deceived and God needeth not your Lye for him or against your self in any thing And if you judge amisse of your self God is so Holy and Just that you never need fear that He will confirm or execute your wrong Judgement And if you judge rightly of your self you are not so miserable as you conceive your self but as you do that which is one of the Highest and Hardest Acts possible which is to judge ones self rightly so you have one of the Greatest Bbessings which God giveth to the Sons of men or to his own Son which is a right understanding of a right Judgement which was the Great Argument used by the greatest and best man that ever lived to prove that he was of God and had His Spirit and a Will also moulded into His Holy Will for else he saith he could not Judge Righteous Judgement And who ever doth this of himself and his own sins is in a special manner partaker of the Holy Ghost whose proper work is to convince us rightly of sin Righteousnesse and Judgement and who ever judgeth himself rightly shall not be judged of God Here he stopt and sweetly bowed and turned aside a little but returned soon again looking as cheerful as he could well force himself It being not very easie so to clear up his eyes and face but that it might be seen though he hid it that he had wept Which also pierced his Guest both to see the Fathers affection and his own misery Who was still so unhappy as he some way expressed to be a burthen to himself and all he conversed with supposing he had grieved or displeased him by some of his expressions But when the Good Father perceived those thoughts with a most sweet tender and melting look he replyed No my Dear Brother no you do not burthen me at all or in any thing displease me But as my general duty bids or helps me in some measure to mourn with every one that mourneth and to weep with every one that weepeth So my particular respect and affection now forceth me if at least it can be force upon a Fathers tender bowels to yearn over his son or a brother over his own dearly beloved brother Yet there is somewhat in You that maketh me melt in Joy rather then sorrow tho it may be unutterable for I cannot expresse it I saw you were my Neighbour at the first as a Man and so I found my self obliged This is Little and low both to Love and Honour you for that Image of God I ought to acknowledge in you and the great Law of Love that commands Brotherly kindenesse bids us adde Love also yea and to strangers also for the same chapter that bids us Love our Neighbour as our self bids us Love a stranger also as we love our selves And among divers reasons why we should love strangers it is sometimes added Because God loveth strangers Yea and we are bid to entertain them so As if they were or might be Angels seeing some had unawares so entertained Angels But now I see somewhat more in you not onely a Man and my Neighbour but a Christian also and my Dear and pretious Brother whom the Angels do attend and love and honour as a lively Image of their great Lord and Master Jesus Christ. And how is it that the Brother of my Lord thus cometh to visit me And you are so far from having committed that great sin against the Holy Ghost which you so much fear that you are still under the most gracious workings of that Holy Spirit Whose great work is to convince the world even the world and not onely the Apostles or Disciples but the World of Sin Righteousnesse and Judgement which is also promised to the World even to the World and is fulfilled in you who are thus under the convincing spirit of Promise And it will also comfort you for the same spirit that convinceth is also the Comforter and where it wounds it heals and when it hath convinced both of Sin Judgement and Righteousness which is there promised it will also comfort It being the promise or indeed the property and nature yea and heart of God to heal and quicken whom he wounds and kills which from Moses Song runs all along through the Psalms and Prophets Who tell us If he wound he will heal Yea though he kill for two dayes He wil revive and quicken on the Third For he will turn again and have compassion on us because he delighteth in mercy though he cause grief for a while and yet not willingly or from his heart afflicteth the children of men which is his Strange work But Mercy is his Child his Son and comes as naturally from him as a child from any father For he is the Father of Mercy yea of a multitude of mani-fold Mercies which are also One with the heart of Christ for He is the onely begotten of the Father and yet His Father is also the Father of Mercies so that Christ and Mercies lay together in one womb and indeed are the same for how else is Christ the Onely begotten of the Father And you are under the tender mercies of Christ even that Christ who is Mercy it self and this holy Spirit of Promise will certainly be your Comforter being already I see your Remembrancer to bring to mind his words one of his proper Works having also convinced you of Righteousnesse enough in him Everlasting Righteousnesse to satisfie God and sanctifie you And I hear you not onely acknowledge him to be the Son of God and sent of God to be the Saviour of the World but also you are convinced of sin because you have not believed on him the great promise of that Comforter and are made most truly and highly to value defire long and pray for him and To him which you could not but by the gracious workings of that Holy Spirit of promise whose great work was and still is to set up Christ as he set up his Father Which Character given by Christ of his own spirit is repeated also by the Apostles And St. John gives it as the Touch-stone whereby we should try the spirits saying Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus is come in the flesh is of God and again he that confesses that Jesus is the Son of God dwelleth in God and God in him and again whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God and again He that is born of God sinneth not that sin or worketh not sin which is a common phrase in the Language of the Law of Moses and other places of Scripture Doeth not sin So but that the seed of God still remaineth in him as the sap of an Oake or Teile when it casteth its leaves as the Prophet Isaiah in that most remarkable Chap. cited in the six first books of the New Testament For the Jews rejection and return again as an emblem of the whole Worlds Restoring or Resurrection it being plain in the
here in dust or thick clay And yet his Wisdom and the Best in him being now united to Flesh will not must not say to the Foot I have no need of Thee yea must not disdain to say to this Worm Thou art my Brother or my Sister and Corruption is my Mother or my neer kindred And while others talk of Doing the Law and performing it to others I am mainly bent to see and hope believe and pray that Christ will Do it and perform it unto me and so by working in me teach me and help me also so to Act to others in some measure As he doth to me What is the Law which hath so long kept us in awe As if it had or could disanul the free Grace of God and Covenant thereof which was made with our Fathers and with us in them also so many hundred years before the Law rose up As also the Goodness and Pities of God were from everlasting to everlasting and so much longer and stronger than his wrath which we use to call his Justice which is not in him but as a stranger coming cross his way or calling on him and at most was but of yester day when some poor creature had sinned Is not the Law the very mind and Heart of God even That God which is Light and Love and perfect goodness Is it not summed up by Christ himself into Love All the Law nothing but Love Thou shalt Love the Lord thy God with all thy mind and heart and might and the other is like unto this Like unto This For Man also is like unto God and thou must Love yea and honor Man too But Like as thou dost God Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thy self But how can I possibly Love God or my Neighbor before God Love me yea and some way manifest his Love to me Can I first give unto God or lend him that it may be paid again Is it Probable or Possible that I say not noble generous or Ingenuous for my God to ask and expect my Heart and Hearts Love to him before he had given his Heart and Hearts Love to me What shall we say then Having loved Man once he loved him still being his own in his own Image which he yet owns still in him after the Fast and after the Flood too Thou shalt not shed Mans blood for in the Image of God He is created Nay St. Paul is so bold as to call man not only the Image of God but also his Glory the Image and Glory of God And yet he speaks of Man as Man and of every man saying also that Christ is the Head of every man and that Man is the Image and Glory of God And Wisdom which is Christ plainly saith His delights were not only with Man but with the Sons of men or Man-kind And there were no Sons of men till after the Fall and when man had sinned And Gods Philanthropy or Love to Man-kind so much spoken of by St. Paul and others in the New Testament is also observed by Moses himself who beginning to bless the twelve Tribes of Israel plainly saith God loveth the Peoples also for the word is Plural and may take in all the Gentile Nations also in the Earth yea he carries them all in his bosom as the word he there useth may import Though he have also some especial to them that sit at his Feet and receive the Law at his Mouth which he there giveth for a sure Character of Gods especial Love even his Giving and their Receiving of his Law the Good and Royal Law of Love And God so loved the World even the World that he gave his Son for the world not to condemn the World but to save it for God even the Father himself is Love and hath sent forth his Son in Love and hath also promised his Spirit to convince the world even the World of Sin and to powr it out on all flesh that All may see the Glory of God Yea every eye may see his Salvation And hath therefore given his Law to the World even to the worst of men as St. Paul argues to Timothy that by it he may convince them and draw them to Christ. Having so shut them all up in unbelief and conclude them All under sin and breach of the Law that he might have Mercy on them Which indeed and properly speaking could not be shewed till there was an Object for it and there was no Misery which is the Object of Mercy till Sin was in the world And doth not This very Law this Holy perfect Royal Law of Love express and speak this Heart and Love of God to every man that it speaketh to and that is the worst of men living Doth it not say Thou shalt love me because I love thee Doth it not begin to every Man to whom it speaks and say I am the Lord thy God even Thy Lord and Thy God! and Therefore Thou shalt have No other God because I am Thy God And therefore thou shalt not bow to Images but Worship me only because I only am the Lord Thy God And therefore thou shalt honor my Name and not abuse my Love or take my Name or Goodness in vain or turn it into Wantonness because I am the Lord thy God And wilt thou not both love and honor That is Reverence that great and Reverend Name The Lordthy God Not a Terrible Name but a Reverend Name and therefore to be loved and greatly honored or Reverenced as God bids us Reverence his Sanctuary and a Woman must Reverence her Husband and the time is coming that we shall not call our God Baali that is My Lord or hard Master But Ishi my Husband And yet we shall then most Love and Reverence him with Godly Sonly Fear and Reverence And because this Name of the Lord my God is so great and holy and reverend Therefore I am bid to reverence it and hallow it even as the first Petition of our Lords Prayer teacheth us to pray and by no means to take it in vain For they that name it must depart from Iniquity And although the words added of not holding him guiltlesse that takes his Holy Name in vain ought still to keep me in great aufull Reverence yet they ought not to make me have any hard thoughts of God as if he were an Hard Master which our Saviour shewed as the Root of all miscarriage And those words may seem to speak a selfish person and so hard to please and so unexorable when displeased that do little suit the sweet and Gracious Heart of God which is Pure and Peaceful hardly provoked and Gentle easie to be entreated Slow to anger and without fury which rest onely in the bosome of Fools Delighting in Mercy and abounding in Goodnesse The Father of Mercies pardoning Iniquity Transgression and Sin And when he is provoked to visit and chasten yet he doth it Gently and Slowly and by degrees not at once
but in three or four Generations as it may be born least the spirit that he hath made should fail before him And when he afflicteth He will not do it for ever For he doth it not willingly or from his Heart but he will Turn again and shew compassion because he delighteth in Goodnesse and his pitties and compassions never fail and his tender Mercies are over all his works yea all his works shall praise him the earth and all that is in it and the Sea also is full of his Goodnesse He openeth his Handwide and filleth all things with Good and giveth the desire of every living thing Every Tree in the Forest shall clap hands and sing and rejoyce the very Dragons shall praise him the Owls shall answer one another in his Praises Every thing that hath breath shall praise him All flesh shall see his glory and every eye shall see his Salvation For what is Glory in some places speaking thus is Salvation in others and so in the Gospel also Citing it out of the Prophets In a word there is nothing in that Threatning or in any other in this Law and why then should we fear the Gospel but what speaks Gods tender Love and Gratious Pities and Compassions Even his very Jealousie which yet is made the Foundation of all his visitting springeth from Love It is so in man much more in God who is love its self and when he means to shew his greatest Love to his poor people in recovering them from all captivity and sorrow he expresseth it by being Jealous over them and for them with a great Jealousie And St. Paul calleth his tender bowels to the poor Saints a Godly Jealousie or a Godlike Jealousie Lest a stranger should attempt to get away their heart which he had like God the Father Espoused to his dear Son Jesus And when the Lord resolves both effectually and speedily to recover his back-sliding people he promiseth to move them to Jealousie also as himself is moved with Jealousie for them lest another get their heart from him which would never trouble him if he did not very much love them and very tenderly And although Jealousie in Christ for it is proper to an Husband may seem as the Wrath of a man that will not spare or pardon in his day of visitation as the wise man expresseth it Yet even That very phrase of Not sparing or Not pardoning which yet is one of the hardest or harshest expressions in the whole Scriptures is no other than the very same Solomon doth not only observe and commend but require and commanâ—â—so in a tender hearted Father to the Son of his own bowels whom yet he must Chasten and not spare or pardon 't is that very phrase Which yet sure cannot mean that he shall be alwaies angry and never reconciled but that he sorely chasten and correct in earnest and as an Ordinance of God and not for lust or dalliance or so as may occasion sin or harden in the sin so visited May it not be possible also that the dearest children of God even Moses may commit such a Failor in his Generation work as may in such a sense be never forgiven that is Sorely chastened as David was and be still remaining as a Spot for that Generation work though they may and shall be saved May They also or only commit such Unpardonable sins And such a visitation may be threatned in the second Command as was promised rather than threatned to Davids children Who yet had the everlasting Covenant and the sure Mercies or as the Acts expresseth it the sure Holy things of David which are also promised to every Believer or every one that Thirsteth and thirsting cometh to the Waters even to them and their seed for ever So that if his children break the Law and shal despise his Statutes Then will I visit their Transgression with the Rod and their Iniquity with stripes He will chasten them with Rods and as Ezekiel expresseth it cause them to pass under the Rod and Bond of the Covenant So that Rods are a part of the Cevenant and its Bond. But he will not take away his Everlasting Kindness Yet as he speaketh of Solomon perhaps one of the greatest sinners ever living for this I will afflict or chasten the House of David but not for Ever Not for ever I will not retain my Anger for Ever which is expressly forbidden Man in general And so Christ also in the very Law that saith Thou shalt not avenge thy self or reserve thine Anger No not till the Sun go down For so this Law is pressed upon us and why not so upon every one made under that Law also and by consequence on Christ himself Nor shalt thou bear any grudg or thought in thy heart against the Children of thy People for my Covenant is with them and their childrens children also for evermore Therefore thou shalt bear no grudg against them or any of their Children But thou shalt love thy Neighbor as thy self Which our Savior and the Apostles so much the sum of the whole Law And to this very place and the phrase here used of not reserving Anger or not retaining ought in heart he very many times alludeth when he saith of himself I will not retain for ever or I will not reserve my Anger or I will not be alwaies Wroth or I will not contend for ever and the like expressions which himself and all the Scripture affirms of him divers times as one of the first and chiefest things we ought to believe os him Which is also a most comfortable acknowledgment that He also takes himself to be obliged with the following words of the same verse which he citeth also several times Thou shalt love thy Neighbor as thou lovest thy self Very sweet as Lying on Man to Man but yet much sweeter as it lieth on Christ the Son of Man to Man Man-kind every Man As I hope will be fully cleered anon Nor do I find any thing in any of the Commandements contrary to this No not That of Gods Jealousie which we touched before and his visiting the Iniquity of the Fathers on their children Even when he seeth so much Iniquity in the Father that by his general Laws of Justice Truth Equity and Mercy too for they go all together he must visit yet he is so slow to anger and so loth to afflict that he will do it by degrees and by steps and not so that may make the Father so miserable as he deserves and might very justly be But so that he may have some part of the rod as David had and his children also some other part of it so as may bring them to see and know and acknowledg the Iniquities of their Fathers also Which God promised rather than threatned to Moses on Mount Sinai also as we read in the 26. of Leviticus so much cited and confessed sor their Fathers also in the ninth chapters of Daniel Ezra and Nehemiah
