Selected quad for the lemma: nature_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
nature_n	assume_v	divine_a	union_n	2,494	5	9.4017	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A60227	The life and death of Sir Henry Vane, Kt., or, A short narrative of the main passages of his earthly pilgrimage together with a true account of his purely Christian, peaceable, spiritual, gospel-principles, doctrine, life and way of worshipping God, for which he suffered contradiction and reproach from all sorts of sinners, and at last, a violent death, June 14. Anno, 1662 : to which is added, his last exhortation to his children, the day before his death.	Sikes, George.	1662 (1662)	Wing S3780; ESTC R19959	148,120	164

that they shall find them again with usury in conjunction and harmony with the new-creature Life of saving Faith let them make their best of them for their defence in this case Let them produce their strong reasons let them come forth in the greatest pomp of Argument and Eloquence they can against allegorizing Unless they can afford more pertinent interpretations of the ●bove mentioned Scriptures and many others without allegorizing what they say in this matter is not much to be valued They will find themselves as far wide from understanding the Scriptures in any other way as Iobs three friends were from understanding his case and my answer to such colourable reasonings shall be that which Iob has furnished me with How forcible are right words but what doth your arguing reprove Job 6. 25. This yet must be granted that the devil who is a most dextrous and skilful imitator of Christ in all his dispensations by feigned resemblances of truth will also strike in at this allegorizing way of interpreting the Scriptures He will labour hereby to the utmost to confound and bewilder both teachers and hearers that take and own this course He will if possible run them all a ground in a thousand mistakes and false conclusions But he never puts himself to this trouble till he finds men will be allegorizing as neither will he make use of the choicest flourishes of his transformed angelical appearance to impose himself on men as Christ in spirit till nothing but that will serve their turn Then he perremptorily commands them under this disguise of an angel of light out of their own senses wills and understandings into a pure subjection to his dictating and ruling influence as the onely superior dispensation and attainment to what they ever yet experienced And allegorizing of Scripture in his way he finds to be a very apposite means to nourish and keep them safe under his wing in that his highest dispensation his mystical sabbath a rest from their labours under his angelical steerage These with all other his inferiour crafts and designs above mentioned does this perillous Impostor mannage upon the various tempered and differently enlightened inhabitants of the whole world every moment of time But it is one grand piece of his mystery of iniquity to keep men quite off if he can from allegorizing of the Scriptures and consequently from all the spiritual sence and mystery of them throughout He perswades by all means that men would stick in the letter as the onely course to hold fast the form of sound words and that they would quit mystical sence in the Scriptures and so the mystery of Godliness in their persons He would never have them own the Life hid with Christ in God That 's the onely Life he fears Those that rest in the letter of Scripture and deny the mystery will easily be induced to rest in the form of godliness and deny the power thereof from such turn away 2 Tim. 3. 5. They cry out against the Allegorist call him blasphemer say he has a devil as the Iews served Christ and Luther Swenckfeld in that general answer to his puzzling Letters The Lord rebuke thee Satan So much for Allegory BY way of Recapitulation then and as deducible from or at least in exact consonancy with the divinity part of this Sufferers Doctrine and Character take these following Conclusions 1. God in Christ as Christ is the purely divine form of God is absolutely unmovable incommunicable in a capacity too high for the creation of either world natural or spiritual 2. Had God remaining purely in the divine nature without assuming creature-Creature-nature into personal union therewith produced or created this first world it must needs have been created in a violent instantaneous manner without any progressive motion as in the six dayes Gen. 1. And when created Angels and men so made must needs have been everlastingly miserable unless reduced to their primitive nothing again For God that is the onely Fountaine of all happiness and satisfaction had remained in an utter uncommunicableness and been shut up in absolute invisibility to them for ever 3. God therefore in Christ condescended to cloth himself with a twofold creature-forme natural and spiritual through the peculiar operations of the second and third of the three that are one 1 Ioh. 5.7 in order to capacitate himself for the creation of both worlds as also for the communication of himself to his creatures when created 4. This twofold creature-creature-nature as in personal Union with God in Christ may by communication of Idioms and denomination of the whole person from the purely divine nature and form be called God God is said Acts 20. 