to be where he is to see the Glory of his Godhead to see all Glories and themselves also like him in that Glory Thus Jesus Christ ascends and sits down at the right hand of the Father above all Principality and Power and Dominion and above every Name that is named not only in this World but in that which is to come This World is the World of Angels and of their Glories The Names of Principalities Powers Dominions Thrones are the Names of Angels and Names named in this their World The World to come is the Mediatory World the Kingdom of the Mediator where Christ alone Reigns over all and in all where Christ hath his own proper Glory above the Glory of the Angels beneath the Glory of the Father where Christ alone is named in every Name by Names above every Name which is named in this World of Angels This distinction between these two Worlds seemeth to appear plain in the comparison of this Scripture with that Heb. 2. 5. For he hath not put that World to come of which we speak in subjection to Angels Then this is confirmed by a citation of the Psalmist vers 7. Having made him a little lower than the Angels thou hast crowned him with Glory and Honour and set him over the Works of thine hands Thou hast put all things even the Angels themselves with their World and their Glory under his feet In like manner thâ—… Ascension of our Lord Jesus is represented to us in great Majesty and Glory with a great pomp and train of Glories Eph. 4. 10. He that descends is the same who also ascends far above all Heavens Behold our Jesus ascending through all the Heavens of Angels all the Hâ—…hvens of his own Mediatory Form and Kingdom leaving them all behind him Behold himat the right hand of the Father in the Bosom of the Father in the purity and simplicity of the Godhead entred into the Holy of Holies ascended to an height above every name of Heavens or Glories or any thing named in any the highest Heavens by any Glories by any the highest and sweetest Names Behold him carrying along with him up to this height in his own Person and by the Power of his Person and Spirit drawing up after him the long pomp and train of all these Heavens and their several Glories Here now Jesus sits down in his eternal Rest upon the Throne of Eternity having nothing higher to which he may ascend The Resurrection of Christ is the beginning of his Ascension his Ascension is the finishing of his Resurrection Now Jesus Christ is perfectly ascended thither where he was at first The Godhead of Christ in his Mediatory Form shineth forth immediately nakedly but gradually in answerable degrees the Humane Nature of Christ is Light in the Light of the Godhead a clear pure Light in the naked Bosom of that Light but an increasing Light Now in the Ascension of Christ the Glory of the Father shines out not only immediately and nakedly but entirely fully The Union the Communion the Conformity of the Humane Nature with the Divine is compleat as in kind so also in degree God is now all in all in the Person of Christ and in both Natures God is totus totalitèr in toto Christo in qualibet parte Christi God is entirely full and fully in the whole Person of Christ in the whole Manhood of Christ and in every part God is all with his whole Godhead all in every kind in every degree in every way and manner in all Christ in all the humanity of Christ. The Humane Nature of Christ is now by a mutual entire Union Similitude and Society married to its Idea its heavenly Pattern as it stood in the Mediatory Form of Christ being an uncreated and a created Spirit of Light Glory and Immortality in one Spirit Now this created Spirit of Light Glory and Immortality it self and the Humane Nature of Christ together with it in it lieth in the mutual embraces of its first Idea and Pattern in the simplicity of the Godhead in the high and holy place of Eternity in its highest and purest simplicity in its Idea and Pattern its ever-flourishing Father and Husband In this Bosome is the Marriage consummate In this Light the Humane Nature seeth the Godhead eye to eye is become like it embraceth it being embraced by it as it is in its full Glories fully powring forth themselves into its Bosome after which and beyond which there is no Glory This is the sense of St. Paul when he saith Col. 2. 9. That in Christ dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily that is substantially entirely distinctly FINIS The same in the Arg. of Kleg
all her changes were but circlings through the various parts of the Divine Harmony within her self within the heavenly compass of her own Divine Essence While all that while she with her beautiful Essence and Form lies in the embraces of the Divine Essence it self There compleating in her self the circle of the Universal and Eternal Harmony returning thither as into the Bosome of her Beloved Bridegroom from whence she first came forth as from her everlasting Father and first Cause Thus I have endeavoured to bring to the Eye the Ear of our Understanding the Beauty the Musick of the Divine Harmony in the discords of Humane Nature in the Fall of Man which excludes all undetermined Liberty in the Will as altogether inconsistent with this Harmony and the Divine Unity the band of this Harmony I pass now to the Essence of the Soul in the third Scene into which it opens it self or that third state into which it rouls it self within it self My design is the same here to shew how the sacred and irresistible force of the Divine Harmony restores the Soul without any thing of Free-Will in the sense in which we have stated it intermingling it self in this Work 3. State This third state of the Soul is its return or restitution This is clearly and compleatly described by St. Paul after the lively Picture which he hath given us of the storm in the Fall But now the Righteousness of God is made manifest without the Law being witnessed to by the Law and the Prophets Rom. 3. 21. Even the Righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ on all that believe verse 22. Being justified freely by his Grace through the Redemption which is in Jesus Christ verse 24. Whom God hath set forth to be a Propitiation through faith in his blood to declare his own Righteousness for the remission of Sins verse 25. To declare I say at this time his own Righteousness that he by his his own Righteousness or Justice might be just and by the same his his own Righteousness the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus vers 26. Take here four brief Notes upon the words 1. The Righteousness of God is with great care and skill distinguished here and specificated in its distinction from the Righteousness of Man under the Law in the state of Innocency You have this distinction emphatically set out and sealed with a deep impression four times over The Right eousness of God without the Law vers 21. Even the Righteousness of God vers 22. God to declare his own Righteousness vers 25. To declare I say his own Righteousness or Justice That he may be just or righteous and the Justifier or the Maker righteous by his own Righteousness This is the Righteousness of the Gospel by which we have the pardon of Sins and are justified This the Law the Prophets Nature in its Purity in all its natural Improvements point out to us in shadows and pictures But cannot set before us nor give to us no more than the Picture can give a sight or fruition of the Life the living Beauty 2. Grace free Love alone without the Conjunction of Free-will discovers and brings in this Righteousness This Righteousness is the Beauty of the Divine Harmony Grace or Love is the sweetness the sweet force of this Harmony or the Unity in this Harmony which alone carries it on through all things and makes all things perfect in it 3. Jesus Christ with his Blood and Faith in him are means to this end the declaration of the Righteousness of God This Divine Harmony which is the Beauty and the Righteousness of the Divine Nature as the last end is the first Mover carries on it self by its own sweet most agreeable and irresistable force which is the Grace and Love in the Godhead This forms and fashions all its own means brings forth Jesus Christ to die for us to live in us by Faith and it self in this Jesus through the death and the life of this Jesus 4. The essential Righteousness of God as it brings forth it self through Jesus Christ is that in which we have the pardon of Sin and Justification It is his own Righteousness or Justice by which God is just himself and maketh us just In Greek the words are all the same his Righteousness that he may be just and the Justisier You will understand this and the elegant force of this Scripture which is very much lost in English by the change of the word in the Translation from Righteousness to Just and Justifier When you know that in Greek Righteousness and Justice are both one word as in the sense and in nature they are both one thing This essential Righteousness of God alone hath an infiniteness of value and virtue in it to be a satisfaction for the infinite Demerit and Guilt in Sin to make a Saint infinitely amiable and lovely that it may be proportioned to the Eye and infinite Love of an infinite Spirit We say our Jesus was Man that he might Suffer God that he might Merit by suffering We are rightly taught That it is the Person in Christ which gives the value to his Active and Passive Obedience That gives the value and virtue to the whole work of his Mediation The Person in Christ is God the second Person in the Trinity the essential Image of the Godhead eternal unchangeable infinite It is then the essential eternal infinite Beauty Value Virtue Righteousness of this Person which declares it self through the Humane Nature of Christ in the Humiliations the Exaltations of that unto the Remission of Sins unto Justification to make us infinitely amiable in the eye of an infinite God the worthy Objects of an infinite Love the worthy Subjects of an infinite Glory and Blessedness in the eternal unlimited free and full fruition of an infinite Object infinite in Loveliness and Delights But let us endeavour according to the meanness of our capacity in taking in so great Glory to give some Light to this so sweet and so high a mystery Righteousness and Justice in Greek are the same Justice is defined that which giveth every one it s own That is to every thing it s own due and proper to it which makes up the Harmony and Unity of the whole in that part The Harmony and Unity of the whole is the perfection of the whole and of each part Every part is in order to the whole as its end As it is perfection which is due to each thing So the end of each thing is its perfection Thus Justice consists in the Harmony and Unity of things Righteousness is that by which we are right and do right Right is a conformity to its rule The first in every kind is the measure and rule of all the rest God is absolutely universally the first of all things so is He the absolute measure and rule of all The Righteousness of God then is the conformity of the Divine Nature to
from the beginning to the end He presents himself to the Soul as its Idea its Original Image its beginning its way and itsend in whose bosome the Soul hath alwayes lien there meeting with every change every scene of things springing up within it in that bosome while the same Jesus hath lien in its bosome as the seed of its Being and of every Change This is the Souls Father Brother Bridegroom and Perfection As Jesus Christ thus appears and unvails himself within the Soul he at once gathers up the Soul into the most intimate the most entire Union with it self He transforms it into the likeness of the same Image with himself in the full Glory of the Divine the Universal the eternal Harmony in the Unity of the same Spirit the Spirit of this Harmony and Glory The Lord Jesus as he is the universal the eternal Image and Harmony of the Divine Nature of all Variety in the Divine Nature as he is the Idea of Ideas thus is he the Original Image the Idea of the Intellectual Soul or of Man As then he forms himself in this Soul he also formeth all things in it that man comes forth from the bosome of his Idea replenished with the Ideas of all things He is now the whole Creation the universal Nature within himself This Jesus then being risen springs up into Man in the virtue of his Resurrection and together becomes the Resurrection of all things in man to man In like manner through man as the head of all he riseth again in all the particular Forms of things as they stand without man in themselves in their own proper Existencies In the Lord Jesus God through Christ the universal Image inhabiteth in the proper Ideas of each Creature with the fulness of his Divine Glories in the Unity of the blessed Spirit According to this Original Jesus Christ the Universal Harmony through the humane Nature his immediate his full Image his compleat Birth and Bride rests entirely and distinctly upon each form of things as the Divine Race of this heavenly Marriage-Bed in the Resurrection As all together make up the Universal Harmony in the Soul in Christ the end of them all So each one enjoyeth the whole Harmony in it self being upon its own proper Form cloathed with the Universal Form the Form of the heavenly Man and of Christ in Glory So all dwell together in the Unity of the same Divine Spirit the Spirit of a Saint and of Christ. In the Unity of this Spirit all mutually are Divine Palaces each to other clearly compleatly comprehending and comprehended by each other eternally feasting upon the heavenly Beauties and Virtues drinking in the Sweetnesses the Lives the Spirits of each other And of Jesus Christ of God the Unity and the Variety in all This is the Kingdom of God which is Righteousness Peace and Joy in the Holy Ghost Jesus Christ the essential Image of God the Divine and eternal Harmony is the Righteousness the mutual Peace and Joy of this Kingdom In this Kingdom Jesus Christ cometh with his own Glory the Glory of his Father and of all his holy Angels united in one in each form of things The lowest form of things here is an Angel an Angel made new in the Resurrection of Christ where each Angel being only a distinct part of the Harmony yet hath the Universal Harmony resting upon that part This is that new Jerusalem where the street the lowest form of things is as Gold and Glass The pure Glory of the eternal Spirit as the finest Gold shineth in each Creature like the Cherubim or the Angels standing up out of the Mercy-Seat made of the same piece of massy Gold together with it The lowest Creature here is an Angel of Glory the street that sustains us is composed of Angels Angelical Glories In every Angel as a particular Glory all the Angels with their several Varieties of Glory the Glory of Christ and all the Saints which is the full the Universal Glories of the Divine and Humane Nature the Original and its best beloved Image in Union The Glory of God as the Father in its simplicity in its paternity and transcendency over all meet all in one This Unity of the Spirit in each Creature renders it divinely transparent like the finest glass In the beauty of every Face we have the prospect of Eternity We see in each single Face fresh Beauties all Beauties with an endless Variety opening themselves one within another one beyond another all equally clear present and pleasant in every one Thus Jesus Christ becomes according to St. Paul the first-born from the dead and the first-born among his Brethren the Saints The Saints in the Language of St. James are the first-fruits of the Creation which is brought forth in its proper time and order into the liberty of the Glory of the Sons of God Thus is our Jesus the great Jubilee where all Debts are remitted all Servants go free all persons return to their Inheritances to the free Possession the full fruition of themselves and them In the Resurrection of the Lord Jesus from him as the Root springing up into the Body of the Saints through them into the rest of the Creatures as Branches of the same Tree All Sins are pardoned the whole Creation is set free from its bondage to Vanity and Corruption All things return to a free fruition of themselves of all Beauties and Joys in their native Inheritance their Original Images their proper Ideas in Christ first Christ then the Saints through them Heaven and Earth and the Seas with all things in them are made new by being married anew by being newly reinvested with the Glories of their Original The Reader is again desired to take Notice That neither the remainder of this Fourth Argument nor any thing upon his Fifth could be found amongst the Authors Papers A DISCOURSE OF THE Freedome of the Will The SECOND PART Wherein the Arguments for it are considered and answered HAving finished those Arguments ranked under their several Heads in opposition to that Liberty of the Will which is placed in the determining of its power received from the first cause unto a Contrariety or Contradiction in its actings with an independency upon the first cause the order and connexion of Causes and the Understanding We pass now to a consideration of the Reasons upon which that Opinion of this Freedome is established These Reasons are taken 1. From the Will it self 2. From the nature of Sin and the Divine Justice 3. The Language of the Scripture 4. From the end of Laws 5. From the order and nature of things 1. Reason The Prerogative and Excellency of the Will consisteth in this Liberty 1. How otherwise doth man excel bruit Creatures and natural Agents 2. How otherwise is man free and not necessitated in all his Actions To that I shall give two several Answers 1. Answ. This Freedome of the Will of which we speak and which is opposed to necessity
rule of Justice and Goodness by which this is to be tryed The general Rule or Law of Justice is this To give to every thing its due or its own Solomon expresseth this Rule of Justice from the Mouth of God in his Proverbs after this manner With-hold not good from them to whom it is due or from the Owners thereof when it is in thine hand to do it Divines interpret those Owners to be all persons in want all Subjects in any capacity of receiving any good from us Beneficence or a disposition to do good to all is with the Heathen Philosphers a branch of this Vertue of Justice The Law of God which is the Rule of Justice commands to love our Neighbour as our self St. Paul interprets this Neighbour to be every other Rom. 13. 8. He that loveth another hath fulfilled the Law The Jews teach us that the Law is founded in the Name that is in the Nature of God Man was made in the Image of God The Perfection then of the humane Creature is the Image of that Perfection which is in the Divine Nature the Law of the humane Nature is the transcript of the Divine Nature Our Lord Jesus interprets this Universal Law of humane Commerce and Justice among men Thou shalt love thy Neighbour after this manner Love your Enemies do good to them that hate you He layeth the ground of this Universal Justice in the Divine Nature That you may be the Children of your Father which is in Heaven He adds for a clearer Conviction If you love them that love you do not even the Publicans the same He concludes by referring the perfection of men to the Divine Perfection as its Original and Law Be ye therefore perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect Thus we see the Rule of Justice with God and with men to give our Love and all good according to our utmost power to every other as to the Owner of that love and good to whom they are due 2. The second Rule or Law is that of Goodness The Law of Goodness and its Essence is to diffuse and communicate it self The law of each thing is to act according to its nature of Light to shine of sweet Waters to send forth sweet waters of good to do good This Law is most deeply rooted and highly radiant in the Divine Nature inasmuch as God is the Chief the Universal the only good Accordingly he makes his Rain his Sun both Coelestial and Supercoelestial in their season to fall and to shine upon the Just and the Unjust Having stated the Case between Free-will and the Will predeterminated in its Causes and having set the Rule by which the Case is to be tryed Let us come to the Point in which we must joyn Issue 1. Both Cases agree in four grand Circumstances First In both Cases God makes man and the Will of Man from nothing according to the absoluteness of his Will and Power Secondly The event which is eternal ruine and torment to the greatest part of Mankind is alike certain to both by a certainty of infallibility 3. God before and in the making of his work clearly seeth and perfectly understandeth that this will be infallibly the event of his Workmanship Can it then with any reason be thought that the event of the work of an infinite Wisdom fore-seen should not be agreeable to the design of that Wisdom and the Will of that infinitely Wise Spirit whose Power is as infinite as his Wisdom 4. God could have made man otherwise in a Divine necessity of being good and blessed like himself in a confirmed state of Grace and Glory like the Elect Angels and Saints These are the Circumstances in which both Cases agree 2. The grand dâ—…fference between the two Cases where they joyn Issue is this In that Case of Free-will Man perisheth because God with-holds the good which he hath in himself and might have given to him that is a confirmation in good In the other case of the Will predetermined Man perisheth because God withdraws the good which he had once given him There are two Fathers with their two little Children one Father setteth his Child down so that he may run into a pleasant Field or a devouring Flood He fore-seeth that he will certainly run not into the Field but into the Flood he suffers him to run and perish in the Flood when he may as easily prevent him by laying his hand upon him or taking him into his arms The other Father holdeth his Child fast and safe in his arms for a while over the cruel Flood then he casteth him not in but he taketh away his arms and leaves him by his own weight necessarily to drop into the Flood and perish there I appeal now to every equal and impartial Judge whether both these Fathers seem not both guilty or innocent Whether they be not both likely to be cleared or convicted if they be tryed by those fore-mentioned Rules of Justice and Goodness Is not the two-fold Plea of both these Wills of equal force against the Justice and Goodness of God 1. Why hath he made me thus certainly to perish What is it to me whether this certainty be a certainty of infallibility only from the mutability of my nature or a certainty of inevitableness from the necessity of nature while I certainly perish 2. Why is he yet angry who hath resisted his Will Is not the certain event of his Work clearly fore-seen by him from the beginning interpretatively his Will Which Opinion shall we prefer That of the Will predetermined gives to God the full Glory of his Soveraignty Absoluteness Wisdom Power making his work in the whole and in every part from the beginning to the end one entire piece altogether dependent upon himself wrought throughout by himself and conducted from one supream principle by one universal Form of the Divine Understanding and the Divine Image to one Universal and Ultimate end the Divine Glory But it seemeth to cast an imputation upon the Divine Justice and Goodness The other Opinion of Free-will seemeth to violate the Soveraignty and Absoluteness of God making his actings dependent upon the actings of Creature The Power of God in giving to the Creature the determination of it self with an independence upon him in these Cardinal Acts of the Will upon which the whole Circle and Globe of things in the Divine Love Justice and Wrath in the happiness or misery of Man from eternity is turned about His Wisdom while his work hath breaches and gaps in it like a Chain whose links are not fastned one in another while the Harmony is thus broken while all the great effects and end of his work are casual uncertain in their Causes and in their Nature inasmuch as all depend upon the free and fortuitous motions of the Will independent upon and undetermined by all preceding or superior Causes even the first and universal Cause it self Together with all this Cloud which the Opinion
a Divine Satisfaction a Divine Atonement The Wrath and the Contrariety now ceaseth being reconciled and charmed by these Divine Harmonies into the Unity of eternal Love Thus is the Cross of our Lord Jesus the utmost bound of things In this Cross the Divine Design is finished the Mystery is finished the Vail is rent all things in Heaven and on Earth are reconciled and gathered up into One tuned to a Divine and Universal Harmony which is the Musick of Eternity Now is that Song sung O Death where is thy sting O Grave where is thy Victory The sting of Death is Sin and the strength of Sin is the Law but thanks be to God who giveth us the Victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ on his Cross hath swallowed up the Law Sin and Death in the Victory of the Divine Love the Divine Purities the Beauties of Holiness and eternal Life Eternal Life eternal Love that is our Jesus now cries with a triumphant shout O Death I will be thy Plague and Death This is the Day of the manifestation of the Righteous Judgments of God Now in the close and end of all the Divine Design through all the parts and passages of it clearly opens and unfolds it self Now it appears unto all Eyes and Hearts to be all throughout in every point of it divinely-beautiful and pleasant transcending the Understanding the Affections the Expectations the Desires the most unbounded Imagination of all Men or Angels proportioned only to a God and that God which is so Light that there is no darkness in him So Love that there is no Fury in him Now is that found clearly compleatly true All his ways are ways of peace and all his paths are pleasantness This is our God and we will praise him our Fathers God and we will exalt him This is our Jesus whom our Soul loves we will rejoyce in him and wait for him Pardon me courteous Reader if I seem something longer in this tract of my Discourse describing that most beautiful and Divine Harmony with which all things lie together most delightfully in this shining Seat of all Truth and enflaming Object of all Love the dear and adored Form and Person of our great Mediator This is the Eye the Heart of my design and work If the entire and naked Face of Divine Truth were rightly drawn and set before us in any degree answerable to the Life in this heavenly Image how powerfully would it attract all Understandings into its embraces how pleasantly would it subdue them to it self far beyond the force of all Disputes and Syllogisms which gather up only small divided and dead parts of this Divine Form like Ae as collecting the scattered members of his Son Absertus thrown up and down at diverse distances by his bloody Sister Medea to retard his way Or like the Philosophers in Boetius which take hold of the Garment only of Divine Truth and tear that into deformed shreds of which they possess themselves and in which they glory If I could entirely conceive that of which I seem to my self to have some little but rich and pleasant glances If I could clearly express and conveigh into the Minds of men that which I conceive of the nature of God and his Work which appeareth to me to have been gathered from all things Humane and Divine from Poetry Philosophy and Theology From Nature and Grace the letter of the Scriptures and the Spirit according to my little acquaintance with them and less understanding of them I am perhaps too vainly apt to perswade my self that I should make the noblest Conquest a Conquest of Hearts which would be equally Conquerors with me partaking equally in the Joy and Glory of the Conquest For what Understanding would not gladly be swallowed up into the richly unfathomable Depths of the Divine Wisdom if it were touched with this sense that the whole Understanding and Mind of God in its utmost and unlimited compass is taken up and filled with a Love of equal extent to it and equally unlimited What Understanding would not joyfully lie down for ever and lose it self in the gloriously soft and bright Bosom of the Divine Wisdome if it once by the least sweet glimpse perceived this that the Divine Wisdom throughout is no other than the beautiful and blissful Harmony of the Divine Love that all the Work of his Wisdom within and without is a deep delightful God-like contrivance of Love on which the whole Godhead layeth out it self to the utmost of all its unbounded fulnesses and treasures For this Love to bring forth and express it self with all possible advantage with all beautifyings sweetnings and heightnings as in the whole contrivance so in each part and point of it through all which this Love by this Wisdom conducteth it self with an inevitable force and sweetness This is that which the holy Apostle hath testified speaking of things which he had seen when the Father revealed Jesus Christ in his Spirit that God by Jesus Christ in his Grace that is his Love hath abounded towards us in all Wisdom and Prudence What Will of Man or Angel if it had in it self the greatest Arbitrarinâ—…s and highest Soveraignty over its own Actions would not with unexpressible pleasure resign its Arbitrariness its Soveraignty its self and all to the Divine Will when this Will should appear unto it in nothing Arbitrary but Goodness it self it s own Object Rule and Perfection a Goodness eternal unalterable and inviolable The supream and universal Goodness containing in it self all kinds and degrees of Goodness at an equal height with it self A Goodness which bringeth forth it self into the supream and universal Beauty its proper and essential Image to which every Will by its own Principle and most essential activity and motion is carried with a necessity and irresistableness most rational and most voluntary that is most divinely-harmonious and agreeable What Spirit endued with an Understanding and a Will can forbear from casting it self with most enamoured and most sweetly forcible transports into the Arms and absolute Conduct of this our Jesus this our God when by the first and most obscure beam of his own Light it is awakned unto this Divine Sight that this Jesus our God is Goodness it self most pure most perfect whose continued Birth and essential Image is Truth it self Beauty it self Truth and Beauty in their clearest Glories in their highest Sweetnesses in their fullest Amplitude Extent and Majesty Truth and Beauty comprehending all things within themselves as one Truth and Beauty with themselves bringing forth all things from themselves as Flowers from their Garden-beds filling all shining through all forming themselves upon all Shall not the Understanding and Will of every Spirit now be as Wings of Divine Light and Love on which the Spirit flies with a sweet and a swift strength into the Bosom of the Lord Jesus that here by its Understanding it may feast it self with an Appetite and Delight ever
