see thou do it not for I am thy fellow servant and of thy Brethren the Prophets and of them which keep the sayings of this book worship God by which Christ describes himself to John in his meer creature-nature according to which he saith in the Gospel Why callest thou me good there is none good but one that is God But secondly Michael is the great Prince as he is the WORD also of the final decision of all things the WORD of the oath separating in and by his last judgement and sentence between the sheep and the goats as he is the first begotten from the dead Gods high Priest consecrated for evermore Exercising the mind of God and of the creature made one in an undissoluble bond of love peace and reconciliation In which of twain that they were as first they become one new Creation in which both minds are exercised in perfect harmony and peace All enmity being slain and for ever abolished through the blood of the Cross whereby Christs creature-nature is exalted to be Gods associate or equal in his very throne receiving a Name above every Name even above that of Arch-Angel itself or first-born of every creature unto which all creature-names and natures are to bow and do homage as to him who being thus found in the form of God counts it not robbery to be equal with God A lively figure of Christ the Messiah or Michael the great Prince thus considered the Scripture gives us in the person of Melchisedech Hebrews 7. Who in his name descent and office doth most aptly represent this great mysterie First in his name as he is King of righteousness Head of all natural life and perfection and then as King of peace or author of true rest in which he is Head of the new creatures righteousness and everlasting life Secondly in his descent which is most mysterious and incomprehensible without Father without Mother without pedigree or lineal descent from the creature having neither beginning of daies nor end of life but made the likness or figure of the Son of God who was in TRUTH all this through the first and immediate operations of the Trinity bringing themselves to light in him Thirdly in his office of High-Priesthood comprehending the sacrifice as well as the sacrificer and also the first and highest Sanctuary wherein this divine service and holy sacrifice was performed to God from the foundation of the world by Christ the Lamb then slain and passing out of the state of perfection as he was the first-born of every creature into the life and quickning from the dead whereof he was made the beginning and first-begotten and in all things to have the preheminence In both which respects Christ is the Messiah him whom God sends the likeness of the appearance of whose glory considered as the WORD of God whilst as yet he was not made flesh was the subject matter of Ezekiels vision Chap. 1. where he is most lively and expresly held forth in this his twofold ministration First as he is the spirit and voice of the Almighty ver 24. giving life and motion to the four living creatures ver 5. 12. which four are but one living creature Chap. 10. 15. comprehending in itself the variety and fulness the glory and perfection of the whole first creation from the four ends and quarters of it answering therein to the first-born of every creature mentioned Col. 1. 15. Who was before all things and in whom all things consist or stand up together as in their Head which he is described to be in reference to Angels Ezek. 10. 11. where the Ministry of Angels is typed out by the wheels full of eyes whose wings were of such a height that they were dreadful Chap. 1. 18. The same with those Chariots of God Psal 68. 17. that are twenty thousand even thousands of Angels who Psal 103. 20. 21 22 in the mightiness or excellency of their strength are ever doing the commands and hearkning unto the voice of this WORD as his Hosts and Ministers that do his pleasure in all places of his dominion by reason whereof the motion of this WORD or voice of the Almighty Ezekiel 1. 24. is compared to the noise of wings and the noise of an host Now of these wheels it is said Chapter 10. 11. that when they went they went upon their four sides and turned not as they went but to the place whither the Head looked they followed it they turned not as they went meaning the good Angels contrary whereunto the motion of the bad ones is described Jude v. 6. by turning aside from this head not keeping their first estate or principality but leaving their own habitation or dependency upon their head whom therefore he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgement of the great day Thus Ezekiel saw the Lord Christ the true Messiah in his ministry of Gods first appearance And to shew that Christ in this is but a preparer of the way to the glory that follows and maker of the way for the second voice to be heard and attended unto in the end as he hath been in the beginning it is said that when the first ceased from motion and stood they then let down their wings whereupon there was a voice from the firmament over their heads when they stood and had let down their wings and above the firmament that was over their heads was the likeness of a Throne and upon the likeness of the Throne was the appearance of a man above upon it Ezek. 1. 24 25 26. which Throne is more at large as we shall shew by and by opened Rev. 4. plainly figuring out Gods second appearance even those good things to come which are opened by Christs entrance within the veil and sitting down on the Throne at Gods right-hand expecting untill his foes be made his footstool or as 1 Cor. 15. 24 25. untill he shall have put down all rule and all authority and powers of the first Creation under his feet that would be exalting themselves against him and not be freely and willingly ready with the four Beasts and four and twenty Elders to prostrate themselves with their Crowns before the Throne saying thou art worthy O Lord to receive glory and honour and power for thou hast created all things and for thy pleasure they are and were Created Rev. 4. 9. 10 11. which is the true broken frame of spirit in Elect men and Angels as they are built up a-new and brought forth from the grave into the power of an endless and incorruptible life even in their natural beings who considered in that capacity as so renewed are ingraffed into a new stock by life from the dead and are so represented by the four beasts but as withall they have the addition of a better and higher principle of life installing them in a Royal priesthood with Christ and setting them on the Throne of his glory they are represented by the
second in the Trinity As Christ exercises this his creature-sight and discerning to which this outward Volume of Gods book is proportioned seen and known unto him are all the works of the first Creation in the order and manner wherein they are to be and have their share and lot given forth unto them in continuance of time yea the invisible substances of Angels and Men and all the life motion and demeanour wherein they are exercised from first to last upon the wavering unstable and conditional terms of their standing and holding communion with God in and by the first Covenant which communion being conditional throughout Christ doth therefore in this first book of life write down and blot out the names of those that are interested in this Covenant according as the condition is performed or not performed by them as we have in this Chapter already shewed from those Scriptures that describe this first book of life of the Lamb. Thirdly and lastly All things are naked and opened unto Christ the Mediator by reason of that his Heavenly creature-eye and most excellent way of discerning which is begotten in him as he is the first-born from the dead in which he is the quick and two edged sword so sharp powerful and piercing that it is able to divide asunder soul and spirit the joynts and marrow or to state the true difference between the creatures natural mind in the first building and its spiritual mind in the second whose priviledge it is to be admitted to the sight of the glory that is within the veil to hear the inward voyce and see the hidden similitude of God which no natural minds or discernings continuing meerly such have ever seen or can see in their highest attainments and improvements Through this third seeing power in the mind of Christ he is skilled and knowing in reading the third Volume of Gods book which contains the former two writings as well the inward as the outward so joyned and placed together as that they are comparing themselves thereby in their most perfect harmony and agreement as face answers face serving themselves of each other in such manner as may best unriddle and interpret the full and entire meaning of God in them both and herein unloose the seals that were upon the backside of the book so as the glory within the veil or inward writing may thereby shine forth upon the new-creature-discerning and yet keep the seals fast on still as to all natural eyes This writing and manifestation of God is his second appearance as he comes forth upon the creature in life from the dead and makes the Mediator the beginning root and author thereof unto the whole new and second building the true Mount Sion or City that hath foundations whose builder and maker is God being founded in a new and everlasting Covenant and upon better promises then the first with which God found fault This second divine appearance is that which is so adaequate and fitted to the new creature-discerning or eye or faith which hath for object things unseen that the eye of the natural mind single hath no skil in reading this book but unto it the vision of all is become as the words of a book that is sealed Isa 29. 11. a sight which no man hath seen nor can see being the hidden Manna and new name which none knows but they that have it This third writing is the witness which is given by the third in the Trinity the Holy Ghost being that whereby with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord we are changed into the same image from glory to glory even as by the Spirit of the Lord. The thickness of the outward Veyl is in this dispensation made so transparent by the loss of its own glory in the grave that now it is made of use to hand out the glory of the inward writing as that which is above and over its head unto which it is made willing and content to be the footstool and to rule only as an inferiour light in subordination and subserviency thereunto By the third power of discerning in Christ to which this third Volume is proportioned he knows who are given to him of the Father of whom he is not to lose one whom therefore he writes down in this his second book of life out of which they can never be blotted Hereby also is seen and known to Christ the end of all Gods works as well as their beginning in the order and manner in which all things have their course and progress unto their final state either in a way of everlasting honour or of everlasting contempt Thus we have considered him before whose sight all things are naked and opened as he is the living WORD of God and hath a three-fold power and exercise of mind suted unto these lively Oracles of God in which he is made conversant by the witness which the Trinity bear unto the eye of his mind Unto whose blessed and glorious person in this his three-fold perfection fitting him to his office of Mediator the Scriptures are exceeding full and plain in their testimony as first Prov. 8. where we find him described in this his fulness and riches of glory under the general term of Wisdom so that ver 30 31. we may behold him as to his first perfection in a co-eternity with God himself and in the exercise of Gods own mind and discerning as one by him and brought up with him his bosome-Counsellour from all eternity in order to accomplish and work out the communications of God by him fore-purposed unto Angels and Men. And of the two latter we have particular intimation in the same Scripture where he saith I was daily his delight rejoycing alwaies before him rejoycing in the habitable part of his Earth and my delights were with the sons of men even whilst he lay in his Fathers bosome Again ver 22 23. We have his perfection described as he is the first-born of every creature and first begotten from the dead who was set up from everlasting that is to say from the beginning or ever the Earth was whom the Lord possessed in the beginning of his way before his works of old intimating thereby the works not only begun but finished in the Mediator from the foundation of the world when there were no depths nor fountains abounding with water before the mountains were settled before the hils was he brought forth v. 24 25. shining in a two fold appearance in which he contained all creature-fulness riches excellency and perfection so is described v. 6. where he saith he will speak of excellent things in the second Covenant the opening of his lips shall be of right things as he is the King of righteousness the Head Minister of the first-covenant light glory in which he was the WORD by whom God created all things in righteousness at first And ver 27 28 29. Was with God in the