28. to have purchased the Church with his own blood 'T is a Maxime in School divinity Whatsoever is in God is God 5. This twofold creature-nature of Christ as transcribed and copied out by him in the persons of elect angels and men may be called divine specially the superiour and more excellent kind of it but not God neither are the persons of angels or men by being but thus partakers of the divine nature either Christ or God 6. That being which angels men received in their first creation and that Image of God that was then stamped on them was in the life glory and righteousness of it but a shadowy corruptible or changable thing It was the image of the Mediator considered as in the changeable state of creatureship wherein he became the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world and again in the ●ulness of time the image of the first Adam in Christ that that is to be crucified in us as well as in him otherwise how can we be brough● into conformity with him in his death 7. Angels and the souls of men as having but this mutable Image of God in them received in thier first-creation are mortal as to the glory and life of their Beings in communion with God and in the way of righteousness The angels that fell and man when he fell died the death as to this Life that is lost that Life of communion they had with God in the righteousness and glory of their first-creation Thus in the day Adam did eate the forbidden fruit he died yet lived in the body many hundred years after 8. All mankind fell in Adam the tree out of which we spring as branches In him we all died Christ comes to give a general revival general redemption out of this dangerous fall Rom. 5. 12 19. and 1 Cor. 15. 22. As in Adam all die even so in Christ shall all be made alive It shall not be said our first parents eate the sowre grape and our teeth are thereby set on edge but all souls are redeemed and recoverable by Christ if they stubbornly refuse not into the life light and liberty of their understanding and will the proper principles of their first-creation The soul then that sin●e●h either by willful refusal of this renewal or the loss

Synagogues Away with him away with such a fellow from the earth say they it is not fit that he should live Act. 22. .22 We find the Iewish religious party that served Paul thus striking hands with a pro●ane Interest Act. 17. 5 7. Through envy at the spiritual believers Faith and Testimony they call to their assistance certain Iowa fellows of the baser sort set all the City in an uproar assault the house of Jason dragging him and other brethren before the Rulers of the City and crying These that have turned the World upside down are come hither also and do contrary to the Decrees of Caesar saying there is another King one Iesus This is the charge at all adventures they matter not much for proofes while they can find stones as they served Steven Act. 7. The World is turned upside down indeed But understand how O ye bruitish among the People ye fools when will ye be wise The honest Heathen is soberer than you the legal Christian is soberer than he the spiritual man is the soberest of all and he is reckoned the most disordered He speakes forth the words of greatest truth and soberness The case then is this when the World is in a mad bruitish disordered hurly burly they that attempt to bring righteousness a-floate are accused of turning it up side down Setting all to rights is reckoned the greatest Confusion The Rights of the Kingdom are reckoned the Wrongs of the King and many with whom the true native Rights of an earthly Kingdom will down are ready to startle at and resist the rights of Christs Kingdom in the Spirits and Consciences of men Even they will be ready to say of the Assertors of such Rights that they are no longer fit to live in the World that 's man's judgement The World is no longer worthy of them that 's God's Heb. 11. 38. 'T is plain God and men are of exceeding contrary Judgements concerning the true believer 'T is as plain We must all appear at last before the Iudgement seat of Christ for our final sentence 'T is plain also that we ought to obey God rather than Men Act. 5. 29. And not to be the servants of Men in things pertaining to God 1 Cor. 7. 23. From the cross constitution then which this world is generally found in to all Truth but most of all to the Spiritual and Sublimest sort of Truth it may appear what a hard time a Believer is like to have of it if he stand up for the Cause and Interest of God against the Devil who is called the God of this world 2 Cor. 4. 4. Here is the grand competitor of Christ that struggles for the Soveraignty the great red Dragon Rev. 12. 3. This is he that musters up animates and influences the sons of men to fight against God that he may exalt himself in them above all that is called God 2 Thes. 2. 4. Working in the children of disobedience at his pleasure Ephes. 