new upon the supream Goodness in its heavenly Image of the eternal Truth that here by its Will it may lie down for ever with a most blissful Rest with the fulness of all unexpressible complacency in the fruition of the supream Goodness shining forth upon it immediately clasping and enfolding in its own naked immortal most precious most pleasant Form the perfection of Beauty the Essence of all Beauty Truth Goodness and Love in One But it is time now for me to pass from this second Excellency in the Mediatory Form and Person of our Jesus the Harmonious Order and Proportion of the parts The third Excellency in this Mediatory Form of Christ is the Unity of the whole and of the parts as in themselves so with the whole The ground of this Unity is two-fold 1. The Spiritual Nature 2. The Divine Person 1. One ground of this Unity is the Spiritual Nature of all things here St. Paul speaking of the Lord Jesus in this his proper Kingdom and Glory saith of him The Lord is that Spirit That Spirit in the same place he describeth to be the Spirit in which the Vail the Shade and Cloud of Flesh is entirely removed where all things are with open face in the Liberty of the Divine Light and Glory The Lord Jesus faith of himself The words that I speak unto you they are Spirit and they are Life It is the Spirit which quickneth the Flesh profiteth nothing Jesus in his Mediatory Kingdom and Glory casts off the Vail of Flesh as from his Divine so from his Humane Nature The days of his Flesh are now past He is a quickning Spirit all Spirit and Life His Humane Nature is now all Spirit and by having the Godhead hath the Fountain of Spirits and Life in it self All his words in this spiritual state are substantial living immortal Spirits springing forth from and abiding in himself as their heavenly Root and Element After this manner do all Forms of things arise and flourish in him being his words of Power and Glory as the Images in Humane or Angelical Understandings are the words of those Minds Spirits are Unities There is with them no distance of Space or division of Parts All Spirits intimately entirely throughout penetrate possess and inhabit each other transcending all this Image and measure of space of place of corporeal extension The streets in the heavenly Jerusalem are said to be Gold and Glass If I conjecture aright Jesus Christ in his Mediatory State is this glorious City where the great Assembly of the First-born all Spirits born of the Father of Lights Humane or Angelical on Earth or in Heaven dwell together in One. It is expresly said That this City hath the Glory of God that the Glory of the Lord 〈◊〉 it and that the Lamb is the Light thereof How agreeth all this with that Description of Christ the brightness of the Glory of God In this City of glorious and immortal Spirits which is it self the Spirit of Unity and of Glory where Jesus Christ is built up not only into a Temple but into a City in this Spirit the streets the lowest Forms of things are Gold and Glass Such gold as hath the transparency of glass Such glass as hath the substance the solidity the glory the incorruptibleness of Gold Thus is the Unity in the spiritual Nature of things most beautifully and most agreeably figured to us Like Gold it is every where full of it self compact and uniform sending forth continually all various Forms as Beams of Glory Like Glass it discovereth all Forms of things within it self in every point of it self by a perfect transparency all Forms of things endlesly appear in each form At every single view at every single glance the eye of the Spirit is every where terminated no where bounded every where at rest no where restrained 2. The second ground of the Unity in this heavenly Image is the Divine Person All things here are joyned by an hypostatical or personal Union all are one Person A Person is an Intellectual Unity an Intellectual Essence compleatly existing and subsisting in it self The Unity here is not that only of an Intellectual but of a Divine Person God is the Person here As is the Person such is the Unity both are supream The eternal Spirit God himself in the height of Eternity makes both Natures the Uncreated with the Created one in our Lord Jesus without any confusion or lessening the Distinction between the Natures themselves The Unity of a Person is understood by these three Maxims concerning it in Metaphysicks 1. The Person is the Subsistence or the Existence that Unity which is both the Spring and the Chanel the Center and the Circle of the whole Essence or Nature by which it is one by it self and distinct from all other things distinct from it self as it lies in its Causes and is there one with them 2. All Operations are from the Person 3. All denominations belong to the Person The Person then is the indivisible Unity which within it self according to its amplitude springs up into all Varieties of Forms Operations Denominations through the whole Essence and Nature in its utmost extent This is that which works all in all Operations which appears in all Forms which hath all names and denominations which in all these is one and the same hath one Form one Name which comprehendeth all entirely clearly distinctly undividedly According to these grounds we shall see a three-fold Divine and Personal Unity in this Mediatory Form of Christ. 1. The whole is one entire and Divine Person altogether compleat all over divinely beautiful and pleasant All Distinctions Diversities Distances Divisions Contrarieties meet here without distance diversity or division in the supream Unity of one Divine Person onc all-glorious Spirit one Life one most harmonious Image one Love one eternal Joy Behold the Beauty of this more than heavenly Person in these several Elements which compose all Beauty 1. Here is the Variety of lines and colours All forms of things in their richest Variety lie together here 2. Here is Light The substance of the created Image in this Person is the Flower of Light the most immediate sweetest freshest Sun-shine from the Face of the Godhead it self 3. Here is Life esteemed the chief part of Beauty Here is the Life of Love As it is Life which heightens so is it Love which sweetens all A Divine eternal Spring of Life and Love openeth it self in every part and from every part with most pleasant intermixtures diffuseth it self through the whole Thus are all the Beauties here perpetually in sweetest motion in the liveliest and loveliest activity of mutual fruition and the delightful exchange of their Divine Sweetnesses their never-fading Pleasures 4. All this Variety Light Life and Activity are composed into and governed by the most charming the most exact the most universal Harmony 5. The eternal Sun of Beauty it self the eternal Spirit of Harmony the
break it up into its own clear Light springs forth from the Womb of the Virgin Mary into Flesh and Blood in the dejected form of fallen man Made in all things like unto us sin only excepted The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us or tabernacled in the midst of us John 1. The Word was made flesh See there the Incarnation of the Son of God He tabernacled in the midst of us behold his Life in the Flesh. Two Natures meet in one the Word and Flesh God and Man The manner is exprest the Word is made or become Flesh not by transmutation The Word ceaseth not to be the Word The Godhead in its essential Image retaineth all its Glories its immutability and eternity in Flesh neither is the Word made Flesh by any kind of composition The Divine Nature in flesh retaineth its simplicity its purity its absolute all-comprehending incomprehensible Unity The Word is made flesh by assumption taking the Humane Nature into the Unity of the same Divine Person with it self God in his essential Image in the entireness absoluteness and Unity of his own undivided unconfined Person with the fulness of his eternal Glory descendeth into Flesh. The eternal Spirit which is Jesus himself in his Divine Form and Power comes down upon over-spreads the Virgin Mary with his Ideal force He also becomes the seminal Virtue in her So he springs up out of her Womb into a distinct individual man a frail fallen man though without spot in the Person of God Thus is he Father and Son to himself Father and Husband and Son to his Mother Yea he is also his own Mother in his Mother of his own flesh taking flesh from her inasmuch as he alone fills all in all and is the Truth of all The Word was made Flesh. God in his essential Image and Glory is the entire and compleat Person in the Humane Nature This is the Unity in it this subsists in it this appears in every part and state of it this acts and suffers all in it this is named by every name of it these are all proper to the Person Thus all the Glories of the essential of the Mediatory of the shadowy Image of Christ in their most universal Latitude as according to their several Orders they comprehend all Forms of things in themselves being united in the simplicity of this Divine Person do all meet in this Flesh fill it shine through it become one with it pass through all states and changes live and die with it and in it In like manner this Flesh subsists in the Unity of this Divine Person in the midst of all its Divine Forms and Glories In the fellowship of these surrounded with these it acts and suffers all things it appears in every part and state under every name it bears the name of these passing through all the changes of Mortality in their Divine and immortal unchangeableness We saw his Glory saith St. John speaking of Christ in the Flesh the Glory as of the only begotten Son of God Joh. 1. Thus is Jesus the same yesterday to day and for ever amidst all the changes of Flesh and Time unchangeable in the Unity of this Divine Person The Word made Flesh is the whole Tree of Being Uncreated and Created the Root the Body with all the branches putting forth themselves into one little top-branch now withering that through its death they may renew all unto a fresh and flourishing spring The Lord Jesus now being an universal Person as the essential Image of God as the spiritual and Mediatory Image as the shadowy Image the Head the Original frame of the whole Creation in its utmost Latitude as the Seed of the whole Creation spread through all the parts of it running along through all Generations bringing it forth and sustaining it in it self by taking Flesh and the Nature of fallen man upon himself sets himself in the place of us all in our lowest estate He takes our Sins and Sorrows all the Diseases of our Bodies and Minds upon himself that he may take them away from us Taking together with our Flesh our Guilt Shame Weaknesses Demerits Enemies and Enmities Death the Divine Wrath into the Unity of the Divine Person He makes an end of the Transgression with its trains of evils consuming all swallowing up all in the most beautiful and blissful flame of those Divine Purities Powers Righteousness Rest Glories Pleasantnesses Immortality which receive them into themselves in the Unity of this blessed and eternal Person The holy Ghost clearly and fully expresseth this Mediatory Work of our Redemption by Christ in this ground and superstructure Heb. 1. 3. Who being the brightness or effulgency out-shining of the Glory of God the express Image of his Person or Substance bearing up all things by the word of his Power having purged away our Sins by himself Jesus in his essential Image is the Glory of God as the Woman is said to be the glory of the Man In his Mediatory Form he is the Brightness Effulgency or out-shining of this Glory The shadowy Image in which Christ is the immediate Head of the first Creation is properly according to the Greek word the Character of his Divine Nature and Person For a Character is properly the engraving or impression of a Figure upon some forreign matter as a Figure cut upon a Seal or from a Seal imprinted upon Wax or Letters stampt in Ink upon Paper Such a Character is the Image of God in the Creature The word in this Text bearing signifieth properly a twofold sense bringing forth and bearing up as 〈◊〉 Seed its Plant So Jesus Christ is in the whole Creation and in every Creature all along bearing all things by the Word or flux of his Power that is by his seminal Virtue flowing forth and springing up in all Upon this ground in this universal Person Jesus Christ taking our flesh upon him in our lost estate into the Unity of his Person doth by himself that is by the Divinity of his Person purge away all our Sins and in them all our Evils Thus in the Incarnation in the Word made Flesh the Sun of Righteousness begins to turn towards us The Day-spring from on high visiteth us in the midst of the shades of Night and Death Righteousness begins to look down from Heaven and to spring up out of the Earth as this blessed Person in his Divine Union at once shineth forth from above and springeth up in our flesh here below He dwelt among us The words in Greek are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he tabernacled in the midst of us See here the Life of Christ in Flesh. His Flesh was the Tabernacle in which he journeyed through the Wilderness of this World the Antetype to the Tabernacle in which God sojourned with the Children of Israel resting in the midst of them marching before them through the Desart into the Land of Promise This word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is constantly used for
that Tabernacle and particularly often Heb. 9. Jesus Christ saith to the Jews Destroy this Temple and in three days I will build it up The Spirit addeth there expresly That he spake of his Body in St. John The Humane Nature of Christ in the Flesh was a moveable Tabernacle to be taken down and so figured by the Tabernacle in the Wilderness The Humanity of Christ in the Resurrection in the Spirit was the true Temple immoveable immutable eternal in the Heavens answering to Solomon's Temple on Mount Sion or Mount Moriah In the Tabernacle under the Law there was a three-fold Perfection 1. All things there were exact Figures of the Pattern upon the Mount 2. These Figures were taken immediately from the Pattern it self formed wrought and ordered by the same Spirit in Bezaleel Aholiab Moses Aron the Priests and the Levites 3. The Pattern it self in its Glory dwelt in the Tabernacle The Scriptures laid together seem to demonstrate Jesus Christ to be this Pattern upon the Mount The Law is said to have the shadow of good things to come 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not the very Image of the thing Heb. 1. 1. This very Image can be no other than the first the principal the substantial Image the Pattern it self upon the Mount This word is applied to Jesus Christ Col. 1. 15. He is said to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Image of the invisible God And that the very Image the Original Image is understood appears by that which is added The first-born of every Creature The Jewish Rabbins teach us That the Tabernacle was a model of the whole Creation of the Divine World as it is the Head of the Creation and at the Head of the Creation appears in a created Figure of the Angelical and of the visible World These were represented by the Holy of Holies the holy place and the outward Court Thus far they were right but in this they fell short that they looked not to the beginning and end of these The Messias in in his own Mediatory Glory and in his Fathers Glory as he was the Pattern of these upon the Mount and as these stood originally in him But according to this Type in the Tabernacle in his Flesh and in his Life on Earth he fulfilled all Righteousness the Righteousness of the Creature the Law and the Letter the Righteousness of God and of the Gospel Jesus Christ saith of himself What I see my Father do that do I The words that I speak are not mine but my Fathers he doth the Works The Humane Nature of Christ in Flesh his Motions his Rest all his Words and his Works answered to the Pattern upon the Mount his own heavenly Image in the Glory of God and were formed from that Pattern by the same Spirit forming his Humane Nature subsisting in it and acting it The Father saith he hath sent me and I live by the Father The mission of the Father and his living by the Father were his springing forth from the Father according to the eternal Image of things in the Father by the Spirit of the Father in his Birth Life and Death Thus he fulfilleth all Righteousness according to the Law as it was at first engraven on the heart of man as it was afterwards renewed on Tables of Stone in the Moral Ceremonial and Judiciary parts of it The Pattern it self also the heavenly and Divine Image with the Original Righteousness and Glory dwelt in this Flesh of Christ in all his Motions and Rests filling the figures with the substance Thus it is said of him The Word was made Flesh and dwelt among us full of Grace and Truth Joh. 1. 14. It is said again vers 17. The Law was given by Moses but Grace and Truth came by Jesus Christ. Grace is eternal Love the naked Face of God as it shines and smiles with all pleasantness in it opposed to the Law as it is a Ministry of Wrath and a Vail upon the Divine Nature Truth is the very Image the Pattern the everlasting Righteousness the Original and eternal Glory of God opposed to the shadows the fading Righteousness the vanishing Glory of the Law Thus this Tabernacle of Flesh in the Unity of Christ's Person was full of Grace and Truth The everlasting Love and everlasting Righteousness with their Sweetnesses Strengths and Glories which never fade nor pass away at once formed filled and rested upon their own perfect and spotless figures in the flesh of Christ. So he fulfilled the first part of his Mediation and our Redemption while as an universal Person comprehending all Mankind and the whole Creation in himself He presents himself in his Birth in his Life unto God in the place of all and all in himself as a perfect Figure of the Divine Righteousness and Glory as in an exact Harmony so in an inseparable immediate Union with its Pattern 2. The second Part of Christ's Mediatory Work in our Redemption comprehendeth the Sufferings and Death of the Lord Jesus The Sufferings of Christ are to be considered in the manner and the merit of them The manner of the Sufferings of Christs are set forth in diverse Scriptures Isa. 53. 6. God laid the Iniquity of us all upon him And vers 10. He made his Soul an offering for Sin St. Paul seems to relate to these Prophesies when he saith 2 Cor. 5. ult Him who knew no sin hath God made sin for us It is frequent in the Hebrew Language and Idiom to express Sin and metanomically the Sacrifice for sin the panishment of sin by the same word Gal. 3. 13. Christ hath purchased us from the Curse of the Law being made a Curse for us A cursed Person is a Person charged with all guilt and filth and universal abomination and detestation to God to Angels and Men. A Person devoted to Divine Vengeance and Wrath excluded from all things holy and good exposed to the opposition and enmity of all things holy and good set apart to be cut off and quite taken away in the shamefulest dreadfulest and direfulest manner Thus God personally in our flesh suffered Our Jesus takes away our Sins the Sins of the whole World Joh. 1. by taking them upon himself He stands in the place and person of all Sinners He beareth the Sins of the whole World upon himself Behold the Lamb of God which takes away the sins of the World Joh. 1. The Greek word comprehendeth both senses to take up and to take away He is set as the abominable execrable detestable thing in the Eyes of God and of all the Creatures He is devoted by the most solemn most sacred Curses to bear the weight of all Guilt to satisfie the Divine Justice to sustain the Divine Wrath to the utmost As the Sin-Offering was all consumed by fire and was burnt without the Camp so went Jesus out of the City separated from the Society of all in Heaven and on Earth bearing his shame and to endure the pain The
Curse with all evils in their greatest extent and extremity shame pain the pain of loss and of sense then fell most sensibly upon him when he cryed out My God my God why hast thou forsaken me A Wound is said to be a solution or separation of the Continuity or parts united by one common Life The Sun was eclipsed at the Death of Christ beyond the course of Nature for it was eclipsed totally not by the interposition of a dark Body between that and the Earth but by the failing of the Light it self in the very body of the Sun Was ever any Wound so bitter so full of pain and anguish as this Was ever any Eclipse so prodigious so dreadful and direful God in his own Person in the most sweet most vital the supream Unity of his Divine Person is separated and divided from himself by the force and fury of an unexpressible Wrath. The Person of God in his own Spirit in its Divine Strengths Solaces and Glories by a fury sharper and fiercer than any Sword or Flame is divided from himself in his own Flesh. The all-chearing and all-quickning Light of the eternal Sun faileth in the Person of God as he is in Flesh being turned into Sack-cloth and Blood Jesus now truly suffereth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Torments not only of an Eve-eternity but of Eternity for his Sufferings are extended and heightned not only according to the capacity of a particular individual man in flesh of an immortal Soul or an Angel great in Power but according to the proportion of the Super-Angelical Head of the whole Creation eminently and transcendently comprehending all Creatures in himself And not only so but his Sufferings in this nature are suited to the Divine and eternal Person subsisting and supporting the Nature and to the Divine and eternal Person offended coming down upon him in the full weight of his Wrath in the full Opposition the full Contrariety the full Enmity of all the Attributes of God of his entire Godhead to his proper most contrary irreconcilable Enemy the evil of Sin This is the manner of Christ's Sufferings Thus God personally suffered in Flesh. The merit of these Sufferings consisteth in this that this Flesh which suffereth and the Sufferings of this Flesh stood in the Unity of the Divine Person Our Jesus was God and Man in one Person that being Man he might suffer and this Man being God might merit by suffering By this hypostatical or personal Union by this mutual and indivisible Unity of the same Person in both Natures the Righteousness the Beauty the Sweetness the Glory all the united Excellencies and Blessedness of the Godhead stood entirely in every Wound in every Sigh in every Blush of shame in every pang of pain in every part in every degree of sufferings through the whole flesh of Christ. All these reciprocally were filled and encompassed with the full Glory with the united Excellencies of the Divine Nature Thus were they a Divine Price indeed paid down for us in the Blood and Life of our dear Saviour Now the same Divine Person the God of all Loves and Lovelinesses the God of all Peace Righteousness Joy and Immortality in the Tempests and Flames of Divine Justice and Wrath from above In the tempests and flames of all guilt sufferings and shame from below meeteth with himself on both sides in all these So the tempests and flames of Justice and Wrath from above in a moment vanish into a golden Calm and Sun-shine of Divine Loveliness and Love In the same moment the tempests and flames of guilt shame and sufferings below are transformed into the Divine unspotted Beauty of an everlasting Righteousness into the triumphs of an eternal Life Love and Joy In a word the whole Contrariety thus come to its utmost point returns into and is swallowed up in the most pure the most perfect Sweetness and Harmony of that Divine Unity from which it went forth So is our Jesus become Hylasterion the Propitiation the Atonement Thus the Blood of God in the Person of Christ washeth Crimson and Scarlet sins double died in the Blood of God himself unto the whiteness of the wool of the Lamb of God and of the Snow coming down new unstained from Heaven As Jesus Christ was a Divine Person so was he an universal Person in his Sufferings As Christ is God he is the universal Being in which all things have their Being which is most intimately and universally in each thing as the Being of every Being He is the Mediator by which all things in every kind or degree of Being descend and ascend He is the Head the Root the pure and primitive Spirit of the whole Creation as the Spirit containeth in it self the outward Form and Image He goes forth into all forms and states of things from above the highest Heavens to the nethermost parts of the Earth filling all He espouseth into the Unity of his Divine Person the Humane Nature the Harmony and Model of the whole Creation unconfined by any particular personality He takes upon him the Humane Nature in its lowest state in fading frail and dying flesh The Father hath given him to the World and for the World Joh. 3. He hath â—…iven himself for us Gal. 2. ult Thus he suffereth as an universal Person and becomes a ransome for all So St. Paul layeth down the ground of this Ransome and this Ransome 1 Tim. 2. There is one God the Father of all there is one Mediator between God and man the man Christ Jesus who gave himself a Ransome for all The Death of Jesus Christ is the finishing of his Sufferings and of his abode in Flesh. This is as the Mid-night that Point in which the Sun of the Godhead in the Heaven of Christ's Person is gone to the utmost distance from him to the utmost degree of Contrariety to him and now is returning towards him again in the beautiful and blessed Unity of the Divine Love There is a two-fold mystery in the Death of Christ 1. An universal Dissolution 2. An universal Resolution 1. The Death of Christ is an universal Dissolution He spoiled Principalities and Powers making a shew of them openly and triumphing over them on his Cross Col. 2. This true Sampson dying taketh hold of the Pillars of the World by a Divine force in his Death pulls them down and the whole Creation to fall together with himself into his Grave Some teach us That the Sun is the Center the Corner-stone the immediate Foundation of this visible World and that if this should fall out from Heaven or should lose its Light and Course in Heaven all Motions and so all Forms of things here would cease and be no more Jesus Christ of a truth is the true Sun the shining Pillar which holds the Foundation of all things visible and invisible the Root of all created Light and so of the whole World He dying all things die in him all things die together with
him If any man be in Christ saith St. Paul he is a new Creation old things are passed away 2 Cor. 5. It is a known story recited by Plutarch That of a great Cry with dreadful shrieks and groans to Thamus a Pilot as he passed by a desolate Island in the Reign of Tiberius under whom Christ was put to death Great Pan is dead this great All is dead The Heathen figured the whole Creation in the Person of their God Pan the Angelical Coelestial and Elementary parts of it 2. The Death of Christ is an universal Resolution or Return of all things as they stand in Christ into their first and Divine Principles The Light the Life the Forms the Essences of all things return into their Ideal Forms their incorruptible Originals and Patterns their pure eternal Springs in the Mediatory Form and Divine Nature of Christ. The shadowyness returns into that blessed shade that fell immediately from the Person of Christ in Glory that Primitive and Divine Darkness which was before the first Day the Womb of the first Light and of the whole Creation which composed those Nights of Beauty Peace and Pleasure the Nights of the six Days the Night of the seventh Day and all the Nights of Paradise Thus was Jesus with the good Thief and all things with him in him in Paradise at his Death The Jewish Rabbins distinguish Paradise from Heaven thus Heaven is a state of Divine Glory and Pleasure above in the open Light of â—…e Godhead Paradise is a state of Divine incorruptible Glory and Pleasure below beneath the shades of the Earth This is that pure primitive Divine Darkness of which I speak which was the shade out of which the pure Earth with all the unstained Forms of things at first arose and into which they now return again in Christ. This is the Divine sleep of all things in the Death of Christ their retirement into their Divine Patterns their sweet and entire rest in them their contemplation and fruition of all the immortal Joys and Glories of their Patterns and of themselves in those Joys and Glories as a Divine dream in this sleep within this sweet this amiable this more than Angelical shade which over-spreads them Here they desirously and delightfully wait for the Day of the Resurrection from the Face of God which they see by degrees dawning and rising upon them when the sweet Peace of this lovely shade shall break up into the more full and glorious sweetness of the supream Light and that eternal Day St. Paul expresseth all this to us when he teacheth us That Christ hath gathered up all things into one in himself Col. 2. The Greek word properly signifies there the Resolution or Return of things back into their first Principle their Original Spring and Pattern 3. The third and last part of the Mediation of Christ in our Redemption as it was accomplished in his own Person is his Resurrection and Ascension These two agree are the same in nature and kind differing only in degree The Resurrection of Christ is the breaking up of that primitive shade which over-spread him into a clear Light of Glory Now he springs up and flourisheth throughout his whole Person and all things together with him in his Person in the Beauty and Immortality of his Mediatory Form He is now become an entire Spirit in his Humane Nature both Soul and Body This two Scriptures make clear to us Jesus Christ saith to Nicodemus Joh. 3. 6. That that which is begotten of the Spirit is Spirit The word there is a Substantive 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a spiritual substance or substantial Spirit Now it is manifest in the Scriptures that the Resurrection of Christ in the Body was an immediate Generation by the eternal Spirit So Divines interpret and apply those words Heb. 1. 5. cited from the second Psalm Thou art my Son this day have I begotten thee Suitable to this is that Scripture Rom. 1. 4. Declared the Son of God with power according to the holy spirit by the Resurrection from the dead Two things are manifest from this Scripture 1. That Jesus Christ was raised from the Dead by the immediate Power and Operation of the holy Spirit 2. That this Resurrection was a Divine Generation by the Spirit through which he was brought forth into the proper Form of the Son of God That which we read declared 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifieth properly defined or determinately formed This receives further Light from St. Peter 1 Pet. 3. 18. Being put to death truly in the flesh but quickned in the spirit We read it by the Spirit but in Grâ—… the Flesh and Spirit do so exactly answer one another in the construction and manner of expression that one would think nothing to be plainer than the intention of the Holy Ghost to signifie that the Flesh and the Spirit had both the same relation to the Person of Christ in those different states of his dying and rising again that by this change the Spirit came in the place of the Flesh and that the Flesh was changed into a Spirit as by a natural Generation that that was Water or Air is made Fire The words are these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 In the same sense in which he died in Flesh or to the Flesh So he rose again in the Spirit or to Spirit That same Body which died a fleshly compounded mortal substance rose again a simple pure immortal Spirit As the Humanity of Christ rose again a Spirit so it rose in an immediate inseparable Union with the eternal Spirit upon the same Root into the same Life and Image St. Paul instructeth us in this mystery 1 Cor. 15. 45. The first Adam was made a living Soul the last Adam a quickning Spirit vers 45. The subject of St. Paul's Discourse there and in many verses before is the Resurrection of the Body He said immediately before It is sown a natural Body 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Body proper for a Soul It is raised a spiritual Body a Body proper for a Spirit vers 44. He illustrates this afterwards The first man is of the Earth earthly the second man is the Lord from Heaven vers 47. Then he distinguisheth them by the names of the earthly and the heavenly man or the Super-Coelestial vers 48. He likewise distinguisheth their two Images the Image of the earthly and the Image of the heavenly or super-coelestial vers 49. Then he concludes with a a positive and emphatical Declaration But this I say brethren that flesh and blood cannot enter into the Kingdom of God vers 50. From these Scriptures laid together these particulars seem evidently to arise 1. Jesus Christ by the Resurrection in his whole Humane Nature both Soul and Body is a supernatural super-coelestial Spirit far above the nature of Souls or Angels in the first Creation 2. The humanity of Christ hath now its Root in Heaven in that Heaven out of which it comes forth