be reigning as Kings in a fleshly visibility and worldly glory without the true crucified Saint that in the meane time is made a spectacle to men and Angels and judged as the filth of the world and as the off-scouring of all things unto whom neverthelesse Christ speaks after this manner Esay 26. 19. Thy dead men shall live with my dead body shall they arise awake and sing ye that dwell in dust This is the last particular of our conformity to Christs death And now by what hath beene said in these four particulars as the result rising out of them all our eye may receive enlightning if God please in this great and glorious mystery of Christs death and the effect it hath upon us when it conformes us unto its own likenesse and similitude For we see it doth not annihilate the first Adam or natural man in us but it spoils and disrobes him of the power in effect to sin against God which he upon specious pretences would faine keep for sacrifice in bodily exercise though of little value a power to do his own will and to be at his owne disposal in the strength of grace received bearing oile in his Lamp but not in his vessel In the exercise of which power man is perfectly weakened and disabled by the Crosse First through Christs withdrawing the food and nourishment of it in him Secondly through Satans bruising and breaking down his stout-heartednesse as an executioner of Gods wrath upon him in bereaving him of worldly comforts which God sanctifies to a laying low of mans spirit under this rod of God though applied by Satan and his instruments Thirdly through the victory and conquest of faith which never leaves till it captivate all the powers and faculties of the natural man and bring them into obedience and subjection unto Christ to live unto him that is risen from the dead and so to bring forth fruit unto God in newnesse of spirit and of life made at last to take faith in the principles and operations of it for its Lord and best friend and therein to observe the Law of God given on that behalf that the elder should serve the younger that the first Adam should serve the last Adam Esau should serve Jacob or the naturall powers and faculties of the Saints mind should serve the heavenly birth and spiritual senses thereof that the righteousnesse of the Law may be performed in the Spirit of faith by being made one spirit with Christ in the glory of his resurrection from the dead the life whereof doth not yet fully appear but shall do when he shall be seene in that admirable glory and bring his Saints with him in the same likenesse that they may see him as he is as his associates and coheirs of the same incorruptible inheritance having hereby the use of heavenly faculties and powers given unto them whereby Christ will be admired in all those that do beleeve and they are admitted to enter within the veile and are made capable to converse with God in his own similitude apparently face to face as friend converses with friend which no man as a natural man in his best capacity did ever see nor can see and so the true Saints are made such excellent seers and contemplators of God thus influenced and over-ruled in all the powers and faculties of their subdued natural man as fashions them to do the will of God in earth or their earthly natural man thus taught obedience as they see it done and as they are the doers of it in heaven or in their spiritual and heavenly part and have oile in their vessels as well as in their lamps In which heavenly frame of spirit they are beheld by the Prophet Isaiah in the 54 chapter before mentioned when he saith All thy children shall be taught of the Lord and great shall their peace be In righteousnesse shalt thou be established thou shalt be farre from oppression for thou shalt not fear and from terrour it shall not come near thee when thou art made thus to dwell on high and art seated upon this munition of rocks behold they that shall gather together against thee shall not do it by me but whoever shall gather together against thee shall fall for thy sake no weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper and every tongue that shall rise in judgement against thee thou shalt condemne this is the heritage of the servants of the Lord and their righteousnesse is of me saith the Lord. And let me say thus much upon this occasion in one word to the youthful visible and flourishing Saints of these our dayes who with great earnestnesse and zeale are trimming their Lamps with oile to go out to meet the Bridegroome in expectation of the fleshly glory of Christs Kingdome to the keeping up of Absalon against the true David in Spirit of my Lord Esau against the true Jacob or of Isaac in the flesh against Isaac crucified and offered up in sacrifice to God to be received againe in spirit in the life from the dead They are not yet under those promises before mentioned by reason whereof those that gather together against them may prevaile over them and the weapons formed against them may prosper till the power of the holy people be scattered and none shut up or left Whereas if the Lord take down and bruise the youthful spirit that is in them and cause them with David when they have tried the armour of man to put it off againe to go forth in this armour of God which makes the Saint strongest when he is weakest our Goliah shall be slaine that defies the Hosts of the living God and great salvation shall be wrought for Gods people when they shall be little more then standers by the Lord of the whole earth and lookers on By this time we come to see wherein our conformity to Christ in his death consists the place whereof is found under the third administration of the Kingdome of Christ which in the three branches thereof we have endeavoured to describe in the preceding chapters The first of which may be compared to the Moone that rules the night as the weaker and fainter light of Christs first appearance the representation whereof is given by the single Ministery of Angels as the supreme Lords and Rulers under Christ of the natural and first world by the first Covenant considered meerly as the Law of nature receiving its renewal in the blood of Christ The second is likened by the Scripture unto the Sunne which shadowes forth the vigorous light and glory of Christs first appearance as it is ministred singly in and by the first Covenant considered as the Law and perfection of his flesh in the principles and life whereof the sonnes and servants are not differenced one from another but both walk to the house of God as friends the sonnes of God as well as the sonnes of perdition those that are borne after the flesh as well
as those that are borne after the Spirit until the manifestation of the sonnes of God be brought forth The third and last is described Isaiah 60. 20 c. by the Sunne that shall no more go downe and the Moone that shall not withdraw her light for as much as the Lord himselfe shall be their everlasting light and the dayes of their mourning shall be ended When the light of the Sunne shall be sevenfold Isaiah 30. 26. in Christs second appearance to what it was in the first under which light the sonnes that are Lords of all begin to be distinguished from the state of servants by the pangs of the new birth that through the power of faith are wrought leading them into fellowship with Christ in his death lively described Rev. 12. 1 c. as the great wonder that appeared in heaven the Church or spiritual seed under the type of a Woman cloathed with the Sunne signifying the glory of their fleshly man in communion with Christ by the first Covenant having the Moone under her feet as one that is farre exalted above the morality and civility of the heathenish state and upon her head a Crowne of twelve Starres to signifie her conformity of state with the Disciples when Christ as their fleshly Bridegroome was about to leave them John 16. This woman is taken notice of as being with childe travelling in birth and pained to be delivered in opposition to which birth there appeared the great red Dragon the Devil and his Angels mustering up all their forces against the powerful workings of faith towards this birth ready to devoure the childe as soone as it should be borne ver 4. but as hath beene shewed This woman does notwithstanding bring forth a man-childe that is to rule the Nations even the divine birth of faith which is caught up to God and to his throne whilest the Woman or natural man in the Saint flies into the Wildernesse and is there fed and nourished under all the opposition of Satans malice and rage against her till she obtaine with her seed a perfect conquest over the old Dragon and all his adherents CHAP. XIX Giving a general view of the Counter-workings of Satan to the government of Christ in all the forementioned administrations thereof WE are now come to the next general head propounded viz. to lay open the work of the Devil or old Serpent as he with his Angels fights against Michael and his Angels from the beginning of the world to the ending thereof to withdraw and seduce the sonnes and daughters of Adam from subjecting themselves unto Christ under any of the administrations of his government in the consciences of men and to fix them in rebellion and enmity against Christ by the abuse of all his patience and what ever means have beene used by him to the contrary For the Devil knowing very well that whatever kind of union or marriage-band is contracted and renewed betweene Christ and any soul under the first Covenant whether dispensed as the Law of nature or of Circumcision there is place and roome left for him by some means or other to beguile them afresh and by his subtilty to corrupt their minds from the simplicity that is in Christ as he did Eve at the first He therefore makes it his businesse to work the subjects of Christ from under both these dispensations and to dissolve as much as in him lies all obligations and intercourse betweene Christ and them in order thereby to prepare them to receive his serpentine seed as he is that strange Spirit or adulterous competitor with Christ in his bed that sits in the Temple of God as God shewing himself to be God and exalting himself above all that is called God This birth of spiritual uncleanesse he therefore endeavours by all wayes and means to propagate in opposition to the birth of Christ in his heavenly appearance through which he fixes the soul in an implacable and unchangeable enmity thereunto causing a root of gall and bitternesse yea a spirit of falshood and murder to spring up against all growing and encreasing light that witnesses an excellency surpassing the purity of nature or glory of flesh as watching over the birth of such a man-child to destroy it so soone as it appears In which actings of his he distinguishes himself into two sorts of Kingdomes and Rules in the consciences of his subjects represented under the two beasts Rev. 13. which he maintains and upholds in opposition to the Rule and Kingdome of Christ gaining as many as possibly he can from Christ in order to make his opposition the more universal and formidable to hinder and keep out the approaching glory and power of his second coming which that he may the better accomplish he puts himself into all formes from the lowest to the highest from the most fleshly and outward to the most Angelical and inward that the natural man as such is capable of to gaine thereby Proselytes to himself in all ages And whom he cannot hinder from joyning with Christ at all he thus labours to procure their defection and apostasie from him after they have known the way of righteousnesse tasted the good word of God and beene so farre enlightned as after which when they fall away it is impossible to renew them againe unto repentance Thus the worldly and natural spirit of man corrupted and prevailed over by Satan is brought under his dominion and becomes his subject in a twofold capacity in both which men are made the throne and seat of the great Dragon and are impowred by him to carry on in the world two differing administrations of his Rule and Government both centring in one common interest of self and making up one worldly Babel or City of confusion wherein is the strife of tongues the nature of which we shall first treat of in general before we come to the particular unfolding thereof in the following chapters The way used by the Devil to bring these his designes about is by gratifying the natural desires and lusts of men with baits suited and calculated by him unto that frame of spirit and dispensation of light which he findes them under as they have in lesser or greater measures and degrees beene made partakers by Christ of a renewall and restauration of pure natural life by vertue of his blood all his aime being to make them sin wilfully against the reconciliation or atonement freely made for them offered to them and received by them as a fruit of Christs sacrifice and death For the Devill well knowing that the proceedings of Christ through the Gospel in judging and condemning men will be according to what they have and know and not according to what they have not and know not so as those that are without Law shall perish without Law and those that are under the Law shall be judged by the Law and where there is no law made known the disobedience to such unknown Law shall not be