2. 2. Do you see your General O ye sons of men will ye still fight under his Banner Consider the main Impostures of this self-transformer whereby you are beguiled into his Interest First He seduces your Understanding into this most false perswasision That he is the highest rational Being to whom doth of right belong the Legislative Authority and Supream Magistratical Dominion over the whole earth as God of this World under whose influence and dictates all earthly Thrones and Benches of Judicature ought to proceed in judgement Under this pretended and assumed Title of the highest rational Being he expects to be owned and submitted to as requiring no allegiance or obedience from his Subjects upon any other tearms than as he approves himself to their Consciences to mannage his Government exactly according to the Principles of humane Nature and Rules of right Reason Secondly He assumes and challenges to himself the Authority of the highest Spirit of Truth boasting himself as the infallible Teacher and Guide in matters of Faith and divine Worship in all things pertaining to the good and salvation of Souls Having thus assumed to himself these two grand prerogatives of Christ's Crown as the Supream Head not under but above Christ himself yea in direct contradiction to him in all Causes and over all persons as well Ecclesiastical as Civil 't is obvious to imagine what Titles Christ and his followers are like to have from this Dragon and his First They will boldly and openly assert that that which is inde●● the spirit of Christ in him and his is an irrational Fanatick spirit destructive to all natural Order and good Government in humane Society Secondly That it is a deceitful deluding Spirit destructive to all sound Doctrine divine Institutions Church Order and Rule In these four things this grand Antichrist is the liar that denies Iesus to be the Christ. Under which Generals are comprehended multitudes of Particulars in his skilful methods of delusion needless here to be enumerated He that hath once gained these four points in the generallity of men will easily out-vote and cry down Christ and his for Blasphemers and Disturbers of mankind and accordingly handle them He prevailed even with the learned Religious Jewes to serve Christ thus Yea he attempted to seduce Christ himself to his party to own him for God fall down and worship him Christ refuses He therefore steers another course sets the Jewes upon it to call him Blasphemer and say he hath a Devil This is one step towards the accomplishing of his design when he hath once engaged men to say of Christ and his followers that they are Blaspemers and Devils he that thus makes them liars will make them Murtherers too they will soon cry Crucifie them Crucifie them right or wrong Away with them from the earth it is not fit that they should live Christ hath told us these things before hand Joh. 15. and Chap. 16. 1 and 4. that we should not be offended or surprised when they really come upon us If they have done these things to the green tree what will they do to the dry Luke 23. 31. The Servant is not greater than his Lord Joh. 15. 20. If the Master be called Beelzebub how much more shall they call them of his houshold Matth. 10. 25. Satans followers have the start of Christ's for number they out-vote them clear He ha's four hundred lying Prophets against one true 1 Kings 22. 6. and vers 20 23. I suppose you may discern by this time whether this Sufferer or his Enemies were in the fault that he was reckoned a man of Contention But peradventure this may yet grow clearer by considering his Principles He spake much of Principles What meant he Some Fundamental Truths worded and propounded in a Book as Perkins his Six Principles or the like He meant inward ruling Principles or Springs of Life and operation in men By taking a little freedom in handling this Point I shall give you aim at his Principle in its

Deut. 32. 19 21. and Christ after him Mat. 9. 12 13. Cleansedness from the pollutions of the World corruption of Nature revival from their death in trespasses and sins hinders not but Satan may re-enter old sins recover dominion and so the members of that building on the sand that kingdom or heaven that may be shaken Heb. 12. 26 27. may come to be trees twice dead fit only to be plucked up by the roots cast into the fire and burned Iude 12. and Heb. 6. 8. 2 Pet. 2. 20 22. Mat. 7. 22 27. and Chap. 12. 43 45. Ezek. 16. 38. And as it is not the present freedom from natural pollution so neither is it the ornament of excellent gifts supernatural or infused humane learning much less natural parts and acquired humane learning the tongue of men and angels all dexterity of expressing ●heir conceptions either intuitively or by a sound of words incident to those two choicest ranks of treasures in their first-creation-capacity that can secure them from being but as sounding brass or tinckling cymbals 1 Cor. 12. 31. and 13. 1. Ezek. 16. 