and appears as Lord of all the Heaven of the Fathers Bosom the Heaven of the eternal Spirit and of the Godhead where it hath the Root of its Personality and its Life hidden with God from the natural eye of every Creature 3. The whole Manhood of Christ is cloathed with an heavenly or super-coelestial Image an Image suitable and proper to that Heaven out which he springs 4. The Manhood of Christ is so immediately entirely mutually united to the eternal Spirit the Godhead it self that Christ as he is man is said to be a quickning spirit The Humane Nature and the Divine in the Lord Jesus are so far now become one Spirit as in a mystical Marriage where at the height of their Unity they keep the distinction as high and clear 5. â—…us Christ in his Humane Nature in his Body as well as his Soul is thus become a Spirit in opposition to the earthly and fleshly substance of the natural Body of the first man which is declared incapable of entring into the Kingdom of God 6. This spiritual and super-coelestial state above the natural Body and above the natural Soul of the first man in his primitive state and so above the Creation in its visible or invisible part when it was most pure is properly the Kingdom of God to which that of St. Paul agreeth when he placeth the Kingdom of God in the eternal Spirit Thus the Resurrection of the Lord Jesus is his Return with his Humane Nature with his shadowy Image with the whole Creation in himself into the Immortality and Glory of his Mediatory Form to be there as he was at first This is the Object of his Hope the subject of his Prayer Now O Father glorifie me with thy self with that Glory which I had with thee before the World was Joh. 17. 5. What time that now relates unto you may understand by the fore-going verse I have glorified thee on Earth I have finished the Work which thou gavest me to do Jesus Christ speaketh this by a Prolepsis or Anticipation having his Eye upon the finishing his Work upon the Face of the Earth by dying and finishing his Work in the Heart or nethermost parts of the Earth by lying the appointed time in the Grave Jesus Christ points out to us three eminent Circumstances in his Resurrection 1. The first is a Glory with his Father an Union and Fellowship with the Godhead and with the Person of the Father in his own proper and Divine personal Glory He expresseth this twice over as the chiefest sweetness of his Hopes and the principal Glory in the Glory Glorifie me with thy self with the Glory which I had with thee 2. This Glory transcends that of the whole Creation in its greatest Perfection as it also antecedes it as it also is a Glory which was before the World was 3. Here are three states distinctly represented to us 1. Jesus Christ in Glory before he came into this World before this World was 2. Jesus Christ coming forth from that Glory into this World and being without that Glory all that interval of his Life here 3. The return of Christ at his Death and Resurrection into the same Glory These three states must necessarily respect Jesus Christ in the same form under the same relation to accommodate this sense and make that proper The Person of Christ in his shadowy Image in which he was the Head of the whole Creation and comprehended this all in himself as he took flesh of the Virgin Mary and set himself in the place of all in their fallen estate So He was without the Glory Before all this in his Mediatory Form he stood together with God and his Father in his shadowy Image in Flesh and Blood with all the changes accompanying him after a spiritual manner filled and cloathed with a super-coelestial and eternal Glory Two Scriptures laid together give more light and strength to this place and this sense Jesus Christ having spoken to the Jews of eating his Flesh and drinking his Blood Joh. 6. 56. Of his being the Bread coming down out of Heaven vers 58. Understanding the Jews to murmur and be offended at the hardness of this saying vers 60 61. makes this Reply to their murmurs What if ye shall see the Son of man ascending thither where he was at first or before It is the Spirit quickneth the Flesh profiteth nothing The words which I speak they are Spirit and Life The other Scripture is that Rom. 1. 4. Christ was raised from the dead by the Glory of God From these two Scriptures compared the Truth of this mystery shines forth in these parts 1. The flesh and blood of Jesus Christ in the proper sense of Christ's words are Spirit and Life 2. They were Spirit and Life in the Glory of God before the coming down of Christ upon the Earth 3. From that state they came forth into their shadowy appearance here in this shadowy Image 4. They returned again together with this shadowy Image into that first state where casting off the Vail or rather converting the Vail into the same Nature and Form they were again all Spirit and Life by the Glory of God in the Resurrection springing up in them coming down upon them and taking them into it self Lastly The flesh and blood of Christ even when they are come forth from this spiritual and immortal Glory while they are in this shadowy state upon the Earth abide unchangeably in this Glory and are there still all Spirit all Life without any Vail or Cloud Thus are they the food of a Saint The Lord Jesus expresseth this sense No one hath ascended into Heaven but he who comes down out of Heaven the Son of Man who is in Heaven Two things are remarkable here 1. The being in Heaven is expressed by the Participle of the present Tense a present and constant Act. 2. The Title of the Son of Man is particulary added to that clause of the being in Heaven constantly without interruption while he comes down out of Heaven while he ascends into Heaven in the interval or space of his being on Earth between both these Jesus Christ as he is the Son of Man comes down at first out of that Heaven into which at last he returns and re-ascends In the same Heaven also hath he his present and constant abode while he is on Earth As the Heaven of Christ's Mediatory Glory and of the Fathers Glory which are far above all created Heavens the Heavens of this Creation come down together with him upon the Earth obscured beneath the Vail of Flesh and in this Flesh act all the parts of his living and dying here So do these Heavens also at once comprehend this Earth in the Person of Christ his flesh their obscurity before it All the parts of his Life and Death in the flesh as parts of Glory in these Heavens As Spirit and Life as spiritual and immortal Glories in the Fountain of Life and
A DISCOURSE OF THE FREEDOM OF THE WILL. By PETER STERRY Sometimes Fellow of Emmanuel Colledge in Cambridge HEB. 13. 2. Be not forgetful to entertain STRANGERS for thereby some have entertained ANGELS unawares LONDON Printed for John Starkey at the Miter near Temple-Bar in Fleetstreet 1675. The Printer to the Reader THe Author having written so large a Preface to his following Discourse and therein given the Reader such a delightful tast of his excellent Spirit The Publishers decline saying any thing either of it or him Only I am desired by them to inform thee that this Discourse is posthumous and not Originally design'd for the Press but the private satisfaction of some worthy persons who beg'd the Author's sense concerning this Argument and to whom he was pleas'd at several times by set discourses to communicate his thoughts so plentifully that they and some other Friends importun'd him to peruse what he had dictated to them upon this Subject to make some additions to it and to fit it for Publick View Whilst the Author was perfecting this undertaking it pleased God to take him out of this life but in pursuance of his own desire before his death thou hast here with all possible integrity deliver'd to thee so much of his intended Discourse as came to the Publishers hands either in his own Copies or those of his Friends which were examin'd and own'd by himself there being nothing alter'd or added by them but the Title Page By these means it is now grown into a Book and thou art acquainted with all this not to bespeak thy greater gentleness and candour in reading it but to do the Author right and give thy self the true accompt why thou art wholly disappointed of what he design'd upon that Argument taken from the proper form and essence of Liberty and not so fully satisfied in the application of the argument drawn from the Knowledge of God and those other two taken from the nature of the Soul and the Mediation of Christ the Scripture cited and promised to be opened from the 1. Gen. being omitted in the explication of the former and in the other nothing said concerning the progress and propagation of the Mediatory Work of Jesus Christ through his whole Body I have only this further to add concerning the many Errata's that have escaped the Press which thou wilt find set down and corrected to thy hand at the end of the Book That the impatience of some Friends to have this Discourse out and the fears of others lest it should be stifled in the birth with some other difficulties of the Copy have by precipitating the Press and perplexing the Printer occasion'd so great a number of mistakes That yet there is not so many as at first view the Reader may apprehend because for the sake of the more ordinary capacity more words are made use of for the reforming of most of them than would else have been necessary And lastly that thou wilt find they are generally Errors only in the points which are easily and without defacing the Book to be mended although otherwise of great moment to the sense and are therefore with great care corrected in the last page for the service of the Vulgar Reader who may be in some places not a little help'd in his perusing of this Treatise by thereby observing where to place most usefully the points THE PREFACE TO THE READER Christian and Candid Reader I Intreat some few things of thee for thine own sake and for mine 1. Study the Love of God the Nature of God as he is Love the Work of God as it is a Work of Love Moses in his dying Song beginneth with God and the perfection of his Work He is the Rock his Work is perfect St. Paul descended from the Paradise in the Third Heavens bringeth this with him down into the World as the Sacred Mystery and rich ground of all Truth from which all the Beauties and Sweetnesses of Paradise of all the Heavens spring That Love is the band of Perfection It is Love then which runneth through the whole Work of God which frameth informeth uniteth it all into one Master-piece of Divine Love If God be Love the Attributes of God are the Attributes of this Love the Purity Simplicity the Soveraignty the Wisdom the Almightiness the Unchangeableness the Infiniteness the eternity of Divine Love If God be Love his Work is the Work of Love of a Love unmixt unconfined supream infinite in Wisdom and Power not limited in its workings by any pre-existent matter but bringing forth freely â—…nd entirely from it self its whole work both matter and form according to its own inclination and complacency in it self Leo Hebraeus enflamed with the Beauty and languishing in the Love of the heavenly Sophia the heavenly Wisdom which is the first and freshest life of all Beauties in one Face immortal and ever-flourishing is instructed by this Divine Mistress in those excellent Dialogues between her and himself to Court and Woo her into his Embraces by enquiring into the Nature of Love Pursuing this enquiry by the bright Conduct of her shining Beauties he is led through the whole nature of things above and below with all the Varieties and Changes as manifold streams of Divine Love in diverse breadths and depths with innumer able sportful windings and turnings flowing forth from its own full Sea of eternal Sweetness and through all its Chanels hasting thither again Campanella teacheth us That all second Causes are Causa prima modificata so many Modifications of the first Cause so many forms and shapes in which the first Cause appears and acts All the Works of God are the Divine Love in so many Modes and Dresses There is diversity of Manifestations there are diversities of Operations which compose the whole frame and business of this Creation which are as diverse persons acting diverse parts upon this stage But there is one Spirit one Lord one God one Love which worketh all in all It is the Divine Love with its unsearchable Riches which is the fulness that filleth all persons and all parts upon the stage of Time or Eternity If any man know not the way to the Sea let him follow a River in the course of its stream saith the Comoedian Dear Reader if thou wouldst be lead to that Sea which is as the gathering together and confluence of all the waters of Life of all Truths Goodness Joys Beauties and Blessedness follow the stream of the Divine Love as it holdeth on its course from its head in eternity through every work of God through every Creature So shalt thou be not only happy in thine end but in thy way while this stream of Love shall not only be thy guide by thy side but shall carry thee along in its soft and delicious bosom bearing thee up in the bright Arms of its own Divine Power sporting with thee all along washing thee white as snow in its own pure floods and bathing thy whole
of good to an encrease of their evils unto a blackness of darkness until by these mutual mistakes they have drawn on upon themselves mutual and absolute ruine How much better were it to obey that Precept of the Holy Ghost which offereth it self to us like an Olive-branch in the mouth of this Sacred Dove To look every man not to his own things but to the things of another O that now I had an hundred Mouths an hundred Tongues a voice like Thunder like the Voice of God that rends the Rocks to cry to all sorts of Persons and Spirits in this Land in all the Christian World through the whole Creation Let all that differ in Principles Professions or Opinions and Forms see that good which is in each other and the evil in themselves Joyn in thiâ—… to extirpate the evil the common evil your common enemy and so quench that fire which burns upon your Estates your Houses your Relations your Bodies your Souls even to the nethermost Hell Unite the good which is in you so shall the good on one side make up that which is imperfect and defective in the good on the other side unto a perfection of good in both So shall the good on one side be as a proper Antitode to extinguish the evil on the other side Thus while the evil is the privation the loss of your selves and the good your true-selves as Hor ace calls Virgil Dimidium animae meae you will meet like two halves of each other filling up the circle of each others Being Beauties Joys and be now compleated in one How unexpressible would the fruits of this Union be How would it heighten you in all the Beauties and Blessednesses of Truth and Goodness in which your immortality and conformity to God are placed yea how would this Union strengthen those outward Interests and sweeten those natural Enjoyments for whose sake now like Adders you stop your Ears to the wisest Charmer and the most potent Charms that would draw you home into the bosom of each other for whose sake now you cast down to the ground all ingenuity and integrity You make your way over their sweetest Beauties and tenderest Bowels to the heart-blood of one another until you have drowned in blood those very darling Interests and Enjoyments together with your own Lives and Persons your native Country the Christian World the face of the whole Earth But ab when will poor Mankind on Earth be wise to understand its own good or be good that it may me wise Blessed is he that cometh in the Name of the Lorld VVe wait for thy Salvation thy Jesus O God! To him shall the gathering of the people be the true Shiloe for whom this Glory is reserved It seemeth indeed according to my humble sense necessary to divide those Principles and Practices which divide Mankind into three Heads 1. Some seem to be of a nature perfectly indifferent neither good nor evil but according to the intention and spirit which acteth them 2. Some differ in the degrees mixtures or varieties of good and evil 3. Others differ in the whole kind of good and evil In this last state of things it is the part of every Child of Light to maintain the Divine Love in his Spirit like the Sun in the Firmament encompassing the whole Earth from one end to the other shining upon all both good and bad upon dry and sandy Desarts the Habitations of wild Beasts and venemous Serpents as well as cultivated Gardens flourishing with wholesome Herbs pleasant Flowers and all sorts of fruits Thus God himself is propounded to us for a Pattern by the Son of God Distinguish between the good and evil Love takes pleasure in the good Hate the evil Advance the good Oppose the evil upon all occasions with all your forces But every where distinguish carefully with all tenderness of Spirit between the person and the evil of the person Be wise as Serpents but innocent as Doves according to the Counsel and Command of Jesus Christ who is the supream VVisdom and Love both in one Discern the evil with a quick and curious eye guard your selves with all your might from it maintain an aversion an enmity to it eternally irreconcilable Thus be a Serpent to the evil but at the same time be a Dove to the person without gaul without any thing to offend moaning over it groaning for it as your Mate till it be recovered from the evil which captivates it into a fellowship with you in the purity and love of the Divine Nature Have always most tender bowels for and a most sensible sympathy with all Mankind in their greatest Deformities and Defilements as thy Brethren tyed unto thee by a double Consanguinity 1. All men are made of the same blood in Adam 2. All men are redeemed by the same blood of the Lord Jesus who hath given himself a Ransom for all to be testified 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the proper times Each person which hath his part in this Ransom hath its proper time for its discovery in him Thine may be now sooner This person also now most of all lost in the depth of all evils may have his proper time yet to come for the taking off the disguise of these filthy Rags from him for the discovery of the Glory as of a Son of God in him As his time comes later so it may come with a fuller Glory As Zipporah said to Moses whether bitterly or in the sweet sense of a Sacred mystery pointing to the Messias Thou art an Husband to me in bloods So look thou on every man as a Brother to thee in both these bloods of which one was once pure and precious as that of the Sacred Image of God in Paradise The other is eternally pure and precious as the blood of God himself Forgiving one another freely for Christ's sake is the language of St. Paul Look upon every person through this twofold Glass the Blood and the Beauties of Christ. Christ hath died for all The natural Being of every person hath his Root in the Grave of Christ and is watered with his blood Christ lives in all His Resurrection is the life of the whole Creation He is the VVisdom the Power the Righteousness of God in every work of Nature as well as of Grace He is the Root out of which every natural as well as every spiritual Plant springs which brings forth himself through every natural existence and brings forth himself out of it as the flower the brightness of the Glory of God He is the Root and Truth of all things All things are by him and for him to the praise and glory of God in him His Name is excellent through all the Earth Read then this Name of Excellency of Glory the Name of Christ in every part and point of the â—…arth the darkest the lowest the least forgive the spots upon this Name in every person for the Names-sake engravâ—…n upon it Receive
one another into the Glory of God is the Rule of St. Paul Divines distinguish between the person together with the nature of the Deâ—…il and the evil The person the nature springs forth from God and so is good hath a Divinity and Glory in it a Divine Root a Divine Image It stands in the Glory of God as a Flower in the Garden a Bâ—…am in the Sun it is maintained by a continual emanation from the bosom of the supream Glory Thus thou art to receive every person clouded with the greatest evils as he is the work of Nature and of God into the Glory of God Thus every other person is to be thy Neighbour thy â—…rother in the Glory of God and the Object of a Divine Love No evil as evil is the nature or choice of any person but the mishap and the disease Truth is the only Object of every Understanding the only white at which it aims Like the Mary-gold it opens it self only to this Sun or that which shines upon it in the glorious form of this Sun and so descends in seeming beams of this Divine Beauty into its bosom Good is the only Object of the VVill. As the Needle toucht by the Load-stone is governed in its motion and rest by the North-pole so is the VVill moved and attracted by that alone which toucheth it with a sense of good It resteth in no bosom but that which courteth and wooeth it undâ—…r the Divine Form of good with the seeming Charms of this its only Beloved and Bridegroom St. Paul saith Sin deceived me and slew me No person is willingly dâ—…ceived in his belief of Truth on disappointed in his expectation of good Every evil is a degree of death a diseafe in the end death When it appeareth like it self all things fly from it as from death But as Cupid in the form of the young and flourishing Prince Ascanius by treacherous embraces and kisses breath'd a fatal poyson into the veins of the Carthaginean Queen So doth sin and evil by the hellish enchantments of the Prince of Darkness form it self into the most alluring resemblance of the heavenly Image composed of Truth and Goodness meeting in one immortal form It adorneth it self all over with the most curious and sparkling Counterfeits of all its most amiable most Divine Sweetnesses and Beauties Thus it insinuates it self into the eyes and hearts of the Sons of God and fills them with its false sweetnesses enflames them with a false Love as the poyson and fire from Hell Yet still in the midst of these enchantments and deaths as the Athenians in the midst of their Atheism and Idolatry had an Altar inscribed To the unknown God The Understanding and the Will according to their own proper natures stand in every natural Spirit as Altars in a Temple shining and burning with continual fires by night and by day aspiring to the highest and clearest Heavens through all opposed Clouds of Darkness while this inscription in clear Characters appeareth engraven round these Altars To the Unknown Good the Unknown God to the unknown Truth the unknown Jesus If any person then be faln into any evil Let those that are spiritual restore him with a spiritual skill with a spirit of Meekness and Divine Love Apply Reproofs Chastisements to evil persons in their seasons as a Brother gives an Antidote to a beloved Brother that by a mistake hath been surprized and drunk in poyson or as one hand applies a Medicine to the other hand or to the eye when it suffers by any wound or distemper If thou art an Angel and hast to do with a Devil use no reviling Language for so the Angel himself is by the Spirit of God markt with a Character of Honour for this that he used no reviling Speeches to the Devil Preserve thy self from that bitter zeal which St. James mentioneth upon which he setteth so evil a mark branding it deeply with the fire of Hell as a Devil transfiguring himself into the form of an Angel If there be saith he amongst you bitter envying this wisdom is not from above but earthly sensual and devillish We read it bitter envying In Greek it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 bitter zeal Take heed of suffering thy zeal against the evil to be mingled and tempered with a bitternâ—…ss against the person As Lightning from Heaven melts the Sword but doth no harm to the Scabbard Discover thou in all thy Reproofs and Chastisements an equal love to the person and hatred to the evil an equal desire to destroy the evil and save the person Or rather let thy zeal against the evil be love to the person flaming forth and burning with a great but with a sweet and Divine force that it may consume the Dross for the Golds-sake to which the dross cleaves that of the Gold thus refined it may make a Jewel for the Bosom or a Crown for the Head of Jesus Christ. Suffer not thy zeal against evil to be like the Locusts from the bottomless-pit which have faces like men hair soft and delicate like women Crowns of Glory upon their heads like Angels but venemous and killing stings in their tails Let it not be like Culinary fire or the fire of Hell black sooty and devouring but like the fire from the golden Altar mingled with sweet Incense filling all round about and carrying up that upon which it feeds as a Sacrifice to Heaven with the rich Odours and Perfumes of a Divine Love If I be lifted up to Heaven by manifold excellencies together with Corazin and Bethsaida from whence I look down upon another far beneath me lying like Sodom and Gomorrah in a loathed and hated deep of darknesses defilements disgraces Let me then think That this Sodom may have a better Spirit a better ground of good at the bottom of its Spirit than my self That if the seed of Love and Light which hath been sown in me had been sown with the like advantage there it would have far excelled me in its fruits Yea let me think that it may not only have a better ground but a Divine seed hid deep in that ground beneath all this soil and dung beneath all this darkness deformity and deadness of its Winter-season which may rise up in its proper Spring into pleasant Flowers and Fruits as the Garden of God Thus let me think and let these thoughts instruct me to love every other person removed to the greatest distance from me cast down to the greatest depth beneath me as my Neighbour my Brother my self This is my double Request to thee gentle Reader 1. That thou love every other person as thy Neighbour thy Friend thy self with that Divine Love in whose flame thou sacrificest thy self and all things to receive thy self again and all things together with thy self in a more excellent and durable form 2. That thou suffer nothing to stain the Candour of this Love whose Reasons being altogether Divine subject all other reason to themselves
Give me leave to strengthen this twofold Request by presenting to thee thine own Interest after the highest manner contained in it after a two-fold form 1. This Divine Love at this heighth in this Latitude is all that is true in Religion all that is good in Man all that is acceptable with God all the hope of future Glory and of blessed immortality If I give all my Goods to the Poor and my Body to be burnt and have not Charity I am nothing Is there any Charity or Love to Man greater than this to give all my Goods to the Poor Is there any Charity or Love to God more Divine than this to give my Body to be burnt for him Yes there is a Charity a Love which transcends all this which if I want I may yet have all this and be nothing This is that Divine Love of which I speak which lifteth not it self up above any of the works of God but keepeth the Unity of the eternal Workman of his Divine Design and VVork in the golden band of an universal Peace and Divine Amity This is that Divine Love which behaveth not it self uncomely seeketh not its own things breaketh not the Harmony of the whole dividing it self from the whole by a particular self-love In the universal Beauty and Melody of the Divine Wisdom and Work it respecteth it self as a part and all parts as it self having one Beauty and Joy together in the Beauty Joy and harmonious Perfection of the Divine Figure in the whole piece This Love beareth all things believeth all things hopeth all things suffereth all things This we read of the Divine Love 1 Cor. 13. 7. The first expression in that verse is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which we render beareth all things I have three Reasons against this translation of it 1. It makes the last Clause of this verse a tautology a vain repetition It suffereth all things which is the same with the first 2. It is the remotest sense of the Greek word two senses being nearer 1. To cover 2. To contain or comprehend 3. These two nearer senses are more agreeable more full and Divine 1. The Divine Love covereth all things with the Divine loveliness and beauty of the universal Harmony which is the Righteousness of God in Christ the first the fairest Image of the invisible God in which every other Image of God standeth as in the Original the all-comprehending Glory This is that which Solomon saith Love covereth all sin And St. Paul of the Divine Workman of the Divine Love He putteth the highest comeliness that is the universal Comeliness of the Divine Image in its entireness and perfection upon every part even upon the most uncomely parts That there may be no schism or division in the Body that there may be one glory of all 2. The Divine Love in every Person or Spirit lives not in it self as a part but in the life of the whole in the Divine the Universal Spirit the Spirit of Love the Spirit of the whole I live not saith St. Paul but Christ liveth in me Again If you live in the Spirit walk in the Spirit Thus the Divine Love having its life in each person in the life of the whole the Universal Spirit being one Spirit with that Spirit which is the Unity of the whole comprehendeth all things with strictest tenderest imbraces in it self as one self with it self So faith the holy Apostle All things are yours you are Christs and Christ is Gods All things are yours as you are Christs as Christ is Gods that is in the Unity of the eternal Spirit which is Love it self Now from this covering Beauty and comprehensive Virtue in Divine Love these effects naturally flow To believe all things to hope all things We easily believe and hope that which we desire The Divine Love hath a complacency in all things as it comprehendeth them in their Divine Root It hath a good will to all things as they stand in the same Divine Root with it self From this Complacency this Desire this Divine Root it believeth it hopeth all things It believeth all things to be Divine Tabernacles like that in the Wilderness which though moving through Desâ—…ts through a Land of Graves through a Land of fiery Serpents yet answer to their Pattern on the top of the Mount though covered with a course Tent exposed to the fury of the Sun and tempests in the midst of Clouds of dust yet are all-glorious within composed of rich materials bearing a Divine Figure filled with the Divine Presence and Glory It hopeth all things light in the midst of darkness a flourishing Garden of Lillies and Roses in a ground covered and bound up with all the darknesses and rigours of the hardest Winter a treasure of Honey-Combs in the body of a Lion The Master of the Sentences hath such an high esteem of this Charity or Divine Love which is the subject of St. Pauls Discourse in this Chapter That he affirmeth it to be the holy Spirit himself the third Person in the Trinity which is the Love in the Divine Nature and so the Virtue the Power As the second Person the Lord Jesus is the Beauty the Wisdom St. James reasoneth after this manner Can the same Fountain bring forth sweet and bitter waters with the same mouth you bless God and curse man made after the Image of God If from the same heart thou bringest forth that Love to some men by which thou givest all thy Goods to them to supply their wants and ragest with wrath or hatred against others who as they have any making are made after the same Divine Image with the rest of Mankind Who as they have any Being have the same Divine Root are sealed with the same Divine Impression thou hast not Charity thou hast not Divine Love thou hast not the Spirit the universal the eternal Spirit thou art nothing If thou hast the gist of Prophesie if thou understandest all divine Mysteries if thou hast a divine Faith if with the same heart thou lovest God to so high a degree that thou givest thy Body to be burnt for him and yet burnest in rage against any man made after the Image of God All these Divine Gifts or Graces in which thou gloriest are nothing thou art nothing thou hast not Charity Thou hast not the Divine Love thou hast not the Spirit of Christ and of God which is the universal Spirit the Spring the Seal the Band of the Divine Unity Dear Reader follow after this Divine Love without which all that which thou hast is nothing which if thou hast it is the band of perfection never faileth never falleth short of the Glory of God but by the incorruptibleness of a meek spirit preserveth in it self a Divine Beauty and Sweetness which is ever perfect which never passeth away in the midst of all changes of Life in Death to Eternity This is thy first Interest in preserving the Divine Love entire in thy