terrour of the Lord might perswade men yea and save them by fear and with much compassion catch them as brands out of that horrible pit of which we read so much in Job and the Psalmes and our Saviours own words also besides other Scriptures And dyed this Abner Father of light or Fathers light as Naball or a Fool dyeth Was he drunken also as Naball Or did his heart dye in him or becmoe as a stone before he died Will he not improve his death and all his sufferings all he may Is his heart narrow or his eye evill to himself also Doth he envy us shall I say or himself his full recompence of Reward for which he despised the Crosse and endured the shame and pain being promised that he should see the travell of his soul and be satisfied not only contented but fully Satisfied for all the travel of his soul which should have a full recompence yea a Reward also Will he then lose the things that he hath wrought and Suffered also Which hath oft sounded in my eare or heart from his beloved Disciple to the elect Lady which might represent the whole Elect and Church and Spouse of Christ who cryeth to us all in the words of that Disciple Look to your selves and I am taught to say Lord Look thou to it also that we lose not the things we have wrought or born but that we may receive a full a very full Reward also I should tire you much to observe one quarter of that St. Paul speaketh of the Sufferings of Christ and the mighty weight and stresse he layeth on them yea and upon the very little drops of them he felt or bore in his own person which yet he calleth the sufferings of Christ and to fill up the sufferings of Christ. Which in himself also he is bold to say were for the Consolation and Salvation also of others yea of many others as he writeth to the Corinthians and with them also he joyned all that in all places called on Jesus Christ as we noted before And to the Colossions having said of Christ that it pleased the Father that in him all fulness should dwell and having made peace through the blood of his Cross by him to reconcile all things to himself which afterwards in that very Chapter and to the Ephesians also he calleth the Mistery of his will according to his good pleasure which he had purposed in himself to be compared with the 5. to the Romans many other Scriptures He addeth also that this Gospell was preached to every Creature under heaven as our Lords commission was Whereof I Paul am made a Minister who now rejoyce in my sufferings for you and fill up that which is behind of the afflictions or sufferings of Christ in my flesh for his Bodies sake which is the Church And to Timothy he writes For the which cause I also suffer these things Therefore I endure all things for the Elects sake for the Elects sake that they may also obtain the Salvation which is in Christ Jesus with eternall glory And to the Philippians In my Bonds you All are partakers of my grace Yea and if I be offered upon the sacrifice and service of your Faith I joy and rejoyce with you all But if Christ neither loved us nor himself or valued his own Glory or his own Sufferings yet his love to his Father or his very duty to him though he did not love him may be found a great foundation of our Faith and Hope in him and in God through him And for this I may not only cite the Scriptures that speak of Gods loving Christ because he loved us and laid down his life for us One of the sweetest and the strangest sayings in the Bâ—ble But also as Paul said A necessity is laid upon me and wo to me if I do not preach the Gospell Even so our Saviour also This Commandement I have received of my Father And had he not received it he neither would nor could have given that Commandement to others which he so often presseth and repeateth as his own his new Commandement to all his Children Friends or servants that they love one another as even as he loved them which was to lay down his life for them and this Commandement he received of his Father and solemny professeth he never said a word but what and how and as the Father spake it to him nor did ever do a work but what he saw the Father do and what he did as if the Father also Suffered in him Nor shall we go far to search for this Commandement of God to him either in that of Ezekiel the son of man the great Watch man and the great Warner at whose hand God would require the soules of all that were under him who are all men yea and at the price and weight of his own blood with which he must therefore prepare a sacrifice for every one that erreth and is simple as we touched before to be compared with the 53 of Esay and divers other Scriptures And the 58 of the same Prophet sheweth how it delighteth the soul of God that Christ should break every yoak and deal his bread to the hungry and bring the poore and them that are cast out or banished into his own House when he doth but see a man naked though he weep not beg not yet to cover him and not to hide himself from his own flesh If then thou draw out thy soul thy very soul to the hungry and satisfie the affâ—icted soul the Lord shall guide thee continually c. One of the sweetest promises in all the Bible and yet sweeter if we consider it spoken to Christ before it was to us and then follow the gracious promises upon the keeping of the Sabboth in which also we shall find our Saviour very much concerned But the very ten Commandements and all the Law of God through all the Bible which he took upon him and was made under it was written in his heart and so rivetted in that he can unmake himself again as soon as leave or lose one tittle of that Wise and Just and Holy Law of God which is all yet one Royall Law of Love Did not himself summe it all up into Love Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and soul and mind and might and there is another word of Love yet like to this a strange expression like to this or as good as this or as much required and accepted as this and of as much stresse and strength or force as this which is Thou must love thy Neighbour also as thou lovest thy self Yea and this is not only as the former of loving God but rather before iâ— in Gods account as we may find in his beloved Disciple and divers others So that God will much sooner dispence with his own love and hâ—s worship even of the Sabboth day as we find in our Saviours own words
then he will dispence with loving our Neighbour yea but shewing pitty to his Oxe or Ass fallen into a pit And as if God would measure all our Love to himself by our loving our poor Neighbour St. John saith Let a man never talk of loving God whom he never saw if he do not love his Brother whom he hath seen and if he do but see him in want and shut up his bowels though his wants be not wept or worded out but only Seen How doth the love of God dwell in such a man as we found also in Esay when thou Seest the naked that thou cover him Which hath sometimes been very sweet to me when I had no words or tears to expresse my miseries to Christ or was sensible enough of any of my wants Yet I have often spoken to him from that place and others in the Psalmes or Job or Lamentations Crying See my affliction though I do not see it or am afflicted for it as I should or would Yet do thou See my miseries Even when I see them not and let thy tender eye affect thy tender heart for the Love of God dwelleth in thee Do not therefore shut up thy bowels when thou seest my want though I do not see it or am not affected with it Give me Eye salve that I may see And thou hast promised an holy Spirit to Convince the world of sinne Righteousnesse and Judgement Withhold not Good whilst it is in the God of thy hand to do it Why then wilt thou send me away saying Come again to morrow when it is in the power of thy hand to do me good For thou hast All power in Heaven and Earth Thou art the Wisdome of God and the Power of God And a Brother is born for a day of Adversity And there may be also the greatest â—ffering where there is but little sorrow yea and the greatest sorrow where the least Expâ—ession either in tears or words A piercing look with an eye fixed on Christ in a promise as one able to help and made for it and why then do we doubt of his Will may be a better Prayer than a great many words or tears They are little Griefs that speak or are spoken Great ones are stupid or at least silent So also are Praises They may be best when they attend God in Silence As the Jews also teach us on those passages of the Psalms My soul is silent before thee and Praise waiteth on thee in silence for so it is And Silence is commanded us all not only in those places which bid our words be Few as Solomon and our Saviour also But when God ariseth and doth manifest himself out of his Temple or in his Holy place as his Presence Chamber we are especially commanded to be Silent before him as we read in the last words both of the second of Habakkuk and the second of Zechary And there is not only an Evil but a Good Day also when All prudent men will hold their Peace as we read in another Prophet But it is yet sweter than many words or any can express to consider that if Christ did neither love Us nor Himself nor his Father as he surely doth Yet his very Duty to Him and that Law which bids him Love the Lord his God with all his heart and soul and minde bâ—ddeth him do it also With all his Might And so also to propagate his love to All he can by all means he may Yea and to work while it is Day and to do whatever is in his hand to do with all his might least the night cometh on him also and there be no more working or Councel in the place whether we are all going Is it indeed enough for Him in himself and his own person to have no other God or other wayes of worship than are Right and set by God and not to bear his Name in vain who yet beareth it more upon him both in words and Actions than all men living Except he also propagate this Love of God his waies of worship and his Name his True Name which is his Nature all he can or may and he may quicken whom he will with all his Might to all his Children Servants Neighbours Subjects and Relations under him and in his Povver and they are All. May I indeed suffer any Servant or any other though I may bear vvith children vvhile they are children and vvith Naturals or Ideots alas vve are All so to Him all our lives May I suffer any man within my power or Family to worship a false God or the True God in a False manner or to take his Name in vain while I can help it Is He not Lord of All the Family both in Heaven and Earth Are we not All in his hand and under his power who hath All Power in Heaven Earth and hath All things delivered to him of his Father Can we wonder now why he so often promiseth to manifest the Name of God that All may know it from the greatest to the least Yea and his Enemies also It being so usuall in Ezekiel and other Prophets to close up all his Threatnings with this You shall all know me or I will bring you to Know my Name Which is also the great end of the Psalmists sharp and bitter prayers against All the enemies of God which we find mustered up together in the 83. Psalm That they may seek thy Name O Lord and that they may know that Thou whose name is Jehovah art the most high God over all the Earth which was also the great end of that great work on Nebuchadnezar And the same Psalms tell us also that when men come or are brought to Know the name of God they will trust in it And there also Christ often promiseth He will declare his Name to his Brethren and as if they were too few to the great Congregation also And how great that Congregation is or shall be I cannot tell When also he came to dye he acknowledgeth this for the great work he had to do in the World I have finished thy work I have manifested thy Name unto the men thou gavest me out of the world And as if this were not yet enough towards the end of that prayer he prayeth for More this being the Covenant Ask of me and I will give thee All Nations and Peoples and persons even the utmost ends of the Earth and those also afarr off in the Seas And is his heart so narrow that he will not Ask when he might have us All and all things for asking Ask then heartily that thou maist receive seek us All heartily and thou shalt find us All Knock heartily at the door of our hearts and by virtue of the promise and Covenant of God they shall be opened to thee Neither pray I for these alone which thou hast yet given me shallâ—at â—at any tâ—me hereafter beleeve on me through their word That they All may be
