paradise and Heaven For he himself in his own Person is the Light the Life and Truth of both All this was unchangeably true of him even in his Flesh and in his natural man when to him in his Flesh and in his natural man nothing of this appeared or seemed to be at all Thus may it be with thee O doubting and mourning Christian who weepest for that life of the Spirit which hath Heaven and Paradise in it by having Jesus Christ risen from the dead in it Thou refusest to be comforted because these are not or rather appear not in thee But consider this and be comforted Cast thy eye upon thy Pattern the Lord Jesus and then say Christ with Heaven and Paradise may be in me I may be in Heaven and in Paradise by being in Christ though this appear not to me Christ may be in me I may be in Christ in the Womb or in the Manger in a deep sleep or a desertion upon the Cross or in the Grave But in Truth by all these Heaven and Paradise with all their Divine store and furniture rise up in me so much the more Gloriously by how much the more Christ is formed in me and I am conformed to Christ. 2. Ans. Jesus Christ in the Gospel compareth the Kingdom of Heaven or of God to a seed of wheat sown in the field which cometh up first in the Blade then in the Stalk then in the Ear and lastly in the Ripe Corn in the Ear. Why dost thou sigh O Believer and say that thou hast nothing of Christ of Heaven of Paradise risen from the dead and new-born in thee because they shine not forth in thee and they take not thee in to see them to be seen by them to converse with them in their Spiritual proper eternal Forms and Glories It may be true that they
which thou cryest Abba Father Although thou understandest it no more than the Lamb understandeth how or why it is carryed to its Dam and drawn by its bleatings Go thy way then and be no more troubled give thy self up to the instinct and leadings of this holy Spirit within thee Thou shalt certainly see the time when the obscure smoak of the Spiritual Instinct in thee will break up into a clear Light and flame of a Joy unspeakable and Glorious both in the Testimony of the Spirit heard within thee and the Seal of the Spirit seen upon thee either in this Life or in Eternity We read in the 2 of Chron. That Solomons Throne had a Foot-stool of Gold and six steps up to the Throne On each side of these steps were two Lyons that supported every step Thou who hast the Throne of the Divine Nature in the midst of the Spiritual Paradise and Heaven set up within thee in its obscurest and lowest state rest in peace and joy on the Foot-stool itself and upon the lowest step of this Throne For the Foot-stool itself the lowest state is of Gold of an incorruptible and Divine Nature which will certainly in its proper time lift thee up to the full height and Glory of the Throne itself The lowest step here even at the highest hath for its support and guard two Lyons The Lord Jesus the true Lyon of the Tribe of Judah in all the Varieties and Riches of his Spiritual Glories multiplies his Presence and Appearance round about thee to sustain defend and cherish thee in these first beginnings of Grace in thee in the midst of thy darkness and weakness after the same manner in the same Heavenly Person of his in the same fulness of Love Power and Glory as he is with the highest Saints When we began to speak of this first step of the Resurrection or new Birth we propounded four Heads to treat upon 1. The Life which is risen 2. The Death out of which it riseth 3. The Resurrection itself 4. The way of this Resurrection We have finished our discourse upon three of these We are now to speak briefly of the last 4. The way of the Resurrection in the new birth is Jesus Christ. He saith of himself in the Gospel of St. John I am the Way Jesus Christ is the way of this Resurrection in six Steps 1. He is the Price 2. The Head 3. The Root 4. The Pattern 5. The Companion 6. The Life of this Resurrection 1. The Blood of Christ is the Price of this Resurrection Jesus Christ by his Blood hath doubly redeemed us from Death 1. By Purchase giving his Life a Ransom for us to the Divine Justice 2. By Conquest having by the effusion of his Blood and loss of his Life gained a perfect Victory over all the Powers of Darkness 2. The Lord Jesus above in Heaven is the Head of the Resurrection from the Dead In the latter part of the first of Eph. we have Jesus Christ gloriously presented unto us in his Resurrection from the nethermost part of the Earth and in his Ascent above all Heavens Then the Apostle concludes that discourse and Chapter with this Blessed Consolation that God had given him in this Glory of the Resurrection from the Dead to be the Head over all things to his Church Thou who mouâ—nest over thy sins as the worst of Deaths who doubtest who despairest of Life raise thy self to a lively Hope Look up and see thy self already risen in his Resurrection already set down in Heavenly Places together with Christ as a Glorious Spirit in that first Spirit the Head and Fountain of them all from which they are as Inseparable as the Beams in their upper ends are from the Sun Thus St. Paul speaks in the former part of the 2d Chap. of the Eph. upon that Divine Ground which he had laid in the end of the first Chapter That Christ in his Resurrection from the Dead is the Head over all to his Church 3. The Lord Jesus as he is risen from the Dead by his Spiritual Presence in our Hearts is the root of the Resurrection or new Birth in us 1 Corin. 15. Jesus Christ as he is the second Adam is said to be a quickning Spirit and the living corner Stone precious and tryed in his Death and precious in his Resurrection out of which we grow up to be a Temple to God that is both a Spiritual Heaven and a Spiritual Paradise Eph. 3. He is said to dwell in our Hearts by Faith The Lord Jesus is that Spirit which is the Root of all Spirits natural or supernatural the Root of all Life Natural and Spiritual Earthly or Heavenly Humane Angelical or Divine Dost thou feel the weight of Death heavy upon thee hast thou no sense of any spark of true Life in thee to sweeten either Death or Life to thee Look up to thy Root at the bottom of thy Spirit thy Jesus Abide in this Root wait for this Root Here are all the Treasures of Spiritual Life laid up At the set time in the proper season this Root shall spring and bud and blossom and bring forth it 's heavenly Fruits replenished with the Light and sweetness of the Divine Life and spreading themselves thorow thy whole Soul Thus shall that Life of God which thou hast lost which in thy death retired itself hither into its Root rise again in thee and thou be new-born into this Life Thus shall Jesus Christ as an Heavenly Root in thy Heart bring forth himself unto the Life of Faith which is his own Heavenly Image in thee within the Vail the Cloud of Flesh. Thus doth he make thine heart from this Root of Eternity to be an Heavenly Habitation and dwelling place for himself raised up new and Eternal out of the Ruines of Death 4. Our blessed Saviour is the Pattern of the Resurrection to us In the 8th of the Rom. we are said to be predestinated to be conformed to his Image Eph. 1. God is spoken of as working Faith and so bringing forth the Spiritual Life in us according to that exceeding greatness of his Power by which he raised Christ from the Dead We read in the Gospel that a mighty Angel came down from Heaven and rolled away the Stone from the mouth of the Grave while the Watchmen about the Grave were cast into a deep sleep to make way for the rising of Christ. How frequently doth the Soul which feels the horrour of the Spiritual Death think its Resurrection to a Divine Life to the Heavenly Graces and sweet Peaces of that Life impossible Alass the Flesh is as a Grave in which it is shut up Its Lusts and Temptations are as a mighty Stone rolled upon the mouth of this Grave Tempters visible and invisible are as Watchmen round about the Grave to keep thee there But be not discouraged at any of these things O thou disconsolate Soul Look to thy Pattern the Lord Jesus as it was