heart 2. The measure which thou measurest to others shall be measured to thee again If you do well who will harm you St. Paul distinguisheth between a righteous man and a good man This doing well is that goodness of Divine Love pouring forth round about it heavenly beams upon all things which maketh men to be so far from any inclination to harm the person in whom this goodness discovereth it self that they are willing to die for him St. John giveth us a lively figure of the Divine Love in a light of Glory by these words He that loveth his Brother walketh in the light and there is none offence in him The last words are capable of two senses which very agreeably meet here 1. There is nothing in this person at which any man taketh any offence 2. There is nothing of which this person receiveth any Image into his Spirit which offends him He who is this Divine Lover walketh always in those blessed Regions of Divine Light where every thing presenteth it self in his heart as it lieth in the heart of God springing forth from the womb of an eternal Love acted by that eternal Spirit which is Love it self cloathed with an ever-flourishing loveliness lying in the universal Harmony of the Divine Wisdom being one piece with it having the Glory of God resulting from it and resting upon it He that is this Divine Lover shines forth in all his Discourses Conversation and Actions upon all eyes and hearts with such a sweet light and heavenly lustre of the Divine Nature of the supream Love it self the Unity the Mother the Sister the Desire of all things the Joy of the whole Earth that nothing takes offence at this Person nothing can harm him O what a Conquest had we attained if we once did so live that we convinced all persons that we loved them in truth and in deed that we had a Divine Love for them that we esteemed all things in our selves of no value of no effect to our present Beauty and Peace to our eternal Life and Glory to be altogether nothing except this Divine Love alone How would this demonstration of an heavenly Wisdom in an heavenly meekness of Divine Love disarm all hands of the weapons lifted up against us and all hearts of their wrath conceived against us like the Musick of David's Harp the sweet force of this Love would chase away every evil Spirit from every Breast There is no power in Nature like to that of Similitude Every thing draws and attracts its like to it Where this Divine Love flourisheth in any person all the blessed immortal Spirits of heavenly Love above in eternity with all the joys and glories of Love resort to this Person to this Heart planting themselves round about as heavenly Guards and heavenly Ministers to it inhabiting in it as their proper Paradise and Heaven here below In all things below through all their differences distances and divisions the Spirit of Love which bath in it the Root and Idea of each Creature which is in each Creature as the proper Root of that Creature as it s Ideal and primitive Form discloseth it self to shineth forth upon and in all forms of things circleth in this person this heart being attracted by it drawn to it as its proper Centre Some Divine Philosophers teach us That according to the property or power which predominateth in us here such will that Divine Idea be which shall be our eternal Habitation and Palace above in which we shall enjoy all things being sealed to us by this Idea If the Divine universal Love reign in thee here Love which seems to be the highest and sweetest of all Ideas in the Divine Nature the Divine Nature it self in its most proper and perfect Idea uniting the Ideas of all Perfections of all Beauties of all Sweetnesses of all Lives Loves Joys and Glories in it self at their greatest heighth with the most ravishing agreeableness and harmony this shall be thy proper Habitation and Palace set up for thee in thine own person in every Creature in every Created or uncreated form of things to dwell unchangeably in both here and above Here shall all things present themselves to thee cloathed and sealed with this Idea with this pure and perfect Love With the measure with which thou hast measured unto others shall it be measured unto thee Thou hast loved all things with a Divine Love looking upon them stedfastly through all seasons and changes in a Divine Light in the incorruptible form of a Divine loveliness As thou hast looked upon them so shall they all in all seasons and states appear to thee in a Divine Light full and over-flowing with a Divine Love cloathed all over with a Divine loveliness Love all things O Reader after a divine manner that thou mayest be the beloved Object of all divine things and divinely beloved by all things that thou mayest shine with a divine loveliness in all eyes and be received with a divine loveliness into all hearts These are the Requests which I make to thee for thine own sake I have one Request only to present to thee for my self which is That thou wouldst come with this Divine Love to the reading of this Discourse Câ—…me with that love which thinketh no evil We read in the Revelations of an Angel descending from Heaven who enlightned the whole Earth While thou readest let this heavenly love be as a Seraphim flying down upon its flaming wings from the Throne of Love into thy Bosom to enlighten thy whole Soul with its beams unto a Divine Candour that there may be no dark corner left for any suspitious Jealousies Prejudices Animosities or ill will like poysonous Toads in the hollows of some old wall Come with this love which believeth all things all the good that every subject either person or thing is capable of As Bees extract the virtue out of the commonest Herbs and convert it to Honey in themselves So do thou believe every thing here to be intended in the best sense of which it is capable Draw forth this sense from it and improve it in thy self with the utmost advantage to the sweetest satisfaction and the richest treasure in thy own mind Believe this Piece to be the fruit of Love springing from a Root of Divine Love We read in the Revelations of an Angel standing in the Sun Plato somewhere saith something like this that if we stood in the Sun all things even this dark mass of Elements and elementary composition to us beholding them from that center of Light would appear in a Sun-like Glory Be thou this Angel or in this an Angel-like Spirit stand in this Sun the glorious circle of divine Love From thence see the Fountain of Love opening it self to thee in this Discourse all the parts all the lines as so many streams flowing forth from it to water thy Spirit and make it a Garden of Divine Sweetnesses and Beauties If the rich man in Hell
unlimited Sweetness and Liberty with the Divine Love the Divine will above Yea now the will and love enjoy a two-fold full and glorious Liberty while Goodness and Beauty are their Essence as well as their Election 1. They freely and unconfinedly rove through all the fields of Goodness and Beauty in their greatest amplitude in their richest and most unbounded Varieties as freely as through their own proper Essence and Being 2. Their Liberty in this unconfined amplitude of all Goodness and Beauty becomes most ample and triumphant while it is free from all fear danger suspicion possibility of change to any degree of confinement or constraint by this essential Connexion between it self and the highest necessity O good O beautiful O blessed Will which sits upon the Throne of Eternity which governest us and all things While in being good beautiful blessed with a perfect Liberty thou art such also with the highest necessity Thou art now as delightfully and complacentially so unchangeably absolutely universally supreamly soveraignly essentially Good beautiful and blessed in thine whole Nature Person and Duration in all â—…hy works and ways O Good Beautiful Blessed is that will also in whom Liberty and Necessity are after the same manner united by its Union with the Divine will 2. Nothing seems to present the Divine Face of Truth and the whole nature of things with such harmonious and charming Beauties to the eye of the mind as the determination of the will by its essential and universal Causes seen in one view with the Divine Love A single light seen by Mariners resting upon their Ship which as I remember was of old called by the name of Helena Threatneth a dreadful storm But two Twin-Lights known by the name of the two Brothers Castor and Pollux infuse a new life into the hearts of the Sea-men by the sweet hope of a sudden and gentle Calm After the same manner these two the divine Love and the determination of the will shining together as twin-lights entertain us with a most beautiful composure a golden Calm and Sun-shine a Divine Amity spread through the work of God in all the parts of it But either of these alone exposeth all to stormy gusts slawes and wracks We read of the Spouse in the Canticles That the Joynts of her thighs are Jewels the work of a curious workman The indeterminate motions of the Will render the work of God a dis-joynted piece exposing it in its most principal parts and motions to an ungoverned contingency without joynts or bands which may knit them together one to another and to the whole as one piece If the will with its motions by a necessary connexion in the Order of Causes be joynted into the whole and compose with the rests of the parts one entire work answering to one entire design framed in the heart and brought forth by the hand of that supream and eternal Spirit which is love it self the pure unmixt entire Spirit of love How sweet how beautiful how full of all Divine Charms and Perfections through all the parts of it What a Princely Daughter and Spouse worthy of the great and eternal King must we think this work to be which is the compleat and full contrivance of so rich and so high a Love formed in its own Bosom In the midst of all its most amiable and delightful treasures which is the outward work of a most pure and Almighty Love wrought entirely from end to end by its own hand with fingers dropping its own pure incorruptible Myrrh upon every part of it as it wrought it forming it for a compleat Image of it self and a continual delight to it self What Jewels now must we think all the Joynts of the Thighs of this Divine Image and Birth How harmonious the motions by these Joynts when the joynts and motions are all the work of so skillful so curious so faithful a Workman as Love it self the supream and eternal Love I humbly acknowledge that to my weak Understanding a created Will absolute and arbitrary determined in its course by no light of Truth no light or life of good seemeth to lead my Spirit into a Wilderness where there is no way or guide or to thrust me forth without Ballast or Rudder without a Pole-star or Needle toucht with the loadstone upon the face of an unknown and stormy Sea What a golden-thread of Harmony guides us through the nature of things and leads us into all Truth Harmony being the very Essence of all Natures and all Truths when we understand the whole nature of things from the greatest to the least parts and motions of it to be determined and that determination to be the work of the Divine Love the firmest band of sweetest Union the sweetest Life of all beautiful proportion being only Wise only Powerful inasmuch as it is the highest Unity containing all Variety Originally in it self sending it forth from it self and diffusing it self through all We are taught in Metaphysicks That Being Truth and Goodness are really one How sweet a rest now doth the Spirit with its Understanding and its Will find to itself in every Being in every Truth in every State or Motion of Being in every form of Truth When it hath a sense of the highest Love which is the same with the highest Goodness designing disposing working all in all even all Conceptions in all Understandings all Motions in every VVill Humane Angelical Divine With what a joy and complacency unexpressible doth the Will the Understanding the whole Spirit now lie down to rest every where as upon a bed of Love as in the bosom of goodness it self Let not any question the close and Divine Contexture of the whole Work in all the parts and conduct of it by a firm connexion of Causes and Effects like links in a Chain from its first beginning to its last end because he meeteth with an Hell as well as an Heaven in this work of God Divine Love which transcendently excels in all Wisdom and Prudence beyond all the highest wits of men the richest Contrivances of Poets knoweth how to joynt an Hell into its work with such Divine Artifice incomprehensible to Men or Angels that this also shall be beautiful with delights in its place and shall give a sweetness a lustre to the whole piece St. Paul saith to the Saints All things this World Life Death things present things to come are yours you are Christs and Christ is Gods and God is Love See a golden Chain see the Order of the precious Links see how in a beautiful circle the beginning is fastned to the end All Philosophy agreeth in this that the last end is the first mover In God then who is Love the first and the last links of this Chain meet All things this wicked World Death it self even the second Death and Hell deaths to come as well as deaths present are shining links in this golden Chain fastened to that superior Link the Saint the spiritual man He
is linkt by heavenly embraces to Jesus Christ Jesus Christ to God the Father of Lights and the spring of Loves Homer tells us of a Chain fastned to the Throne of Jupiter which reacheth down to the Earth He speaketh to Neptune Minerva and the rest of the Powers about him which reign in the Skies in the Seas in the Earth in Hell below If ye should all hang with your whole weight upon the end of this Chain I would at my pleasure draw you all up to my self The Throne of the most High God is a Throne of Grace of Love Like a Chain doth the whole Nature of things descend from this Throne having its top fastned to it What-ever the weights may be of the lowermost links of this Chain yet that Love which sits upon the Throne with a Divine delight as it lets down the Chain from it self so draws it up again by the Order of the successive Links unto a Divine Ornament an eternal Joy and Glory to it self All things of Nature in its Beauties all things of Nature in its Ruine Life and Death in all forms are a Saints a Saint is Christs Christ is Gods But gentle Reader this is enough to set forth the suitableness between the two Subjects of my Epistle and my Book the Divine Love and the VVill of Man the Daughter and the Bride of this Love by its immortal Birth and Espousals essentially inevitably determined to its heavenly Father and Bridegroom To this Love the only Good in all appearances of it the Will turns it self as the Needle toucht with the Loadstone to the North-pole Beautiful and blessed is this Will when it s own Bridegroom shines upon it and attracts it by beams by sweet glimpses of it self spread through all things more clear or more obscure but true Then do her beauty and blessedness both change into deformity and misery when by hellish enchantments she is deluded and drawn into the embraces of a wrinkled VVitch or a Spirit from the darkness below transformed into the likeness of her heavenly Love There are now a few things only remaining of which I would briefly give thee some accompt 1. Persons engaged on both sides in this question which is the ground of my Treatise are highly honoured by me and truly dear to me in an high degree A natural Understanding Ingenuity Integrity Learning VVisdom Knowledge an heavenly mind set a great price and lustre upon them The ends at which these persons on both parts profess to aim are truly Spiritual and Divine It is the design of one part to beighten the Grace of God by its freedom and peculiarity Of the other to enlarge the Glory of this Grace by its extent and amplitude One admires and adores the absoluteness the soveraignty of God the other his goodness On one side is an holy jealously for the Unity and the Beauty of the Divine Nature lest God should be imagined like the natural day in the Creation made up of two Contraries co-ordinate and equally predominate as Day and Night Love and VVrath a ground of Holiness and a ground of Sin The others are equally jealous of the same Unity and Beauty of the Divine Nature lest the eternal Power and so the Godhead should be divided between the Creator and the Creature least in effect two Gods should be set up like those of the Manichees a Fountain of Good and a Fountain of Evil lest the Divine Glory should be darkned in its work and the Harmony broken in which the Divine Unity and Beauty most sweetly shine by taking away in any part of the work the fix'd subordination of Causes and Effects O what Joy and Glory would crown the Earth and the Church of God on Earth if those Divine Persons who have fix'd to themselves ends so Divine instead of opposing each other in their way perhaps sometimes mistaken to those ends would unite their Divine Will and Forces mutually to advance the ends each of other St. Paul saith If the falling away of the Jews be the bringing in of the Gentiles what shall the return be but life from the dead If the dividings the disputes of these Parties have brought much light to the Church what will the reconciling and uniting of their glorious ends and their Spirits in the glory of those ends be but as a Marriage-day shining from on high which shall fill the Angels themselves with a new joy The day will come when men shall say Blessed is he who comes in the Name of the Lord Who reconciletâ—… the freedom and peculiarity of the Grace of God unto a full amplitude and extent so raising its sweetness to a perfect heighth who shall bring into mutual embraces the soveraignty or absoluteness of God and his goodness that the soveraignty the absoluteness may be soveraignly and absolutely good that the goodness alone may be absolute and soveraign who through the whole compass of the Divine Nature and the works of God shall discover to the eyes of men in the evidence of a Divine Light the Unity the Beauty of the Godhead in their clearest Purity their highest Perfection springing and shining through all making all in the whole one entire piece pure and pleasant perfect in the Beauties of Holiness The Rules which I have desired to govern my self by in this Discourse are these Right Reason the universally acknowledged Principles of all sober Philosophy and sound Divinity the Analogy of Faith the Letter of the Scriptures the Spirit of Christ in the Head of the Church Christ himself in the Scriptures in the Church in the Spirits and experiences of each Saint As all these answer each other in a mutual Harmony like the several strings upon a well-tuned Lute So shall I ever as I humbly believe take it for granted That what-ever jars upon any of these strings is also out of tune to all the rest That what-ever is not conformable to any one of these Rules crosseth them all If any thing of this kind shall have faln from me I do here humbly repent of it and recant it I humbly desire all those who shall stoop to read what I have written to believe that no Gift can be so acceptable to me as the displacing of any Errour or Falshood in my Mind with the gentle hand of Love by bringing in the Truth which it hath counterfeited and vailed If any Errour have seemed sweet beautiful or desirable to me in any kind I humbly undertake to have a confident assurance of this That the Truth it self shining forth will bring along with it far more transcendent Sweetnesses Beauties Agreeablenesses and Satisfactions to all my Desires excelling it in all the impressions of a Divine Pleasantness Power and Profit as the true Sun doth a Parelius or a counterfeit Image of the Sun in a Cloud If any shall undertake to answer this Discourse with reviling and reproachful Language I shall endeavour to imitate the example of the Marquess de Rente fixed with
it self in these Images presented to the Soul by their essential truths in their understanding is that power which we call the Will The sutableness and agreeableness of these forms of things to the Will The 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and so more principally the Divine Unity in them the root and life of this agreeableness is the good which is the Object of this inclination the Will of the intellectual Spirit Love is defined the union of the Lover and the Beloved The will as it is an essential inclination to its Object the good shining forth in its proper Image and beautiful forms of truth in the understanding is love it self the essential love of the Soul The Soul in this essential power which we call the Will is the Lover This is that which Plotinus seemeth to mean when discoursing of the Soul he saith That every Soul comes forth with a Cupid or love proper to it and inseparable from it It is commonly known that the Soul is represented by Venus the Queen of Beauty and the Mother of Love the Daughter of Jupiter of Jehovah As the intellectual Soul is the â—…enus so is this essential inclination of the Soul to good which is its will the Cupid or Love born of it and born with it inseparable from it As is the intellectual Spirit so is its Will or Love the highest and loveliest Image of the first Spirit and the first Love so hath it in it next to the Divine Love the highest the most potent the most universal force of inclination and love to the highest and most universal good The Beloved or the Object of this Love and this Lover the intellectual Soul and the Intellectual Will is the highest and most universal good as it presenteth it self in its highest lustre in its richest amplest most unlimited variety of beauties in the Understanding This good being an agreeableness to the Will and so meeting with a mutual and answerable agreeableness in the Will to it self presenteth it self thus by the Understanding in these forms of truth which is the Divinest beauty as a lover and a beloved both to the Will that they may be equally and mutually happy by equal by mutual embraces and fruition This is the liberty of the Will consisting in two parts mutually answering each other The first is the vigour and amplitude of the principle the inclination or love carrying the Soul to rendring it capable of good in its absolute and universal form The second is the vigor and amplitude of its Object which is the highest good the Divinity of good it self presenting it self in its absolute universal or intire truth beauty and essential form presenting it self in all varieties of distinct truths beauties and forms as they are represented in their highest completest Image next to the Original it self in the Understanding Here is the Will like a Bee in a Garden or flourishing Field or rather in an heavenly Paradise flying at liberty over all forms of truth and beauty as the Flowers and Plants in this Paradise resting at pleasure upon every one of them sucking 〈◊〉 sweetness the virtue the good the unexpressibleness of the Divinity and the Divine Unity from them as the Honey which is its Divine Feast Nourishment Life and Treasure This is the liberty of the Soul of the Understanding of the Will in its proper Nature and primitive State This is the liberty which it still enjoys inseparable from its essence under the fall it self so far as by the promised Seed putting forth it self in the moment of the Fall the essence of the intellectual Spirit is renewed and maintained universally by common Grace in the midst of the ruines of the Fall I have this one thing only to add under this fourth Head the Liberty of intellectual Spirits that as God is the Original Spirit as Angels and intellectual Souls are Image-Spirits so is the liberty of the Divine Essence the Original liberty and the liberty of all other intellectual Spirits Humane or Angelical is the Birth and so the Image of that liberty Having thus passed through the several degrees of liberty in the several Orders of Being we come now more particularly and distinctly to state the question concerning the Liberty of the Will which is the subject of our present Discourse There is a two-fold liberty of the Will 1. One by all acknowledged inseparable from the Will in all States and acts 2. The other hath been through all Ages Religions and Philosophyes the ground of many learned eloquent deep Discourses and Disputes between persons eminent in all kind 1. The first uncontroverted liberty of the Will is that which is built upon the grounds already laid It consisteth in two glorious preheminencies 1. The liberty of acting from an internal essential universal Principle of inclination or love which is confined or restrained in its nature and power by no particular differences which is by nothing determined in its actings except only as it determines it self by the Laws of its own universal nature in which it bears the immediate and most express figure of the Divine Nature and so of the Divine freedome or liberty 2. This Principle hath for the sphere and compass of its activity the absolute and universal good in the entire freedome of his unconfined form or Essence in all the varieties of its descents and ascents its divisions and compositions The Will of the Intellectual Spirit is free here in the chase and pursuit of all good unconfined to any particular form of good determined by it self alone and its own internal essential motions to the choice and embraces of every good 2. The second liberty of the Will which hath so different aspects to the differing understanding of excellent persons for the most part in all places and times is generally known by these terms of Libertas contradictionis libertas contrarietatis Liberty of contradiction and of contraricty Suppose an intellectual Spirit in the moment immediately preceding its Action positis omnibus requisitis ad agendum now ready for action in the constitution and concurrence of all circumstances essential accidental from above from below from the first universal cause from all second and particular causes from within from without in respect to any Essence Power and Operation in respect to any thing in any potentiality or act The Will of this intellectual Spirit without any change in any circumstance in any degree may act or not act which is the liberty of contradiction may act either in this way or in the way directly contrary to it which is the liberty of contrariety This is also expressed by a liberty or power in the Will to determine it self in the moment of acting by its act without any predetermination in the Will it self in the power of acting in its proper Essence and the laws of its own Nature in the connexion of causes or in the first and universal Cause The method of my treating upon this Question
shall be 1. An humble proposal of those Arguments which seem to fight against this liberty 2. To state and examine the Arguments brought to establish this liberty with all the clearness and candour that I am capable of To these also I shall annex those answers which may appear proper to give any satisfaction to those Arguments These two sorts of Arguments I shall digest into so many Books 1. The first Book shall contain the first sort of Arguments opposed to this liberty in question divided according to these five Heads from which they are drawn 1. The Divine Nature 2. The Nature of the Creature 3. The Mediation of Christ. 4. The Soul intellectual with its Will 5. The proper form and essence of liberty 1. Head of Arguments The first Head of Arguments is the Divine Nature From this Head we shall draw seven Arguments 1. Argument The first Argument from the Divine Nature is the Being of God God is Being it self in its simplicity and absoluteness the first the supreme the universal Being This is his Name by which he makes Himself known to Moses I A M Being it self in its absoluteness undivided unrestrained unconfined unallayed by any differences of mixtures Being it self at the utmost heighth of all Eminencies and Transcendencies Being it self in its fulness in its greatest Amplitude and Majesty Being it self in its Truth in its substance the only true Being the universal Being comprehending the excellencies of all Beings heighthned to a transcendency above all Being and all Excellency all Being in one all Being complete in one complete Person which is a perfect number of Persons Three Persons in One that it may entertain and enjoy it self in a perfect immortal Circle of all Being and blessedness This is God this is his Name I A M. His Name Jah imports the same sense Being it self His Name Jehovah expresseth the same thing the universal Being All Beings past present and to come with all their distinctions and differences in one Every thing that I S beareth written upon it this Name of God I A M. All things that be declare a Being While all things agree in this That they be they demonstrate an universal Being Being as it is divided and restrained by particular Differences in all things particular and different one from another by being lessened contracted and obscured is imperfect Nothing that is imperfect can subsist exist of it self or by it self for so far as it is imperfect it is not Imperfection is so far a privation or negation of Being Before then that which is imperfect is that which is perfect from which and by which that which is imperfect existeth Thus Socrates in Plato from the beauties of sense scattered and divided among divers beautiful Subjects or Persons leads us to all the beauties of sense united in one Person compleatly beautiful From this perfection of beauty where it is an accident seated in a subject of dark matter ever changing he raiseth us to the innumerable forms of beauty the unchangeable essences and immortal substances of beauty where beauty is the whole substance pure and immaterial These manifold forms of immaterial and essential beauties awakened into the intellectual Spirit he maketh as golden wings by which we fly upward into the bosome of that first Beauty where all beauties meet in an entire and transcendent Unity Thus all particular and imperfect Beings carry us up to the perfect and universal Being abstracted from them all set on his Throne high and listed up above them all from which as their proper Head they flow by and in which as in their proper Root they subsist being the beams of this glorious Sun and Rivers from this full Sea This is God in his high and holy place of Eternity This universal Being where all Beings meet in one is Eternity This is the holy place of Eternity Being it self in its most exalted Purity abstracted and separated from all differences mixtures allayes from every thing forreign This is the high place of Eternity Being it self in its first and supreme Unity comprehending all Beings all perfections of Being heighthned to a perfection so far above themselves that no Being the most perfect is able to look up to it Can now any thing any where any Essence Power Act any Will or motion of the Will be and not be originally contained in this first Being and not be subject subordinate to this supreme Being and not lie within the compass be full of be universally filled with this universal Being In Metaphysicks we are taught That God as He is Being it self in its simplicity is the proper immediate and formal Cause of all Being every where and that the modifications only of each Being proceed from it by the mediation of second Causes Is it not clear then that these modifications themselves so far as they be or have any Being in them are the immediate and formal effects of the first and universal Being If now the motion the modification the determination of the Will in its Acts be not it is no more the subject of any dispute discourse or thought it hath no more any place or effect in the nature of things to bring forth any Consequences or to make any Differences If it be if it have any Being at all Can it have any place without the comprehension and embraces of the universal Being Shall it not yield the Power the Preheminence the Soveraignty to Him whose Name alone is I AM and I AM that which I AM Shall it not confess to him and say Thou only art the only true Being the universal Being I am a shadow and empty figure Thou art the truth the substance of my Being Thou fillest all in all of me Thou art that which thou art I am a shadow of my self only I am only That which I am in Thee That which Thou art in me I am my true self only so far as I am in Thee the Original truth of all Being only so far as thou art in me the Substantial truth of all Being Object Do we make the Creature nothing Do we make God All Do we confound God and the Creature Answ. Far be it VVe speak the Language of the general stream of Divines Philosophers Poets Heathen and Sacred through all Ages VVe speak their Language with their sense and upon their grounds But we chiefly build upon the foundation of the holy Scriptures in which we read such characters of men of the world of all things in it that they are a scheam or figure that they are not lighter than vanity less than nothing a vapour a vain shew a tale that is told a dream in sleep All that we converse with is stiled by Plato 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that which is not and distinguished from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that which truly is Aristotle stiles God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Being of Beings We learn of him that that is True which terminates and gives rest to the