lose her two Sons for bondslaves which may be a great Mystery and how he gave a Son to a barren VVoman and then raised him from the Dead and how he Healed the Pottage when Death was in the Pot and fed a great Multitude with a few barly loves and Healed Naaman the Syrian Lepar and struck Gehezy with Leprosie for seeking things of the VVorld in an ill time or season And How his dead bones raised a dead man and many other things we might observe in this great Type of Jesus Christ. But especially His striking his Enemies blind and then bringing them into Samaria and when the King of Israel said shall I smite them my Father shall I smite them He said Noe. Wilt thou smite them whom thou hast taken Prisoners with thy sword and thy bow Set bread and meat before them c. And I have often heard one say he knew not that he ever had a sweeter return from Christ then when once in great anguish he could onely say Now shew thy Kindnesse to thy Poor Enemy Whom thou hast taken Captive with Thy sword and thy bow And the King of Israels Feasting Those Prisoners for he made great provision for them may be more considered hereafter and compared with That of Solomon if thy Enemy hunger feed him and the Lord shall not onely requite but reward thee and this History may be the more considerable because it may perhaps be found the most desperate or most forlorn condition here on earth VVhen a man Degenerates into a judicial blindnesse Except it may yet be worse to come unto a Beastly Spirit and Nature VVhich is when after great and perhaps very long Abusing Light and Love shewed from God and Christ a man doth not only disobey but grieve and quench that good spirit so much and so long that at length it leaves him to degenerate into a blind and seared conscience and a Bruitish Nature till he becomes as a Dog biting and snarling at all about him and returning to his vomit and as the Swine to wallowing in the mire and also Turning and Tearing those that lay good things before him Who now tramples them under his feet and offers despite to the spirit of Grace and accounteth his Saviors blood as unclean and profane This was It perhaps the Psalmist so prayed against not only when he cries against Presumptuous sins but Then also perhaps when he prayeth so earnestly to be kept from the Dog or Dog-like Nature of which he speaketh divers times And This it may be is also in the Revelation under the Notion of Worshiping the Beast and receiving his character where it is also said that All the world should so follow the Beast but those that were written in the Lambs book of Life From the Foundation of the World And I have somtimes inclined to believe that Christ is not only the True Light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world but that he Truly loves every man as he loves himself so long as he is a Man But when he degenerates into the Nature and spirit of a Beast and it may be the evil spirits are in the species of Ravening Beasts as good Angels in others and when one so degenerates into the Beastly Nature Then one falls out of Christs Neighborhood Yea and it may perhaps come so far that they may be no more warned lest they Turn and Tear those that cast such precious Pearls before them And in such a forlorn case it may be hard to shew why they should or how they can expect any more favor from Christ than a Beast or why so much And It may be This is That Sin unto Death of which the Apostle speaks when he addeth also that for such He doth not say that one ought to pray But yet he Doth not say One ought not to pray even for such also Which is One of the reasons why I pray for All I ought and All I may pray for When I am crying to an Infinite God for All my Relations and Truly they are very many as I somtimes say to God for I am Related to the whole Creation of God and yet farther than I can express and I know not But I may somtimes pray for some That I am not Tyed in duty or by express Command to pray for But I am still Tyed to Love my Neighbor as my self and so is Christ also I Trust or else I lose one of the sweetest pieces of the whole Bible and himself also brings the Notion of a Neighbor out so large that it may not only include Strangers but Enemies also And when a mans waies please the Lord he will make his Enemies his greatest Enemies to be at peace with him And if an Angel or if God himself forbid a man to pray for such or such a person City Nation or number of men yet This may be but to draw him larger out by shewing the danger of such persons As we see in the Prophet Jeremy and others that never prayed more sweetly than when they were forbidden to pray for such or such and yet they prayed Then most because they saw there was most need And Gods commands never do never will forbid us to Love our Neighbor as our self And that No man may ever despair we found Gods Love of pity and compassion so to reach to Beasts also that his great Command is that They also must be brought to keep the Sabboth and to rest the Rest of God and a good man and Christ is the Best of men must be and will be Merciful to his very Beast also Yea to the Beast of his Enemy and Him that hates him as we see commanded And for Those also that degenerate into the Beastly Nature lest They also should at length despair not to speak how often men are invited in the Prophets and the Revelation to come back again from the Beast and out of Babylon which shews they might return Repent and live we see How graciously God dealt with Nebuchadnezzar Though he so degenerated into a Beast which may be much worse than to be made a Beast at first and so born How Wisdom also crieth unto Scorners and How it is promised She Shall yet cry even unto Scorners may be here again observed out of the Proverbs To be compared with the 48. of Esay sweetly calling inviting and wooing the most obstinate sinners and Treacherous Revolters Yet for my Names sake and again for my Names sake I will resrain For How shall I cut thee off O that thou hadst or wouldst yet hearken For He speaketh in the present Tence I am yet teaching thee c. And how shall I give away the Glory of my Patience and my Goodness Shall I be weary also of well doing and having begun in the spirit of Goodness shall I also end in a fleshly Wrath or Passion God forbid The Psalmist also saith He received Gifts for Rebels also even for Rebels as we saw
OLBIA THE NEW ILAND LATELY DISCOVERED With its Religion and Rites of Worship Laws Customs and Government Characters and Language With Education of their Children in their Sciences Arts and Manufactures with other things remarkable By a Christian Pilgrim driven by Tempest from Civita Vecchia or some other parts about Rome through the Straits into the ATLANTICK OCEAN The First Part. From the Original For Samuel Hartlib in Ax-yard Westminster and John Bartlet at the Guilt-Cup near Austins-Gate London and in Westminster-Hall 1660. The sum of this Discourse HAving lost his Father and other Relations about the great Sickness in Naples the Author becometh a sad disconsolate Pilgrim all alone by Land till unexpected dangers force him from Rome or there about to the Sea Where in a great Storm and Tempest he falleth into unexpressable Horror and Anguish of Minde till at length by Shipwrack losing all his Company he is cast on a scraggy Rock and There by a Religious Person as an Hermite entertained till recovering his Peace and strength with a quiet minde he also Learned the Religion Laws Customs Language and Characters of That New Iland fully described in the Books following this First Part. In which the Father discourseth the Danger of wrong Judgeing our selves or others with the way to a right understanding and Judgement the great Work of the Spirit promised to the World by Jesus Christ Who was sent to Redeem our souls from All Deceit and violence and to offer sacrifice for every one that Erreth and for him that is simple Cleered from Ezech. 45. 20. with Psal. 72. Of our Access and addresses to Him by Prayer As Saint Paul Learned from the first Martyr at his Death and thence made it the great Character of a Christian cleered from His Epistles and the Acts with the Revelation and other Scriptures in Harmony to the Psalms and Canticles Conversing with Christ and Praying to him From the 17. page to the 44. How Christ taught his Disciples and others to pray Our Father c. How He prayed to His Father and How a Christian to Christ and the Father in and through Christ. As Calebs Daughter to Her Father by her Husband and Her self Of Zelophehads Daughters and Edoms Widows and Orphans from Jer. 49. 11. from 44 page to 53. The great Arguments to be pressed on Christ as our Brother Born for a Day of sorrow made of a Woman made under the Law to Redeem them under the Law How the Law lay upon Christ as the great High Priest and Prophet promised to Moses to be raised from our Brethren and Like us in All things and so in the Law also And as our King to write out the Law by which he Ruled and to keep it all his Dayes that so he may do it and prolong his Dayes and Reign in the Heart of his People Where also the way to settle a perpetual Monarchy to a King and his Sons for Ever As God to Moses Joshuah David Solomon or others from 53. to 59. How the Suffering part of the Law lay upon Christ and sor whom but especially the Doing Part. How All was by himself summed up into Love and that but little if onely to Persons Lovely and Loving again How God Commended his Love to the worst of men to whom the Law it self saith I am the Lord Thy God and I have Redeemed Thee and therefore thou shalt Love me and worship me and Glorifie my Name and keep my Rest because I have provided it for Thee and Do and will both Love Honour and Glorifie Thee from 59. to 64. and 94. to 101. How Gods Jealousie speaketh his Love and all his Visiting from 64 to 70 How God Threatned Adam in Paradice and how he visits to fulfil those Threatnings on Him or others from 70 to 77. How much better for us that infinite Goodness and Riches now fill a Finite Nature that longeth to be sucked as a Breast ready to break with fulnes still flowing up still flowing over and a Drop that runneth over can Enrich our Souls and make us ever Bless him who hath said It is a more blessed thing to Give than to receive And He that hath received freely must give freely Of his having All Power in Heaven and Earth being the Wisdome and Power of God and Better for himself to use it for Edification rather than Destruction from 77 to 81. How Christ Loved the World and Prayed for the World how not from 81 to 86. 94 to 101. Of Gods Hating Cursing in order to a Change and how Places or Persons Hated or Cursed may be Recovered Blessed from 85 to 149. 161 308. Of the Earth cursed for Man but Washed or Baptised by the Flood And of Baptising Children how Holy things of old belonged to every one redeemed by the Priests or born in their Families 18 120 186 365. How cursed Canaan was blessed again 122 c. And cursed Jericho Recovered 128 129. And Gibbeon And Aye And Sodom Moab and Ammon Edom and Amaleck of Esau. Egypt and Assyria with the Philistines Of Death and Hell in Saul conquered by Love in David bound up for 1000 Years As coming loose again in Saul of the same Tribe struck down as with Lightning and Named Paul after Sergius Paulus that Prudent Roman Deputy Of Shimei Cursing David or other Shimeis and of Judas and Pauls rising in the House of Judas Of Aeneas Ananias and Saphira Tabitha Dorcas or others Recovered by the Apostles Of Christs Love to his Father and duty by the Law requiring him to propagate his Fathers Love with all his might and manifest his Name and True Worship to bring in all his Children servants sons of his handmaids Strangers and Cattle also to keep the Sabbath to Rest the Rest of God from 100 to 117. 141. Of the Law of Redemption Laid upon Christ as the Kinsman that is able and hath Power and Riches in his Hand and a Tender Heart and Eye when he doth but see the naked and miserable that hath No Helper though they cannot weep it out to him or do not see him who will not hide himself from his own flesh when their Land or Person but especially their pretious and immortal Soul is Sold or pawned or mortgaged or forfaited How he hath promised to draw All men to him and to make All things new 56. 107. 124. to 163. How a man may put himself out of Christs Neighbourhood by degenerating from a Man to a Beast and of Worshipping the Beast receiving the Name Character Image or Number of the Beast Serpent or Dragon and how all the World worship the Beast but those that are written in the Lambs Book of Life How God with all his goodness knoweth how to punish the wicked but especially those that walk in Lust of the flesh and speak Evil of Dignities the sin of Corah c. the crying sins of the last dayes and how there was no sacrifice for
seemed Thus. Divine Sophia Though I spraul in Clay Yet Thou art neer ally'd and for a Day Of Wo Made of Woman Reach out thy skirt Bow down thine Hemm For It can Heal my Heart Vouchsafe to know me and to let me know Thee When thou hast thy Blackest Mask and though My guilt present thee Frowning Let me see The Frowns I fear are Love that Vaileth thee Made under That most Royal Law of Love That bids thee Love us Heere as Those above Thy Neighbour As thy self And who is He The Stranger Any Man in Misery 'T is Little Love to Love our Like or Friend And Less to Love one Lovely Fair and Kinde All Sinners may do This and Hypocrites Thy Law is Love thine Enemy that fights And Hates Reviles and Offers All Despites Yet if he Want Or if his Ass but stray Thou saist Relieve him Lead him to his way Nor may we stay for Tears But Misery Must melt our Eyes and Heart to Sympathy How dwelleth Else the Love of God I am That Behemoth That Beast that stray's That Ishmael Wild Asses Colt that bray's For want of Fodder Thou art sent to Seek and Help and Save All Lost and Needy That No Helper have To Comfort All that Mourn To Sacrifice For every One that Errs or is Unwise And to Redeem their Soul Their Precious Soul From All Deceit and Violence Thou hast Received Gifts Then Freely Give It makes thee Blessed more then to Receive And Thou hast Gifts for Rebbels And Thy Breast By Flowing alwayes Out is more increast And every little Drop that falleth over Is so Precious that it can recover Any fainting swooning Heart and can stretch out My Narrow Soul As All the Heavens about Thou art gone Over All that Thou mightst fill All Things with Good Then do his Holy Will That sent thee with Eternal Love to Dwell In us to Conquer Wrath and Death and Hell As David Saul To Break the Serpents Head And All his Works and Power To raise the Dead And make All new Which Thou hast also Promised Upon thy â—rone and Lifted up to Draw All Men To Thee Then Do it As Thy Law Requires of All. My Son Give me thy Heart Do Heartily And Do not Act a Part. Nor offer with an Evil Eye lest All Abhorr Thy Dainties Do To All men As thou wouldst be Done unto Or if thou Hate Us Love thy Fathers Name With All thy Might and Propagate his Fame And Manifest his Love As Thou hast said 'T was written in Thy Heart and seen and Read Of All that Reade Thy Words But do the same Do it again 't is sweet Declare his Name In us We shall believe Thou wilt not cease Till Thou hast brought Us All to Rest in Peace Thy Children and thy Servants Hand-maids Child The Strangers in Thy Gates and Cattle wild Must Rest the Rest of God and Sabbath keep Then see our Woful Miseries and Weep With All that Weep And let thy Bowels yearn To Pitty and thy Patience make us Learn It s perfect Work And when we Most thee Grieve O Then Most sweetly Teach us to Believe And know Thy Heart is Love And when we Hear Thy Loudest Thunders and do feel or fear Thy smartest Lightnings Make us sweetly Bow And silently adore and pay the Vow We made thee in our Youth or fears And Pray And Praise for what and whom we ought or May While in us Praying Thou dost say the same Our Heavenly Father Hallowed be thy Name Thy Kingdome Come and let Thy Will be Done On Earth As it is in Thy Heavenly Throne Give us this Day the Bread we need to Live And As We Debtors So do Us Forgive Into Temptation Lead us not But Free Us from The Evil Evil One. For unto Thee Belongeth Kingdom Power and Majesty Through All Eternity Eternity THE Translator also being a Stranger would bespeak his pardon if in any thing his Language shall not suit the Reader or the Subject which yet he hopeth may be the more excusable because he durst not hide some particulars of this following discourse which it may be some after ages may improve or at least excuse the Authors well meaning in describing some of the many things he met in so strange a way So much speaking the goodnesse and bounty of God the great Giver with the Liberal hand upbraiding none nor accepting Persons but in all Nations devising how to keep his Banished from perishing as the woman of Tekoa spake to David and still accepting and rewarding those that fear and diligently seek him hoping in his goodnesse through Jesus Christ the onely way of pleasing him to whom be given as of right belongeth Kingdom Power and Glory through all ages for ever more Amen Touching the Author it may be we should not ask or enquire his Name Nation or Quality seeing himself so Silent in it and it may be as unlawful to pry into others secrets especially of their mind and spirit as to unseal a Letter break open an house or discover that which is committed to ones greatest Trust. Yet by some passages he seemeth to intimate his Parents Christian and Religious who bred him tenderly and yet strictly in the best way they could both in Learning and Religion which seemed to have taken a deeper impression in his tender years then he well retained afterwards in the croud of this World and worldly employments both in War and Peace with many Civil Relations In all which he found himself so much entangled beyond his expectation or desire that for some years together it seems he wrestled with something within him that oft moved him to a more retired life which yet seemed to flie from him the more he pursued it About the height or greatest heat of the late Plague in Naples having lost his Father with other near and dear Relations he became so disconsolate that in a sad forlorn manner he wandred a while rather then Travelled all alone till among other places coming at length too neer the great City of Rome in that contagious season when he hoped for some little rest he fell into great danger of Death among some strict searches for suspected Persons from infected places But by great mercy escaping that danger also he was yet it seems so followed by the al-seeing eye that he was scarce got out of sight of Civita Vechia or some other place about that City whence he might escape by Sea But in a terrible storme and Tempest he was also seized and arrested with many privie Seals on his Conscience in most unutterable pangs of fear Terror and amazed Horror with a most heavie weight of guilt from all his former course of life which then lay gnawing on him with a grim vizage of death that King of fears staring and gaping on him with its open jaws ready to devour him This grew up to that height at length the storm still lasting and encreasing that there needed no other Processe or