1 15. A great noise they may make a great repute they may have as the onely compleat interpreters of the Oracles of God yet all amounts but to an indistinct uncertain sound No man can tell thereby how to prepare himself to the battel 1 Cor. 14.7 8. and Ezek. 33. what weapons or what armour to provide They give no right character of those spiritual weapons mighty through God for the pulling down of strong holds in our selves and others 2. Cor. 10.4 or of that whole armour of God Ephes. 6. 11. wherein alone the true believer is able to wrestle it out not onely against flesh and blood but against Principalities Powers Rulers of the darkness of this world and spiritual wickedness in high places vers 12. The onely new-creature spirit in man that is greater than he that is in the world 1 Iohn 4. 4. is set at naught by those that warrant the first building secure is contradicted blasphemed called the devil The wisdom of God is by them tearmed the wisdom of the Serpent Did not matters go thus between Christ and the Master-builders in Religion amongst the Iews They reject the chief corner stone Psal. 118. 22. Mat. 21. 42. and how is their house like to stand it may indeed be emptied of filth swept cleansed garnished with excellent gifts and ornaments Mat. 12. 44. 2 Pet. 2. 20. 1 Cor. 12. 31. Ezek. 16. 9 13. Yet in all this flourish there may be a deep unsuspected ignorance or inadvertency of the more excellent way the way of love or state of divine Life wherein the stones of their building members of their Churches are capable to be brought forth by being broken and formed up anew into an unchangable harmony and indissoluble union of spirit with the Lord 1. Cor. 6. 17. If this be gain-said the onely spirit and spiritual harness that accommodates men for a successful contest with the devil and all the powers of darkness is wholly laid aside How then shall we fight the battels of the Lord when that very faith is decried as a diabolical fiction that is the onely principle of Life in men whereby to undertake resist conquer triumph over the devil and swallow up death it self into victory Let us no longer be flattered by our crafty over-reaching adversary into a security and satisfaction in such armour and weapons as he knowes he can strip us of at pleasure and re-enter The renewed spirit of man however accomplished and adorned with spiritual gifts the wisdom the righteousness of man are not the spirit the weapons the armour of God nor can secure any man from the most fatal and irrecoverable apostacy Many stars of the first magnitude as to all this glory and ornament have often been known to fall from this kind of Heaven or Kingdom of man's righteousness Besides all the sad instances in former ages for this have not the late years of Englands deliverance brought upon this stage of ours and exhibited to our view multitudes of teachers and professors who have notably shined forth in this glory wisdom and righteousness through the knowledge of Christ after the flesh accompanied with excellent gifts and yet through a spirit of enmity and contradiction a root of bitterness springing up in them Heb. 12. 15. against the more excellent way the Life of Faith the Cross of Christ the true Circumcision which worship God in the spirit Phil. 3. 3. have most evidently apostatized from and lost even that they had yea and have been the meanes of betraying the whole Nation afresh and rolling all back again into more insufferable bondage than ever We may say and hear this with weeping And moreover do we not yet daily experience an instability in such principles ornaments weapons armour Are not multitudes of professors at this pass still yea and nay off and on with God and so with sin and satan to And will it alwayes be so well Will these wavering Principles this unstable kind of life and righteousness if not quitted for a better be ever able to secure us from a final parting with God and entire closing with the devil as one spirit with him The unstable nature of man's first-creation at best must either ascend into a fixed union with Christ in spirit and so contract an everlasting disability to any thing which is evil 2 Cor. 13. 8. or else it will descend into a fixed union with the devil and thereby contract an everlasting inability to any thing that is good The first created freedom of man's will to good and evil the liberty of the sons of men however renewed again by Christ will be finally swallowed up either into a diabolical freedom to evil onely and not at all to good or into a divine freedom to good onely and not at all to evil which is the glorious liberty of the sons of God wherewith Christ makes those that receive him free indeed John 1. 12. and Chap 8. 36. Let us then put off the armour of man even of the renewed old man as David did Sauls and put on the whole armour of God the new man which after God is created in wisdom righteousness and true or everlasting holiness Ephes. 4. 24. Then the spiritual Goliah will certainly fall before us 'T is the divine new-creature-Life onely with spiritual weapons can over set all his power of darkness and detect all the crafty stratagems and methods of delusion to the last period of his mystery of iniquity Professors in the first-building flourishing in the wisdom glory and righteousness of the Law or of the ruling activity of renewed humane Nature and rectified rational Powers though received from Christ himself as no mean fruit or benefit of his death if they oppose contradict and blaspheme the true fighting conquering and reigning principle of divine Nature in the second they do thereby become worse than those foolish and contemptible