Understanding and that to understand things is to know them by their causes which plainly infers that God alone is the Truth of every Creature and in every Creature that He alone terminates and gives rest to our Understandings in as much as He is the first Cause Our design and desire is to establish most firmely and clearly the immutable and everlasting bounds between God and the Creature The Creature truly really is in the proper rank and order of its own Being but all that it is in the presence of the Divine Being in comparison with it is like a dream when one awakes less than nothing Every Creature at its best estate is vanity an obscure empty shadow of its Divine Original in God The Creature is nothing of it self or by it self but a momentany emanation from God sent forth from him sustained by Him comprehended by him and filled with him God is not the Creature yet is he in the Creature not Circumscriptivè nor Definitivè confined to the Creature or defined by the Creature but Repletivè filling all in all in every Creature St. Paul saith of him That he is above all in all and through all Above all as incomprehensibly transcending all as the eternal universal Head of all In all as the truth the fulness of all by each Idea in each Creature like the Seal in the Impression Through all as the perfection and end of all 2. Argument The second Argument is the Trinity in God God is the first and so the most perfect Unity every way undivided every way unconfined in all-comprehending all-transcending incomprehensible Unity eminently transcendently one in all one with all uniting all most full most fruitful the Spring of all things This is God the Father the God-head in its fountain as it is its own fountain This is the first Person the universal Being in its most complete existence and subsistence in an entire Unity All our senses our intellectual powers every where present to us an unity and a variety equally inseparable the inclinations of all our faculties carry us equally to both these these two joyntly constitute and compose all essences and forms of things all our objects entertainments and delights Unity without distinction or variety is a barrenness a melancholy a solitude a blackness of Darkness a death beyond any thing existent or imaginable in the nature of things A distinction or variety without unity is a confusion a wilderness beyond the wildest fancy a distraction beyond all madness Variety is every way equal to an Unity as positive as real as ample as high As the first and most perfect Unity comprehends all Variety in it self as one with it self and so is as properly as formally variety as unity so doth the first and most perfect Variety comprehend the Unity in it self in its own proper essence and formality for if the Variety were not all things and so the highest Unity it were not a full Variety Thus are both these every way equal equally all most perfectly one most perfectly distinct by being both the proper character of each the first and highest Unity the first and fullest Distinction or Variety The God-head in the second Person is the first Distinction or Variety and so the most perfect Variety equal with the Father equally a Divine Person All variety of Being in a most complete most distinct existence or subsistence in an entire Unity All fulness All the fulness of the Godhead is said to dwell in him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 bodily or personally that is essentially substantially entirely distinctly in the highest and most perfect Unity with the clearest and compleatest Variety Thus is this Person at once most perfectly one with the Father having the Father in himself and being himself in the Father Thus is He also distinct from the Father with the highest and most perfect Distinction being Himself the first the fullest Distinction and Variety in its most abstracted form and so in its greatest amplitude Jesus Christ as He is this Second Person is known peculiarly by this Name 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as it comes from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifieth to gather together the proper Name of Christ as He is the first and most universal Variety Upon this ground also he is stiled 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the manifoldly various Wisdom of God This is the brightness of the Glory of God that is the effulgency of the Divine Glory or Godhead shining out clearly and distinctly into all beautiful and blessed Varieties so richly beyond all number and limit contained in it This is the effulgency of the God-head shining out into an essential Image a clear distinct Image of it self in the fulness of its Divine Essence and into all Images all forms of things eternally springing up fresh and new in the brightness and glory of this essential Image which is it self ever entire ever new and distinct with the highest Distinction in every one of these This is the first and fullest Distinction this of the Image from its Original in the Divine Nature This is Variety it self in its abstracted and essential form where it is most absolute most free and unconfined being it self entire the first the freshest the fullest Variety an ever springing fountain of all Varieties in every part of the Variety This is the proper form the unvailed face the uncircumscribed Amplitude and Majesty of God Variety it self with its most unlimited fulness with its clearest light and lustre in a most absolute most entire undivided Unity This is the Second of the Three in the adored Trinity God the third Person the Holy Spirit is the Union of these two He proceedeth from these two as the spiration or conspiration of these two meeting in one As the Father and the Son are one by the first and highest Unity as they are distinct by the first and fullest Distinction so are they at once equally one and equally distinct This is the proper form of Union a concurrence of Distinction and Unity where two as two are one retaining their distinction in their Unity Thus meeting in a third this third is equal to the other two containing them both in it self It is one with the other two and in the other two by having the Unity in it self It is distinct from the other two by having the first and highest Distinction in it self The Union of variety and Unity is the essence of Harmòny Unity of a variety variety in an Unity is the essential form of Harmony God then being in Himself the first Unity the first Variety in their first Union is the first harmony the most perfect the most exalted the universal Harmony the fountain of all Harmonies All things lie here in a perfect Harmony This Harmony comprehendeth all things in it self diffuseth it self through all Every thing every where lieth within the bounds and measures of this Divine Harmony is measured and governed by it springeth forth from it beareth the figure
of it beareth a part in it is Harmony in this Harmony Every nature and form of each thing in each kind and degree to the lowest divisions and least distinctions of things is expressed universally by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Greek by Ratio in Latin which both properly express Harmony A variety bound up in an Unity an Unity diffusing it self through a variety This is God the third Person in the Trinity Harmony it self The first Harmony most perfect most absolute diffusing it self through all things endlesly and unboundedly unfolding it self into all forms of things by its Divine force as the force as the fulnesses and streams of this Harmony in its own soft and spacious Bosome enfolding all forms of things in the same Bosome as Harmonies of this Harmony Harmonies in this Harmony in each of which the universal Harmony is new and complete Can there be now any one thing in the nature of things any one thing in the will of any Spirit any one essence form power act accident or circumstance which lies not in which flows not from this first and universal spring the Divine Unity Or shall we deny this Divine Unity to be the first Unity to be an entire Unity the fountain of the God-head the only fountain of all Is there any where in any Will any distinction of power or of act of an indeterminate power and determinate Is there any varying of the Will from power to act from an undetermined to a determined State Is there any distinction in the Will any distinct qualification modification of any kind or degree which lies not most distinctly most clearly most compleatly with all its variations in this Divine this first this universal and unconfined Variety which flows not from it Hath any Spirit any Being a Will Hath any Will any liberty any motion Hath any Spirit any will any liberty any motion Have all these either joyntly in relation to each other or each a part in it self rationem aliquam any form any agrecableness which is not enfolded and wrapt up in the Divine the sirst the universal unconfined Harmony which doth not arise from which doth not feel the force and flow in the course of this Harmony Then must the Divine Harmony it self be out of tune being in a discord to this that lies without it being stopt and checkt by it Then must this it self what ever it be have no Harmony no agreeableness with any thing no not so much as with it self then must it be a discord to all Being then must it be divided from all Being and so not be at all 3. Argument The Wisdom of God comes in the third place to oppose this Liberty of the Will in question The Divine Wisdom thus expresseth it self by the mouth of Solomon in his Proverbs I Wisdom dwell with Prudence and find out witty inventions The Philosopher seemeth to furnish us with a fair Comment upon this Text when he divideth the intellectual habits or perfections of the mind into these five 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The first is the eternal truth of things in their immediate Principles and Springs as they lie in the eternal mind and thence shine forth in the Understandings the superior parts of the inferior and created Spirits The second comprehends all forms of Knowledge as streams flowing from these springs running along together in the mind representing in one view in one entire Image the whole nature of things as a Copy of the Divine Nature and of the Original Image in the Divine mind The third Perfection in the account of the Philosopher is Wisdom which he describeth to be the union of both these foregoing Perfections in the same mind or spirit Prudence in the fourth place is the lustre or brightness of this Wisdom shining forth in our Manners in our moral Actions and Conversations This is the light of Wisdom flowing forth upon all the motions of our Will of our sensitive Appetite and Passions with their proper effects forming and figuring them according to in an harmony with the Divine Image in the universal nature of things and in its Original the Divine Nature it self as this Image shines forth in the mind Lastly That Art which compriseth all witty Inventions is composed of the emanations of this Wisdom as beams from the Sun by which Inferiour Spirits bring forth external effects works without themselves in the similitude and imitation of the Divine Work in the Divine Nature for the use of life in its necessities conveniencies and delights Thus Wisdom above and below dwells with Prudence and finds out knowledge of witty Inventions Agreeable to this is that Doctrine of another sort of Philosophers that as Wisdom is the perfection of the Understanding so the Understanding in its perfect state is the first seat and spring of Order Therefore they say where-ever there is Order where-ever there is Harmony or Beauty which consists in Order there is an Understanding The Understanding say they in its proper and native state is the immediate Son and Image of God beneath God himself the first and fullest effulgency of the God-head in its essential Image so it becomes Omniform being all forms in one with a richly heighthned Light and a Divine Order Here Order hath all its Springs and Measures here Judgment hath its Throne and Scepter comparing and measuring all forms of things according to the Order in which they lie here accordingly determining order and disorder in things below Moses in that sweet and dying Song of his where he representeth the Order and Beauty of the whole Work of God in the Nation of the Jews as a principal part of that Work and as a mysterious figure of the whole Work expresseth the whole force and form of the Divine Wisdom as the ground of his Song in the beginning of it He is the Rock his work is perfect for all his wayes are judgment Deut. 32. 4. Behold here the three parts of Wisdom the Rock the Judgment the perfection of the Work 1. The eternal truths of things in the Divine Mind the first principle and spring where they shine immediately immutably These are the Rock 2. The universal Image of things in all variety of Forms with a beautiful Order drawn forth from these springs joyned immediately to them exactly and most agreeably suited to them most harmoniously answering them in all mutual Comparisons and Relations within the Divine mind This is the Judgment 3. The production of the whole work in an apt correspondency with this inward Image that the whole answer the whole part answer part universally through the whole This is the perfection of the Work the perfection of Wisdom and Judgment in the work Thus the wayes of the Work-man in his work are Judgment If now any part of the work of God if a principal part of his work the will of intellectual Spirits in those motions in those moments which are as the hinge upon which the whole Work of God
principal parts of the Divine Work to which all the other parts serve The great and Ultimate ends of these intellectual Spirits unexpressible eternal joys or miseries hang all upon a meer contingency upon the motion of the Will which hath no place no part in the Divine Design which receives no form no measure from any model in the Workman or any part of the work Thus are the great consequences the great ends of the work in the great the principal parts and passages of it altogether undetermined and uncertain in the nature of the work and in the continuance of the Worker 2. Answ. Doth not this seem much rather a reflection upon than an exaltation of the Divine Goodness Justice and Wisdom that the righteousness and wickedness of intellâ—…ctual Creatures the highest good and evil in the whole work the eternal blessedness and misery of its own so great so glorious Births and Images should be of so little moment to the Divine Nature to the Divine Goodness Justice and Wisdom that they should be left entirely out of the Divine contrivance and conduct without the compass of all reason and proportion to an uncertainty an indeterminateness of which no account can be given as effects of the blindest chance which was ever entertained into the most blind and confused imagination of the most vulgar Spirits But this subject of the Divine Goodness and Justice and the Argument taken from them to justifie this freedom of the Will belongs properly to the second Book where the Reader may meet with a large discourse upon it I shall therefore thus lightly pass over it here 3. Answ. The inconsistency of the setting up intellectual Spirits in this freedome by the Divine Power and Wisdom with the very essences of all Power and wisdom with the whole nature of things created or uncreated will also find its proper place in other following Arguments which is therefore only toucht here 4. Argument Next to the Wisdom of God the Power of God seemeth to furnish a fourth Argument against this Liberty of the Will We have it proclaim'd from Heaven by the mouth of God Himself That Power belongeth to God God hath spoken once twice have I heard this That Power belongeth unto God Psal. 62. 11. Joseph saith to Pharaoh That his dream was repeated to declare the certainty of it A Repetition also is design'd to express the weight and consequence of that Truth which is twice over affirmed No Truth hath a clearer certainty or beareth a greater weight upon it in the whole nature of things than this That Power belongeth to God Jesus Christ who is the only true God is said by the word of his Power to uphold all things to bring forth and to bear up all things as the Greek word manifestly and commonly signifies This alone bringeth forth all things all spirits This alone beareth upon its bosome all its own Births as a root the plant with all its fruit Here only in the sense of this truth with an immediate repose upon it do all things all hearts find rest Power is here by the Psalmist expressed absolutely unlimited in the abstract all Power is Gods and of Him So the Hebrew phrase imports God is the first Seat and Spring of all Power in every kind All Power supernatural natural civil moral All Power in every State undetermined determined All Power in every degree the Power of acting the Power in act hath its first seat in God and cometh down from Him There is a three-fold Power 1. An Active Power 2. A Passive Power 3. A Power in Act. 1. The Power of Acting which as it belongeth to the forms of things which are either Spirits or spiritual so it self is a Spirit or a spiritual form This is defin'd to be a principle of Acting This is it self an eminent and universal Act or active form like a Spring containing and sending forth from it self variety of Acts or forms as a Spring doth streams This Power is more excellent than the Act which is produced by it 2. The Passive Power is that of matter which as an obscute shade comprehending or hiding variety of Acts or forms in it like Plants obscured and contracted there like Plants in their seeds in the Earth or the Intellectual and sensitive Soul with all its treasure of Intellectual of sensitive forms in a sleeping Body This Power is inferior to the Act which when it is brought forth is the exaltation of this Passive Power to an higher degree of Being it is indeed as a spiritual Act or form encompast with obscured within its own shade As the Sun calleth up the Plants out of their seeds and beds in the dust so the Spirit it self the Spiritual Act or form shining forth from the Active Power upon this shade of matter and of the Passive Power awakeneth it into a beautiful form 3. Power in Act. All Power purely Active is ever in Act. Such Power is alwayes abstracted from matter and a spiritual essence or form eminent above all things in matter an universal comprehending variety of Acts or spiritual forms in it self Every Active Power in matter is compounded being partly Active and partly Passive This Power is never brought into Act but as it is excited and awakened from without by its Object from above by power abstractive and purely active shedding its beams upon it Thus in the Schools they distinguish between the Active Understanding in man separated from matter in its operations and the Passive which ever worketh in Conjunction with the material and imaginative faculty like the Moon having some obscure light in it self but depending upon the illuminations of the Active Understanding as its Sun Power and Act are distinguished not as two several Beings but as the same Being in several states modifications or degrees of Being When Power as it is a spiritual and universal Act comprehending all its own Acts formally and eminently in it self being all at once in Act within it self brings forth it self into any particular or single Act in matter This is the same Power contracted and so in a less degree of perfection When a Passive Power in matter springs up into Act This Act is the perfection of the Power The Power and the Act here are the same form sleeping and awakened in the seed and in the flower All Power is Gods As he is the most pure perfect and universal Spirit so is Power in Him the most pure perfect and most universal Act. God gives this Testimony of Himself I am Alpha and Omega The beginning and the ending saith the Lord Which is and which was and which is to come The Almighty Rev. 1. 8. As the Power of God comprehendeth all Powers most eminently and most actually in â—…imself so all Powers in Him are ever most perfectly in Act being themselves pure Acts God is said to work all things after the counsel of his own will Eph. 1. 11. Power is the principle of Activity The Will is
the inclination or spring of internal motion in a Spirit whence all external motions flow as commanded by those internal and immediate or elicite motions So is the Will also the principle of Activity and the same with power in every Spirit Power is a principle of Activity a spring of Action or Motion Motion Action are the form in communication diffusing and propagating it self The Will of God is goodness it self the Object being the Actuation the perfection of the Will The object and the perfection of the will being most perfectly one with the will in the Divine Nature Goodness is properly and formally the principle of communication The more there is of the nature of good in any thing so much the more communicative and diffusive it is Thus is upon this ground also the Will and the Power of God the same both being that Divine Goodness which being the supream and universal form comprehendeth all forms of things most perfectly in it self and diffuseth it self endlesly into all forms Neither let this trouble any person that there are evil Powers as well as good that there are Powers of doing evil as well as of doing good that there are communications and diffusions of evil as well as good which is manifest in Original Sin For all Power in every state and degree in its own nature is a participation of the Divine Power and truly good As all good in every rank is truly good and a stream from the Fountain of good yet may every subordinate good be turned by accident into evil if it be broken off from its subordination to the supream good and be terminated in any other principle or end so also is every communication or propagation of things in its own nature good each form which is propagated in every communication being good and a branch of the first good As Evil and Sin are themselves privations and deficiencies of Being so is the propagation of these by Accident or rather no propagation in truth but a deficiency in the propagation and communication from the deficiency in its principle But as the VVill and Power so also the Will and Wisdom in the Divine Nature are properly and formally the same in their most proper most formal conceptions and definitions The Divine VVill is goodness it self Goodness is the suitableness the agreeableness the harmony of things by which they are desirable to each other by which they become the perfection of each other being as one self diffusing it self into many forms within it self in each of which as a distinct-self it entirely answers it self This Harmony is the proper and essential form of VVisdom which thus falls in with goodness and so with the VVill by giving to all things their proper forms measures weights bounds and all manner of proportions in which the Agreeableness and Harmony consisteth Saint Paul seemeth plainly to instruct us in this That the Will of God being goodness it self The first the supream goodness being the Spring of all the Divine inclinations motions and communications giving to each thing its Being Form and proportions is properly both the Power and the Wisdome of God when he saith That he worketh all things according to the Counsel of his Will The power of working and the Counsel in working which is Wisedome are both here attributed to the Divine Will At the same time the holy Apostle signifieth also That this Divine power comprehendeth all powers in it self and is one pure perpetual universal Act comprehending all things in their highest and most eminent acts within it self diffusing it self into power all acts of power when he expresseth this in the present Tense which according to the Rule of Grammarians doth also imply a continued act That God worketh all things according to the Counsell of his Will As the Divine Power is one pure eternal universal Act within it self which is the Divine Goodness the Divine Will the Divine Wisdom in the highest and amplest activity so from their eternal Originals in this universal Power in this universal Act spring by a Divine emanation all Poweâ—…s all Acts in all seasons in their proper forms measures and proportions through the whole Creation Having thus laid the ground let us build up our Argument upon this ground There is implyed and supposed in Discourses upon this Question a three-fold Power in the VVill. 1. The VVill it self is the power of the Soul by which it willeth 2. The VVill hath a power of Acting freely 3. There is the power of the VVill in Act as often as it acteth and now in this joynt sense of having its power in Act it is no more free VVe will not now dispute the distinction of these powers Only as we have before asserted the Power of acting and the Power in act are both the same Being the same form in different states or degrees of Being Accordingly both are eminently originally seated in God and formally derived from God who is the seat and spring of all Power As I have before touched a great part if not the whole weight of this question of the power in the VVill to determine it self and to act which is confessed to be an effect of the Divine Power and of the determination the acting of this power in the determination of it which is ascribed to the power it self without any dependance upon the supream Power How doth this ground of the freedome of the VVill laid in this distinction vanish in the light of this Truth like a shady Ghost before a Divine appearance That the supream Power is a most pure and perfect Act and so comprehendeth all Powers in its self not only in their potentiality but in their several acts If the Divine Power be omnipotence it self that is all Power it is Power in every state Power indeterminate or determinate Power in Act as well as the Power of Acting I shall seal up this Argument with the signature and impression of the Divine VVill as it is goodness it self power it self under one Formal conception Goodness hath this essential to it to be diffusive Every good the more it communicates it self hath the more of good in it Goodness then most simple most absolute and perfect diffuseth it self most simply absolutely and universally This is that Sun which encompasseth the Heavens from one end to the other which penetrates to the neithermost parts to the center of the Earth from whose heat and force nothing can hide it self This toucheth most intimately most powerfully disposeth most sweetly and beautifully all things every state every distinction of things the Will of each Spirit each determination and motion of the VVill. The goodness of God is upon above and over all his Works saith the Psalmist It not only extends it self adaequately through all but transcendeth all It not only fills but overflows all Although the simplicity of the Divine Nature suffereth it not to be the subject of any relation to the Creature yet doth it terminate