by him to a journey when he meets with great storms and danger of death by shipwrack or otherwise For the Lord met Moses in the Inn and sought to slay him in his way to Aegypt though he sent him thither on so great an errand Noah brought rest to the World through the Floud and many tossings in great Waters And we might have lost some of the sweetest portions of the Gospel but for such storms by Sea In one of them Christ is in the Ship but asleep and they wake him crying Carest thou not that we perish And he soon took care and rebuked the winds though blaming their unbelief and fear with amazement which is Peters phrase to the Daughters of our good Mother Sara and he might learn it from our Saviour in their storms and fears with such amazement which is a phrase used several times in the Gospel But doth God take care of bodies Will he not be more careful of our souls and pity them more If we would cry and wake him also when he seems asleep about or in us and among us and say to him Master carest thou not that our souls perish Even those precious and Immortal souls which thou seemest to value above the whole World saying What shall a man give in exchange for his soul It is said Our blood shall be precious in thy eyes and shall not our Souls be more precious O we of little faith At another time Our Saviour did not onely send away his Disciples but constrained them to go in a ship when they might have gone another way But they would have sent away the poor people supperlesse from him and when he had supped them He sends away his Hard Disciples to be tossed in the Sea while he blessed the poor people In the fourth watch of the night he shews himself God is nearer us in a storm then we believe or Expect and he saw them tossed some pretty while it seems but would not help them or appear till the last watch and then they are more afraid and cryed out supposing it to be an evil spirit So easily may we mistake the kindnesse of God and think him to be the Devil to devour us even then when he comes in goodnesse to save us But he first rebuketh their fears and saith It is I be not afraid And when Peter would venture out beyond his strength and ready to sink cryed Save me I perish He is moved with compassion and immediately stretcheth out his hand and catcheth him the very phrase used to the Hebrews He caught not the nature of Angels but he caught the seed of Abraham He suddenly reached out his hand and caught as we snatch a thing perishing in fire or water So he caught Peter As he would do us also if in our fears and sinking we would so cry out to Him Help Lord I perish How quickly did he bring him into the Ship and it with them all safe in a calme to their wished Haven O that men would praise the Lord for his goodnesse and wonderful kindnesse to the sons of men as the Psalmist repeats it several times in the 107. Psalm Such goodnesse and wonderful kindnesse did the Lord shew to Paul also in that stormy voyage to Rome wherein yet he did not onely preserve Him safe but all his fellow passengers also as he told him in a night vision saying Fear not Paul thou must be brought to Cesar and lo God hath given thee all them which sail with thee And when he came to Rome he expounded and testified the Kingdom of God perswading them of Jesus both out of the Law of Moses and out of the Prophets And for two years dwelt in an hired house receiving All that came to him Preaching the Kingdom of God and teaching those things which concern the Lord Jesus Christ with all confidence As we read in the Acts. That he also taught them to pray to Jesus Christ is plain enough from the stresse he putteth on it in his Epistle to those very Romanes in the tenth chapter Where to believing with the heart he joyns also confession with the mouth and explaineth it by praying to him For it is written Whosoever shall call upon the Name of the Lord shall be saved For the same Lord over All is Rich unto All that call upon him But how shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed And the first Epistle to the Corinthians is directed to the Church of God at Corinth to them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus called to be Saints with All that in every place call upon the Name of Jesus Christ our Lord both theirs and ours And concludes thus The Salutation of me Paul with my own hand If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ let him be Anathema Maranatha The Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you my love be with you all in Christ Jesus Amen Which belongeth to every one that in any place calleth on Jesus Christ. And to All us there is but one God the Father of whom are all things and we in him and one Lord Jesus Christ by whom are All things and we by him as he speaketh in the same Epistle And the second Epistle concludeth with the Grace of Jesus Christ and the love of God the Father and the Communion of the Holy Ghost be with you All. As that Epistle so all his Epistles generally begin with Grace and Peace and some add Mercy also from God our Father and from our Lord Jesus Christ who as the Epistle to the Galathians addeth gave Himself for our sins that he might deliver us from this present evil World according to the will of God and our Father and I marvel that you are so soon removed from him that called you into the Grace of Christ. And concludes that Epistle From henceforth let no man trouble me for I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus Brethren the Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit Amen And to the Ephesians among many other remarkable passages of Jesus Christ he prayes that Christ may dwell in their hearts by Faith that ye being rooted and grounded in love may be able to comprehend with all Saints what is the breadth and length and depth and height and to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge that ye may be filled with all the fulnesse of God Namely by him in whom All fulnesse dwelleth Yea all the fulness of the Godhead And therefore He that desireth Him and prayeth to Him prayeth to the whole fulnesse of the Godhead and desireth it And in the same Epistle He that descended is now ascended far above all Heavens that he might fill All things and gave gifts c. for the edifying of the body of Christ till we all come in the unity of the Faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God unto a perfect man unto the measure of the stature of the
fulness of Christ. And concludes that Epistle Peace be to the Brethren and Love with faith from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ Grace be with All them that love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity Amen So to the Philippians every where Especially in that famous place of Bowing in the Name of Jesus paralel to that of the Psalm Early will I seek thee and ever will I bless thee and lift up my hands as here bow the knee in thy Name when I pray I will pray in thy Name and confesse to the glory of God which Christ challengeth to himself in the Prophet Isaiah and at conclusion The Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all Amen And in the Epistle to the Colossions For it pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell and having made Peace by the blood of his cross by him to reconcile All things unto Himself by Him whether they be things in Earth or things in Heaven Which to the Ephesians is according to the good pleasure of his will which he had purposed in himself that in the dispensation of the fulness of times he might gather All into One in Christ All things in Heaven or Earth even in him And to the Thessalonians Now God Himself and our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ direct our way to you and the Lord make you to increase and abound in Love to One another and to all men even as we to you that he may establish your hearts unblameable in holiness before God And again That the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ may be glorified in you and ye in Him according to the Grace of our God and the Lord Iesus Christ. And again Now our Lord Iesus Christ himself and God even our Father which hath loved us for the Father is Love and hath given us everlasting consolation and good hope through grace comfort your hearts and stablish you in every good word and work And the Lord direct your hearts into the love of God and patience of Christ. Now we command you brethren in the Name of our Lord Iesus Christ that you withdraw from every brother walking disorderly yet count him not an enemy but admonish him as a brother Now the God of Peace himself give you Peace alwayes by all means The Lord be with you All. The salutation of Paul with mine own hand which is the token in every Epistle so I write The Grace of our Lord Iesus Christ be with you all Amen And it may also be observed that what we read be with you might be read is with you and so it is not onely a prayer but a promise and assurance that the grace of Christ is with All calling on Christ and so believing on him for how can they call on him on whom they believe not And Timothy This is a faithful saying and worthy of All Acceâ—ation as much or more then all the Mazoreth or Kabâ— that Christ Jesus came into the World to save sinners of whom I am chief Now unto the King Immortal Eternal Invisible the onely wise God which Jude also calleth Our Saviour speaking in the language of this very Text be honour and glory for ever and ever Amen Which he subjoyns on this Great Cause I obtained Mercy that in me first Iesus Christ might shew forth all long-suffering for a patern to them even to all them that should hereafter believe on him to Eternal life So that Christ did not mainly mind Paul in shewing him that patience and kindnesse but did it to Him that he might be a patern unto others even unto all others that should ever after believe even to all Eternity And to the same Timothy he writeth Flee also fleshly lusts but follow Righteousness Faith Charity Peace with them that call on the Lord out of a pure heart And concludes the Lord Iesus Christ be with thy spirit Grace be with you Amen The great businesse of St. Peters Epistle is to presse forward in the knowledge of Jesus Christ and so he concludes Grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Iesus Christ to him be glory both now and for ever Amen Which also runs very much through the whole Epistle The Revelation of Jesus Christ wch God gave to him to shew to his servants is ful of prayers praises blessings of and from and to the same Jesus Who so plainly calling himself the first and the last which is and was and is to come the great Iehovah Lord God Almighty leads us plainly to the paralel places in the Prophet Isaiah where he saith the same of himself adding also that there is no other God or indeed no other True Being besides himself Representing himself in several species or Idea's For Plato was not the first that taught there was but One which yet was All. And yet again in the same chapter of that Prophet he saith Lo here I am and His spirit hath sent me even the Lord God and His Spirit though I am God and there is none besides me or none else but I and in me and One with me as the Root and every Branch is One with the Vine And in the same Prophet It is this One True God the First and the last and so All True Being which yet is sent by God and anointed by his Spirit and so the Messias or-Jesus Christ which plainly sweareth by Himself and therefore hath no greater that every knee shall bow or pray to Him and every tongue shall confess to Him which the Apostle citeth in that noted place of praying in the Name of Jesus and confessing to the glory of God even the Father also And may we add or may we not add what Christ of himself said If God be glorified in Him or in Them will not God also glorifie Him or Them with Himself Yea he will shortly do it nay he hath already done it before any other can glorifie Him for who can give him first or lend to him that it may be paid again To this also we might refer those passages of holding fast his Name and not denying his Name and confessing his Name as he will also confesse their names before his Father and the holy Angels both in the Gospels and Revelation and the call and Counsel of Christ as also the Fathers Drawing being that we come to Christ and learn of Him and buy of Him and open to Him that is still knocking to come in till his locks be wet with dew and his spirit be not onely abused but dispised and blasphemed argue much our speaking praying to him as well as hearing him who indeed is the end of the Fathers Teachings and Drawings so that he that hath heard and learned of the Father cometh wil come to Jesus Christ and converseth with him as a man with his friend whom he most loveth and honoureth also And the Angels of Heaven for they are all bid to worship him as we
that I say nothing of David in the 50. Psalm and Ezekiel the Son of Man and so a special Type of Christ the Son of Man is bid to make his people Know their sins and the Transgressions and Iniquities of their Fathers Which are forgiven when Seen and acknowledged bemoaned and repented as God promiseth he will bring them unto For it is not as some read it If they shall confess c. But 't is an absolute Promise in Leviticus and Deuteronomy and so cited also by Nehemiah or Daniel and Ezekiel that he would bring them to confess and that they should confess their own Iniquities and their Fathers also and be ashamed for them That which also followeth in the second Command is very sweet and far from shewing God to be an Angry Wrathful God as Satan would fain represent him As at first in Paradice some of his very first spawn cast on our great Mother and continued ever since till Christ shall break his head and destroy his malice with his works was This That God was an Envious God the Root of all evil and hard thoughts of God Who even in Judging and in Chastening and in all his worst visitations There Threatned where yet he spake his heart and seems to speak his worst will still remember Mercy Even in Judgment and in visiting most as a Jealous God he will remember Mercy And will but correct in measure and will not contend for ever lest the Spirit fail which he hath made But will visit only to the third or fourth Generation even in those that Hate him Which yet we All do and could not but do Till he Turn us by manifesting Love to us Love which he still beareth in his heart and it is there Rivetted so fast that he can as soon Un-god himself I would speak with Reverence as he can cast out Love from his Heart or act to his poor creatures without Love Nay give me leave to tell you he loved Adam Better more or with a Better Love or more Godlike after his Fall than before Nay it may be Now much better since his long sorrows and sufferings than before in Paradice Nay I had almost said with a better Love than he loved Christ himself before his Fall or Sufferings For he tels us it is a Little Love to love our like our Friend one lovely fair and beautiful kind and thankful still to us for all our love A very smal and poor and little Love which sinners shew and Hypocrites and All to All their like But that God might encrease his Love to Adam or might shew a Better Love than he could manifest be it spoken with Reverence while Man was Like him Holy Wise and Just Truly Fair and Beautiful in All he let him fall into the dirt and dust of death Into the Pox or worse disease that might deform him wholly so that he might commend his love indeed to such as hated him and were unworthy ugly more deformed then poor Job when botched all and naked most forlorn and miserable in his own and others thoughts and left in the hand of Sathan at his will But onely save his Life or Soul as God expresseth it Not onely for a Type of somewhat yet to come unto All that will wait with Job and expect the Lords End but it may be representing Adam also as accused and tempted by Sathan and