head of the woman is the man the head of every man is Christ and the head of Christ is God testifying hereby to faith which hath Christ for its object in all it receives the method wherein God proceeds as he creates all things by Jesus Christ for saith he God is the head of Christ or the Trinity by their immediate operation do first comprehend the person of the Mediator in God himself and then do send him forth as the true Messiah making him the Minister of Gods first and second appearance to the creature in the capacity of head and root to both creations Thus Secondly Christ is the head unto every man comprehending all mankind whatsoever as well they that are of the earth earthy as those that are of the Lord from heaven in himself who is the root to both creations and from thence causes them to flow forth and exist as his off-spring in their particular nature and proper persons in their several generations from the beginning to the end of the world Lastly Man is the head unto the woman in his creation so made by God unto Eve that therein he might as a shadow and figure illustrate not only the truth and reality of being which Eve had in her head but withall the true end of her being so comprehended that she might not abide single and alone cut off from dependance on and duty to her head but be brought into compleatness of being through her return into the neerness and intimacy of marriage-union with him yet without losing the property of being which she is made to have as the woman in distinction from the man This is the figure and resemblance of Gods method and proceeding in creating all things by Jesus Christ which haply the wisdom of man will carp at thinking to find absurdities in it through the deceits of Philosophy and worldly rudiments that are not after Christ but faith sees through all these Clouds and if need be interprets the riddle shewing that the truth which is spoken in Gods word hath also its testimony from humane principles so far as they have any rectitude in them It is plain That the worlds were made by the word of God that is God from eternity gives being unto the WORD as image of the Trinity and the WORD through the excellency of power and glory which he hath in and with God was able out of nothing to create both worlds giving them their beginning and foundation in himself as he became the first-born of every creature and first-begotten from the dead In which state he that thus was the first and was also the last did with his call cause all things in both to stand up together as by name in his sight and presence when he took notice of them recorded them in his books whilst as yet they were not fashioned and did behold them in the particular forms wherein afterwards they were to be Thus in the beginning was the WORD the WORD was with God and the WORD was God in this WORD was life even the life of both creations and therefore also of the man Christ Jesus that was fore-appointed the head and original pattern unto which as well the natural as spiritual man were to be conformed who did as the truth and substance it self at last appear and minister the true sanctuary which God pitched and not man accomplishing all that was written in the Volume of Gods book for him to perform for the abolishing of sin and death and the bringing forth of life and immortality to light In this his Angelical and spiritual state wherein the man Christ Jesus stood comprehended in the root of David before the world began he was figured out unto the children of Israel by the two Cherubims of glory covering or shadowing the Mercy-seat Heb. 9. 5. and by the two Olive-trees or the two anointed ones standing by the Lord of the whole earth Zech. 4. 14. which compared with 1 Kings 6. 23. will make it appear that Solomon was not ignorant of this great mysterie in that he made the two Cherubims when he was to build the Temple and set them up therein of Olive trees or trees of oyl to signifie the mediation of Christ in spirit in his head as these two Olive-trees were the two golden pipes that emptied out the golden oyl Zech. 4. 12. of all Gods communications unto the works of his hands in both worlds This is that Jesus who whilst comprehended in his head and for a long time shadowed and typed out as the promised seed that was to come in the flesh had notwithstanding all the actions of his head and root attributed to him as much as when in the very image it self he was made manifest and therefore is said to be that Jesus by whom all things are and were created and are of him and to him and for him in subordination to the Word Thus is Christ the son of man in heaven before he descended and was made flesh and in this heavenly state of his man-hood doth not actually exercise his humane life but his life is the same with the life of the Word all whose actions are imputed unto him as Abrahams were unto Levi who is said to have paid Tythes to Melchisedec in his fathers loyns so Jesus Christ may be said to comprehend in him and the actings of his mind the particular forms and life of all in both worlds to be manifested and brought forth in their proper seasons into their visible appearances in the worlds by him and at his pleasure for whom they are and were created And when we say that the particular life and form of every creature is thus comprehended in the heavenly manhood of Christ the meaning is either immediately or mediately For he that is thus before all things is not created alone but in and with this head they all consist or stand up together as in their head capable to exist in themselves in their heavenly invisible part at the pleasure of their head before they be brought forth into their mortal and visible frame and fashion in this world In which sense all of them are Christs off-spring and seed known to him by name whether such of them as are given to him by the Father to be trained and brought up by him as children of the second new and everlasting covenant or those of the first whether they be inhabitants of Mount Sion or Mount Sinai of the heavenly City that is above or of the earthly and fleshly Jerusalem whether they be men or Angels they are all his off-spring in one of these two respects and are to receive their natural or spiritual perfection from him as he is the Minister of Gods name in his first or second appearance unto them whence it is that Christ saith to his Father Heb. 2. 13. Behold me and the children which thou hast given me in distinction from the rest of the world the former of these
four living creatures from its four faces signifying Christ himself thereby as his life is in the WORD and as in that life he comprehends the very form of the son of man and is the root to the whole first creation unto which through the Ministry of Gods first appearance he gives life being motion in the exercise of this his creating power he is the head of Angels and they are the body to him that he makes use of in his service Ezek. 10. 11. Whose voice they hearken unto as ready to execute all his commands and pleasure in this his first dominion The spirituality of motion in the head and body is such that they are said to run and return like a flash of lightning and to the place whither the head is to go they go and turn not and their likeness or appearance was like burning coals of fire and the workmanship of this body was like a wheel within a wheel four wheels Chap. 10. 9. that were but one wheel ver 13. Chap. 1. 15. answerable to the four living creatures that were but one living creature and the rings of the wheels were so high that they were dreadful and were full of eyes in which wheels was the spirit or WORD of life riding as in his Chariot Psal 68. These chariots of the Lord are twenty thousand even thousands of Angels the Lord is among them as in Sinai in the holy place In a like representation they were beheld by Elishaes servant 2 Kings 6. 17. when he saw the mountain full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha as the invisible guard and protection which were with them to defend them from the Syrians By what hath been said we have a little view into the nature and use of Angels in the hand of Christ from the beginning of these sons of the morning that shouted for joy at the beholding of Christ when he was revealed to them to be the corner-stone of stability and fixedness even to the very first creation In general then we may perceive that the office and use of Angels is to be ministring spirits principally sent forth to Minister unto them that shall be heirs of salvation in which ministry they are perfected by being made immutable and brought into the best and highest rank of servants transformed into a likeness in life and principles with that which is found in the glorified natural man of the Saint whose service and subjection is made perfect in love as the tongue that readily confesses and the knee that willingly bows to the glory of the Father in the Sons new name in which glory the Saints are co-heirs and so obtain by inheritance a more excellent name then the Angels Heb. 1. 4. who therefore confess that they are not the Son nor the true Bridegroom or Bride but servants and friends to the marriage union esteeming it a posture becoming them to hide their faces before the unveiled glory of the Son to stand still in silence and to let down their wings Ezek. 1. 24. that the glory of the Son sitting on the Throne may shine forth from the firmament that is above over their heads and the heavenly voice of his second appearance may be heard obeyed accounting it their blessedness to be neer the Bridegroom and to be servants and friends to the marriage of the Lamb as a guard of fire round about the Throne on which the Lamb and his Bride sits swift executioners of vengeance 2 Thess 1. 7 8. upon all those which shall endeavour to put those asunder whom God hath thus joyned together These are described Rev. 4. 8. to be they that rest not day and night saying Holy holy holy Lord God almighty which was and is and is to come giving glory and honour and thanks to him that sitteth on the Throne and lives for ever and ever As thus they are this heavenly building they are the first heavens the Tabernacle and clouds of heaven or the air for the day-break and glorious sun of Gods first appearance to run his race and finish his course in whereby to enlighten the ends of the earth and all things under heaven These sons of this morning are the first light-bearers to the Inhabitants of the first world therein are covering Cherubs unto the Son in his own proper glory that they may be enabled to bear light or the similitude of Christ in his first appearance unto others they are first the receivers of that light in themselves in a spirituality of being and form fitted and suited thereunto which accommodates them with the exercise of senses meerly spiritual and inward exceeding high intuitive and comprehensive a manner of life shadowing out the divine life in the name of the Father whose voice is net heard at any time nor shape seen but is like a consuming fire to burn up and slay whatever natural Organ is coversant about it or stands before the beams and raies of its most pure and invisible glory In a shadowy imitation of this the angelical spirits when they come forth in the nakedness of their own invisible substance and glory of their own being they are flames of fire consuming and dissolving all objects of outward sense to the very disinabling as to the exercise of all such life of sense any living creatures whose life consists therein whereof the whole fabrick of this visible world in all the parts of it which is reserved to be destroyed by the flames of this fire will be a most undeniable demonstration and death it self is a daily witness hereof in every man who no sooner is deprived of the exercise of his bodily life and departs this world but is brought into a state of life wherein he is an equal and associate to Angels good or bad for in the world to come they neither marry nor are given in marriage saith our Saviour but are equal with the Angels And as thus Christ by the angelieal ministry doth gather in mans breath and leave his body to the dust whilst they return with his spirit to God that gave it in which service they are employed by Christ at mans dissolution Luke 16. 22. so also they have service to perform in their place under Christ in bringing in and continuing the exercise of all bodily life throughout the whole fabrick of the first creation yea even in man himself the abridgement thereof in which operation of theirs they seem not unfitly to be compared to the influence and generating power of the Sun that is it self but a creature and yet effectually co-operates to the production and conservation of bodily life in pursuance of those orders and laws of second causes established by God himself respecting his creation and continuance of the first world The Angels then in their receivings of light and life from Christ have for object the brightness of Gods first appearance shining forth through him as the root of all natural perfection and so