Christ their natural head refusing to adventure the exchange of their first-creation glory and Life through unbelief of the gain and usury thereby attainable even the fixedness and unchangableness of what they already had in the greater and more excellent glory of the resurrection By this not yeilding to the conditions of passing along with their head into the more excellent state and unchangable form of their very natural Beings they lost even that they had their first creation glory righteousness and the Life of communion with God in Christ manageable therein Iude tells us vers 6. what befel them hereupon The angels which kept not their first estate but left their own habitation or head Christ choosing their distinct opposite Luciferian head the devil and satan are with this their chieftaine reserved in everlasting chaines under darkness unto the judgement of the great day When Lucifer had drawn to himself and engaged a numerous party of angels with him in his apostacy by attempting to assert maintain and exalt the lesser natural glory of the first creation into a competition with yea a preference and opposition to the new-creature state of Life and glory in the second which excels his next business was to seduce our first Parents and in them all their posterity into the same opposition to new-creature Life and Glory the true mystical Sabbath state THE SAINTS EVERLASTING REST. This most desireable Rest is attainable only by our being made willing to enter into a conformity with Christ in his death through a surrender of the single and ruling activity of our first-creation principles at their best and giving up our selves wholly into a pure subjection to what we meet with that 's more excellent in the second Angels fell more knowingly than man who was lower than they in understanding and strength and therefore irrecoverably Man fell somewhat ignorantly as over-reached through the woman his weaker part by the beguiling insinuations of the Serpent so he and his are again set upon their feet in some degree or other by the mighty Redeemer to try them over again in their own persons how they will ●e●ean themselves in this great fundamental point about yeilding to the tearms of a transition out of the corruptible state of the life glory and righteousness of their first-creation the house upon the sand into the incorruptible and unchangable life glory and righteousness of the second the house founded upon the rock Christ in spirit So The soul that sinneth again after the similitude of Adams first transgression after all fair warning it shall die for its own personal transgression and not for the fathers having eaten sower grapes Ezek. 18. 1 4. In order to this new creation Christ in the single or double portion of his spirit is given forth received and owned by the sons of men either in the unchangable spiritualized state of his natural manhood or also in the more exalted capacity of his spiritual each of which gifts do baptize and transform the corruptible state of their natural man into an incorruptible life and unchangable union with the natural or spiritual man in Christ's person by the new and everlasting Covenant established in all thin●● and sure The twofold creature-creature-nature in Christ's person as the former and inferiour is transformed and brought forth by the latter and more excellent into an unchangable state of Life and union therewith is called the WORD of God that abides for ever in them that receive it the spirit of God Christ in spirit the Son of man in heaven Joh. 3. 13. that overshadowed the Virgin and formed for himself a fleshly tabernacle in her womb The clothing of himself herewith for the Redemption of man was a greater condescention than his actual coming forth in the Life and capacity of the first-born of every creature for the Creation of the World Redemption is a greater work than Creation and requires greater condescention in the undertaker As first-born of every creature he was in a superiority of headship to all the angels as the works of his hands therein the highest ranck of meer created Beings in the first world But when this WORD which was God and the twofold original spring of all creaturely life and perfection also was made flesh took on him the particular nature of man not angels he became little lower than the angels for a season Heb. 2. 7. and 16. and not onely so but was content also to suffer the visage of this flesh to be marred more than any man and to be humbled and abased therein even to the death upon the Cross Esay 52. 13 14. and Chap. 53. The creature-nature in Christ is so enfolded together and hypostatically united with his purely divine form that it receives the denomination from that supream form of all He is therefore called Michael Gods equal and the man his fellow Zech. 13. 