at length left in his hands till God could shew his love was not onely skin deep as we say but everlasting Nay encreasing more and more as it could make or find an Object for that pity and compassion and that gracious Mercy which could not appear but still had been unseen abroad from God or hid within him had not his Wisdom contrived an Object for it which was Misery and guilt which was not till Sin came in and so he let him fall and shut him up under sin and guilt that he migh shew him Mercy which he could not do before And as before his fall God did not absolutely tye himself to Punish him So After the fall he did not execute That upon him which he might have done but devised devices as the Wise Woman of Tekoa said to David that his poor Banished might not perish And yet still preserved his own Honour and Majesty Truth and Justice too with such a kind of Love and Tender pity merciful compassion which could not appear abroad or possibly be shewn till sin or guilt or shame or fear or sorrow grief or pain or some such misery or other made an Object capable of pity mercy or compassion I shall yet a little more insist on these Particulars shew I hope they very well agree and no way contradict the Words and Mind of God even in the Law or harshest part of all the Scriptures First I premise God loved him and could not but love him very intirely if he loved himself while he was in his own Image And having so loved him and being so Immutable in his Heart Love and Nature he loved him to the End And I do not yet clearly see how any Promise can Oblige God to a more Constant Love of Man restored to that Image Then his own Nature and Heart moved him to love Adam In that Image Now if his Heart be not so truly Tender Gratious and Perfectly Good and immutable also in his most Genuine and Natural Love but that it could really change towards Adam in his own Image yea and that also before his fall or any demerit what ever as to decree his everlasting ruine or at least to leave him to it so foreseeing that he would so fall and rise no more in himself and his Posterity How can any man be sure and rest upon his Word or Promise that he will not leave him when he is renewed again into that Image Seeing it may be still doubted whether any man living can fully know Gods heart and mind by his words or expressions except there be some way else to know it and to rest and trust in it then his words can expresse or import Or unlesse a man may also be taught to believe his Word is Better Truer and more Certain Fixed and Obliging also then his very Heart and Nature is Which as some Teach or Believe was Such even then when it loved most or as much as it could love its self or its own Image that it yet hated and forsook and left to I know not what Irrecoverable misery his own Image and his dearly beloved in his own person or at least his posterity even his very next Son and Sons Sons to all Generations yea to all Eternity for the far greatest part of his Posterity May we not therefore believe and say that with a true constant and Eternal Love of Delight and Complacence from all Eternity to all Eternity God loved himself and his own Image where ever it was And nothing else but kimself and his own Image with that kind of
Love And so before the fall he loved man And being fallen with a Sweeter better Greater Kinder kinde of Love of Pitty Mercy and most tender Bowels of Compassion Which was ever in that Infinite Fountain of All being But it appeared not abroad till the Wisdom of God contrived how to shut up some in fear and guilt that so he might at once shew Justice Truth and Mercy also which then Met and Kist Embracing one another And the Lord foreseeing and Resolving all this that so it should and so it must be while his Heart was such and such it must be while he was and is himself which was and will be ever and beyond all words that expresse Eternity He still spake so wisely that when he threatned most yet he lefr an Issue for goodnesse to come forth and shew it self with Truth and Justice too And therefore at the very first Command and Threatning to our Father Dying thou shalt Dye or thou shalt surely Die he did not tye his hands or bind himself without such Reservations as might still afford room large enough for Truth and Mercy both I shall not enquire at present upon what account it pleased the Lord to abridge Adam in Paradise of That which he granted before when he gave him for meat e-Every hearb bearing Seed and every Tree in which is the Fruit of a Tree yielding Seed which is not Usual with God To give and then to take away without demerit Nor do I say Adam obliged himself to that which he needed not if he had considered his former Pattent or his Deed of Gift But this I say in general there is not a Word Command or Threatning spoken to man that is not spoken by Christ And first therefore spoken by God in and to Christ who then speaketh nothing but what God said to him in him and As the Father spake it unto him so he speaketh unto man But certainly there was not any one word ever spoken by God to Christ either Precept or Threatning with any purpose to make him Despair But to Do believe and live And by consequence never any one Word or Threatning of the whole Law spoken by Christ to any man but As the Father spake it unto him not to make him Despare but believe and live For which also see Deut. 5. 29. 29. 29. Psalm 78. 5 6 7 8. 81. 13. Prov. 22. 19 20. Isa. 48. 17 18. Rom. 15. 4. John 3. 17. 17. 5. 34. 12. 47 48 49 50. 20. 31. Again I do not see plainly what God meant by Dying when he said thou shalt surely dye or dying dye Or that if he meant the worst of deaths for kinde he meant it so also for Duration Seeing Christ when he bore the Curse and its heavy weight did not dye such a kinde of death or at least for such duration as it is supposed to be here threatned And the very phrase here used to Adam is threatned to Davids Child by Bathsheba and to many others in the Scripture And to Hezechiah it is added Thou shalt not live And yet he did not die but live And David hoped that his Child might live notwithstanding that threatning dying it shall die or it shall surely die And sure when it did die he did not believe it dyed Etetnally or that this was threatned by that phrase so frequent also in Scripture And if God had meant any such Eternal death to Adam by that threatning it is somewhat strange that after the fall he removed them out of Paradise and guarded it so least they should yet eat of the Tree of Life and Live for Ever though he had said Thou shalt surely dye But to put the matter out of doubt We may see Gods Meaning of this Threatning in the 24. cha of Ezek. where he saith the people should so certainly die in their sins and pine away in their Iniquities with the most terrible expressions and most vehement assertions that can well be imagined as Because I would have purged thee and thou wast not purged thou shalt not be purged till I have caused my fury to rest upon thee I the Lord have spoken it it shall come to pass and I will do it I will not goe back neither will I repent But you shall pine away for your iniquity c. which is the terrible Threatning reserved for the last place in that famous and gradual Judgement so solemnly denounced in the twenty sixth of Leviticsn And As a Seal of this most heavy doom Ezekiel is strucken dumb and can no more admonish or comfort them so finally devoted to destruction so that he never speaks a word more to them from that 24. chap. to the thirty third And there God lets and bids him speak again unto the Children of his people By which very phrase we are led back to that sweet place we cited so lately out of the 19. of Leviticus of bearing no grudge against the Children of his people but thou shalt love thy neighbour as thy self thou shalt not hate thy Brother in thy heart but shalt certainly rebuke him and not suffer sin to lye upon him Which is the Text on which the Lord so comments to the Son of man whom God there setteth up as a mighty Type of Christ to be the great Watchman and warner to his brethren and his neighbours Or to be a light to lighten the Gentiles also each man and every Man that cometh into the World Adding also on that occasion that if a Nation or a people of a place do of themselves in a time of darknesse and danger choose a man and set him up for a Watchman or a Teacher or a Ruler among them there being alike reason God will own it as His Ordinance though but of Humane Choyce and Institution Which may be compared with That of the Apostle of submitting to Mans Institutions in Government even for the Lord or as an Ordinance of God To be much considered by those that reject Rulers or Teachers if they cannot shew a special Call or Mission by God Upon That occasion the Son of Man which also reacheth to Christ whose work is much described in Ezekiel hath his strict yet general Rules also when ever God threatneth Man And Then remembring the last solemn Threatning but now cited from the 24. chapter which was the last spoken to them He commandeth Thus O thou Son of Man speak unto the House of Israel Thus you speak saying If our sins be so upon us that we must Pine away in them which was the last great Threatning How then shall we or can we possibly Live Say unto them As I live saith the Lord God I have no pleasure in the Death of the wicked even of the wicked but that the wicked Turn from his Way and live Turn you Turn you from your evil waies for why will you die O ye House of Israel And then giveth that sweet and yet general Rule for interpreting All the
prayeth for the World as such No more than a Man ought to love or cherish his Flesh as such But only in order to change it and make it New And this indeed seems one of the most proper sences of Gods Hating any Which in Hebrew is expressed by a word so neer That which is to Change as if Hating were but in order to a Change which is also very neer the sound of the words that in Hebrew signifie both to Change and to Hate And as Sone comes from their Sana to Hate as we touched before So doth Sin which is Hate or Shun And That which English Saxons whose Language is much Hebrew do call Sin is in Gods Language Hatred For he hateth Nothing but Sin And the Eng Sin is in Heb Hate or Chate or Hhate So that God Hateth Nothing but Sin And no person but as Sinful and so in Order to Changing of him As we see in his own Covenant His First Covenant and so his First Creation and the First born in all Dispensations must give place to a Second which is Better And the Elder must still serve the Younger or give place to it God will still shew himself Better and Better and so will ever to All Eternity And finding fault with his first Expressions or Manifestations he Disanuls and rejects or Hates and reprobates them in order to change them and make them Better VVhich he is still Doing For what he doth once he doth ever And the VVheel still goeth round as we find in the 90. Psalm and Solomon in divers places to be compared with that of our Saviour so often repeated They that are First shall be Last and the last first And behold I make All things New As in the beginning so it shall be ever I may add also That in divers Scriptures we may find Love and Hate to be but relative Terms or comparative God as God Loveth Himself only with an Absolute Love and Hateth nothing but sin with absolute Hatred But among Creatures He Loveth One before another as it cometh neerer to himself and his own Image So he prefers it before another which he hateth in comparison So Leah was Hated that is Less loved than Rachel preferred before Leah who was loved also but below Rachel And in such a sence God speaketh If a man have two Wives the one Loved and the other Hated that is less Loved For else sure God would never countenance any mans Hating his VVife But only as he doth a mans Hating his own flesh in order to change it and prefer somwhat before it And so Christ telleth us that no man can be His Disciple except he Hate his Father Mother Brother Sister Wife and self Whom yet he never should or could Hate if he be His Disciple and be moulded into Love But his meaning is as we find in another Evangelist Except he prefer Christ and so Love Him before All Those Which therefore in Scripture Language are All said to be Hated in comparison of Christ. And why may not Jacob the Younger be Thus Loved that is preferred before Esau who in This sence is Hated and rejected that is set behind his younger Brother But however These may be used or looked upon as Types of the Elect and Reprobate we cannot from Thence determine Final Reprobation as the Schools express it in the person of either Though the Scripture give us very sad Characters of Esau calling him a Profane Person yet I know not that it ever shews him to be Eternally Reprobate That Repentance which is spoken of in the Hebrews being his Fathers and not his own but the changing of his Fathers mind towards him which he could not obtain though he sought it with Tears But yet his Father also Blessed him and though he must serve his younger Brother it was but for a season till he could break his yoak as we shall see anon And This also but as generally in all the Dispensations of God out to the World the Elder as we may commonly see in most or All the Elder Sons named in the Bible or the first must give place to the Second Even the first Covenant it self must be rejected and disanulled and judged Faulty also that is Reprobate in order to a Second Better and more Gracious So it was said The Elder shall serve the Younger And Christ himself came to Serve and to Minister and not to be Ministred unto As it is said Joseph in Prison was Trusted with the Care or Government of all the Prisoners and set to serve them As indeed a Governor is a great Servant to his Servants As it is written Jacob have I Loved is it indeed an Interrogation rather than affirmation But Esau have I hated But How Hated The very next words of the Prophet who is cited by the Apostle shew us that This Hating was some frowning of Gods Face as we may say but not of his Heart and but upon the outward Man or Estate of Esau whom he therefore saith he Hated because he laid his Mountains and his Heritage waste for the Dragons of the Wilderness But may or can any man know or judg of True Real Love or Hatred especially That which is Eternal by All that is without or before him Is there not much worse spoken of Jacob and Israel in that very Prophet than of Esau Doth not the same Malachy say of Israel VVill the Lord regard your persons Even your persons And no wonder then his Soul abhors their Sacrifice Which yet is one of the worst things that Solomon observes of a wicked man But How frequent in the Prophets against Israel And in Jeremy 12. we see How God Forsook and Hated the deerly beloved of his soul. As an Emblem of Christ himself so forsaken Hated cursed and Rejected by God or of all the Elect who once were as Paul to the Fphesians children of VVrath or curse as well or much as Any others And the same Malachy doth not only observe the Jews so neglected and rejected but Cursed also by God himself several times Yea and that the Lord would also curse their very Blessings Yea and had cursed them already One of the heaviest or worst Curses in the Bible And This is for Spiritual Adultery and Judahs marrying the Daughter of a strange god As Gen. 38. Judah leaving his Brethren for it is not good for man to be alone Turned in to a Canaanite who bore Er and Onan so wicked that the Lord slew them Which is also in Malachy though lost by reading it Therefore will the Lord cut off the Master and the Teacher which in Heb is Er and Oneh And the Scripture seems often to allude to Tamar also at the end of that History Mother of All Judahs Posterity As the Church or every Christian waiting for Christ that Shilo or Shela till with child by his Father also leaving his Signet and Bracelets which save her at the fiery Judgment But we translate Tamar the