also expresseth Psalm 34. 12 14 15 16. What man is he that desireth life and loveth many daies that he may see Good let him depart from evil and do good for the eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous and his ears are open unto their cry But the face of the Lord is against them that do evil to cut off the remembrance of them from the earth and this without respect of persons for as many as have sinned without law shall also perish without law and as many as have sinned in the law shall be judged by the law Rom. 2. 12. And on the contrary as many as have approved themselves faithful unto God without law in a dutiful and chaste observance of the judgements which by him are given to all nations Ezek. 5. 6 7. are alike accepted Acts 10. 35. as those that under the law have approved themselves righteous in walking in all those commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless Luke 1. 6. and are equally rewarded by God according to their answerableness to the light they live in who will punctually perform what lies on his part in giving to the righteous man the righteous mans reward according to the tenor of the promises covenant and light they live under For the Lord is a God of Gods and Lord of Lords a great God a mighty and a terrible one which regardeth not persons nor taketh reward but judgeth righteously the whole world and all the nations in it Deut. 10. 17. though he was pleased to delight so far in the fathers of the Jewish seed as to chuse their seed after them above all people of the world besides to take them neerer to him and make them a habitation more immediate for himself Yet as to the main which is the grace of being made new creatures the Scripture saith expresly neither circumcision nor uncircumcision availeth any-thing or hinders at all either of them from being taken into the RIGHTEOUSNES OF FAITH and life of the new and everlasting covenant The nations then of the world considered as those that are without law comparatively with the Jews are not left by Christ without a witness of God kept up amongst them nor without Judgements Ordinances and Laws proper to them in that state ordained by God to bring them unto life and to the knowledge of the truth accompanied also with suitable and sufficient means to lead to that end And therefore immediately after the flood God declares himself as making a kind of stipulation and covenant with all nations in the person of Noah and his family giving them statutes and ordinances upon the observance whereof he promiseth his reward and blessing referring the sum of all to this that in the image of God did he make man which perfection he requires and expects still that man should be aiming at and endeavouring the attainment of in all his operations as intimating thereby the obligation under which all men are by nature especially considering the extent of Christs death to yield obedience to that law which was written out in mans nature at first the seeds and principles whereof are renewed freely by gift from Christ in that enlightning wherewith he enlightens every man that comes into the world making the spirit of man in a lesser or higher degree and measure the candle and lamp of the Lord that is fed with oil out of the holy candlestick from Christ through a work in their natural conscience by the ministry of Angels enabling them to a discerning of good and evil according to the light and principles of that natural righteousness wherein they were at first created and requiring them to exercise and improve this talent and ability of mind freely given unto them promising to have his eye for good upon them in their being faithful according to that little they have received and to accept them according to what they have and not according to what they have not and to keep his ears open unto their cry if they want wisdom or strength to go forward and improve what they have received causing them also to meet with protection and encouragement under the ministry of the good Angels in counter-ballance to the discouraging assaults of the wicked ones to the end that by being thus assisted and strengthned in willing and resolving on a holy and righteous course of life and operation and putting the same in practice they may the better bear up against the degenerated part of nature in them and all the power and influence of Satan joyning therewith until the fault manifestly appear to be in their own free-will and determination by rebelling against the Rule and government which Christ hath given them to walk by and detaining the manifestation of the truth communicated to them in unrighteousness And besides this inward strengthning and encouragement afforded by God unto them there is also a visible and outward Testimony of his acceptance accompanying them as in the case of Job where the devil takes notice that as a reward unto Iob in his faithful and upright walking with God in fearing God and eschewing evil God made a hedge about him and about his and about all that he had and blessed the works of his hands giving herein his Angels charge over him being as yet but under this first dispensation though withall he had a seed of immortal life underneath The sum then of what God requires by the Rule and judgements he gives unto all nations is that they depart from evil and do good in the exercise of the natural abilities of their mind rectified and enlightned through the benefit of Christs blood and so made improveable by the use of the means which he affords them in present and is yet further willing to reveal to them in future in order to their growing out of all natural filth and pollution of flesh in conformity to that primitive purity wherein man was at first created and to their being delivered out of the kingdom of Sathan and power of darkness in which the design of the devil is to fix and detain them for ever Now the good answer of this natural conscience unto this Rule and these judgements and ordinances of Christ consists first in the fear and aw of God which such have in them that keeps them from sinning against him or thwarting the dictates of their own enlightned judgement shewing itself in accusing them for evil doings and excusing them in good especially when strengthned herein by inward good motions and impressions that are the effects of the ministry of the good Angels to perswade and encourage hereunto Secondly in a vigilant care and industry to walk up faithfully to this light not slighting or neglecting any proper and suitable means conducing thereunto Thirdly in an experimental sense of the emptiness and insufficiency of the good works by them done to justifie and present them faultless before God before whom the Angels themselves are ashamed and hide their faces which made
fire of more dreadful vengeance and wrath in whom the Devil transformes himself into an Angel of light by meanes whereof these his Ministers do become false Apostles deceitful workers transforming themselves into the Apostles of Christ and Ministers of righteousnesse whose end is according to their works an end that deceives them as well as they by their works deceive the world All these under the various formes and visibilities of Saint-ship wherein they are found throughout the whole world under the name of worshippers and servants of God whether more or lesse refined whether Seraphicks in Angelical brightnesse or Sensualists in meere bodily exercise which profits little are embodied and incorporated together as into one Temple or house of rest unto the false spirit or great deceiver through whose subtilty and dexterity they are beguiled to sinne againe after the similiude of Adams transgression that as the Serpent beguiled Eve so are these also corrupted in their minds from the simplicity that is in Christ Jesus 2 Cor. 11. 3. drawne by the taile of the great Dragon out of their heavenly habitations unto a revolt and backsliding with him into a fixed enmity against Christ their true Husband to the committing of whoredome and lewdnesse with a false spirit as adulterers and adulteresses which adulterous brood of hypocrites and back-sliders that the Devil hath in all ages propagated and multiplied by occasion of the same meanes that Christ ordeined to bring to life and lead unto salvation are compared in Scripture to the holy City where our Lord was crucified spiritually called Sodome and Egypt the Israel after the flesh which Esay complaines of saying Had not the Lord left us a seed we had all beene like Sodome and Gomorrah referring to Deut. 29. where Israel Gods covenanted people v. 3. that had seene with their eyes the great temptations signes and miracles which he did were not yet so secured thereby v. 18 19 c. but that amongst them even that enlightned people might spring up a root that bears gall and wormwood that though they hear the words of the curse declaring the wrath of God against the falshood uncleannesse and deceitfulnesse of spirit which they live in towards God under all their righteous and holy operations makes them neverthelesse blesse themselves saying We shall have peace though we walke in the imaginations of our owne hearts adding drunkenness to thirst In which case the Lord declares that he would pour out his fury upon them to make them as Sodome and Gomorrah Admah and Zeboim which the Lord overthrew in his anger and in his wrath And Deut. 32. 32 33. this generation of men in their good beginning as well as in their backsliding accursed end are at large described where their Vine is said to be as the Vine of Sedome and of the fields of Gomorrah their grapes grapes of gall their clusters bitter their wine the poyson of Dragons and the cruel venome of Aspes their choisest food and ministrations leading to the chambers of death and tending to the bowing downe of the back alway Is not this sayes God sealed up among my treasures and laid up in store with me in the proper time to be revealed when they shall be consumed by the breath of Christs mouth and brightnesse of his second coming This is the great City BABYLON the great who is fallen is fallen from the glory of her first state in communion with Christ himself in his first appearance and by the first Covenant and through Satans seducements and beguilings is become the habitation of Devils the hold of every foul spirit and cage of every uncleane and hateful bird For all Nations or all sorts of men in all Nations have drunk more or lesse of the wine of the wrath of her fornication or have made themselves drunk with the wine of this false spirit and the Kings or eminent ones of the earth men of renowne for godlinesse and vertue have committed fornication with her and the Merchants of the earth are waxen rich through the abundance of her delicacies even all that are for gaine from their quarters that count gaine godlinesse or are followers of godlinesse for earthly rewards and as they gaine by it some way or other in this world The Devil muster 's strong of the inhabitants of this City from the lowest and sourest spirited legalist to the largest loose spiritual Apostate and wanderer from the truth who center in one common interest of enmity to the Crosse of Christ and the glory that followes in the power of an endlesse life by attaining the resurrection from the dead taking in all hearts and consciences upon what pretence and cause soever that do faile of the grace of God and instead thereof have some root of bitternesse springing up to their spiritual defilement and corrupting of their way towards him that is risen from the dead and offers to marry them unto himself by an everlasting Covenant In this I shall not need to enumerate in regard the universal Apostasie of the latter times will be the best interpreter hereof and will signifie as it were by name the several distinct professions that will be herein concerned whether of such as are zealous of Ordinances shut-up under them or of such as are loosen'd from them living above them in a false deceitful spirit This sort of Satans instruments and subjects are described Rev. 13. 11. and represented by the other beast which John saw coming out of the earth who had two hornes like a Lamb to signifie the likenesse he bears in all his actings unto Christ according to the flesh or in his first appearance but however keeping the fiercenesse and cruelty of nature that was in the first beast by speaking as a Dragon For indeed this is still the first Adam or natural man new washed in the blood of Christ and healed of the deadly wound at first given to him and all his posterity by the fall through which healing he comes to be wondered at or admired by the rest of the world that are made partakers of this change as if these men were so the mighty power of God that nothing could withstaud or make warre against them to the puffing of them up in this their cleansed healed state of nature and emboldening them to open their mouth in blasphemies against God to blaspheme his Name his Tabernacle and them that dwell in heaven and to prosecute these their words with execution to the making warre with the Saints and overcoming them So as what with the power of the first beast and the power of this second the Devil rules and hath his dominion over all kindreds tongues and Nations and all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slaine from the foundation of the world This second beast which is the first considered as having the deadly wound thus healed as wash'd from the filth of the flesh is