relations from the Creature to it self Thus doth the Divine goodness in the Divine VVill terminate the relation of every created VVill to it self in the agreeableness or disagreeableness of every Act. This supream goodness then hath in it self the measure of this agreeableness and disagreeableness which it receiveth not from without but hath originally in it self So all the acts of the VVill according to their conformity with or deformity from the first goodness derive themselves from their proper Original in that goodness Accordingly the Goodness and the Will of God hath a complacency in every Act of the VVill if it be agreeable to it or an aversion from it if it be disagreeable Thus is the created VVill in all its motions with their several most exact distinctions the Object of the eternal VVill in its love or hatred Every faculty or power hath an essential relation to its proper object and dependance upon it It is drawn forth by it into the most proper Acts of its essence and receiveth from it the perfection of its essence which consisteth in its Activity The supream VVill the supream Goodness being perfectly eternally in Act hath all its Acts all its Objects by which it is actuated perfectly eternally from and in it self Object You will say How can this be Can the Divine VVill which is infinitely pure in the beauties of Holiness in the joys of all blessedness comprehend in it self Good and Evil agreeableness and disagreeableness to it self which are the proper measures and essential forms of all good and evil Can it comprehend in it self Objects of Love and Hatred Can this Fountain send forth from it self sweet and bitter waters How is it holy if there be these mixtures How is it happy if it be thus divided within it self Answ. The Flats and Sharpes the Bases and Trebles the Concords and Discords of Musick are all comprehended by the spirit of the Musician in one Act of Harmony in one simple and undivided Act of Harmony This single Act of Harmony by its proper force first invented and formed all Musical Instruments prepared them for it self through all the diversity of touches and motions actuated them that it might compleatly figure and display upon them and upon all things round about them it self in its own full sweetness according to all those rich varieties virtually and eminently comprehended within it self in one simple Act. So in one indivisible Act or Idea of beauty in the Spirit of the Painter lie together all the differing lines lights shades and colours by which that Idea reflecteth it self in Picture upon the eyes and spirits of the Beholder In like manner the far greater perfection the Will of God being a simple 〈◊〉 of Goodness supreamly indivisible and eternal containeth originally eminently within it self complacency and aversion love and hatred with their several objects in their several forms and degrees in their several risings and fallings most properly and harmoniously suited to each other From it self doth this supream Goodness bring forth its own Objects like tuned Instruments wound up or let down every way prepared for the diffusion and discovery of it self upon them in those Varieties of love and hatred complacency and aversion with their several steps or modifications which as so many distinct forms or virtues of the Divine Goodness dwell together there in the highest and most absolute Variety as in the fullest and most unconfined Unity The Will of God is commonly and rightly distinguished into positive and permissive Evil is by the permissive Good from the positive Will of God All the determinations and motions of the Will in every Spirit are at least from the permission of the Divine Will I will not now enquire how the most perfect Goodness can be permissive in that in which it is positive This only I take which is universally granted That there is no permissive Will in God without a positive Act. He permitteth nothing without a positive Act of his Will for that permission If the permission of any Act in the will of man antecede that Act then is that act or motion of the humane will the Object of a positive Act of the Divine Will for the permission of it before it be brought forth here below This objective existence in the Divine Will is either the Copy or the Original to that motion in the will of the Creature If it be universally received by all Understandings from the universal Harmony and principles of Truth that the Divine Nature can take no Copy receive no Impression of any thing from any thing without it self it necessarily followeth that all motions in the will of man flow from that antecedent existence which they have in the Divine Will as the Objects of that Thus that I may not be too long upon this Head of Arguments drawn from the Divine Nature I have contracted three sorts of Arguments into one Those from the Will the Goodness the Power of God being drawn together under that of the Divine Power I have in it built upon this sure ground The VVill of God is the first the supream the essential Goodness The Goodness of God is his Power As every thing depends upon the VVill of God in its permission or positive Act As all things in their measures of Good or Evil lie together in the Divine Goodness the Original the eternal measure of all Good and Evil so have all Powers all Acts and Motions of Power their first spring their exact form and rule in the Power of God 5. Argument The fifth Argument is the Knowledge of God This is in our present cause a most celebrated Argument I shall therefore endeavour to represent the state of it with all exactness clearness and integrity that I can bring to it I shall divide this Argument into two parts 1. The first is the perfection of the Divine Knowledge 2. The second is the Original 1. Part. The first part is the perfection of the Divine Knowledge This consisteth in two things 1. The Comprehensiveness 2. The distinctness of the Knowledge VVe then know perfectly when we know all things capable of being known when we know each thing in its proper distinction in all its distinct forms properties and relations Shall not He who made the eye see Shall not the Fountain of Knowledge contain all Knowledges after the most exact and eminent manner Shall not He know all things most accurately by whom all things know and are known St. Peter saith to Jesus Christ as to God Lord Lord thou knowest all things thou knowest that I love thee See two things remarkable here 1. The universality of Christ's Knowledge extending its self to all things 2. A confirmation of this by a particular instance Thou knowest that I love thee The instance is most pertinent to our present purpose It is that peculiar Object of Knowledge which is the ground and subject of this Discourse the Will of Man the motions of the will the freest
of these motions acts of Love Thou knowest that I love thee Object Here it may be said and is said by some The knowledge of all things doth not contribute to the perfection of Knowledge There are many things in knowing of which there is neither beauty nor any beautiful delight The Orator makes it the property of a wise man to seek the knowledge only of things excellent and worthy to be known 1. Individual and particular things are below the Knowledge of God Philosophers teach us That there are no Ideas no Forms no Images in the Divine Mind of individual and particular things All the Ideal Forms and Images seated there are universal eternal Substances Essences and Truths sixed in most beautiful harmonious unchangeable proportions Individual and particular things are uncertain undetermined composed of changeable tumultuous confused accidents slight and ever fleeting like shadows Upon this ground the Philosopher concludeth That individual or singular things can be no Objects of Science or true Knowledge This Master also teacheth us That they are the Objects of Opinion only which is like these things ever fluctuating unsubstantial ungrounded obscure unsatisfactory unworthy not only of God but of all separated and Divine Spirits 2. Many things are too mean and too vile for the knowledge of an excellent Spirit The Understanding is transformed into the Image of that which is known Mean and vile Objects embase the Mind and Spirit into which they are received The similitudes and forms of froth and filth in a Divine Spirit are like Rats and Crocodiles in the Egyptian Temples or dead Carcases in the stately Pyramids Answ. That God knoweth all things to the lowest the last division and distinction that He knoweth the least the obscurest the vilest of all things the Scriptures testifie by their whole design by plain affirmations and instances every where From these which are innumerable I will cite only two 1. The first is that Heb. 4. 12. where we read of the living Word of God That it is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart The words in Greek properly import this sense A critical Distinguisher and Judge of the motions or agitations in the Will and sensitive Appetite of the notions or images in the understanding or fancy The Word of God in the verse following is clearly declared to be a Person God Himself in Person For these are the words And there is no Creature which is not manifest in his sight But all things are naked and bare in his eyes with whom we have to do There is nothing more universal great or glorious than thought which raiseth it self to the heighth and extendeth it self to the amplitude of the visible Heavens and the most vniversal Glories There is nothing more particular more low more vile than thought which levels it self with every single atome and dust which sinks down to the depth of all divisions darknesses deformities and confusions as low as the neithermost Hell Yet is God a Critical Distinguisher of the thoughts singling every thought setting it naked in its own proper form clear with all its circumstances in his light and sight There is one thing in this Scripture which hath an eminent sense in it self and suitableness to our purpose The 12. verse begins this Argument with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Word of God the 13. verse concludes this Argument with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Word In this last place we translate it thus With whom we have to do The Greek phrase literally sounds thus To whom the Word is to us The Greek term first signifieth Reason which is the internal Word or the Understanding their Speech the external Word the Image of the internal of Reason of the Understanding The Holy Ghost seemeth by this expression in the end answering and ecchoing to that in the beginning to design this sweet and rich sense that our Reason our Understanding in its internal form in its outward Image which is our speech so far as it is right and true answering to Jesus Christ turneth it self to him formeth it self according to him fixeth it self upon him flows back into him who is the first Reason and Understanding in the Godhead within and its Image without in the Creature The inward or outward word of Angels or Men is to this word as the Eccho to the Voice the Face in the Glass to the living Face the reflection of the Beam to the direct Beam the Stream to the Fountain The same term signifieth also the proportion of things All things then which fall within the compass of any created Understanding of any expression in discourse lie first most clearly most compleatly in Jesus Christ the Divine Understanding the Divine Word as the Original spring and measure of all understandings and expressions What ever in the nature of things beareth any proportion of great or little universal or particular beautiful or deformed lieth according to that proportion most distinctly in this Divine Word the Divine Understanding which is the first the most universal proportion and harmony the Original spring and measure of all proportions 2. I will add another Scripture which as in a Picture wrought by a most skilful hand sets with lively force before our eyes the least the lowest things shining with highest beauty in the Divine Mind embrac'd with the dearest sweetnesses by the Divine Love You shall see there the Divine Understanding and Affection encompassing all things after the most universal manner and insinuating themselves into each thing with the most exact distinction of singulars and individuals Jesus Christ endeavouring to bring us into a Divine Liberty by being free from solicitous cares and fears endeavouring to fix our Spirits upon the Divine Goodness by a full Trust and sweet Rest an absolute and delightful Resignation affirmeth That even the hairs of our head are numbred Therefore saith he Fear not Luke 12. 7. Number is defined to be quantity discrete because it doth most accurately discern and distinguish all the differences of things as they lie in the whole and apart both at once What so sleight of so little weight as a single hair of the head yet God taketh an account of every single hair while he numbreth all our hairs The numbring of things marketh each single Unity for a treasure for the object of esteem and of care in its preservation This appeareth by the Latin Poet who bringeth in the Shepheard Swain speaking thus to his Companions upon the Downs when they were to strive for the mastery in their Rural Musick I from my flock dare nothing lay with thee A Father a Step-Mother hard agree To number both each day the bleating sheep One of the wanton Kids the tale doth keep Each single hair then is a Divine Treasure attracting the Eye of eternity which diligently and delightfully watcheth for its eternal preservation for all our hairs are numbred in eternity As it is said of the Stars in Heaven God there calleth
them all by their names none of them is wanting every one shineth as a fixed Star in that supream Orb of Glory God hath made all things in number weight and measure Number is here interpreted to be the Character of the species or kinds of things according to their distinct essences The first and supream link in this Chain of essential forms is the Idea or the eternal Pattern or Spring of each Essence in the Mind of God The Pythagorean Philosophy foundeth its heighest mysteries of Divinity upon the nature of numbers as the most agreeable figures of it The Ideas or eternal Images of things in God so seem to shine forth most clearly with the sweetest and fullest beauties in abstracted numbers Our Lord saith That little Children have their Angels which alwayes behold the face of their Father in Heaven Behold here each single hair of our heads which is an excrement only how much more each part of our Bodies each motion of our Spirits each moment of our Lives or circumstance in our affairs hath its Idea its first Image and Truth its Original first true Being and Beauty eternal in the heart of God These at once are the Eyes of God which by day and by night circle round watch over and guide them the invisible Chambers and Treasures of God where they are laid up and kept safe as his Jewels Number hath been reputed the first seat and measure of proportion Harmony Musick and Beauty in every kind Number and Beauty or Harmony are both by Philosophers and Divines appropriated to Intellectual Spirits who alone are capable of them as their proper operations and objects Both agree in this definition which seemeth to comprehend not only the proper objects and operations but the Essence also of immortal Minds an Unity diffusing it self into Variety keeping it self undivided and entire through the whole Variety bounding the Variety with its self and binding it up within it self A great and learned Divine teacheth us That there is a vast difference as between the natures so between the numbers of the Humane the Angelical the Divine Understanding The numbers which men apply to corporeal and material Subjects divide break and lessen the subject In these numbers that holdeth true that the whole is greater than any single part The numbers with which the Angels number things retain through all the indivisibility of the Unity with diversity of forms Here each form or essence comprehendeth under its own undivided Unity all forms of things according to their proper and compleat amplitude agreeable to the Angelical State but under the Character of its own peculiar and distinct property But the Divine number transcending all divisibility and diversity joyneth in one the simplest Unity with the amplest and most distinct Variety Thus after a Divine manner by this Divine Art of Numeration are all the haiâ—… of our head numbred in the mind of God Thus every single hair there maketh up a Divine Harmony composed of a rich Variety of Divine Proportions according to the number of all the other hairs as in the whole so in the several parts and single unities Euery single hair is a center and a seat to the various proportions between it self and all the rest in particular as well as also to the Harmony of the whole I shall now give a brief answer to the Objections alledged against the Universality of the Divine Knowledge 1. No Object however low however base embaseth the Divine Understanding The figures of Mice and Emraulds formed in Gold lessen'd not the lustre or preciousness of the Gold neither did they detract any thing from the sacred Worth Majesty or Divinity of the Ark by being put into it This Ark was tâ—…e Figure of our Jesus the essential Image the Divine Mind Understanding and Wisdome of the Father Lazarus with his Rags his running Sores and the Dogs licking them represented to the life in an excellent Picture done by the hand of Vandike of Titian or some great Master is a worthy and most agreeable entertainment for the eye and fancy of any Princess a rich Ornament and rare Jewel for the Chamber or Cabinet of a Prince The Plague with all its loathsome and horrid attendance conceived in the mind formed to a most exact Image in Virgil's fancy from thence transferred into his inimitable Poems becomes worthy of the Ear the Fancy the Mind of that great and most polite Prince Augustus Caesar yea cloathed thus with this Image the mind and fancy of the Poet transfuse and present themselves to the spirit of that Prince as of all learned and judicious Readers with a heightned Beauty and kind of Divinity That is a certain Rule That every thing received is received according to the nature and manner of the Recipient The Divine Understanding cloathing it self with the Images and Forms of all Objects desormeth not it self but maketh them Divine To the Pure all things are pure but to the Unclean nothing is pure but even their minds the Angelical part their Consciences the Divine part of their Souls is desiled 2. Individuals and particulars together with Universals appear distinctly to the Eye of God at once in one view The Philosopher of old affirmed all things to be in all The shady blueness in the clear Heavens above us which seemeth to terminate our sight is said to be the deficiency of our sight which is uncapable either of extending it self to so remote an Object or of having any Commerce with a Body so pure so glorious and so near to the nature of a Spirit Thus the contraction the obscurity the materiality which seemeth to be the bound of our eye and sense when we look to individual things here below are in truth the weaknesses of our senses falling short of the glory shining in the nature of things The light of God which is alone the true Light having no darkness in it and so the measure of all Truth is stiled by St. Peter A marvailous Light This is one of the wonders in the Divine Light All things here are transparent each particular each part is seen distinctly in the whole and the whole compleatly in â—…h part The Psalmist singeth of this holy and high mystery That with God the Darkness and the Light are both alike Materiality and corporeity as they appear before him are spiritual and Divine forms In the face of each material individual object shineth the whole nature of things This is manifest upon a three-fold ground 1. All things in Heaven above and Earth beneath meet in the constitution of each individual In Jacob's Vision Angels were seen descending and ascending upon each step of the Ladder from the Throne of God Himself above down to the Earth below Thus by the Scale of Praedicaments in Logick and in Metaphysicks we are taught That universal and superior Beings even Being it self in its absolute and unlimited fulness descend into the essential constitution of each inferior Being In them also the
between them In the horrour of these Dreams and in this sleep they may lie till â—…hey be awakened by that joyful sound of a Trumpet from Heaven or of an Arch-angel Arise and shine for thy light is come the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee Which St. Paul expresseth thus Awake thou that sleepest and stand up from the dead for Christ shall give thee light Then shall these Bridegroom-Souls with their beloved Brides their Bodies appear after this dark and tempestuous night of their sleep and dreams in the fresh and pleasant morning of a new day as new Heavens and a new Earth with their Beauties all new married anew to each other Some have imagined that these Souls together with their Bodies lying yet in their bosomes above before their descent and fall had a prospect of this terrible dream in that Image of the Divine Wisdom which did then shine clearly in their Natures and Essences It seemed to them an horrible Pit without any bottom a vast and howling Wilderness full of deformed and dreadful Monsters to which their sweet Beauties and Chastities dearer than their Lives would be exposed to be deflowred and defiled by them full of Dearths and Droughts full of fiery Serpents which with stings fixed in them with their infused Poyson would fill them all over with pains and horrors would subject them to that most deformed and most dreadful Monster the King of Terrors death it self Thus were they for their own sakes most averse to this descent and exile from their native home from themselves from their own true sweetest Purities Beauties and Beings But in that Divine Glass in which they saw this Prospect they saw also that this terrible Dream had a Divine mystery of wisdome and love in it that out of it was to arise from every part and circumstance in it a far more transcendent Glory to the supream Love their Father and Bridegroom They saw that this Love it self would go along with them through all though hidden and vailed reserving his own Purities and Sweetnesses in the midst of all They saw that he in the midst of those hidden Purities and Sweetnesses would preserve that Love which he had to them in eternity when he beheld them in that first-born Image of all loves and lovelinesses and that in these loves and lovelinesses he would conduct them and direct their way through this Wilderness They understood that he would be a seed of hope to them by the virtue of which they should certainly in the set time in their proper season ascend out of this Pit return home from this Exile then should they be received with an universal shout of Joys and Glories resounding from all things without them and within them when they should see all these sufferings break up into the most heightned Glories of the supream God the supream eternal Love and themselves with Raptures of highest pleasures transcending all Humane or Angel-like thoughts taken up into the fellowship of these Glories This imagination seemeth to some to be well-grounded upon and naturally to arise from that Scripture The earnest expectation of the Creature or the Creation was made subject to vanity not willingly but by reason of him or for his sake who subjected the same in hope because the Creature or the Creation it self also shall be delivered from the bondage of Corruption into the glorious liberty of the Children of God For we know that the whole Creation groaneth and travelleth in pain till now Reader I hope it will not be unacceptable to you that I have endeavoured to divert thee and my self by these Speculations which seem to be very pleasant representing to us the Soul as a Coelestial Bridegroom with its Bride and Bridal Chariot both in one its Body descending and returning as in a Caelestial Dance measured by the Musick of the Divine Harmony Let these things have with thee that weight of probability or truth which thou thy self shalt give to them in thine own judgment However I have thought them proper to my present end the illustration of that truth the harmony of things in the whole and of the several parts as they lie in the whole which seemeth to me to be clearly character'd in all the beautiful and bright lineaments of Reason it self which its essential form is an universal Harmony and to be expressed through the whole Scriptures as their proper design which are a Divine Draught or Description of the Divine Harmony in its eternal Original and in its Figure St. Paul saith That all things work together for good for those that love God The only true love of God is the immediate and proper Birth of the Divine Love its clearest and fullest effulgency and its most perfect reflection upon it self This is the essential Character of a Saint as he is the Spiritual man To this person St. Paul saith All things are yours this world lise and death things present and things to come you are Christ's and Christ is Gods God is the Head the beginning the end the measure of Christ. Christ is the Head the beginning the end the measure of a Saint A Saint is the head the beginning the end the measure of all things All things through the whole World through the whole compass of time in both those bright and black Regions of Life and of Death are exactly tuned each to other and struck with a Divine Hand of Power and Skill with all manner of sweetness to make the most agreeable and charming Musick to God to Christ and to a Saint as they dwell together in one heavenly Image and in one eternal Spirit All things even the most distant and most contrary meet together by a most admirable and ravishing consent in one most beautiful Harmony of a perfect universal eternal good to a Saint as he is in Christ as Christ is in God as all three lie together in the pure the soft the spacious bosome of Divine and eternal Love But I shall speak more fully of this universal Harmony in the Second Part when I shall have occasion to shew what place Sin hath in this Harmony how Disorder it self is reduced into Order by its powerful Charms how the Harmony is made perfect by a full Variety The Variety cannot be full without a Contrariety how in the contrariety the Law ariseth as a ministry of wrath out of which Sin takes its birth as a Contrary which is the proper correlate or mark or object of the Divine Contrariety and Wrath how this Divine Contrariety heightning it self to the utmost upon Sin and Sinners to declare to the utmost their irresistible contrariety to the Divine Nature and prevailing over them in the Person of Christ consuming them consumes it self together with them as a flame with its fewel like a flame it vanisheth into the pure Air Light and Heaven where all things now spring again and are seen new in the beautious Glories and ever-flourishing sweetnesses of an Universal
and Divine Harmony through the Death and Resurrection of the Lord Jesus But we will leave these things to their proper places In the mean time this Truth seemeth tâ—… be firmly established upon unmoveable grounds that nothing as it lies in the whole in all its causes concurrences relations and circumstances is mean vile or little unworthy of the Divine Mind which if it were a stranger to any the least circumstance of things even the first most unperceptible motions of the Will were uncapable of judging of the Harmony of the whole of Good and Evil which consist in order and disorder especially of moral Good and Evil the chief Good and Evil of the chief pieces of the whole Work Intellectual Spirits whose Good and Evil in order to an eternity of Happiness or Misery are defined and determined by every motion of the Will If I have been at the expence of much time and pains upon this Subject the Omniscience of God or the universality of his Knowledge and the exactness of it in this Universality I humbly conceive that I have not done it impertinently being moved to it by these two Reasons 1. Learned men know that this Flower in the Crown of the Great King this Attribute of God hath been denied to him in the face of the whole World with great confidence with bold pretences of Reason and Learning opposed to it I have heard this perfection of the Divine Nature in the Process of a Discourse upon this freedome of the Will questioned Whether it were proper to God or a Perfection and this Question made soberly there where modesty goodness and learning have met together 2. This Argument of the Divine Omniscience appeareth to mewith so great weight in this cause that if this be freely granted and clearly understood I cannot at all comprehend by what way or means the liberty of the Will now examined can suppart it self without the overturning the whole fabrick of our Philosophy and Divinity with the absolute ruines of all their beauties and strengths I hope in a few words to manifest this in the Second Part of this Argument which now follows 2. Part. The Second Part is the Original of the Divine Knowledge This knowledge of God ariseth not from without but from within himself This Truth seemeth to carry the full and sweet light of its own evidence brightly shining in the face of it If God receive any thing from without he is no more immutable impassible independent a pure Act a perfect eternal Act a simple Unity but a composition of divers and different ingredients If any Species or Image if any Knowledge flow in upon the Divine Understanding from any external Object not only all the Properties Perfections and Attributes ascribed to God but his Godhead it self with all its most essential Glories are shaken overthrown and utterly demolished If God be receptive of any thing from any other he is no more the first the universal Being the Fountain of all Being and so no more God It is generally and rightly affirmed That the Essence of God and the Operations are the same that his Knowledge is Himself If then He receive the knowledge of any thing He receiveth also Himself and his Godhead from a Forreign Spring Wâ—…o saith St. Paul hath been his Counsellor or who hath given to Him first that He should repay Object Some eminent Divines seeming to understand the force of the Reason in this Point to lie in the fore-knowledge of God have believed themselves to have gained a full Victory over it by an imagined co-existence of God with the Creature For say they God is infinite as in his Essence so in his duration By virtue of this infiniteness he after an immutable manner co-exists with the Creature in all its changes Eternity which is the duration of the Divine Essence in its undivided and unchangeable but unconfined Unity co-exists with time the duration of the Creature in all its numerous and successive motions in all its undivided moments Thus say they God properly foreknows nothing but knoweth every Creature as it is present with Him in its own proper existence and time Answ. If all this in the full Latitude be freely granted I humbly conceive that the present Argument remains still in its full force unshaken untoucht But first I shall crave leave to offer some incongruities and mistakes which make me uncapable of satisfying my self with this co-existence thus formed and founded 1. This seems to take away out of the mouth of God Himself speaking by the Prophet Isaiah one Principal proof of his Godhead which he pleaseth to make use of several times over and in which he glories challenging all the gods of the Heathen to come and try their Divinities by this Test This is the Power of Prophecying the declaring of things to come 2. Doth not the Co-existence mentioned commensurate God with the Creature make God the Subject of a Relation to the Creature establish a proportion between Him and the Creature which are all contrary to the infiniteness of God as to the most uncontroverted Principle of Divinity shining in upon us by the light of Nature or of Revelation 3. If God by Co-existing with the Creature in the moment of the Fall at the beginning of time declares that full Victory of Christ over the Serpent at the end of time which he knows only by coexisting with that action in its proper scene and duration at the winding up of all Ages Doth it not follow that the beginning and the end of time in their proper seasons and durations co-exist and fall in with each other For this is a Maxim of universal force That those two things which meet in a third meet in themselves 4. The best Understandings pure and clear as the Sun it self clouded with flesh while they see through so thick a medium are capable of various and disproportionate views of their Object A weaker sight fixed on and confined to some narrower and more particular Image may in that sometimes discover to better eyes which extend themselves to a more spacious Object an error in that smaller Point Accordingly those great Spirits with whom I now treat perhaps may find themselves mistaken in their sense of the Divine Co-existence with the Creature if they please to consider this which I shall now propound God indeed is infinite By this infiniteness he is above all proportion to all commerce with every thing that is finite By this infiniteness he comprehends in himself all Creatures with all theirExistencies Formalities and Modifications after an infinite manner eminently and with the highest transcendency Thus he beholdeth thus he converseth with all things within Himself Divines generally place the Joys of glorified Spirits in that Beatifical Vision which is the sight of all things in the most amiable face of the most highly adored Trinity as in the only clear Glass of all Images of things in their eternal Truths Is not God Himself blessed in the