7. The whole person of Christ as comprehending all fulness of perfection creaturely or divine is very God But the persons of men and angels that are brought into an everlasting union and association with Christ in one or both of his creature forms are not God nor Christ. For the highest denominating form in their personal constitution is but creaturely yet spiritual and divine in distinction from the natural corruptible form of men or angels received at their first creation The everlasting security of elect angels and men lies in their inseparable union with their head the Mediator in whom alone both creature capacities are in personal union with God The exalted creature nature in Christ is divine altogether lovely Cant. 5. 16. the true Vine Iohn 15. 1. that cheareth the heart of God and man as in Iotham's parable Iudg. 9. 13. It is the Spirit of God the immediate womb parent fountain-head of all new-creation life and principles in men or angels by the fire-baptisme An inferior work to this is also thereby performed upon and in the sons of men to wit all that gradual revival of rational light life in the moral heathen or legal Christian that is very obvious and familiar to observation all the world over The legal Christian experiences such an operative actuating influence from this spirit as revives enlightens cleanses renews restores him to some good measure of first-creation Life righteousness As for the flawes deficiencies yet incident to his personal operations God imputes to him or puts upon him that perfect righteousness of the Law called Gods comeliness Ezek. 16. 14. which Christ himself performed and had in his fleshly manhood rendring it applicable to men through the merit of his death therein This whole work of Christ in men inwardly washing sanctifying them by his blood as also justifying them by the imputation of the perfect righteousness of the law to them from his own person amounts but to their practical and experimental knowledge of him after the flesh 2 Cor. 5. 16. and a prospering onely into that Kingdom

up of Life It will make them of the same mind that was in Christ willing so to suffer in the flesh under the power of his spirit as to cease from sin or from that state that can return back into sin again 1 Pet. 4. 1. This incorruptible form atteinable onely by the fire-baptism performed upon the natural man at his best by the single portion of the spirit of Christ is called spiritual and denominates the whole person a spiritual man though yet in the mortal body in distinction from those who have but only the renewal of their first-creation form by the influence and gifts of the same spirit All that these receive is but the goodliness of flesh renewed adorned nature which is decried and blown upon by a second vice a superior dispensation and ministry of the same spirit as a perishing vanity after the first voice has done its work made a straight path for God in the desert by rectifying the rational powers in bewildred man Esay 40. 3 8. Our corruptible tabernacle is to be taken down This mantle this filthy garment this vile body flesh and blood at its best is to be chaned into the likeness of Christs glorious body his heavenly man by the mighty power and transforming operation of that spirit whereby he is able to subdue all things to himself Phil. 3. 21. We must put off the old man at best and put on the new which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness Ephes. 4. 22 24. Col. 3. 9 10. That Image of God received by the first-creation and all the wisdom glory and righteousness thereof is but shadow to what is to be received by the new creation 'T is but self-glory self-wisdom self-righteousness and when these are opposed to the wisdom righteousness and glory of God in the new creation they are Idols shadows preferred to substance the Law or ruling Principles of our first creation Life to grace and truth in the second Some few Results or Corollaries of what hath been said in this matter take as followeth 1. The Spirit of God the holy Ghost the divine Nature which the Scriptures do evidently assert and declare to be communicable to men exceeds not in its reach and significancy the natural and spiritual creature capacity in the person of the Mediator whereby individual angels and men are brought into an everlasting union with him in one or both as he is one with the Father Iohn 17. 22. 2. Where-ever the Seed of eternal Life is sowne by Christ's causing himself to be received in the single or double portion of his Spirit it will mar the visage or wisdom of man it will take him off from his way of working righteousness and worshipping God in the oldness of the letter of the first creation and enable him to perform all in a more excellent and acceptable way in the newness of the spirit of the second Paul in his own person gives us notice of this distinction which he stood in from those youthful flourishing professors that were reigning as Kings at the righteousness of the Law performable in their own spirit 1 Cor. 4. 8. 10. With such he said he durst not compare himself 2 Cor. 10. 