these meere heathenish subjects even out of the world it self as restored in several measures and degrees to some purity and rectitude of natural principles by the coming of Christ in the flesh and by the preaching of the Gospel to every creature under heaven he therefore winds about and changes his course by transforming himself into an Angel of light and declaring himself a friend unto Christ considered in his first appearance and as he is the restorer and renewer unto man of his first purity natural perfection knowing that by this his dissimulation and feigned complyance with Christ as vile and false a spirit as he is he can come in by flatteries into those souls and consciences whence he hath beene cast out and kept out by force and can returne as unsuspected and take up his place and state in the very Temple of God shewing himself that he is God by all the signes wonders and evidences that flesh and blood can expect from him to approve himself by to the deceiving of the very elect themselves if it were possible and using all deceivablenesse of unrighteousnesse he knowes how to greaten and enlarge his Dominion and Rule by this second branch of it in the use he makes of enlightned restored men the children of the first Covenant that are under the Dominion of the Law married to Christ by that Covenant and who will admit no Rule nor Government over them but such as is consistent with the righteous and holy operations and actings that are required by the Law in those that work as debtors unto it whereof we have at large spoken in opening the mysterious workings of sinne and Satan that are taken by the occasion of the Commandment working death by that which is good so that the Devil makes a surer game for himself this way then the other for out of this grave there is no redemption but it must be let alone for ever There remaines no more sacrifice for sin nor place for repentance when after such enlightnings there is a drawing back and falling away through a root of bitternesse springing up against the dawning and approaching glory of Christ in his second and heavenly appearance Such backslidings and declinings of heart are fatal as having mingled in them that seed and nature of sinning for which God swears in his wrath whoever becomes wilfully guilty shall never enter into his rest but be delivered up to beleeve a lie that they all that are such might be damned and perish everlastingly because they received not the love of the truth that they might be saved but after they had received the knowledge of it became bitter haters and opposers thereof When once this Decree of Gods wrath comes in its execution upon any soul denying unto it the benefit of the sacrifice of Christs death let men have beene never so farre enlightned to the escaping of the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of Iesus Christ to the attaining of excellent spiritual gifts having all knowledge all faith that can be had without the love of the truth shining forth in the Crosse and Resurrection of Christ all this and all the righteousnesse they have done shall be no more remembred but in the iniquity they herein commit they shall surely die and their old sins from which they had beene washed and purged returne with vigor and power againe upon them making their latter end worse then their beginning So then the Devil is no loser at last by temporizing for a while and giving as it were leave unto his subjects these sonnes of perdition to conforme to the Lawes of his enemy and walk with the Saints as friends and fellow subjects in Christs Kingdome for when they break and part these drawing back to perdition whilst the true heirs go on to the saving of the soul the Devil finds his reckoning in the winding up and serves himself of this his deceitful compliance by himself and his instruments with Christ and the true spiritual seed to paythem home at last with inveterate rage and malice signified Rev. 12. by that flood of water which he poures out after them if it were possible to drowne and destroy them utterly as is most apparent also in the action and carriage of the He-goat in Daniel that pretended a long while to be for Christ the Prince of the heavenly Host and to engage on his and their behalf against the RAM till hereby he had strengthened the Kingdome to himself and then Christ and the true Saints have the slip given them and none more enraged against them at last then the HE-GOAT none that speaks greater words against them or more ready to piece up in association with the RAM which he before had beaten downe and got the perfect mastery over This will be found by experience a most certaine truth that Hypocrites and Apostates when once they come to wilfull sinning and with Saul to discerne that God hath left them and is departed from them as to what divine presence and fruits of it they had before beene made sensible of none will be more ready to joyne avowedly with the Devil and the worst of his instruments to accomplish their rage against the suffering Saints of Christ who by this meanes have all the power of the world not only withdrawn from being their protection but declaring it self in visible opposition to them and have little other defence left them then in faith and patience to possesse their souls as the poore destitute and needy ones of the flock of Christ Which dark dispensation and season is hastening apace being as it were the midnight-state wherein the Bridegroome shall come the second time without sinne unto salvation and unto which all things must work as the last times draw to their end when the falling away will be greater then ever and the rage of all the Churches enemies most enflamed and implacable and when all visible protection and defence shall be as good as taken away from the true spiritual seed and suffering Saints to the making of such a time of trouble as never was since there was a Nation Yet the Scriptures do declare that although the ordinary visible protection shall be taken away and withdrawn from the holy people and their power of the arme of flesh broken God will however be a little Sanctuary unto that residue and remnant which he shall preserve faithful unto himself under all the trials and shakings that shall be brought upon the world For Zach. 14. 3. It is said Then shall the Lord go forth against those Nations as when he fought in the day of battell which ver 13. interprets to be in the case of Gideon when a great tumult from the Lord was sent amongst his peoples enemies so as they did lay hold every one on the hand of his neighbour and rose up one against another until they all fell together like Abners and Ioabs men at the poole of Gibeon and became a prey
a threefold respect Magistracy may be brought into its lawfull exercise over men and where it is not so it is the sinne and abuse of those that exercise it and deteine it in unrighteousnesse contrary to the light within them which they live under and ought to be faithful unto Before we go farther then we are to acknowledge that Magistracy or Rule over men may be exercised amongst all Nations in general in a lawful and right manner suitable to their dispensation and light received and as such is as a weaker or stronger sort of Rule of and from Christ set up amongst them and ought not therefore so much as in its lowest dispensation in the righteous exercise thereof to be judged condemned or disobeyed byany as accounting it a part of the fourth Monarchy or seat of the beast since it is so only as considered and found in its corrupt use and fixed enmity against Christ and his Saints Againe by this also we may take notice that we are not to be in bondage to the Judicials of Moses as in the letter of them they conveyed the Lawes of Civil Government to the people of the Jewes since the spirit and original patterne of those very Judicials is set up by Christ in men through his resurrection from the dead to enable them unto a righteous ruling over men in the fear of the Lord by the pouring out of his Spirit upon all flesh and thereby qualifying them unto that office as wel as to all other Christian duties performable by the renewed natural man So as it would be a returning back againe unto Moses contrary to his owne charge Acts 7. if we should bind up our selves to his Judicials For Moses himself saith A Prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you like unto me him shall ye hear in all that he shall say unto you as well for the enabling of you to the right discharge of Magistratical duties as the rest of that work which the Christian is to be conversant in according to his command So that instead of going thus backward we are to go forward and to be still enquiring and learning out more of Christs mind in this great work as by steps and degrees he leads us thereunto through the influencings of his Spirit in a way of righteousnesse and by the daily renewed outgoings of his providence And doubtlesse if Moses Judicials are thus to be left behind as they that have lost their force and obligation no humane ordinances or positive Lawes must expect to be perpetual and exempt from change and removal if the Lord please by a visible hand of his owne in judgement and righteousnesse to fold them up as old garments and change them as vestures of the worlds old fashion to make way for the new heaven and new earth that Christ is bringing into their roome whose abolishing and taking away in such a case is their improvement perfection and establishment according to the Primitive and best Constitution of Government This being by way of preparation and introduction laid down we shall now proceed to shew more particularly wherein Magistracy as to the purity of its constitution and righteousnesse of its exercise doth consist Magistracy then is the Rule which God hath ordained to be exercised over the outward man by man himself qualified thereunto to act in righteousnesse and in the fear of the Lord in discharge of this his high and great trust and so is an office meerly respecting Rule and Government over men in their outward concernes which is capable to be rightly used or not according as the persons entrusted therewith are qualified and do exercise the same the office of it self being good and the end for which it is set up being according to Gods Ordinance and institution for the ministring of punishment to them that do ill and encouragement and protection to them that do well And men may lawfully arrive and attaine unto this office and dignity either in an ordinary way through the endeavours and free choice of men or extraordinarily by the immediate call of God himself to the exercise thereof making those that are to obey willingly subject in that day of his power For the office it self it is as we have shewed in Gods institution a Rule that is set up over the outward man in righteousnesse and in the fear of the Lord obliging the persons intrusted with this power to put forth righteousnesse in all their actings that appertaine to their publick charge in the judgements and statutes given for the right ordering and regulating of humane societies in the outward converse of men one towards another and in the common protection safety and defence which by them is to be provided with reference to those that are under their charge And as in this the principles of natural justice and right in their highest improvement are to be their Rule so the fear of the Lord should oblige them in an humble dependency upon him and trembling posture of mind before him to be watchful in not suffering any thing to be done by them that may carry in it hinderance or opposition to the breaking in of higher discoveries upon them as to the very exercise of the Magistratical office in the purity and perfection wherein it is promised to be brought forth in the last dayes by Christ himselfe unto which they should alwayes have willing and ready minds to make way and to submit Upon such grounds Magistracy may be preserved in its lawful use and exercise as a faithful servant waiting for the coming of his Lord and the persons exercising that authority are to be accounted as the Ministers of God to us for our good of whom we are to be afraid if we do evil and whom we are not to fear if we do well because they are to be a terrour only to evil works and a praise to the good In which respect the Apostle sayes true Christians must needs be subject as having an obligation leadin them thereunto not only for wrath but for conscience sake Rom 13. 5. The power that appertains to this office is all the strength that man is capable of being formed into either in a way of counsel or force to prevent and resist all assaults that may encounter the same in way of disturbance or opposition to the end that righteousnesse in the outward converse of men may run and be in Authority and Rule against all contradiction thereunto from the malice of Devils or men And therefore we are not to conceive as most are apt to do that man in his innocent state and sinlesse nature stood in no need of this office of Magistracy for it is not only useful to restraine from unrighteousnesse and disorder occasioned by sin and the fall but also to conserve and maintaine men in the good order and right disposition of things wherein by their creation they were placed in a preventing way unto the disorder and danger that lust