Precious in his eyes shall be their Bloud and yet more precious their souls which himself said was so exceeding precious as not to be compared with the World must it only be precious in our own eyes and shall it not be so in his also Let us then bowe down to him as the third Captain of 50. did to Elijah saying Let my soul be precious in thine eyes and the soules of thy servants for so the words are in the original And himself summed up all the Law into Love adding also that it was a little love to love a friend or one that was lovely or like us fair and beautifull kind and thankfull even sinners and Hypocrites do so but I say unto you love your enemies and them that hate you pray for them that persecute you revile you blaspheme and offer all despite to you Blesse them that curse you yea blesse and curse not be ever blessing and never cursing In a word Be mercifull as your Heavenly Father is mercifull and then addeth Judge not that you be not judged Which is the more to be marked because himself so often intimates that although the Father hath committed all judgement to him and authority to execute it also as we shewed before yet that he neither came to judge the world nor will judge it or any man it may be in his own person but will commit it to his Children who shall judge the world and Angells also and then the Son of man shall sit on the Throne of his Glory to seperate those that are judged And there also none are condemned but those that justifie themselves for if we could or would Judge our selves we should not be judged Yet even then also we are judged by the Son of man For we must all stand before his judgement seat who yet loved our nation and our nature and was made our Advocate and under the same Law with us The same Law of Love And did any man ever Hate his own flesh though he may chasten it and keep it in subjection Plucking it under the eyes as some render the Apostles phrase Or if he could hate his own flesh will he not love his own Spirit and his owm Image Will not That love seek to propagate it all he may he hath received the Spirit without measure He is infinitely full of that as Elihu speaks which is as New Wine yea as Fire in his bones and heart which as the Spring in the watch is ever clicking and the cause of all the beating in the Arteries and all the Pulses and it must have vent he cannot hold it in So it hath now pleased infinite Wisdome and Goodnesse to screw it selfe into the finite heart of Christ in his humanity so that he cannot hold it in or stifle it if he would as that which is infinite might have done and so swallowed it up as that we might never have seene or felt or any way enjoyed it But infinite is now so riveted into finite that this finite cannot comprehend it or detain it if he would He cannot detain it in unrighteousnesse not so much as he may the wind in his hand or all the great Ocean in his bowels So that if his eye were evil or his heart hard and narrow when he seems so kindly to invite and call and woo us to his dainties which the Scripture yet forbids us once to tast from an evil eye or from one that cryeth eat and drink but his heart is not with us which the soul of God abhors Yet indeed if Christ do but love himself and his own Spirit and his own ease he still will and still must give out freely having received that which is too great and strong for him to hold in and keep down if he would being an infinite Fountain still flowing up and still flowing out with Rivers of living water round about him So it is in all that do but receive some little drops of it from him How much more is it so in himself that hath it without such bounds and limits O how is he straitned t is his own expression till he poure out himself and his Spirit among us It cannot be taken from him against his will and yet it cannot be held in but is as an Ointment or a sweet perfume in ones hand the more it is pressed and heated the more it flows out and sends forth it's sweet Odours And she came behind him saying If I can but touch him or so much as the hemme of his Garment I shall be healed and vertue went out at every touch As the sweet perfume and precious Ointment on the Sacrificers head it drencht his Beard even Aaron's beard which yet was but an Excrement and to be cut off with every Sissors and it ran down through all his Garments and to every hemm and Fringe of them although to be changed and laid off very many times besides every nights rest And the Laver of old in the Tabernacle had no cover how much lesse the great Molten Sea in the Temple which had such a Fountain or Fountains still flowing up in it or into it as the very words in the Hebrew may teach us Have you not seen a tender Mothers breast so full and swel'd for want of sucking that she hath been glad of a strangers Child to draw it when her own could not or would not So and much more is it with the full breast of Jesus Christ which is such an infinite Fountain that the more it gives the more it may And if thou knewst the gift of God and who it is that giveth thou wouldst ask and ask again and never give over asking as we found before in Acksa and divers others till he filleth thee also with the upper and the lower springs Rejoyce yee then and be glad with him all yee that love him rejoyce with him all yee that mourned after him that you may suck and be satisfied with those breasts of Consolation And a drop that runneth over for he hath enough for his Children Servants Strangers Cattle all his Creatures every drop hath power enough to make us hunger and thirst and long for more till it may stretch out our narrow hearts and make them as wide as the very Heavens And he hath received gifts for Rebels also and his own Law was he that received freely mâ—st give freely yea and he said It is a more blessed thing to give then to receive As if he thought himself also and made himself more blessed by giving out freely then by receiving all the fulnesse he hath which would be a burthen to him if he could not did not give out freely as he receiveth And for more clear expressing his own mind and heart and will for doing good according to his Power which is still the measure of goodnesse also He hath not only promised to receive All that come to him and by no means no means to cast them off or out but also to
one as thou Father art in me and I in Thee that they also may be One in us And for this also I pray and make it my dying request That the World even the whole World may beleeve that thou hast sent me As now my Disciples do and are happy by it For it is Life eternall to know thee the only true God and whom thou hast sent Jesus Christ. Yea I have yet one thing more to desire for the World even for the World also though I did not so pray for them in the beginning of my Prayer And the glory that thou gavest me I have given them that they may be One as we are One and that the World may know that thou hast sent me and hast loved them as thou hast loved me And again I have declared thy Name and I will declare it that the Love wherewith thou lovest me may be in them and I in them Plainly intimating that All that come to Know his Name which he will ever declare shall come to Love God being Loved of him with the same love he loved Christ. To whom he gave many great Revelations not for himself as he said when the voyce came from heaven I have glorified my Name and will glorifie it again But that He might shew them to his Children and so great is his goodnesse to his Servants also Thus his Father Abraham was called the Friend of God because he knew his mind to which also Christ alludeth it may be more then once and was made his Privy Councellor For how or why should I hide from Abraham the thing or any thing I do seeing that Abraham shall surely become a Great and mighty Nation All the Nations of the Earth shal be blessed in him For I know him that he will command his Children and his Houshold after him his Houshold after him for he took his Enocks or his Catechised men to pursue the four Kings And they shall keep the Way of the Lord to do Justice and Judgement that the Lord may bring upon Abraham that which he hath spoken of him Which was to be a Blessing to All Nations yea and to All Families and by consequence Housholds of the Earth Which is perfectly fulfilled in Christ that Blessed Seed whose seed also must be as the sand on the Sea shore yea and as the Dust of the Earth for multitude for I saw a multitude which none could number in the Revelation and as the stars also through All the Heavens for Glory And yet these are only the First Born or those that turn others to Righteousnesse Being Kings and Priests to God and his Father But there are others also that shall be as the Firmament though not so bright as the Starrs For so we read in the last of Daniel and of Starrs also there is great difference and severall Magnitudes as St. Paul tells us in the 15. to the Corinthians As his Master also said In my Fathers House are many and it may be very different Mansions Every one also of that Blessed Seed and of the first Born hath the Blessing of Abraham and is a Child of the Promise as Isaac was and is so made Blessing unto All Nations and Families of the Earth and hath the Sure Mercies of David also as we touched before to Him and his Seed after Him Which may be hinted also in the close of the second Commandment For what is there said Of Gods shewing mercy unto thousands is plainly meant of Thousand Generations as appeareth by the opposition of three or four Generations before in the same Commandement And in the 7. of Deutronomy it is so expressed Know therefore that the Lord thy God he is God the faithful God Which keepeth Covenant and Mercy also which is hence remembred by Daniell and Nehemiah wiâ—h them that love him and keep his Commandments even to a Thousand Generations Which also plainly sheweth that the words of the second Commandement are not to be restrained to those only that actually love God and walk in his Commandements themselves But to their Seed also even to a Thousand Generations And in the name of Goodnesse proclaimed to Moses this of Keeping Mercy for Thousands is written with a very Great and unusuall Letter as to intimate some unexpressible Greatnesse of Goodnesse as the Jews will teach us And those which are not the Seed of Abraham may yet be within the thousand Generations of Noah who was also a Perfect man in his Generations and very dearly beloved and Blessed by God who also blessed his Sonns and made an everlasting Covenant with them And his mercy is to a thousand Generations yea to All Generations as the Psalmes expresse it from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear him and their Childrens Children Whereas on the other side when he would expresse his great Jealoufie and visiting the Fathers Iniquity upon their Children it is but for three or four Generations VVhich is so far from such a Threatning as may be taken by some that it is very great Goodnesse That the worst of Gods Visitations here threatned shall be only for three or four Generations was so proclaimed by God when he caused all his Goodnesse to passe before Moses who also repeated this on God as a promise when he interceeded for Israel at their making the Calf which sure he would not have then pressed if he had not taken it for a great peece of Goodnesse as it was the last in that great Proclamation and God useth to reserve his Best for the last And when Moses heard it he made hast to worship as if he had now seen the very worst of God to be Very Good and much better then he knew before Though it was a good Report he had long had of Gods Goodnesse but not half or it may be the thousand part of that which will be known When he shall come to be Admired by All that Beleeve Yea and That also of Not holding guiltless or not Quitting the Guilty speaketh Goodness also and was in his Name of Goodness Proclaimed to Moses and so taken by Him and repeated and pressed on God as an argument for Pardoning and sparing the poore People when the Calf was made And God answered I have Pardoned according to thy Word And truly All the earth shall be filled with the Glory of the Lord or with the Salvation of God as we have found by comparing two Psalms together and the 40 of Esay with the Evangelist câ—ing it which is a very Sweet and Gracious Promise By which we may clearly see that the worst of those Expressions did not mean Eternall Punishment but only such a Visitation for some few Generations as might very well stand with Pardoning So that the persons so Visited should not be destroyed for the Lord visits not to destroy but to save but yet Chastened and Corrected in measure and not wholly left unpunished As we find the very same Phrase used by God
every one of them I am the Lord thy God and upon this Rock I will build my whole Law and therefore thou shalt have no other God or make to thy self any Images c. For I am a jealous God which yet I could not be if I did not Love thee dearly as a spouse Or else I should not much care whither thou goest or what thou doest But for my great and spouse-like Love which maketh me so jealouse over thee But this very jealousy causeth such visiting as is most like to recover us again from all our wâ—oorish wanderings from the God of Love and the Guide of our youth And so intended by God to recover them so visited as we may clearly see by Elihues discourse unto Job and the Psalmist in the 107 th and many other Psalms to be compared with the 3 d. of Jeremy and the 2 d. of Hoseah with the first and second of Zechariah with divers other Scriptures And our great comfort is that all the Law also lay on Christ as much or more than any of us or all of us And besides his love to his own flesh and nature or to himself or his Father His very Duty to Him by this Law requires him so to love his God with all his Might also as to propagate his love to all he may and to manifest his Name and Worship with the true way and means thereof That is as the 72 d. Psalm expresseth to redeem our souls from all deceipt and violence or as Ezekiel hath it in the Laws of the New Temple to order a sacrifice for every one that erreth or is simple And the Psalmist saith He hath received gifts for Rebels also that the Lord may dwell among them Yea and to cast down all our vain Imaginations as Saint Paul expresseth it And though we strangely degenerate into very Beasts or to the worst of Beasts or worse than Beasts Yet the very same Law which biddeth us and Christ also to Love a Neighbour biddeth also to love a Stranger and an Enemie Yea and the very Oxe and Asse of an Enemie so as to help it under a Burthen or straying out of the way And is not our heart as Ishmael was foretold to be the wilde Asses Colt on which no man can sit till Christ send his Apostles as in the Gospel who finde it bound and tyed in a broad place where two waies met and They loose our Asses Colte and bring it to Christ who then rideth on it O daughter of Zion Meek and Lowly on an Asse the foal of an Asse And may we not find All this in the very fourth Commandement where every Man and so Jesus Christ also is bid to remember to keep the sabboth so that not only his Children but his servants and his Cattle and the Stranger in his Gate may Rest and keep that Rest of God That they may Rest as well as Thou as it is repeated in Deuteronomy And in the 23. of Exodus it is that thine Oxe and thy Ass may Rest and the Son of thy Handmaid to which the Psalmist may allude several times calling himself the Son of thy Handmaid And that the stranger also may be Refreshed The very same Phrase and word that is used by God of himself and his own Kest and Refreshing on That Sabbath day in the 31. of Exodus And our Saviour maketh the helping of an Oxe or Ass and their Loosing and leading to the Water to be a special work or duty of the Sabbath daies Rest. Which we may compare with that of the Prophet Esay He led them gently as an Horse in the Wilderness or as a Beast is led down a Valley or to a Brook So his spirit caused them to Rest. And in the Proverbs Agur saith I am more bruitish than any Man and the Psalmist so Bruitish was I yea Behemoth with thee as alluding to Behemoth in Job and That some render Congregation of thy People in several Psalms is Beasts or Thy Beasts As under Those Banners of four Beasts or Animals of which we read in Ezekiel and the Revelation Yea Solomon saith the great design of God that is Christ who as Man also is the great Searcher of hearts is to Try us and to make us know we are but Beasts She hem Behema Hemma lahem And that the Stranger also may be Refreshed Which is but a piece of that great Law in the very same chapter of Loving our Neighbor Thou shalt also love a Stranger as thou lovest thy self And in several places it is added For thou wast a stranger and thou knowest the heart of a stranger in Aegypt And the word for stranger in the Heb. is so neer to Hagar as if God would put them in mind of that Bond-woman who was an Aegyptian also and as Paul saith Gendered unto Bondage with a spirit of Fear which is another signification of its Root also And Gods Love to Hagar and to her son Ishmael that is God will Hear as he will appear also in the Mount may shew the Heart of God and his Goodness more than all his Kindness to Abraham who was Kind and Thankful unto God also And among other reasons for our Loving strangers it is added that God loveth Strangers and in a special manner provideth for them And it hath been an especial argument used by good men in all ages of the Bible For we are strangers and Pilgrims And when we consider that the Sabboth day did Typifie some greater Rest may it not be hoped that at length we may hear the Lord of that Day also saying to his children and his servants and the Sons of his handmaids also and his Cattel and the stranger also within his gates Come enter into your Masters Rest seeing it is greater than can enter into you For this Commandement I have received of my good Father Do we not also read that the Owles and the Dragons and the Beasts of the field and every thing that hath breath yea and All his Works shall praise the Lord but his Saints shall Bless him Do we not find Sabbatical Years â—nd Jubilees provided for the Poor and Strangers that had no Harvest and for the Beasts of the field and for the Earth also that it might Rest the Rest of God and that every one might return to his own Inheritance and the possession of his Fathers and why not also of our Father Adam in Innocence and that All Debts and Debtors might be remitted which it may be is minded us dayly in the Lords Prayer not only in That Clause of Forgiving our Debtors which yet He doth also for it is He that speaketh in us who else dirst not say Forgive us as we forgive but also in That Thy Kingdom come and Thy Will be done on Earth as in the highest Heaven And He that set us All on Praying so knew very well that it should be so He hath willed it and his people will it also Let it be