first place with this Beatifical Vision Doth not He much more certainly with a delight proportioned to a God behold all things in this Glass of the Trinity in the supreamly beautiful face of our Jesus his own eternal Birth his own essential Image the full reflection of himself upon himself Is not this first and full birth of the Godhead its most universal Birth where by bringing forth him he brings sorth all things at once in him according to their first and fairest Births as beautiful lineaments composed of Divine Lights and Shades in this face and Divine Form where all pleasantnesses dwell Thus of a truth God co-exists with all Creatures hath in Himself in his Essence Existence and Duration the exact measure of all Essences Existencies and Durations but this is according to the manner of the Divine and Uncreated not of the created nature as he comprehends all in himself 5. I come to that now which I promised as my chief and concluding Answer Here I shall endeavour to make it appear that all this established in the most desired sense falls short or flies wide off our present Argument leaving it altogether untoucht For let it be that God doth exist together with the Creature in the proper and formal existence of each Creature yet still we fall upon this Dilemma The knowledge of each Creature in the Divine Understanding arriveth from without or ariseth from within The first of these hath following it an horrid train of direful inconveniencies represented above such as I may well tremble to mention and the holy Angels stand amazed to hear the passibility mutability dependency imperfection of the Divine Essence in it self compositions divisions in the Divine Nature in a word the desposing of God from being God The Devil indeed in all forms practiseth this as his chiefest Artifice the establishing of such imaginations and opinions in our Spirits as by the dividing of the Godhead in it self may divide God from Himself in our sense of Him and so in truth separate us from the supream Unity the only Crown of all Righteousness Rest and Joy that by dividing he may Reign If I deceive not my self thus this imagination of Gods receiving his Knowledge of created things from the objects themselves existing in their own proper forms out of their causes and present before him is thus attended with such a troop of infernal Monsters as cannot but affrighten us from entertaining any such conception The first part of the Dilemma being then removed the second is established namely that the knowledge of all things in the mind of God hath no spring from which it streameth besides God Himself All the Attributes of God all the sense which all Nations all Spirits have of God from the light of Nature or of Revelation his All-sufficiency his Being the beginning the end of all things testifie with great concurrence to this Truth It seemeth to me indeed Impertinent to use many words to clear or confirm it If then God have his Knowledge of every Creature from within he comprehendeth all the Creatures in his own Divine Essence either formally in their own proper Natures and Existencies or virtually and eminently as in their first cause No other way seemeth to me imaginable by which the Divine Mind should be at once both the Eye and the Glasse to behold all things in it self If we place any Creature according to its proper form in the Divine Essence we place it upon the Throne of the Godhead and cloath it with the form of God It remaineth then that the Divine Knowledge is the intuition or view of things in their first and eternal Original Moreover Knowledge is the Imâ—…ge of the thing known in the understanding of him who knoweth it There are only three sorts of Images 1. The Original Image the exemplar cause and pâ—…ttern 2 The essential form which is the thing it self 3. A Copy or Figure of this as the Picture taken from the life and the shadow cast from the substance Thus the Lord Jesus in his spiritual Glories as He is the Divine Understanding is the Original form of the Sun the Suns Sun To him agrees that which Plutarch delivereth to us from the ancient Philosophers that the God of the Sun which inhabits the Sun excels the Sun in the sweetness beauty and glory of his Light ten thousand times more than the Sun doth this Earth or the darkest Cloud The Sun it self shining in these visible Heavens is the essence or essential form framed by this pattern sprung forth from it The Light the Sun-shines and Suns which we severally take in with our eyes are so many figures and pictures or shadows rather of this Sun flowing from him If we believe the Creatures in their essential forms or in their shadowy figures to inhabit the Divine Understanding we either exalt them to an heighth too far above them by bringing them into the Divine Unity and so making them one God with God or we debase the Divine Nature by bringing it down to a composition with things forreign and inferior to it The Philosopher teaches us that Science or clear and certain Knowledge is only the knowledge of things in their causes The first and most perfect Spirit is only capable of this knowledge which alone is most perfectly clear and immutable the knowledge of things in their first and universal cause Thus the Divine Essence in the Person of our Jesus the Divine Wisdome and Understanding the brightness of the Divine Glory the Image of the Godhead pure naked full substantial eternal is both the only Object of the Divine Eye worthy of it and compleatly suited to it and also the Species or Image in which and by which alone all Creatures all forms of things in Heaven Earth and Hell are presented to it This is that Unity which in its pure simplicity being free from all division of parts or diversities of forms is absolutely unbounded and so diffuseth it self into the most perfect and unconfined Variety comprehending it entirely altogether undivided within it self as in a spiritual most spacious Palace of Light and Paradise of the Divine Life upon the high and flourishing Mount of Eternity This is that Unity in its first distinction and so in the most full Variety our Jesus in whom all fulness of Nature Grace and Glory dwelleth in its sweetest repose in the most perfect Harmony of all the most heightning Beauties and Delights This is the Beatisical Vision in which God clearly contemplates compleatly enjoys Himself and all things in Himself as in the Christalline Fountain of the Godhead Let me now bring home to my present mark this present Argument by drawing up my whole Discourse upon it into three short Propositions 1. God who knoweth all things distinctly and exactly knoweth every Act of the Will every actual determination of it in each Act. 2. God who only knoweth all things by beholding them in the Glasse of his own Essence in the
the Celestial Gardens of the Divine Mind in the eternal Spirit then they with a pleasure unexpressible sit and sing in those Gardens Now we drink in the Christal Streams of all Truth now we drink in the Light as warm Milk most sweet and lively from the warm and living Breasts of Truth now we eat the living Honey of Divine Wisdome as it drops and distills upon our Lips from the Honey-comb it self of the Divine Nature 2. God is the Pleasantest the only pleasure of all Objects He alone is the proper Object the true and perfect Pleasure of all Faculties of the Understanding and of the Will the only sweet Rest the only and full Feast of them both God as He is the Light which hath no Darkness in it so is He Love without any allay He is that Love which is Goodness it self Beauty it self Sweetness it self all alone unmixt at the utmost heighth of purity sweetness and simplicity all in all of Him and all one in Him This is that Trinity which is the fulness and majesty of the Divine Essence out of which all the Attributes Properties and Perfections arise to our Understanding and into which in the clearest Light they most clearly resolve themselves Goodness here is Beauty and Sweetness in their spring Beauty is Goodness in its proper native and compleat form Sweetness is Goodness and Beauty flowing or in motion or goodness as it springs up into beauty and in the delicious bosome of that beauty multiplies it self endlesly into innumerable births and forms Goodness is the ever flourishing ever youthful Father and Bridegroom Beauty the most lovely Daughter and Bride Sweetness the Marriage of these two Goodness as it is the spring of all Beauty and Sweetness is power in the abstract in as much as Evil the only opposite to Goodness is the weakest of all things weakness it self Beauty being the essential and full form of Goodness being the abstract and exemplar of Harmony is Wisdome it self the only Intellectual Beauty of which all the inferior Beauties of sense are only shadowy impressions and foot-steps The Divine Sweetness being Goodness and Beauty in motion is upon this account the first and highest Activity The Fowler draws the soaring Larks to his Net by the reflection of Heavens Light from a piece of glass upon the Earth Thus the best Spirits whose Musick and Flight excited or directed by no earthly Interest no force of Flesh mount upward to Heaven and eternity are most properly most powerfully drawn to any Opinion when it appears as the pure unmixt reflections of the Divine Beauties falling from their heights of eternal Glory upon any Understanding and from thence diffusing themselves to enlighten the darkness of this inferior Region The first Beauty and the first Truth are one Being both the first Form or Image in which the Godhead represents it self to it self in the most full and entire Harmony of all Perfections at their utmost heights as they rise up immediate and fresh in their eternal spring and of it self with it self as the first Image with the first Original Thus every Truth in all its descents springing from the first Truth is also a Divine Beauty in the Face of which the Divine Goodness shineth smileth and poureth forth it self in the most charming and attractive sweetness If then it were rightly represented and rightly seen it would by irresistible Charms draw at once the Understanding and the Will of every Spirit into its embraces We easily believe that which we desire Reader Set before the eyes of thy Spirit a God whose Essence is Love Represent to thy self a Love which subsisteth in a Trinity of Beauty Goodness and Sweetness all three raised to the uttermost heighth of Purity and Holiness that being altogether without any mixture or allay they are also without any bounds all three so absolute and unbounded in Perfection that they mutually unfold one another most compleatly and most clearly all three so heightned to the supream Point of Intellectual or rather Superintellectual Life that as they are Love the band of all Perfection and Pleasantness and so every Perfection in the Abstract and Unity they are also in like manner compleat living and immortal Persons When thou hast thus represented God to thy self most perfectly most universally amiable in all Lights of Nature and Grace in every posture in every glance dost thou not at once most ardently desire this God to fill all to be all in all in this work The work of some excellent Painter is known by this that it is a finisht piece Every part every point hath its just and full proportions as from a spring of life opening it self there as if Nature her self were a vital sense This gives the life the beauty the sweetning to the whole piece a living form to the Workman Can we then think that God who is beauty and sweetness it self who works immediately and alone by beauty and sweetness in the highest Perfection in as much as he works only and immediately by his Essence which is one and the same with its Operations will leave any point of his work without the sweetning touch from his own hand Can we think that God whose Beauty is his Wisdome whose Goodness is his Power whose Sweetness is his Life his Joy his Glory will leave this piece his Creation which he hath drawn from Himself to be in the whole a Divine Picture of Himself unfinish'd Will he suffer any part of it to pass without its just and full proportions in an inviolable order to the whole and to the parts upon which the life the beauty the sweetness of the whole depends We read in the Canticles That the heavenly Image of God that new Creation which is the spiritual Bride in a Saint the joynts of the thighs are like Jewels the work of the hands of a cunning workman Cunning in Hebrew is there properly word for word trusty and faithful It implies a truth of skill and care in the workman by which he exactly answereth the relation in which he stands to his work the trust in him the dependance upon him and expectation from him Motion is the chiefest part of Beauty in as much as it is the most proper expression of Life and the spring of Variety This first Creation the work of Nature taken together in its invisible and visible parts from its beginning to its end is a living Image of God his Daughter and Bride although it be a shadow only of the heavenly Image or the heavenly Image in a shadow Are not the Wills of Intellectual Spirits here the joynts of the Thigh of this Image the manifest and most principal Instruments of motion by which it ascends or descends it turns it self about and moves every way Shall not then the faithful Creator whose Truth whose Goodness whose Skill is the Idea of all Beauty in Himself infinitely transcends all trust all expectation make these Joynts Jewels Shall he not here express the
power the pattern the meritorious the efficient the formal cause of all this in his Humiliation and Exaltation If Jesus Christ be a created form living immortal glorious containing in himself the whole Creation with all its Vicissitudes of Lives and Deaths in one entire Beauty more fresh more fair more full then ever it can be in it self if it be seen at one view at the uttermost heighth of all sweetness softness amiableness lustre that it is capable of although that be true which some say that the World in the whole is the most beautiful of all things or which others say that it is an Angel This created form then hath a Prototype its Original Image its exemplar Cause in eternity in God on which it depends and from which it flows otherwise it is not a created form but uncreated absolute and eternal This Original Image is one with the first the supream Image of eternity and of God For all things are there as in the fullest Variety so in the most entire Unity This then is the Godhead of Christ that essential Image of the Divine Nature in which Jesus Christ with all his created Glories pre-exists in eternity from whence he descends into a created state and hath there an existency antecedent to every other Creature If this Jesus be the first and universal Creature the whole world in one Spirit and Person who takes flesh of the Virgin Mary then doth the whole world live die and rise again in him Now is his Death the Death of the whole world his Resurrection is the universal Resurrection of the whole world in its Divine Head and in its immortal Root Now is Jesus Christ a Sacrifice for our Redemption Sanctification Salvation not by an imaginary notional arbitrary Imputation but a judgment founded upon the Divine Nature of things and a real immediate Union between Christ and the World as a Divine Seed and a Divine Plant which with a Divine eminency is comprehended in that Seed and virtually produced out of it receiving every moment its alterations from it according to the seminal and Divine proportions treasured up in it Thus Christ takes away the Sin of the World thus he makes all things new These are only glances by the way 2. The second Consideration which moved me to touch this string is the perfection and the heightning which it seems to give to the whole mystery of Divine Truth in the Scripture and in the Gospel A sweet and beautiful line would probably arise from this Point to illustrate many and principal Scriptures many and principal Mysteries of the Gospel if it were found consonant to the letter of the Scripture to the Analogy of Faith and so generally received I will now therefore offer in few words a reason or two in this case leaving the judgment of it and the full prosecution to those who have either Humane or Divine Learning in these things above my self 1. The first or rather cluster of Reasons lieth in that Scripture Col. 1. 15 16 17. 1. Christ is here described in the proper Character of his Divine Person as the general ground of his Mediatorship by these words Who is the Image of the invisible God He is the Image of God by way of eminence the first the supream the most perfect Image representing the Essence the Substance the Unity of God to himself within himself essentially substantially in his own proper Unity He is the Image of the invisible God as he is invisible in that Glory of his own eternal form in which he is visible by no Light to no Light to no Eye in no Spirit besides his own He is the only Image of God in every Image the Image of God in its first state upon the Throne in its descent through all states in the Grave unto the nethermost parts of the Earth until it return and re-ascend above all Heavens thither where it was at first 2. Jesus Christ is here described in the two parts of his Mediatorship one relating to the state of Nature the other to the state of Grace At the 25. verse he is stiled the first-born of every Creature at the 18. verse the first-born from the dead These two being contra-distinguished from each other seem to point at and paint forth Jesus Christ in two different forms agreeing both in this that they have their ground in his eternal form and are subordinate to it These two being contra-distinguished and answering each other seem to be interpreted one by the other Jesus is the first-born of the Resurrection in a two-fold sense He is the first of those that rise from beneath the shades of this Creation into the true Heavens the Holy of Holies the unvailed Glory of God He is the fulness of the Resurrection He as a Divine Head comprehendeth clearly compleatly eminently in himself all these who are to rise as Divine Members of himself inseparably joyned in the Unity of the same Divine Spirit They all rise together with him at his Resurrection He is the Fountain of the Resurrection Every one in his own proper person and season riseth up out of him by his Power in the Virtue of his Resurrection After the same manner is Jesus the first-born of every Creature He is the first the fulness the fountain of the Creation He is the first Creature So in the 17. verse in the illustration of this state as he is the first of every Creature it is said He is before all things He pre-existed in a created form when there was yet no other Creature formed All things were made in him whether visible or invisible Principalities Powers or Thrones things in Heaven or on Earth and all things stood together in him saith St. Paul verse 17. So the Greek words in both verses are most properly rendred Great men in the mystery of Philosophy and Divinty affirm That which is below to be the same with that which is above Every Flower on Earth is a Star in the Firmament Each Star an Angel in the Heavens above If this be St. Paul's sense which we have represented from these words the Elements with all of them the visible Heavens with all in them the innumerable Company of Angels in their invisible Heavens have all met and subsisted together in one created Form in one Divine Spirit and Person which is our Jesus In this Person they are not Flowers of Beauty not Stars of Light not Angels of Glory but Divine Forms antecedent and transcendent to the brightest Cherubims the highest the most flaming Seraphims Thus they exist in Christ. Thus with the unsearchable Riches of all agreeable Varieties they make up the Body of Christ as he is the created Head of all Thus as he is the first of all Creatures so is he the fulness of the whole Creation He is also the Fountain St. Paul addeth also this All things were made by him verse 16. All Creatures flow from him as second Lights are cast from the first
brightness by various reflections and refractions 3. The design of all this discovereth it self to us in these words That he in all things might have the preheminence verse 18. The first sense of the Greek word is this that he in all things may be first So you have a plain allusion to that word of First-born twice applied to Jesus once in respect to the Creation another time to the Resurrection Jesus Christ as God if so we may speak of him after the manner of Man is alike the first of all things not as by design or any act of the Will but by Nature and his Essence as in our Conceptions it antecedes every act of Council or Will This primacy then which is attributed to Christ as founded in a Divine contrivance properly respecteth him as in a created Form in which he who as God is by Nature the first of all things so by design of the Godhead as a Creature becometh the First-born Son of God in Nature and Creation the First-born Son of God in Grace in Glory in the Resurrection Until he in his created Nature by his Resurrection became a new Creature anointed with the eternal Spirit and entred into the Holy of Holies by the rending of the Vail of Flesh The Seed of the New-Creature of the spiritual Man and the heavenly Image was not yet come up into its proper form nor risen up out of the Earth of the first Creation where it lay buried 4. The ground of this design appeareth verse 19. For it pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell The Greek word signifies a perfect and most agreeable rest of all our faculties a sweet and full complacency in the presence and appearance of an Object most entirely most universally amiable and pleasing Thus the joy of the Father is full to see in the same Person of his beloved Son the dear and entire reflection of himself to dwell together at once in One the fulness of his Godhead the fulness of all his designs and works in Nature in Grace in the Creation in the Resurrection Thus is this Son of his Love ever before him his Delight day by day all along through time and eternity All his works are love-sports with this his Son and Bride various parts of Divine Love which he acteth various forms of Divine Beauty and Joy into which he casteth himself in the Bosome and Person of this lovely only beloved One. Now his Soul resteth in all his Counsels and Works while he seeth the Face of his Son with all pleasantness there Now his Soul resteth in his Son while he seeth all his Counsels and Works as the finished Beauties and unsearchable Riches of his Person Now is the Person of his Son a compleat Paradise while out of this ground he makes to spring every Plant that is desirable for Beauty for Pleasantness for Wisdome for Food for a Feast to Men to Angels to God himself 2. I pass now to my second Reason the Lord Jesus thus set in a created form rendreth the order of the Creatures proceeding from God more harmonious and entire its connexion more immediate and inviolable its dependance more firm and sure for thus the Creature cometh forth from God first in a distinct Nature from him but in the Unity of the same eternal Person with him then in a distinction both of Nature and Person While the universal nature of the Creature subsisting in the Person of Christ reposeth it self immediately upon the Godhead and becometh it self the ground of all the Creatures in their several subsistencies and essences reposing themselves in the bosom of this first Creature How perfect is the order of things without any gap or leaps How full is the Harmony in this entireness of the Order With what clearness and delightfulness are the Links of the Chain in the whole frame by mutual embraces fastned to each other How doth the beautiful blissful Unity and Union of the Divine Love in the connexion in the mutualness of influencies and dependencies shine through all sustain animate beautifie and sweeten all How clear now is the passage between God and the Creature time and eternity by this milky way in the bosom of Christ That Scripture seemeth under that covert of rich expression to contain the riches of this sense where Christ is said to be the brightness of the Glory of God the engraven Image of his Substance and so to bear all things by the Word of his Power Heb. 1. That word Bear signifieth both to bring forth and to sustain as a Root the Plant. The Sun hath a three-fold effulgency or light 1. The essential and internal Image of the Sun within it self 2. The Sun-shine immediately fastned to the body of the Sun and flowing from it 3. The Light cast upon the elementary World as the figure of this Sun-shine Thus is Jesus Christ a three-fold Light or effulgency of the Divine Glory by one he shines as the essential Image of God in the bosom of God by the other he shineth forth as the first Creature fairest freshest and fullest like a knot of beams springing immediately from the face of the Sun and subsisting inseparably in it by the third he shineth out in the distinct forms and existences of all the Creatures The figure of a living substance first engraven upon a golden Seal from thence impresseth it self on manifold various pieces of white or yellow or red or black wax so the essential Image of God engraveth it self first in a created form upon the Person of Christ as a golden Seal from thence multiplieth it self into innumerable figures in the various forms of all the several Creatures Power and Glory are frequently Names of God in the Scripture The Power of Christ is his Godhead The Word of his Power is threefold 1. The internal Word which is Christ in his Divine Nature 2. The Word upon the Lips is the Person of Christ in the first created form 3. The Word from thence multiplied and figured upon the Air all round about are the Creatures in all their various forms thus encompassing their King as figures all round about him flowing out from him Thus Jesus by the out-shining of the Divine Glory by the engraven Image of the Divine Substance by the Word of the Divine Power in an order altogether Divine for beauty and strength bringeth forth beareth up all things 3. I shall propound only one Reason more to give light or strength to this Opinion submitting it entirely to the judgment of the Reader Jesus Christ saith of himself I am the Light of the World 1 Joh. 8. 10. St. John in the beginning of his Gospel manifestly alludes to the beginning of Genesis while he attributes the Creation of all things to that Word with God which is God In the same place he teaches us this mystery That the Life of all was in Christ and that life was the light of man both Intellectual and Sensitive this
latter being the shadow of the former Then he adds The Light shined in Darkness but the Darkness comprehended it not This seemeth to be a clear allusion to the work of the first day when God called Light out of Darkness dividing at the same time between the Light and the Darkness The Light now shined in the midst of the Darkness enlightning the Darkness so that it still remaineth incomprehensible to the Darkness as that abode in its own natural form divided from the Light All generally agree that Moses comprehended the History of the whole Creation in this Chapter And under the Covert and Vail of the visible part as a figure divinely describeth the Intellectual Angelical and more Divine part as the immediate Original and Life of this Figure We have an Image of this in the Body of Heaven with the Sun-shining in it by day or the Moon and Stars by night when they present themselves to our eyes by plain figures of themselves formed in a flowing stream here below The Jews therefore say That a man of Flesh and Blood cannot understand the first Chapter of Genesis St. Paul affirmeth That the invisible things are perceived being understood by the things that are made By these words he seemeth plainly to signifie that while Moses painteth out to us the visible world and framing of it his design is to set before us a lively Picture of the invisible part of things which is as the heavenly Person whose Picture is drawn on this Table The Light then which is the work of the first day being not only Sensitive but Intellectual is the first Creature the first and most immediate effulgency irradiation or out-shining of the Godhead the beginning of the Creation of God St. Paul saith That which makes manisest is Light Then the first Light is the first the most eminent the amplest the clearest the compleatest manifestation of God and so of the whole Creation as its golden Head The first day according to the Hebrew Idiom is the one day which Idiom hath this mystery wrapt up in it That the Unity the Fountain of numbers is the first in order from which we begin to number This Light which is the first Creature the work of the first day is the first procession of the Divine Unity without it self It retains therefore the highest Image of this Unity and partakes of it in the highest degree that any created Nature is capable of This is the Unity of the Divine Person or subsistency in a distinct created Essence or Form Thus you have in this lovely Form of the purest the sweetest of all created Lights the Person of Jesus Christ as he is the first Creature divinely subsisting in the Godhead This is that Light which while it shineth with a derived brightness in the midst of that darkness which is the first matter of every Creature it remaineth in the Unity and Divinity of its Person and subsistence vailed to the highest and most glorious of all Creatures For even in this blessed Person the darkness is a dividing Vail between the Nature and the Godhead in which that Nature subsists The Jewish Masters by a two-fold tradition seem to seal up this mystery for Posterity First they number the Soul of the Messias among those sacred and sublime Glories which were before the world Secondly They mysteriously affirm the Light of the first day to be a Light in which the whole work of Creation in all the parts of it with all its Revolutions from its first beginning to its last end are clearly and distinctly seen But say they at the fall of man by Sin this Light was hid beneath the Throne of God until the days of the Messias Can any thing more plainly express our Jesus as He is the first and universal Creature the first the fairest the clearest draught of the whole Creation in the whole course and conduct of it pre-existent to every Creature comprehending all the works of God from the first line to the last finishing of it in one most delightful View in one most agreeable Prospect in one Spirit and Form of purest sweetest life more than Angelical only less then Divine yet subsisting in a Divine Person If the will of man with its motions be seen and pre-exist here are they not here predetermined But I have said before that I would neither insist long upon this Point nor lay any thing of the weight of this Cause upon it being it self by few received or understood I divided my discourse of the Mediatorship into three Heads 1. Christ as he is the ground of all the Works of God in which also lies the ground of his Mediatorship 2. Christ as he is the Way 3. Christ as he is the End of the whole Work of God There are two parts in the way 1. Christ as he is the beginning of the Works of God the first Creature 2. Christ as the coming forth and the conduct of every Creature from the beginning to the end is in him and by him This I am now to take in hand Christ is Mediator as he is the way of the coming forth and the conduct of the Work of God in the whole and every part of it As in a Plant the seminal Spirit hath treasured up in it the seminal Reasons the whole Harmony all the proportions of the Plant in the whole Plant and in every part of it as this seminal Spirit hath in it self the formative power of the Plant according to the proportion as this Spirit putteth forth it self into every part of the Plant springeth up together with it gives it its proper measures and proportions suited to the Harmony of the whole Plant appears in each part as a living Image of that particular proportion or harmony which with an invisible Beauty flourisheth within it self resides on every part of the Plant with the full harmony of the whole being one and the same altogether undivided in the whole Plant and in all its parts Thus is Christ after a more eminent and divine manner the seminal Spirit of the whole Creation I have before represented him from clear Scriptures as the Wisdome and Power of God by virtue of which he is clearly a Spirit containing in himself the seminal Reasons and the formative Power by which every Creature is formed universally in its production and in its conduct Jesus Christ is frequently known in the Scriptures by that Name of the Seed which though it relates eminently to the state of Grace and Glory where it cometh up into its ripe fruit and entire form yet doth it relate to the state of Nature For by virtue of this Seed Adam was the Son of God By this Seed and in it were all things made as Plants springing forth from it although the Seed were yet come up in them only into the green Leaf or smiling Blossoms at the best That Name given in Greek to Jesus which is translated the Word signifieth as properly Reason Jesus