threatens and is ready to introduce upon man in his mutable righteous and holy state And in this way of exercise it will be upheld by Christ during his Reigne on earth the thousand years when with the whole creature it shall be restored from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the sons of God and be made subservient to the interest of the right heirs of salvation whereby Kings shall become nursing Fathers and Rulers Nursing Mothers unto the Church bringing the glory and power of all Nations unto it so as all Nations shall walk in the light of the new Jerusalem before which all the Kings of the earth shall stoop and be made to yeeld homage and subjection as not able to resist the wisdome and power of God there shining forth but from the conviction and demonstration flowing thence shall conforme whether they will or no to the righteous Rule of this Government of Christ who thereby binds their Kings in chaines and their Nobles in fetters of yron causing them to fall downe and yeeld themselves up in submission thereunto or else to be burnt up like thornes in the fire as they shew themselves resisters thereof this being the honour which all the Saints shall have in this manner to prevaile over and subdue all their enemies and opposers Psal 149. From what hath beene said we have had some general insight into the true nature of Magistracy or Rule over men and how righteous an administration it is respecting the outward man as well in the Principles as the Rules of righteousnesse that are enabling thereunto on Gods part whose ordinance and institution it is so that considered such as God requires it to be it is mans Ruling over men in righteousnesse and in the true feare of the Lord. And this Christ in his own person as the Sonne of man is perfectly qualified to do whose right also it is having all power in heaven and in earth put into his hands And his Saints when fitted by him to sit upon the Throne of the same glory with him shall likewise be found prepared to bring forth even Magistracy it self in its right exercise exactly answering the end for which it was set up by God and so shall be acknowledged by all the Nations of the world during the thousand years Reigne of Christ on earth Which pure state of Magistracy in the practice of it answerable to the righteousnesse of its Primitive institution is part of Christs Kingdome which he exerciseth in the world Which therefore we are to eye and be farre from discountenancing or grieving the witnesses thereof who through humane frailty may be at first very raw in the particulars unto which they give witnesse herein when their hearts may be sincere to Christ in longing after his coming to set up even Magistracy it self in the purity of its use and exercise And if it be here demanded whether the Saints of God are to content themselves with having this in their eye only and with the contemplation of it by faith as the thing which Christ will bring about in his due time in despight of all opposition who as the stone cut out of the mountaine without hands Dan. 245. shall become a great mountaine that shall fill the whole earth It is answered Though the Saints should sit down in faith and patience waiting to see this promise accomplished by the immediate power and hand of Christ without entertaining any solicitude in reference to other meanes they should not be disappointed nor fall short of their expectations at the last But secondly there is a duty of the day a generation-work respecting the time and circumstances of action in which the lot of our life is cast which calls upon us to use all lawful and righteous meanes that are afforded by the good hand of God through the inward light and knowledge he vouchsafes and outward providences and helps which he casts in whereby to make way for and to be hasting unto the coming of that day of God wherein the old heavens and earth shall be rolled away as garments yea with the works that are therein be burnt up and the new heavens and the new earth wherein dwelleth righteousnesse shall be brought forth in their roome Our part is the same therefore in this as in the practice of other righteous duties appertaining to us the perfection whereof we cannot expect untill the redemption of the body and yet we are to be using all lawful meanes and endeavours to come as near the Primitive patterne and Rule as we can in our whole practice throughout So that when once we have well considered what Rule Christ himself if he were on earth would exercise over men in protecting those that do well and being a terrour to evil works as also in distributing righteousnesse equally and impartially unto all upon the grounds of right and just which everyone in the measure of light they have attained are acquainted with and do acknowledge for the Rule which they are willing to be concluded under as to all their outward concernes we ought in the way of Christ and in the use of all lawful meanes to be as near this in our practice as possibly we may in the Rule over men which we shall be either as principals or accessories in setting up holding our selves obliged in heartinesse and freedome of mind to maintaine In this lesson the Lord Jesus hath given cause to many of these Nations in these late years to be great proficients by the experiences which he hath afforded them step by step for the learning of his will and mind therein who hath not emptied us from vessel to vessel without some teachings thereby what was bad and fit to be left behind nor without some dawnings and intimations of what is good and is yet before us to be prosecuted and followed after Which whoever shall impartially and sincerely weight the cause and interest which the good people of this Nation have all along engaged in as well in reference to their Civil liberties or interests of men as men as to their Christian liberties as Saints cannot but acknowledge nor therefore can yet remove the perswasion throughly out of their minds that God who hath brought on the work thus farre should leave it here when it is come as it were unto the birth and is upon the very anvil to be formed into what may answer the true ends of Magistracy and common good of men unto which if there were yet applications made in a way of righteousnesse and in the fear of the Lord good men and Gods own people might not despaire of being taught by God and enabled through his power to grow up to that wherein like faithful servants unto Christ they might receive encouragement from their Lord at his coming and finding of them so doing with their loynes girt and lamps burning ready to receive him at his second appearance For if once the Lord be pleased so
bodies shall be found in the streets of the holy City spiritually called Sodome and Egypt kept for three dayes and an half unburied signifying that they must in all things submit to the bruising of their outward man in conformity unto Christ and be slaine as their brethren have beene from the beginning of the world which is to be their lot in the latter end This prophetical and powerful spirit of Eliah shall be poured forth in those dayes upon the witnesses of Christ that keep the WORD OF HIS PATIENCE and endure the fiery triall of those times not thinking it a strange thing that thereby happens unto them and shall fill them with exceeding joy under all the reproaches which they beare for the Name of Christ as the Spirit of glory and of God that is resting upon them and fitting them for such a season that as John Baptist by his Ministery ushered in Christs coming in the flesh or in his first appearance so this same prophetical spirit of Eliah shall be the fore-running dispensation given forth by the witnesses of Christ in those dayes unto Christs second appearance or coming from heaven as hath beene foretold by all the Prophets since the world began for the restitution of all things as the fruit of his personal presence in the world exercising Rule and Dominion there for a thousand years with his Saints and then carrying them up with him to his Father and their Father into the same Kingdome as continued in glory in heaven for evermore What this prophetical spirit of Eliah is that shall be thus poured out upon the Witnesses of Christ in those dayes is to be understood by what it was in Eliah's person who was but the type and therefore certainly had this spirit in a much inferiour degree to what it shall be in them The spirit of glory and power therefore which he had they shall have and much more as indeed is expressed when it is said if any man will hurt them he must in this manner be killed fire proceedeth out of their mouth and devours their enemies These have power by the same way Eliah had which was by the prayer of faith to shut heaven that it raine not in the dayes of their prophecie yea they have power also over waters to turne them into blood and to smite the earth with all plagues as often as they will Yet under all this power and glory they shall remaine exposed in their persons upon the finishing of their TESTIMONY to the rage and power of their enemies who shall then make warre against them overcome them and kill them But notwithstanding on the third day they have power given them to rise from the dead and to ascend up into heaven Rev. 11. 11 12. after a more glorious manner then Eliah did and this in the sight of their very enemies to their terrifying and amazement Thus we see the spirit and power of Eliah what it is that then shall be poured forth and that in a more mystical and spiritual consideration Something we shall also speak to the opening of the state and qualification of the persons that are called the TWO WITNESSES and why they are so called For their state and qualification this is to be known by their names and their apparel They are called the two Olive-trees and the two Candlesticks standing before the God of the whole earth By what hath beene already opened on this subject we are not far to seek what these signifie For the two Olive-trees and two Candlesticks that stand by the Lord of the whole earth must either be Christ in his owne person as he is head to his body the Church and Mediatour betweene God and man shining forth in his first and second appearance as both these perfections of the natural and spiritual man are built up and wrought into a perfect consistency and harmony in him or else these two Olive-trees do signifie the conformity which from him as the head is wrought out in and derived upon his spiritual and heavenly members by his first and second appearance in both those perfections of the first and second Adam as the elder is made to serve the younger and the first is built up into a consistency and harmony with the second by the power of the Crosse making them conformable to him in his death Which conformity is signified by their prophesying in sackcloth testifying the marks which they bear about with them in their mortal bodies of the dying of the Lord Jesus And in this crucified mortal flesh of theirs they are owned by Christ as having the Spirit of God and of glory thus made to rest upon them in a like dispensation unto that of Eliah's prophecy So that when once it shall please God to raise up a seed and generation of Saints in whom these marks of the dying of the Lord Jesus shall be eminent to the slaying and bringing to rest all operating powers and faculties of their natural man as standing in opposition to the Lord of life and glory and subjecting every high imagination in them by the Crosse to the laying of it and all the glory of flesh in a very great measure under the feet of Christ whereby that which lets his glory from appearing unveiled and hath all this time let is taken away then will it be knowne what the TWO WITNESSES are and that they have not hitherto so much as begun their prophecy in the power of Eliah before mentioned so farre are they from being slaine CHAP. XXVI Treating of the time of the manifestation of the sonnes of God their sitting with Christ on his Throne ruling and influencing all things on earth during the space of a thousand years HAving finished what relates to the Saints being made one dead or crucified body with Christ and shewed the opposition which is exercised by the Devil thereunto that which remains to be considered is the gathering also of the Saints together into one glorified body with Christ at his second coming when it shall appear what those shall be that now though they are sons are undistinguished from those that are not who have beene planted into a conformity with Christ in his death and who considered as his dead body having beene exposed to the bruising of their heele by Satan before his being bound up shall be declared the proper subjects and inheritours of this first resurrection in the exercise of the power and glory thereof as KINGS and PRIESTS reigning with Christ a thousand years This time of the manifestation of the sonnes of God is said to be that which is the earnest expectation of the very creature it self Rom. 8. 19. as the season also wherein the whole creation is to be restored to its Primitive purity and to be delivered out of the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the sonnes of God as the benefit which it shall then receive by vertue of the price of Christs blood paid for all for