men who must be Honoured and Loved also as the Image of God our Father And the Greater Honour must be Given to the Weaker Vessel even as God also hath given it to That which might seem the most uncomely Which is an Argument that may be well pressed on Christ not only to bear with them that are weak but to give them the more Honour as the Weaker Vessel And those commands yea and Prayers also that we love and honour all men speak more of the unspeakable love of Christ who is the Root of this Spirit in All then can be Here exptessed by many Words The sixth Command Thou shalt not kill or thou shalt do All thou mayest to preserve thy own Life and thy Neighbours lyeth also on our blessed Saviour as the Text commented by many Scriptures Being by his Death to bring in Life and Immortality and to destroy Him who had the Power of Death the Devil and to redeem them who through fear of Death were all their life time subject unto Bondage Even as that pretious Psalm foretells He shall save the Children of the Needy and shall break in pieces the Oppressor He shall spare the Poor and Needy and shall save the souls of the Needy He shall Redeem their soul frrm Deceit and Violence from force and fraud and pretious shall their Blood be in his sight He shall Live and shall be tender of his Neighbours Life and how much more of his Neighbours Soul which himself hath said is so exceeding pretious and unvaluable From whence come Wars and Contentions Come they not from our lusts within us but the Wisdom from on high and sure then more as it is on high is Pure and then peaceful for without Peace and Holiness No man shall ever see God Gentle and easie to be entreated For the man of God must be gentle towards All men even those that oppose themselves being in the snares of Sathan and led Captive at his will A very sweet place when it is applyed to Christ also who is the great and good and best Man of God and therefore must be gentle unto All. No striker no quareler but gentle unto All. The man of God must not strive or fight Which also puts me in mind of That prophecyed of him He shall not strive nor Cry or braul in the streets the bruised reed he shall not break nor quench the smoaking flax till he bring out Judgement to victory over all Lusts and Pride Passions and Contentions Seeing This is the great Rule given us in the Psalms and new Testament also that he that loves Life and would see long dayes as Christ ever shall must refrain from strife and guile must follow peace and persue it and who will harm you in so doing when Himself also said next to the Pure in Heart Blessed are the Peacemakers which is much to be applyed in our Prayers unto him for They shall be called the Children of God as if himself also came to enjoy That Glorious Title of the Son of God by being so Peaceful and the Great Peace-maker To which also I may add Davids Blessing of Abigael and her Councel saying that when himself should rest from all his Enemies and Troubles it should be no Grief of Heart to him or offence that he had spared his Enemies also and had not shed their blood All This or much more lyeth in the sixth Command and from Thence is branched out in divers Laws in Exodus and other books of Scripture which all lie upon Christ made under the Law as much or more then any man to Man also as well as unto God his Father And we lose very much of the sweetnesse of the Gospel by not pressing the Law Yea the whole Law upon Christ that he may still keep it to us also as to God his Father seing it is vain to talk of Loving God if he do not also Love his poor Neighbour And who his Neighbour is we may see by divers places of the Law and Gospel compared especially in those which are branches of these great commands for loving our Neighbour as our self He that smiteth a man that he dye shall be surely put to death As of old to Noah the great Father of us all and so the very Law of Nations or Nature He that sheddeth Mans blood by Man his blood shall be shed for in the Image of God he created Man And that Image is still so continued and preserved by Christ who is the Head of every Man that the same Apostle calleth Man not onely the Image but glory of God If a man smite his servant or his maid with a rod that he dye under his hand he shall be surely avenged Which should keep a man in aw even to All under him For the Man of God must be gentle towards all c. If an Ox and by Consequence any other Beast or offensive Creature be wont to push with his Horn and it be told his Owner and He do not keep him in the Beast killing a man or woman shall be stoned and his Owner also shall be Put to death Which may be sweetly applyed to Christ who is the great Owner and Master of Sathan and all other pushing Horns of which if we complain as wont to Push and goar us or our Children is he not bound to keep him in and set us at rest from Him that pusheth at us Which may be hinted also in the Psalms where we find some complaining of pushing Horns as in the Prophets also and of the tearing Lion and Bear and the power of the Dog or other Beasts of Prey which the great Owner and Master must keep in upon Complaint that they were wont to push yesterday and the day before If a man dig a pit or do but Open a Pit digged by some other and do not cover it again so that an Ox or Ass fall into it he shall surely make it good How much sorer punishment if a man or his Child fall into it and perish which we may haply come One day to presse upon Christ also least he suffer us to fall into a Pit of his own digging or opening or any other Ye shall not afflict any Widow or fatherlesse Children for if thou afflict them in any Wise and they cry at all or do but begin to cry to me I will hear and surely hear their cry and my wrath shall be hot and I will kill you with the sword and your wives shall be widows and your Children Fatherlesse The word used in Heb for an Orphan is Jathom He shall be made perfect as well as He is wanting And the whole History of Jotham the Orphan of Gideon should be often read in These and all Times and the rather because That of Arma Gedeon in the Revelation may perhaps lead us to Gedeon As that of Sechem to Dina or Judgement as we touched before If thouâ—end mony to any of my people who are They the Poor that
are by Thee Thou shalt not press him with Usury or be as an Userer to him nor any way Hard for if he Cry unto me I will Hear for I am Gratious and will God Hear when we cry of a man oppressing or pressing us and will he not hear us against the Devil also and our spiritual pressors or Oppressors seeing he Fxecutes Judgement for All that are Oppressed And His Word is as pure silver seven times refined from Earth sweetly applyed to this very thing If thou meet thine Enemies Ox or Ass going astray and in another place This Enemy is called a Brother which may shew us how far that Phrase of Brother or Neighbour reacheth even to an Enemy and One that Hateth us As also Christ sheweth us in his Parable of the good Samaritan and divers other places Where he tells us 't is â—a little Love to love a Friend or one that is like us or friendly to us Thankful and Kinde which even sinners and Hypocrites use to do in Their Love But his Children and Servants and himself also must love Enemies and such as hate backbite blasphem and offer all despite unkind and unthankful and all this that they may be like their Heavenly Father Who with love of delight and complacence loveth only himself and his own Image but with pitty and compassion which may be a better or a kinder kind of love he loveth and is kind and Merciful to his very enemies and those that are unlike him froward and unthankful Yea to their very Ox and Asses also even as the Law here bids in Exodus If thou meet thine Enemies Ox or Asse going astray thou shalt surely bring it back to him again If the see the Asse of him that hateth thee lying under his Burthen Thou shalt surely leave thy businesse or lay aside thy Garments to help him up or help with him Which may be improved much in our addresses to Christ. For we may justly tell him Our poor souls are as the very Asses of his Enemies and those that hate him nay yet worse as the wild Asses Colt as the Scripture expresseth it and that is more unserviceable then the Ox or Asse or other beast of burthen is I am Behemoth with thee as the psalmist expresseth it But though I stray yet Thou hast put thy self under That Law which bids us help a straying Beast and much more when he lies under an heavy Burthen under which he cannot stir much lesse come to Thee as thou callest All that are heavy laden Now sherefore shew thy pitty and compassion to the poor Asse or the poor soul the bruitish Heart of him that is thy Enemy and Hateth Thee And I know one that said He never received a more sweet and kind return from our Saviour then when in great anguish of spirit he bowed unto him crying onely This Now shew thy kindness to thy Poor Enemy the Kindnesse thou hast spoken of to a Poor Enemy which is now at thy foot and mercy whom thou hast taken captive with thy Sword and thy Bow and while I am speaking Thus I think also of That spoken by the Prophet to the King of Israel when he had so many of his Enemies at his Mercy in the midst of his great City Shall I smite them my Father shall I smite them and the Prophet answered No by no means wilt thou smite them thou hast taken captive with thy sword and thy bow give them to eat and drink and let them go and he prepared great provision for them and sent them away so overcome with this Kindnesse that they could hardly be drawn to come any more as Enemies against the King of Israel who was so Merciful a Prince And Mercy doth preserve and establish a Kings Throne more then any thing in the World as Solomon shews and David also in divers places and so it doth and still shall establish Christs Throne also Which is a white Throne even when he cometh to Judgement and Mercy shall still go before him and be the stability of his Throne and Kingdom and blessed be they that hear and know and believe that joyful sound which is sweeter then all the Trumpets or the Bells about the fringe of Aarons Garment Which yet had a better Ornament even that sweet perfume of the Good Oyntment a meek and quiet spirit as Saint Peter expresseth it and the Psalmist compareth it to Love which with God is of great value and it drencht his beard throughout even Aarons Beard which was yet but an Excrement and often to be cut away and ran down through all his Garments even to the seams and fringes also round about And as if God had not yet enough provided for the Poor through all the Laws in Exodus and Leviticus He repeateth and addeth in Deuteronomy Thou shalt not harden thy Heart or shut thy hand from thy Poor brother As if all shutting of hands came from Hardnesse of Heart and that This also was mainly or onely against a poor man But thou shalt open thy hand wide and shalt surely lend him sufficient for his need in That which he wanteth Beware there be not a word or thought in thy wicked heart saying the seventh year the year of Release is at hand and thy eye be evil against thy poor brother and thou givest him Nought and he cry unto the Lord against thee and it be Sin unto Thee Thou shalt surely give him which before was lend him but at or near the year of Release it was a gift because to be forgiven then and Thy Heart shall not be grieved when thou givest to him a most sweet Command and Promise because that for This thing the Lord thy God shall bless thee in All thy Works and in All that thou puttest thy hand unto VVhich is the great promise to the Reading and Observing of the whole Law so that love and pitty to our poor Neighbour is rewarded as keeping of the whole Law As Daniel also to Nebuchadnezar even when the decree was made against him I councel thee to break off thy sins by justice and by shewing Pity to the poor And when the people asked John the Baptist What shall we do He said nothing but Pity the poor And so our Savior also to the wicked Pharisees Give Alms of all you have and All things shall be clean to you And lest All This might yet be too little or too narrow because it begun with a Poor Brother It concludes as general as well can be expressed Thou shalt open thy hand wide unto thy Brother to thy Poor and thy Needy in the Land Which Phrase is remembred to Christ several times in the Psalms crying Thy Poor and Thy Needy and forget not the Congregation of Thy Poor c. Where it is also Kite as the English sound the Hebrew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Kite or Knite the Beast or Beasts of thy Poor As alluding to the Oxe or Ass or wild Asses Colt
in case of Pure Chance Meadling and for no stroak or stabbing or any other kind of That now called Man-slaughter which I doubt may lie very heavily upon some Nations might have Refuge to the Cities of Refuge and be There preserved by the Judges in the Gates from the Kinsman or Avenger of Blood Till the Death of Him that represented our great High Priest And the 3 Cities of Refuge on the Right side of Jordan were Higher than the 3 on the Left which were also out of Canaan the Land of Rest. But we saw before How Jacob Crossed his Hands in Blessing the Sons of Joseph who lift up his Fathers hand to remove it but could not and afterwards put his Hand upon his Fathers Eyes which we may consider again With Eglon the Calf or Beast destroyed by Ehud a man of Benjamin or of the Right Hand but Turned Left handed and Sodom also set at Judahs Right Hana when her Captivity is Turned in Ezekiel Though she be There also called the Younger sister As Ephraim was the Younger Brother and yet as most or all younger Children in all the Bible to be preferred before the Elder And God owneth it also saying in the Prophets Ephraim is my First Born And so the Lost son also among the Millions of Ephraim who must make the Fulness of the Gentiles must have the Best Robe and the Fatted Calf and be Preferred before his Elder Brother In a word the First shall be Last and the Last First and you know not what you ask when you speak of sitting at his Right Hand or his Left Shall I add that although the Right Hand was generally Best with the Jews Yet with the Romans directly contrary in This also the Left hand Thunders and other Auguries were judged Better than at Right Hand Was it because Their Left hand was neerest or opposite to Heavens Right Hand or God giving them all their Blessings Or shall we say that After the Temple God himself seemed to Turn his Face Westward As Christ on the Cross and so That was now at his Right Hand which before at his Left and That Now before him which was formerly behind him It is True we read That Expression of Gods Turning But in the 80 Psalm and many other places it speaketh His Turning of Us. Yet in a Right sence As we cannot Love Him till He Love us so we cannot Turn To Him Till he Turn To Us or be Turned As the Phrase is of the Great Mystery of God in Christ Turning himself Toward us and us to Him Reconciled to us Did the ancient Christians also that prayed Towards the East do it in opposition to the Jews still Bowing to the West as we touched before Or Believing God or Christ on the Cross was now Turned