12. who pleasing themselves and applauding one another in a way of mutual self-deceivings and commendations are not those whom the Lord commendeth as he rather desired to be vers 18. They have but the inward heart-circumcision in the letter of the first not in the spirit of the second creation whose praise is not of men as is implied Rom. 2. 29. 'T is worth observation that even in the ancient Hieroglyphical divinity of Egypt no service or worship of God was accounted acceptable and well-pleasing but what was performed by some divine power of God himself in them 3. There are two distinct sorts of everlastingly saved men such as receive the single and such as receive the double portion of the spirit Both pass under the fire-baptisme The former are exalted into association with the elect angels and have for the immediate and adaequate object of their fruition and converse God as shining forth to them in the incorruptible form of Christs natural Manhood The latter and more exalted sort of Saints are taken into association with the spiritual manhood in Christs person and have for the immediate and adaequate object of their fruition and converse God as shining forth to them in that highest and most exalted creature form in Christ's person And by and through these who do properly constitute the general assembly and Church of the first-born the spirits of just men and the holy angels even those principalities and powers in heavenly places do as at second hand receive that manifold wisdom of God that shines forth more immediately upon the Church Ephes. 3. 10. 4. The highest sort of these Saints are not Christ or God much less the lower Christ is the head root and parent to both these sorts of glorified men in his twofold creature capacity or manhood natural or spiritual And Christ as he is the purely divine form or image of the invisible God is head to both these creature-headships in his own person and God is the head of Christ considered as in his purely divine form 1 Cor 11. 3. 5. Christ in his creature-capacity is the maker redeemer and heir of all things in both worlds as all things were created by him so for him Col. 1. 16. Heb. 1. 2. and Rom. 11. 36. Of him through him and to him are all things 6. Men that in their first creation were made little lower than the Angels Psal. 8. 5. are in the second or new creation made equal to the elect angels and all those of the double portion are advanced quite over the heads of all the angels into an immediate association with Christ in his most exalted creature-capacity on the Throne of his glory even in that more excellent creature name than the angels have Heb. 1. 4. Behold then the heavenly order in the whole family of God First God himself the head of Christ and that as Christ is the Image of the invisible God very God Secondly Christ himself as thus considered in his capacity purely divine head to his twofold creature-headship the natural and spiritual man in his own person Thirdly Christ in his twofold creatureship as the immediate head to all spiritual and natural men and angels in his heavenly family his members his body mystical Fourthly Behold these also in their two grand distinctions of superiority and subordination spiritual and natural Fifthly There may seem also to be intimated in the Scriptures a gradual difference of capacity in the individuals of either of these two ranks of everlastingly glorified men Dan. 12. 3. and 1 Cor. 15. 41. There is one glory of the Sun another of the Moon and another glory of the Stars and one Star differeth from another Star in glory Variety of intellectual light or discerning is resembled in Scripture

by the variety of figurative light in the outward visible creation Christ is called The Sun of Righteousness Mal. 4. 2. Angels Stars Job 38. 7. And the Spirit of Man The candle of the Lord Prov. 20. 27. To wind up all then and secure our selves from the mistake of the German Divinity The servants that stand about the Throne are not the Bride that sits upon it The Bride is not the Bridegroom The Bridegrom himself in whatever creature-state he is married to men or angels by the new and everlasting Covenant is yet but as the Bride to himself in his purely divine form and as so yet he is not the Father but as the Bride of the God-head the express character or personallity of all the three as Image of the invisible God The Bride the Lambs Wife Angels or Men are all gathered up into one common Interest all do live in the beatifical Vision and enjoyment of God in Christ in their several intellectual distances ranks and capacities and may all be said to partake of the divine nature But more peculiarly next to the living creature that is under the God of Israel in personal union with God Ezek. 10. 20. the ●uperiour and more excellent sort of Saints are partakers thereof being actually brought forth in the highest kind of creature capacity that is next to the purely divine form See all summ'd up together Heb. 12. 