threatned with destruction the Mystical earthly Jerusalem or worldly Church under the Gentiles is therein comprehended and also meant as that which shall at the end of the world and in the last times be found in a most corrupted declined estate of Apostasie 2 Thes 2. 3. 1 Tim. 4. 12. 2 Tim. 3. 1 c. unto which therefore several characters and signes are appropriated that cannot be understood to be accomplished at the destroying of the material Temple and outward Jerusalem but are necessarily to be meant of this Mystical one as the Heavens that are remaining to be shaken yet once more Heb. 12. signifying the removing of those things that may be shaken as of things that are made that those things that cannot be shaken may remaine This Mystical earthly Ierusalem is that which shall not have one stone left upon another as well as the other Typical Ierusalem not so much as any visibility or forme of worship shall be left to her but she shall be given to the Gentiles or prophane world who shall tread this holy City under foot fourty and two moneths And to make this hour and power of darknesse the more terrible there shall be warres and rumours of warres Nation shall rise up against Nation and Kingdome against Kingdome and there shall be Famines and Pestilences and Earthquakes in divers places yea all these things shall be but the beginning of sorrows For as thus warres and troubles and sorrowes shall be in reference to the outward man so also deceit and errour by false Prophets and false Christs shall arise causing much defilement in reference to the inner man whence will flow great declinings and apostasies from holy and righteous principles for saking of the truth or a waxing cold in the love of it amongst the inhabitants of this Mystical earthly Ierusalem and not only so but there will spring up a root of bitternesse and an implacable persecuting spirit against the faithful WITNESSES of Christ that shall in those dayes be found in her to the afflicting killing or flaying of them and letting their dead bodies lie unburied in the street of this great City which the Nations shall come and destroy for all her whoredomes and apostasies as they did the literal Ierusalem God putting it into their hearts to agree together and burne this Whore with fire And then they themselves that are thus made the rod of Gods anger and executioners of his vengeance on this great City shall not escape but Zach. 14. 3. The Lord shall go forth and fight against those Nations as when he fought in the day of battel For a great tumult from the Lord shall be among them and they shall lay hold every one on the hand of his neighbour and his hand shall rise up against the hand of his neighbour ver 13. So Mat. 24. 29 30. Immediately after the tribulation of those dayes shall the Sunne be darkned and the Moone shall not give her light and the Starres shall fall from Heaven and the powers of the Heavens shall be shaken And then shall appeare the signe of the Sonne of Man in Heaven and then shall all the Tribes of the earth mourne and they shall see the Sonne of man coming in the clouds of Heaven with power and great glory actually entering upon the exercise of his Kingdome and this First by sending forth his Angels and gathering together his Elect from the four winds from one end of Heaven to the other as into one glorified body with himself to the constituting of this GENERAL ASSEMBLY of the FIRST-BORNE which shall be made up partly of those the Lord brings with him and partly of those which shall be found alive and remaing unto the coming of the Lord or shall be in the natural body during the thousand years all which shal be changed in a moment in the twinkling of an eye by way of translation as it was with Enoch and not see death Whereby their mortal shall put on immortality and their corruptible shall put on incorruption and death and the grave shall be swallowed up in victory The first in order then which Christ quickens at his coming shall be his own Mystical dead body for the dead in Christ shall rise first 1 Thes 4. 16. that is those that have beene slaine and have born the marks of the dyings of Jesus upon them who are called Rev. 20. the souls of them that were beheaded for the witnesse of Jesus and for the WORD of God who all of them at this time through the quickning power of their Head shall live and reigne with him the first-fruits who hath already for a long time beene living and reigning at Gods right hand as it is written 1 Cor. 15. Every man in his owne order Christ the first-fruits afterwards they that are Christs at his coming whom he builds or raises up with himself into one spiritual and glorified body v. 44. causing them thereby to bear the image of the heavenly and last Adam as they have borne the image of the earthy or first Adam and this in the utmost perfection thereof as arrived to the measure of the stature of that fulnesse and perfection which declares and manifests it self in Christs heavenly manhood enabled to exercise in copartnership with him the power and glory of a threefold humane life and perfection in which he went before them First when upon the laying down of his natural body he came into the exercise of a life proper to the spirit of a just man made perfect in likenesse and equality with that of the holy Angels who stand in a superiority of life unto the earthly man even of Christ himself Heb. 2. 9. Secondly when he also came forth in the exercise of a humane bodily life raised up in a glorified and incorruptible forme never to die more Rev. 1. 18. in which he conversed with men the fourty dayes betweene his resurrection and ascension Thirdly when yet farther he came forth in the exercise of a divine humane life in which ascending to his God and their God to his Father and their Father he was exalted into a unity and copartnership in life and operation with the ROOT OF DAVID the WORD OF LIFE the first-born of every creature and first-begotten from the dead This is spoken of as the fruit also of his resurrection from the dead Ephes 1. ver 20 21. When through the mightinesse of Gods power that wrought in him he was raised from the dead and set at Gods owne right hand in the Heavenly or in the first and Heavenly Tabernacle that is set up in the WORD treated on by us in the first Chapter farre above all prin ipality and power and might and Dominion and every name or particular nature and being not only in this world but also in that which is to come In which life ver 22. 't is said that to the humane nature of Christ it is given to be the Head over all things or
preserving of them during the thousand years in this their spotlesse sinlesse nature not suffering the Devil to annoy them or deceive the Nations till the thousand years be fulfilled executing upon the rebellious and disobedient his fiery vengeance and indignation to the cutting them off from the Land of the living as Ananias and Sapphira were dealt with making good that Word of the Lord Act 3. 23. And it shall come to passe that every soul which will not hear that Prophet in these his dayes he shall be destroyed from among the people For all those that shall then discover that they love not the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity shall be Anathema Maranatha or accursed by this coming and from this presence of the Lord. And therefore we are to know that the natural generation of men which shall be in those dayes how pure and spotlesse soever their fleshly nature be yet being but mutable will have either a good or an evil change passe upon them The good we have already spoken to and of the evil we shall say but little here since we have so at large treated of it also as it is the serpentine seed growing up in and under that which is good to the fixing and hardning of men at last in an implacable rage and enmity against Christ in his heavenly and second appearance For this hardning when it is perfected proves an unchangable enmity and brings on the spiritual or SECOND DEATH wrought out in the natural mind which is not subject to the Law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus nor ever can be no place being now left for repentance These vessels of wrath will then be raised to everlasting contempt and will have the perfect exercise of their natural sences in spirit soul and body fitted and prepared for the taking in of the full vials thereof that shall be poured out upon them for ever from the presence of the Lord Yea for this purpose they are also heightned to a partaking with the wicked Angels in the raisednesse of their Angelical beings so as to become of equal capacity with the evil Angels through the power of the resurrection from the dead that raises them up into everlasting contempt and gives them their portion with the Devil and his Angels unto whom they serve as a Temple and habitation in like manner as the Saints in their glorified body are the Tabernacle of God And in this Idols Temple the Devil shall be so able to transforme himself into an Angel of light by the experience he will have gained during the thousand years and so to transform his Ministers also as the Ministers of righteousnesse and Apostles of Christ that he shall have the confidence at the end of the thousand years when he shall again be let loose to embody his party of wicked Angels and men from all quarters and come up in this seeming glorious posture to vie it out at last with the New Jerusalem the City of the living God in this its earthly state gathering Gog and Magog to battel the number of whom is as the sand of the Sea who hoping to carry all before them shall come up on the breadth of the earth and compasse the camp of the Saints about the Beloved City desiring and endeavouring to swallow up that Assembly of true Saints on earth who have not had as yet their finall change brought upon them but are waiting for it universally to be accomplished at the end of the thousand years At which period of time the Devil being let loose and putting forth his last and utmost power doth play his game by transforming his party into the likenesse of the glorified body of Christ and his Saints gathering into one counterfeit spiritual body all his children and servants whose coming then shall be with such power and signes and lying wonders as were never put forth by him before Then Christ in a moment shall finally perfect his glorious change upon all the Elect and carry them all up with him to the mansions provided for them in his Fathers house from whence he sends down fire to devour all their adversaries and the whole visible frame of the creation casting the Devil into the Lake of fire where the BEAST and FALSE PROPHET are and shall be tormented for ever day and night by vertue of the just judgement of God which then shall be revealed against the wicked when the last JUDGEMENT shall be set and there shall appeare a great white Throne and one sitting upon it from whose face the heaven and the earth shall flee away so that there shall be no more place found for them even for that heaven and earth wherein there had beene made a full restitution of all things in those times of refreshing from the presence of the Lord during the reigne of the thousand years Then the great and last universal day of judgement shall be brought forth when the dead small and great shall be made to stand up before God and then the books will be opened and another book will be opened which is the book of life and the dead shall be judged out of those things that are written in the books And the sea shall give up the dead that are in it and death and hell shall deliver up the dead that are in them and they shall be judged every man according to their works To be more particular in describing the state of things as to the change which does respect the whole creature during this thousand years will be needlesse considering that the general expressions are so clear and full that it shall be a glorious pure incorrupt state unto the whole creation which shall then keep a holy Sabbath and Rest unto the Lord a seventh part of the time of the worlds continuance in which there shall be no sowing of the field nor pruning of the vineyard nor exacting any labour from the creature but what in voluntary service it shall performe by way of homage and worship unto Christ for the use of his Saints during the thousand years who are yet in their corruptible natural body expecting their great change Even so come Lord Jesus Come quickly FINIS