quite contrary to the Posture He was in before Or supposing Christ the Mercy Seat of the Divine Presence to be still over the Mount of Olives where he went up into Heaven and There sitteth at the Right Hand of God till All his Enemies are made his Foot-stool But if This were All That Posture or Bowing Eastward becometh None but Those only which are in the Western Corner of the World For They that are more Eastern than Jerusalem must on that account Turn Westward and the Southern Christians Northward and the Northern Southward O but when shall we come to believe and know that Our Blessed Savior is In us as his great Prayer and Promise was As his Father is in Him and yet when Here on Earth he lifted up his Eyes and Hands to Heaven as his Fathers chiefest Residence And so we also Even Then when it shall please God to reveal Him in us As in Paul and to make him In us the Hope or Evidence of Glory All the Elders bowed to the Lamb with all their Vials full of Odours which are the Prayers of Saints as we read in That Blessed Book which Blesseth All that Read and understand it But in our little Body we have Hot and Cold Moist and Dry Muscles pulling up and down drawing in and out and yet All Those All other contrarieties make excellent Harmony So in His great Body the Church of his First Born and the World also much greater contrarieties than we can well express are reconciled and accepted also by Him who hath purposed in himself to Reconcile All things Even All things To Himself in and by and Through our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ and by the Blood of his Cross. Who is God over All Blessed for Ever Amen And to All that are called to be Saints or in Any place for it will be in All places call upon Jesus of Nazareth Their Lord and Ours I am bold to say because God hath said it and written it also Let Him that standeth Take heed lest he fall And there is No Temptation on you to you but what is common to man But God is Faithful who will not suffer you to be Tempted above your ability but with the Temptation will also make a way to escape that you may not run away but be able to Bear it However God may bear it from you or bear it with you and upon you Wherefore my Dearly Beloved flee from Idolatry I speak as to wise men Judg what I say And How comes in This Wherefore unless the Temptations to Idolatry be of All the Greatest and most dangerous And of All Idolatries That of our own Fancy or vain Imagination that is Image-making of our own Hearts more dangerous and more provoking God to Jealousie than All other Idols As we touched before in the second Command But who art Thou O man that judgest another or settest at naught Thy Brother If in any thing we differ God shall reveal This also Yet a little while and we must stand before His Throne who said This is my Commandement and yet again My New Commandement that you Love One another and Take Heed you fall not out by the way and by This shall all men know you are my Disciples if you love one another And it must be also Even as He hath loved us And by This we have boldness and confidence to pray and hope and believe he heareth us and loveth us when we love one another And to Brotherly kindness Add Love And that your Love abound and increase to One another and to All men To All men Yea and Honor All men And the Time is coming and already come he said that ye shall worship the Father neither at This Mountain nor at Jerusalem but in every place True Worshipers shall Worship the Father in Spirit and in Truth For the Father Seeketh such to worship him and such he will Finde O Thou that Hearest Prayer unto Thee shall All Flesh come and to Thee shall the Vow be performed Praise waiteth for Thee O God who dost both possess and inherit All the Praises of Israel in silence For so the Phrase speaketh and so the Jews
adustion and blackness which we still see in the Moors or others under Jupiter Hammon Lord of Aegypt called the Land of Ham and Misrâ— There also was Lebana the Tile or the Brick called Lebena 3 Taps long and Half so broad as we may learn from the Talmud Which may also perswade us that Solomon marrying a Daughter of Aegypt called his Spouse from That Brick-hill or Lebana As Abraham had his Hagar from Aegypt Yea and Sara also was recovered from Pharaohs House with great Riches by many Plagues as Types of those which afterwards brought out Israel Thence with great Riches also But when Solomon compareth his Spouse to Lebano and calleth her from Lebanon may he not remember Jacobs calling and carrying his Spouses from Laban By Lebanon or the Head of Lebanon Mount Gillead the Heaps of VVitnesse and Mispa To Penuel Mahanaim and 〈◊〉 or his Feast of Tabernacles After his Brother was Reconciled Seeing Solomon also Nameth so many of those Places or Actions And then cryeth Return Return O Shulomith as alluding both to Shelomith the Blasphemers Mother Levit. 24 and Shimeies Childe in Chronicles and Daughter also to Rehoboam and to Zorobabel from Babylon But now called Here as Spouse to Shelomoh Return from Babel with Zerobabel As thou didst Return with Jacob from Laban at Padan Their Redemption as alluding to his two Daughters To Mahanaim For so also it followeth VVhat would you see in this Shulomith What but Mahanaim Or such a meeting of Angels as Jacobâ—d â—d at Mahanaim And David coming to Mahanaim in great fear of Absaloâ— As Jacob of Esau parted his followers into Three Bands as Jacob did and committed them to his Fathers Good VVill which is Joab Abishai and Ittai the Gittite Iâ—to with him And Solomon cryeth Itti Millebanon Calla Itti 〈◊〉 Itti Ittai Itto Ito Ite Gitti get ye And His saying Thou hast Ravished my Heart with one of thine Eyes from within thy Locks And Turn away thine Eyes They overcome me And Thy Locks are as Flocks of Goats from Gilead and again Like a flock of Goats on Gilead may not onely allude to the same Hebrew words for Locks of Hâ—ir and Flocks of Goats which are Seirs But to the Seirites also from Mount Seir or 400 men of Sire Esau coming to meet Jaoob as he came from Gilead with his â—oats also and they surprised him with unexpected Kindeness and Love Ravishing his Heart with Those Goats of Seir more than All the Lambs of Rachel the sheep As if These 400 Seirites might also represent the 400 which recovered Davids Two Spouses also His Fathers joy and Brothers Beauâ—y Abigael and Ahinoam of Jezreel the seed of God After Three Dayes and a Nâ—ght of sorrow as he often alludeth As also the Two Witnesses that espyed Jericho lay hid three dayes and a Night When Rahab tyed the Scarlet Threed of Faith or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by which she was saved and All her House and Friends As Lydia and her Husband and divers others a seller of Scarlet also as akin to Rahab and Her Scarlet And Abraham also divided his men by Night Even his Catechised Enochs 318 of his own with those of Aner Escol and Mâ—mbre which might make them up 400 also As his Seeâ— must serve 400 Years and Then 3 times 400 and an Half also perhaps when we come to our Characters of Daniels Numbers and the Revelation Yea and Davids Spouse also Ravished his Heart and saved his Life and conquered his Fathers Wrath or at least blunted it by Her Flocks of Goats or Locks of Goats Hair 1 Sam 19 And Mical might represent the Goats also For she is All as her name imports Who is All. The Younger Daughter of Saul as we All were of Death and Hell till married to David And Then to Paltiel God my Deliverer or saved by God who followed her weeping over her see Jeremie 31. Till she also came to Bahurim the Elect or Virgins as Alemoth in the Chaldee Paraphrase And when she was come to Bahurim Abner the Fathers Light or Understanding who must not look David in the face till he bring in Mical saying to Paltiel Return again again O Son of man carried home Mical and delivered her to David whom she Loved though for her Mocks and Saul gave her for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 she is childlesse which is a great mystery besides the saving of her children from Hanging As Those of Adriel That is the Flocks of God who are made spectacles to Men and Angels as the Great Catharmata to bear the Curse and scorn of others Who was the son of Barzillai a famous name of Meholah And Abel Meholah was the City of Elisha God Jesus the Judge or Son of Shaphat and famous for Gedeous victories Judg. 7. 22. And in Solomans time also As comming from Mahalah sister to Nebaioth Ishmaels Daughter married to Esau As another Mahalah Grandchild to David was afterwards married to Rehoboam But This Adriel of Meholoth marrieth Sauls Eldest Daughter promised to David named Merab that is Before the Rabble as we read of Nehemiahs brother fearing God Merabim before many or the Rabble as English expresse the Hebrew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But this Merab the first born from Saul becommeth but a little weak Flock of God Adriel Meholoth As David may allude in all the Psalms that speak of Mahalath But Fear not Little Flock You are the First Born and it is your Fathers Pleasure to Give you a Kingdom But Mical Loved David Tell me Peter Who shall love him most or best And David is Love And Love must Conquer All and Cover All Transgressions As Solomon tells us before the Beloved Disciple or other Apostles But we are not yet come to shew how David was also to fulfill That of Iacob with his two sister wives the Daughters of â—aban Yet They who track him Thence to Bethlehem Ephrata and see Rachel Dying thereabout will not wonder at That spoken of Rachel at Ruths marriage and our Saviours Birâ—h as Davids also at that very Bethlem â—phrata And because they smote the Iudge of Israel on the Cheek He gave them up till She bring forth the fulnesse of the Gontiles as we saw before who There travelled so neer to Bethlehem Ephrata Which though it was but small among the thousands of Iudah yet was to bring forth the Ruler that was Typified by David and by Both the sons of Rachel also Dying and Crying There till Christ was Born Who as the Talmud and most Ancient Jewish Authors teach us was first to come as the son of Ioseph Ben Ioseph and to be slain and Then Ben David who was to be a Glorious Prince and to recover them as David did his two wives and all his friends carried captive from Ziglag as Iacob brought his two wives from Laban by Mahanaim also of which before They that track him from Laban to Aegypt and back again As Abraham from
more than That I will not be your God or I will not shew you mercy Or Thou shalt Die and thou shalt not Live as it was said to Hezekiah and yet he did not Die but Live Or that to Samuel or Jeremiah Thou shalt not Pray for This man or This people Which yet it may be made them Pray More than they did before and so perhaps was One good means to recover them that else might have been so irrecoverable And so This very saying of Christ if he had so said I will not Pray for the world might have been a great means to save the World and to recover them by convincing them of their forlorn and desperate estate For This may be one great End of the heaviest Threatnings in the Scripture not only to shut men under fear and guilt that so they may be fitter Objects of Pity and Mercy but to Convince them also that they may be in a way for mercy It being the great Art of the Holy Ghost to work along with the Word sutable to the Subject and Object it hath to work upon And in a sharp Threatning it is as Vinegar or burnt Allum or some Corrasive to putrid flesh that must be taken off And How will a poor Soul Tremble under This That Christ who is Love it self should once say I will not Pray for you As every one is ready to apply it to himself while under the Convincing Work of the Spirit which is promised to Convince the world also of sin and Righteousness But he doth not say I Will not Pray for the world but only I Do not Just perhaps as in the Chapter before he said to his own Disciples I do not say I will pray for you for the Father himself loveth you And in That day you shall ask me Nothing And hitherto you have asked Nothing Which are Negatives comparative not absolute And why not This also I do not pray only or mainly and chiefly for the world but for Those thou hast given me out of the world And it may be Christ finds enough upon him as a Man and so only he Prayes to mind his Elect and care for Them Though God and He also as God Loveth the world also and the Peoples in distinction from Israel as Moses expresseth it Yea and He was given also for the world and sent to bear away the sins of the world and not to condemn but save the world and to be a Propitiation for the sins of the world As we read with many such passages in This very Apostle who records This Prayer And if we take the words asstrictly as we may being only in the Present Tence I do not yet Pray for the world We know not how soon he yet might pray for the world also Though he Now did not Seeing in this very Prayer towards the end he prayed for others Many others then he Now Prayed for at the beginning of it And I know not but the VVorld might Then come in also if I should grant it did not Now. Epecially seeing One great End of all he asked for his Disciples also and for all others was that the World may come to know that thou hast sent me and hast loved them as thou hast loved me And in the beginning of this very Prayer Christ sheweth that it is Eternal Life to know God and Him whom God had sent And by this he proved that his Disciples knew the Name of God and kept his Word because they now believed that God sent him and knew surely that he was come out from God And yet in the latter end of this Prayer he beggeth so and so for His and all that should believe that the whol World also might come to know that God had sent him and had loved them as he loved him Which may be added to That we noted in the chap. before VVhen the Comforter shall come to You he shall Convince the VVorld also of sin and of Righteousness And yet as himself and St. Paul also said the World as the World and the Carnal man as Carnal did not receive conceive or understand the Spirit or the things thereof So in a safe sence also we may say Christ did not Then Pray for the World that As the World they might be saved or be Happy while they remained Such But that they might be changed and called out of the World and so Turned from Darkness to Light from the Power of Satan unto God and then might also receive an Inheritance among them that are sanctified through Faith in Christ. Which was the sum of This Prayer it may be and the great Commission given by our Lord himself when he sent Paul to the Gentiles and made him a Minister and Witness or Martyr also to the whole World And He gives us This Sum of the Gospel he was to preach That God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself and Not imputing their sins And the Mystery of Godliness God manifest in the Flesh and believed on by the VVorld And if any take the VVorld here for the Systeme of Elements and not for Men of the World I may say Christ also might mean only the Worldly Systeme which he prayed not for but for all men of the world and in the world But St. Paul in several places saith and that also in the Spirit or person of Christ whom we found before as Ezekiel the strong God and yet the Son of Man to be the great Watcher and Warner for every man and as Ezekiel bid to order a Sacrifice for every one that erreth and is simple he was Warning every man and Teaching every man in all Wisdom that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus And he bids us Love All men and prayes they might Love All men even as He loved them Yea and we are bid to Honour All men For Man is the Image and Glory of God And directly against the sence which some suppose in Christs words I pray not for the World but for These St. Paul exhorts first of all That Prayers Intercessions Supplications yea and giving of Thanks also be made for All men Which he saith is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour Who Will directly Will have All men All men to be saved and to come unto the knowledg of the Truth For there is One God and One Mediator between God and Men All Man-kind the Man Christ Jesus who gave himself a Ransom for All for he is the Propitiation for our sins and not for ours only but for the sins of the whole World to be testified or witnessed or manifest in due season or its proper seasons For it is plural in the Original expressing divers several and proper seasons for the manifestation of That Truth to the World Of which we may speak again in Times and Seasons And yet also in a True and safe sence we may say Christ loveth not the World as the World nor