22 24. Ye are come unto Mount Sion and unto the City of the living God the heavenly Ierusalem and to an innumerable company of Angels to the general Assembly and Church of the first-born which are written in heaven to God the Iudge of all and to the spirits of just Men made perfect and to Iesus the Mediator of the New Covenant Here we have a distinct expression of the heavenly Orders 1. An innumerable company of Angels and spirits of just Men made perfect 2. The general Assembly and Church of the first-born that have the double port●on of the Spirit 3. Iesus the Mediator of the new Covenant 4. God 〈◊〉 Iudge of all Will any now say What signifies this prolixe Discourse of Principles to the present undertake 'T is answered Much every way in case what hath been said be true and intelligibly expressed For it most exactly suits with what is engaged for in the Title Page He lived in the Spirit and walked in the Spirit Gal. 5. 25. 'T is this Life hid with Christ in God I principally intend the character of the Life of Faith which now with him is turn'd to sight being absent from the Body and at home with the Lord 2 Cor. 5. 6 7. This Life is no way explicable but by considering his Gospel Principles Doctrine and Way of Worshipping God in spirit and truth And what signifie all his publick and outward actings in Church or state but as issuing from and reducible to this his new-creature Life and the Principles thereof This discourse therefore is principally directed to Christian Readers who are furnished with the spiritual discerning of Faith which can take in the evidence and demonstration of things not seen to any other eye in man things eternal Heb. 11. 1. 2 Cor. 4. 18. This Pilgrim quitted the broad way that leads to destruction and took the narrow path that leadeth unto Life which few there be that find Mat. 7. 14. His lot was to be upon the earth while the Church was in her Wilderness condition in her sackcloth Briars and Thornes were with him all along he dwelt among Scorpions Ezek. 2. 6. Many archers shot at him they did shoot forth their arrows even bitter words they smote him with the tongue and at length with the hand but his Bow abode in strength his Armes were made strong by the hands of the mighty God of Iacob Gen. 49. 23 24. His enemies encouraged themselves in an evil matter they communed of laying snares privily that they might shoot at him in secret their teeth were spears and arrows they did whet their tongue like a sword to wound him But God shall shoot at them with an arrow suddenly shall they be wounded Psal. 64. and 57. 4. He will whet his sword and ordain his arrows against the Persecutors Psal. 7. 12 13. But where may it appear that this sufferer was of the opinion that there are two distinct sorts of everlastingly saved men In his general Epistle to the Church of Christ upon earth which is like to be exposed to publick view before this Not long before his death I received express notice in a Letter concerning these two Witnesses of Christ both of them coming forth in the self-evidencing power and demonstration of the single or donble portion of his spirit He took rise for his conceptions herein from such irradiations of divine glory as he received in the contemplation of these following Scriptures with many others First Revel 11. 18. The Nations were angry thy wrath is come and ●he time wherein thou shouldest give reward unto thy servants the Prophets and to the Saints and to them that fear thy Name small and great There is said he intended here by the holy Ghost a considerable difference between those called Christs servants the prophets and the rest that are named saints all being such as are said to fear God's Name great or small and are declared to be objects of Christs reward who hath one kind of reward for the prophet and another for righteous men saints just men made perfect These as faithful servants are to abide in the house for ever friends to the Bridegroom that rejoyce at hearing of his second voice which they have but at second hand through the Bride But those more excellent sort of servants the prophets that are the very Bride they have their peculiar priviledge above the other personally to possesse the Bridegroom as his Name is the WORD of God a Name Rev. 19. 12 13. which no man knows nor angel but he himself and they to whom the Son will reveal it In this sence is that to be understood which is testified by Christ himself Luk. 10 22. No man knowes who the Son is but the Father and who the Father is but the Son and he or they to whom the Son will reveal him This is the Name that Christ ●y inheritance hath obtained more excellent than the Angels the Name above every Name that at the manifestation thereof every knee should bow and tongue confess to the glory of God the Father After this Name it was Iacob was so inquisitive Gen. 32. 29. saying tell me I pray thee thy Name And he came afterwards to understand it was the face of God or sight of God face to face in his very similitude which it is not permitted in so ful and intimate a manner for every saint to have Upon this Iacob's name was changed to Israel and he became a Prince or chief prevailer with God and with Man Agreeable to this distinction does the Prophet Esay describe