in a superiority in all things unto the Church or true spiritual seed which is his body the fulnesse of him that filleth all in all built up into a Heavenly conformity in all things as a Wife and Spouse unto this her Head and Husband This excellency of Christs exalted manhood was surely intimated unto Iaceb by that ladder Gen. 28. 12 which in his dream he beheld set upon the earth the top whereof reached to Heaven as also the Angels of God ascending and descending upon it For thus we find it interpreted by himself Iohn 1. 50 51. as that greater sight of his humane perfection then what could be seene in the dayes of his flesh Verily verily sayes he I say unto you hereafter you shall see Heaven open and the Angels of God ascending and descending upon the Sonne of man as if he should have said You shall see the Heavenly Temple of God opened Rev. 11. 19. that is to be found in the WORD OF LIFE and the heavenly discoveries flowing thence or sent forth from the same in their ascents and descents in and upon the manhood of Christ as the means chosen for the making manifest the riches of his glory to men and Angels in their particular beings and persons In these three respects shall the true SONNES AND HEIRS OF SALVATION fitted and adorned as a Bride and Heavenly body to this Husband and Head appeare bearing on them the image of the last Adam made like unto him to the seeing of him as he is and shining forth in this likenesse they will have accomplished upon them that manifestation of the sonnes of God which shall vastly difference them from the naturall or fleshly seed considered in their highest mutable perfection or in the incorruptible forme wherein they shall be raised up to everlasting contempt By vertue then of this conformity in image which the Saints shall be brought into with Christs heavenly manhood they shall come forth in the exercise of this threefold life in kind wherein the manhood of Christ hath beene conversant ever since the laying down of his earthly and natural body First of that life which all the true sonnes and heirs of salvation that have died in the faith have beene exercising ever since their change or falling asleep in the Lord that is to say the life of the spirits of just men made perfect a life like that of the Angels or perfect spirits that can live and act without dependance upon bodily life and motion described by Christ himself where he sayes that they who shall be accounted worthy to obteine that world and the resurrection from the dead as were Abraham Isaac and Jacob who then were and yet are in the possession of it neither marry nor are given in marriage for they are equal unto the Angels and are children of God and of the resurrection Luke 20. 35 36 that is to say are the children of God in their spirits made perfect and thereby are become equals and fit associates for the holy Angels themselves as the souls of wicked men departed this life become equals and fit associates for the evil Angels concerning which state also in the best sense Christ spake unto the thief upon the Crosse when he said This day shalt thou be with me in Paradise The second exercise of life which the Saints as gathered unto Christ their Head at his second coming shall be brought forth in is that of a glorified incorruptible body in fashion made like unto his glorious body Phil. 3. Into the exercise of which life they are not yet entered but reserved for it by the MAN CHRIST IESUS the FIRST-FRUITS who will have the souls of those slaine under the Altar to rest yet for a little season in the single exercise of their Angelical life as spirits of just men made perfect untill the gathering of the GENERAL ASSEMBLY of the first-borne together and setting them who have beene the slaine Witnesses of Christ upon their feet in the exercise of this immortal incorruptible bodily life here in this world wherein they are to continue and abide for a THOUSAND YEARS keeping the true Sabbath of Rest unto the Lord in that seventh part of the time of the worlds duration All worldly strength wisdome and power shall then as the walls of Iericho fall flat before Iesus the true Ioshua and these true Israelites as having beene by them compassed about six dayes and now on the seventh a thousand years being with the Lord as one day 2 Pet. 3. 8. making way for the end mentioned 1 Cor. 15. 24. to come and shew it self at which time the fleshly Rule and Kingdome of Christ in his first appearance till then kept up in the world as the first general Dominion is delivered up unto the Father the Sonnewillingly becoming subject herein with reference to the bringing himself forth in his second appearance to rule and reign in the place of the first that God may be all in all and that all other rule authority and power may hereby be put downe yea death it self as the last enemy may be destroyed and made unable to deteine any under its power that the quickning vertue shining forth in this presence and appearance of Christ shall call forth and give freedome unto The Saints in the exercise of this life with Christ upon earth during this THOUSAND YEARS shall be those in whom Christ will be admired and the Father glorified This state of theirs is the reward spoken of in Scripture where it is said The meek shall inherit the earth and Godlinesse hath not only the promise of the life to come but of this also 1 Tim. 4. 8. So Rom. 4. 13. The Promise to Abraham that he should be heir of the world is declared not to be by the Law or to have its accomplishment under the first Covenant-dispensation but through the righteousnesse of faith that it might be by grace to the end the Promise might be sure to all the seed not to that only which is of the Law but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham who with other beleevers died and received not the making good thereof It therefore remains to be performed in its due time at this manifestation of the Sonnes of God which faith sees and acknowledges Heb. 11. 39. These all having obtained a good report through faith received not the promise to wit this promise of being heirs of the world and of all Nations being blessed in and by the meanes of the spiritual seed which will certainly be fulfilled to them in the times of the NEW HEAVENS AND NEW EARTH Isa 65. 17. c. God having foreseene and reserved some better thing for us saith the Author to the Hebrews that they without us should not be made perfect but that all of us may enjoy that better thing together at once in the keeping of a holy Sabbath unto the Lord at the coming of this day of God in which the Heavens that
now are shall passe away with a great noise and the Elements shall melt with fervent heat the Earth also and the Works that are therein shall be burnt up to make way for and give place unto the NEW HEAVENS and NEW EARTH wherein dwelleth righteousnesse which we look for according to his promise 2 Pet. 3. 10 13. Nor are we to think that the Saints departed who are now exercising the life that is equal to Angels are at all debased or lessened in their heavenly or Angelical enjoyment as brought forth gathered together into one spiritual and glorified body with Christ at his coming For hereby they are enabled to exercise over and besides the first that life which Christ led here upon earth after his resurrection which excludes them not from being with the Lord in the aire 1 Thes 4. 17. or in the exercise of their Angelical life in which they are for ever with him for as much as they do assume the exercise of this bodily life againe in its incorruptible forme upon such termes that it is no hinderance to or in the least inconsistent with the free and absolute exercise of the former Angelical life but serves rather as the meanes for them to be in the body as well as out of the body at their owne pleasure and as they shall find it most suitable to Gods designes for the maintaining and keeping up the Rule and Dominion of Christ in the world during the thousand years in the hands of this GENERAL ASSEMBLY of the first-borne who as the Jerusalem coming downe from God out of Heaven are to be the Tabernacle of God with men to administer the accomplishment of Gods promise as to the making good the reward which godlinesse is to receive even in this life and the promise unto Abraham and his seed of making them heir of the world through faith Rom. 4. 13. by vertue of the quickning power of Christ which he shall put forth at this time of the Restitution of all things The forementioned exercise of this bodily life to be assumed by Saints departed at the Resurrection is intimated to us by what is recorded Matth. 27. 52 53. And the graves were opened and many bodies of the Saints that slept arose and came out of the graves after his resurrection and went into the holy City and appeared unto many Signifying by way of figure and prediction the common practice hereof at Christs coming to quicken his Mystical dead body and bring them out of their graves as it is written Esay 26. 19. Thy dead men shall live together with my dead body shall they arise awake and sing ye that dwell in dust for thy dew is as the dew of herbs and the earth shall cast out the dead The third and last sort of humane life which the body or Church of Christ shall by their Head be brought into the exercise of is that of his exalted state as He ascended to his God and their God to his Father and their Father going before to prepare a place for them as being unwilling that his Saints should rest so much as in the second degree of life shining forth in his person by the Resurrection without expecting a higher which he gave notice of to Mary when he said Touch me not for I am not yet ascended to my Father John 20. 17. in whose house there are many Mansions John 14. 2. which at the end of the thousand years he hath in store to lead them into as their final and utmost degree of glory and perfection in heaven in the immediate and beatifical vision of God when the world shall be no more mentioned Rev. 20. 11 and as the last retreat to the full Rest God hath prepared for his Saints when upon the expiration of the thousand years Satan being let loose out of his prison shall have mustered up his last reserve of force against them from all the four quarters of the earth even Gog and Magog who for number are as the sand of the Sea who come up on the breadth of the earth and compasse the camp of the Saints about and the beloved City the NEW IERUSALEM which thereupon ascends up into heaven their enemies beholding them into this utmost degree of the Resurrection and their exaltation as made with Christs manhood to ascend to their God and his God to their Father and his Father in the exercise of the life of the first-borne of every creature and first-begotten from the dead to the obteining a name above every name which sets them with Christ far above all principality and power might and dominion the name or nature of any other particular being whatsoever And all this they attaine unto by their being made one with Christ Davids OFF-SPRING as this OFF-SPRING or BRANCH is made one with his owne ROOT who is the beginning and first-begotten from the dead having in all things the preheminence as being from above and over all made higher then the Heavens better then the Angels as having by inheritance obtained a more excellent name then they so that Angels and authorities are made subject to him and therefore in a state exalted above all natural men for they are lower then the Angels In this capacity Christ in his own person received the pouring out of the Spirit without measure and in this capacity his body the Church shall as at the second hand in this day of their ascension and final exaltation receive the effusion of this same Spirit without measure upon them unto which they have spiritual sences in some degree fitted and suited whilst they are here in the body through the newnesse of life and motion set up in them by faith or the new Creation which are yet farther heightned and enlarged after the laying down of the body by the two first degrees of glory and power into which they are brought by the resurrection from the dead but shall then be ripened to their most absolute capacity compleat exercise and perfect use upon this their ascension and highest advance at the expiration of the THOUSAND YEARS Into this state of glory Christ as we have said did arrive in his own person upon his ascension having received of the Father the promise of the holy Ghost or the actual possession of this inheritance of God at Gods right hand where his man-hood doth so become the INGRAFFED WORD of God that as man he is taken into the enjoyment of Gods naked glory and very similitude and forme beholding him face to face and conversing with him as friend speaks with friend mouth to mouth sharing and partaking throughout with the WORD of life the ROOT of David in all those first creature-operations that are set up by the immediate Workman-ship of the Trinity when they personally appeare in the WORD in respect whereof this creature-state in Christ is said to be without Father without Mother without descent Heb. 7. having neither beginning of dayes nor end of life