Christ is the Reason of God the Reason of the Divine Nature the universal Reason of the whole Creation in which lieth the particular Reason of each Creature in its Essence in its Operations Thus is Jesus Christ the universal Harmony of the Godhead and of the whole Work of God He is that Harmony according to the measure of which the whole work of God is formed The Reader is desired to take notice That the Authors Papers upon this Head were imperfect and that he will find what can be recovered of them before the finishing of this Work together with a large Discourse upon this whole Argument of the Mediation of Christ at the end of the Book where it was thought most convenient to place it because of its length The third Head of Arguments in this Cause of Free-will is the Universal Nature of the Creature Every Creature is a shadow That that is first in every kind is such by it self and every other thing by that God is the first Being the only Original All created Being in every kind degree or manner of being is a shadow of this Original and so is all that which it is in every distinct form motion or circumstance in its Essence Subsistence and Operations distinctly by this It hath its Being by the first Being It subsists it acts by the subsistency and by the acting of this first Being this first subsistency this first activity in it The whole Creation in its best state is no more than a shadowy Image of the Great Creator Man who is stiled the Glory of God as being the band the sealed sum the circling Crown of the whole Creation is said to be made in the Image of God The various Powers and Beauties dispersed thorow the several Creatures to make the whole a compleat Image of the Divine Nature meet in one in Him as a comprehension of the whole in whom the Divine Image is as entire but more heightned and refined as being more finisht here being drawn out further being more elaborate and having the last hand put to it Thus was He made worthy to be the Son of God the Figure of Jesus Christ in order to lie eternally in his bosome as his Bride and to be a Fellow-Heir of God together with Him Yet was this Image in which man was thus made a shadowy Image only The word by which it is express'd in the first of Genesis is Tselem This word hath in it entirely the name of a shadow It hath also the first and chief letter of Death with which it ends It signifies properly such an Image as is an empty vanishing dying shadow the shadow of a substance without any substance a shadow of life without any true life The same word is used Psal. 39. 6. Man walketh in a vain shew and disquieteth himself in vain The word here rendred a vain shew is Tselem the same with that by which the Image of God in Man is express'd Gen. 1. The words immediately preceding in this Psalm are these Man in his best state is all of him all vanity The Reason is added Man walks in a vain shew Man himself in the purity of his Nature in the unfaded the unstained flower of all his senses in the primitive heighth of all his Intellectual Glories was a vain shew The Paradise of his Understanding the invisible World of Angels with all the Virgin beauties and sweetnesses of both in the midst of which he walketh were a vain shew For they round about him with all their pomp and pleasantness were no more than a shadowy Image of the Divine World lying in the bosome of it He himself was a shadowy Image of the Divine Essence and Person in the midst of a world of shadows We have this word us'd again Psal. 73. 20 As a dream when one awaketh so O Lord when thou awakest thou shalt despise their Image Image here is Tselem which before was translated vain shew God the supream and eternal Spirit is here presented bringing forth this World as a man doth a dream in his sleep The darkness at the beginning of the Creation described Gen. 1. seems here to be alluded to as a mysterious sleep into which the first Spirit the Fountain of all the Father of all after a Divine manner cast its self Then the Light with the work of the six days and so the whole Creation springeth forth from this Spirit in this sleep as a dream The Devil with his Ministers or Creatures Angels and Man by the Fall become Princes and Lords of this Creation They possess the Powers Treasures and Glory of this World But all this while themselves with all these created Riches Honours and Joys in which they swim and swell are only shadows in a dream beneath the shining and anointed feet of those true substantial immortal Beauties and Sweetnesses to which their hope their sight their imaginations can never raise themselves When this eternal Spirit in whose sleep like painted forms in a dream they vainly flutter about awakeneth himself he at once dissolveth them into their own nothingness and despiseth them as having never been any thing yea less than nothing in the Light of Divine Truth and in the glorious face of the eternal substances Thus we see the universal Nature of the Creature and of Man in their first form to consist in a shadowy Image If the Creature were its own Original and had the truth the life of its own Being its Original form in it self it were no more a Creature but a God As then the Face in the Waters or in the Glass in all its powers parts colours and motions dependeth upon the living face being determinated by it every moment so are all Creatures all Spirits Angels or Men in their Essences Powers or Operations continually figured by those forms in which the eternal Spirit from above presenteth it self as the reflections of that Spirit like the shapes of the Clouds or the Face of Heaven in a clear stream This truth seemeth to be with a Divine elegancy set forth Cant. 5. 12. It is said there of Jesus Christ That his Eyes are as Doves above thâ—… Rivers of Waters washing in milk full set Thus the words in Hebrew most properly render themselves A learned Jew in his Paraphrase hath this gloss upon those words Full set The whole world is the fulness of his Eyes There seemeth to be in this verse a plain allusion to that expression Gen. 1. of the Spirit moving upon the waters or above the waters The Chaldee Paraphrase makes this to be in the form of a Dove The Lamb in the Revelation is said to have seven Eyes a perfect number expressing a full Variety The Ideal forms or the first Images of things those eternal Truths and Lights of Life in the Person of Christ as the essential Image the sweetest the only living Light of the Godhead are these Eyes of the Bridge-groom here celebrated These Eyes are Doves pure eternal
Spirits of Divine Love and Beauty in the bosome in the Unity of the eternal Spirit the heavenly King and Bridegroom of all Spirits These Doves are the lovely Eyes with which this Spirit is all over thick set like the wings of the Seraphims full of eyes within and without These Doves are washing themselves in Milk So the Hebrew hath it as a present perpetual Act. They lie washing and bathing eternally in the springs of Divine Light and Beauty in the softnesses sweetnesses and walks of the Divine Love These are the Milk of the Godhead and of blessed Spirits These Eyes are full set For each of these Ideal Original forms in Christ comprehendeth in it self under the character or property of its own distinct Variety the whole Divine World and all Worlds in their first forms These first eternal Images of things in Christ are his Eyes the sweetly shining Springs of all Light Life Love and Joy For he ever beholds all things with these in these By these as he looks forth with them he guides all things In these is he as the supream Spirit of truth and beauty seen in his liveliest and loveliest appearances These Eyes are Doves being each of them one Spirit comprehending all things in its Unity a Spirit of purest Light and Sweetness the chast and beloved Mate of the eternal Spirit eternally springing up lying eternally in the Bosome and Unity of it These Doves in the Firmament of Divine Glory spreading their Wings flying every where to and fro over the water of this Creation figure themselves and their motions in shadowy Images upon them Thus are all things here formed and mov'd as the face in the Glass by the living Face This similitude hath in it a signal difference from the Truth represented by it The living Eye or Face sendeth forth its Image But this Image hath its reception and subsistence in another substance the glass or the water But the Creation hath no ground to bear it up but that alone which bringeth it forth These Divine Eyes of which we speak at once send forth and support these Images of themselves They are the clear Springs from which they stream and the Christal Looking-Glasses in which they appear In this eternal Spirit in this living Light all things as varied shadows of this Light as shadowy forms of this Life live move have their being and appearance Not as accidents in their subject but after a manner far more eminent aâ—…d altogether transcendent to any resemblance in the Creature This is the Universal Nature of the Creature How pleasant how Divine a Spectacle is this All things in their primitive purity are spotles Doves Coelestial Loves Virgin-Spirits like Angels clothed in white Eyes that are Springs of purest light and sweetness looking up from a Divine Light vailed with a Divine shade to their Life their immortal Mates their Divine Originals those Doves those Eyes above which looking down meet themselves here beneath in shadowy figures in sweetest reflections of themselves from the midst of loveliest shades upon a ground of eternal Light It is time now to close this Argument All the Creatures are shadowy Images both Men and Angels As are they so is their Liberty so are all their motions shadowy as figures they are all formed and determined by the Life in eternity I pass now to the second Argument under this Head 2. Every Creature is an emanation or stream from the Divine Essence the emanation of a moment This is a truth generally establisht upon all the clearest the firmest Principles of truth in Philosophy or Divinity by the most universal consent and harmony in the spirits of learned men in the nature of things â—…sse Creaturae est emanare The Being of the Creature is the beaming sorth from God like light from the Sun The preservation and continuance of things is a continued Creation The whole Creation with every Creature comprehended in it thorow all the moments of time to the end of time riseth up immediately entirely out of God as in the first moment of its Being at the beginning of time The white sheet full of all living Creatures was let down out of Heaven thrice in the sight of St. Peter The World is a Divine Light with all forms of things Angelical or Humane visible invisible appearing in it let down out of the Heaven of the Godhead as often as there are moments in its duration Thus are all things a new World a new Creation each twinkling of an Eye brought forth a new by a fresh glance of the Divine Eye If any Creature could subsist one moment apart from God the first and supream Being without the particular dependance a particular derivation of that moment it would have the principle of Being in it self and so eternity in that moment and so a Godhead The connexion the dependance between God and the Creature the first the universal Cause and every Effect is much more universal intimate immediate inseparable than that between any effect and any second Gause We have a demonstration to our sense from the interposal of a Cloud between our eyes and a clear Sky that the beams are continued streams of light from the body of the Sun In that moment in which they cease to flow from the Sun to subsist in the Sun they cease to be It is affirmed of all things material and visible Fiunt non sunt They are sent forth but subsist not They are only in the making in the same moment in which they are brought forth they are no more This is universally true of all Creatures Men and Angels They have only a transient no permanent Being No eye ever takes in twice the same beam of Light No man standing upon the bank of a River sees twice the same water present with him Before he can cast his eye upon it the second time it is past by and gone So is no Creature no appearance the same two moments We can never say of created Beings or Beauties of our sweetest Solaces or bitterest Sufferings they are For while we are saying it they fly away and are no more like Lightning or the shadow upon any point of the Dial. As our Afflictions in the Language of St. Paul are Afflictions of a moment so are all our Joys Glories and Beings in the Creature No one of them lasteth two moments The Scripture testifies to Jesus Christ of the Heavens and the Earth As a Garment thou roulest them up and they shall be changed But thou art the same and thy years fail not Again in another place Jesus the same yesterday to day and for ever Nothing below Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and to day the last moment and this This is one part of the Vanity mark'd by Solomon in all things beneath this Sun of the Godhead fixt in the mid-day point of eternity that thorow their whole Being they are ever in motion like the Rivers and the Wind In each point of time
essential Form I design and hope so to open and establish these Propositions that the true Liberty of the Soul in its Operations may all along shine clearly forth from the Divine ground and form of its proper nature 1. Proposition The Intellectual Soul in Man is an indivisible Unity comprehending Variety Diversity Contrariety of Forms This is the first Proposition There is a three-fold Unity 1. There is an Unity in the Division of Parts This is the most imperfect Unity or rather a shadow of Unity the Unity of shadows of Corporeal substances or bodies 2. There is an Unity in Diversity of Forms or Essences above all divisibility of parts This also is an imperfect Unity This is the Unity of Essences of Intellectual Substances of all created Spirits The Unities of this sort are the Essences of things in their created state which are said to be indivisible 3. Above all Divisibility or Diversity is the first the supream the perfect Unity having in it self the first the fullest Variety and distinction This is the Unity of the Divine Nature or the Divine World This for its infinite heighth above all expression or comprehension by any created Image or Understanding for the equal concurrence of the first the most entire Unity and the first the most full Variety both alike boundless and infinite is well termed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Above an Unity The Humane Soul is an Unity of the second Rank whether you ascend or descend in the number of Intellectual Substances like the Angels above all Division but subject to Diversity This is an Unity in a Diversity Diversity which is Variety contracted and obscured by a mixture of the Contrariety with the Unity overshadows the Unity of the Soul and rendreth it a shadowy Unity The Divine Unity and Variety lie hid and vailed beneath the Diversity in the shadowy Unity of the Souls natural Form This Diversity as it over-shadows so it also bounds the Unity and renders it finite infinitely beneath the first and supream Unity in the Divine Nature This is the Unity of the Intellectual Soul an Unity free from raised above all Division or divisibility of parts lying one without another as they appear in Bodies or Corporeal Substances The explication of this Unity in the Intellectual Operations of the Soul as I humbly conceive will be a full demonstration of it There seemeth according to common sense and language to be manifest in us a Life a Power which compareth and judgeth things which discerneth the differences of things relations proportions agreements disagreements which is delighted with Harmony Beauty Musick which taketh in entertaineth it self with the Essences of things the whole Universals as its most native and most suitable Companions which adorneth it self with Sciences The Sciences are an Angel-like building which this Life or Power hath framed by single notions or forms of things regularly composed into Propositions by Propositions in a most beautiful order laid one upon another and by fit joynts like Jewels knit together into one Body of Divine Light which setteth its Feet on the Earth and raiseth its Head into the unseen Glories of the highest Heavens This Power and Life within us which makes good all this or a similitude of this with more or less degrees of Perfection is that which we call the Intellectual Soul in Man If the Object or its Image be extended and so composed of parts which lie all one without another if the Subject which receives into it self the Object or the Image be of the same nature Now the one part of the Object is taken into and seated in one part of the Subject Another part in another Thus all lie diffused differently in different parts not only divisible but actually divided from each other Now they no where meet together in one they are no where compared and judged the Discord the Harmony the Whole is no where understood Yea These are no more in the nature of things There is no such thing as Picture Prospect or Person Life Love or Joy Death or Suffering All is an unimaginable heap of unconceivable Atomes which have no Relation to no Commerce with each other if there be no indivisible Unity in which things meet in which they are compared judged and proportioned How an Atome it self or any thing of whole or part can be without Unity which constitutes it which connects it into which it Ultimately resolves it self from which it first ariseth is of all things to me most hard to comprehend But this is a digression and more than is necessary to my present design Let us return The two essential Operations of the Intellectual Soul are to understand and to will The Objects of these are Truth and Goodness real or apparent 1. Truth is a representative conformity of the Image to its Original 2. Goodness is a mutual perfcctive Conformity or suitableness of the Original and Image or of the Object to the Faculty Power or Spirit to which it relates These two are the Divine Meat and Drink of the Soul like the Ambrosia and Nectar of the Gods or separated Spirits with the Poets But where there is any impression any sense or relish of these two Truth or Goodness in the lowest forms of things These three must meet undividedly in one The two terms or bounds of conformity or suitableness the relation between these two their suitableness and conformity to each other The Intellectual Soul riseth an higher pitch according to the Doctrine of all the Schools and its own innate testimony of it self in all its Motions in all its Virtues and Vices It is carried up upon these two soaring wings as the wings of an Angel quite out of the sight of sense above all the tumult of Individuals and particulars to the invisible Glories and Harmonies of universal Forms The universal Truth and Good are its only mark and rest where its motions terminate The heavenly Beauty of the universal Truth can be no where seen the heavenly sweetness of the universal Good can be tasted by no Spirit but that alone where all Truths all kinds and degrees of good all things in their friendships and enmities are met and concentred with a full with an exact Harmony in one indivisible Point or in a perfect Unity It is indeed a Divine Unity running like the Spirit of Musick through all these terminating them all by it self recollecting them all entirely with their several Divisions after the most undivided manner into it self which makes this Harmony the Joy the Glory the Divine Life of Angels of God and God-like men This Divine Unity can be no where received but into an Unity like it self This Unity in the Intellectual Soul makes it a Divine â—…ye Ear and Spirit capable of taking in the Beauty enjoying the Musick being entertained at the heavenly Feast of the universal Truth and Goodness in the Society of all blessed and immortal Spirits Keep the Unity of the Spirit saith St. Paul in the
Therefore the School-men say of the sending giving powring forth the coming of the Spirit to us to be in us That it is only Novus modus apparendi A new manner of appearing The Holy Spirit the third Person in the Trinity from whom the other two Persons are ever undivided God blessed for ever is ever in every Creature in every Spirit He only changeth his Appearances and Effulgencies there By the change of his Appearance he changeth and formeth each Creature each Spirit in all its Changes Thus he turneth to himself the Heavens and the Earth as the Clay to the Seal according to the Language in the Book of Job How divinely pure and pleasant a prospect or living Picture is now the nature of things while God himself according to the distinct Idea or eternal exemplar of each Creature cometh forth and appeareth together with it as Twin-brothers as Twin-Loves 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one the reflection of the other while a Third Love breaks from both these in which they are blest and made perfect with a mutual Union and the fruition of each other The ever-glorious and eternally-joyous Trinity of the highest and first Love seems to multiply and figure it self in each Creature All Creatures now seem to be in a lively and living Beauty represented by the two Breasts of the heavenly Spouse Like two Twin-Roes of a lovely kind two Twin-Loves the Births of their heavenly Mother the Universal and Divine Image in the Person of Christ feeding among the Lillies the Ideal eternal Lights and Beauties of her soft and shining Bosome But all this is to be understood of simple Nature abstracted from the Corruption by Sin with which in the midst of the pure peaceful pleasant Varieties the charming Harmonies the golden Calms and Gardens of Divine Love cometh in a scene of War and Death of tempestuous Seas fields of Blood Contrariety and Enmity God willing to shew the Power of his Wrath. That God who is the God of Love that Will which is Love it self All Love in the beloved Soul to the beloved Soul here in its faln state puts on this strange person of an Enemy Under this dark Disguise and horrid Vizat he hideth all his Beauties and Sweetnesses he acts a part of Wrath. But this it self at last appears to the beloved Soul to be a most delightful Love-part While by it the Variety is made more full being extended to the greatest Contrariety and utmost extreams While in the reconciling of these the Divine Harmony is more full and ravishing The Divine Love heightned to an excess of Sweetness and triumphant Joys The Wisdome of the Design more admird and adored in its rich and glorious Depths All expectations of Men and Angels are suspended most happily deceived and in the end infinitely transcended But how have I wandred and delightfully lost my self by drinking in eagerly this Wine of Angels and glorified Saints the Sweetness of this Divine Light and Love I will now pass from this second Distinction to the third for the illustration of the Divine presence in the soul. 3. Distinction God is one with the Soul not formally but transcendently God is not one with the Soul formally as the formal and proper Essence of the Soul or of any created Spirit much less as a Constitutive part of its Essence This would make God and that Spirit essentially one The Essence of that Spirit would reciprocally be the Essence of God That Spirit would be essentially God Is not this the utmost heighth of Ignorance Profaneness Impiety Blasphemy Giant-like Lucifer-like to war with God for the Throne of his Godhead Besides all this evil how great were the loss to every Spirit of Angels and Men Their Sun which makes the eternal Day and Spring were now set in an hopeless Night of Clouds and Confusions All their Loves Hopes and Joys aspiring to an infiniteness above themselves would now all droop and die in their own Bosome The beginning the end of them all is taken away That distinction of things which is the Mother of all Lives Loves Beauties and Pleasures as Unity is the Father of them would now sink into a rude undistinguished Darkness the first and the fountain of all Distinctions being taken away in taking away the Distinction of the Divine Nature from the created form of things How unpleasant were it to the Eye below to be perswaded that there were no Sun besides it self above it self Now the joy in beholding the face of the Sun and of Heaven the taking in of the sweet Light of Heaven and the Sun the charming Delights in the Varieties of Lights and Shades of Colours and Pictures in the Light and the Sun-shine were no more 2. God is transcendently one with the Soul as he is with all things by the transcendency of his Unity and his Infiniteness He comprehendeth all things in one in Himself after a manner altogether incomprehensible As he is the first the Universal Cause the most immediate the most intimate the inseparable the Ideal Cause of all things He is the Unity of every Unity the Being of Beings the Essence of every Essence not formally but transcendently not after a finite but an infinite manner Cusanus saith God is the Sun in the Sun not formally finitely but after a transcendent infinite manner He is so the Sun in the Sun that he is all things with the fulness of the Divine Nature and eternity in that form 4. Distinction God is present with and in the natural form of the Soul as in an earthly and shadowy Image He is present according to his heavenly his eternal form in this shadow as vailed and hidden beneath it As Jesus Christ at his Incarnation so the first man by his Creation was made under the Law the Law the Glory of the created Image improved and heightned The Holy Spirit saith of the Law That it is a shadow of good things to come not the very Image It is commonly said That the Law is the Gospel vailed the Gospel the Law unvailed Jesus Christ as he is the essential Image the brightness of the Glory of God is the first Adam vailed beneath a shadowy Image He is there as the Truth the Original the Root of this shadow bringing it forth bearing it in himself comprehending it He is in it as the Spirit and beautiful form of a Plant in the Seed ready to spring forth through it to transfigure it into the similitude of its own Beauties to fill it so transfigured with its own Divine Life Virtues and Fruits in the proper season St. Paul makes the first man in his pure State and in his Fall a Type or Figure of Him who is to come Jesus Christ Rom. 5. God in the Light of his Glory Jesus Christ according to his heavenly Image hidden in God The Soul according to its Divine Life in the state of Grace are all present vailed in the natural man as in their
proper shadow Some think this following sense to be intended by St. Paul in these words Christ is the Image of the invisible God the first-born of the whole Creation or of every Creature Col. 1. God in that same second Person which is the Godhead in its essential Image which in the fulness of time took flesh of the Virgin Mary in the beginning of Time came forth from the secret and unaccessible Light of Eternity in a shadowy Image This Image was the full figure of his Person with all its Divine Glories according to the capacity of a shadow This was the whole Creation compleat in its first Draught All the Glories of the Divine Nature which are imitable were here first distinctly figured in the primitive and pure forms of all the Creatures Thus was he the Image of the Invisible God the first-born of the whole Creation in general and of each Creature in particular Thus was He in the Language of the Jews the great Adam who brought forth the little Adam in his own likeness Thus was Jesus Christ in Adam at once the life of all in his essential Glories the Original Copy or first Draught of the Creature in the whole compass of it of each Creature in particular All this in the Humane Soul in Adam as the only perfect and proper Figure of this Original I understand nothing in this interpretation of St. Pauls words contrary to the Analogy of Faith or the Scriptures There seemeth to be in it a compleat Harmony and order in the nature of things according to this sense 1. All things stand first in an Uncreated Subsistence and Essence Then in an Uncreated Subsistence or Person they come forth into Created Essences or Natures Lastly By this medium uniting all they pass in Created Subsistencies and Essences into created Persons and Natures 2. Jesus Christ gradually descends from his essential Glories into an Universal Original Figure of himself of the whole Creation of each Creature Through this He passeth into the particular form of faln man in the Womb of the Virgin So he descends to the nethermost parts of the Earth ascends again through all forms of things with all united in his own Person above all Heavens and fills All. After this manner the Lord Jesus is the Mediatour of the Creation as well as of the Reconciliation and Regeneration All things are made by him and nothing that is made or brought forth from the beginning of things to the end comes forth without him As according to his appearances in Grace or Glory the Saints appear together with him so according to his Appearances in Nature all things appear together with him He lives and subsists in the form of every Creature Every Creature subsists by its transcendental Union with him in Nature Thus it is most true That we are in this World as he is in this World We are Sojourners together with him in his Land He suffers in all our Sufferings is straitned in all our straitnings He is in all things made like unto us Sin only excepted He carries along in every particular form the Universal Harmony the Divine Glory even in all the sufferings and straitnings of every Creature The Universal Harmony and Divine Glory is to him the liberty the joy of Paradise Heaven Eternity in each straitning and suffering Sin only is the breach of this Harmony the violation of this Glory not by a privation only but a Contradiction and Enmity founded in the privation This can bear no part in the Divine Harmony save as it is reduced into Order and the Harmony carried on through the Wrath and Righteousness of God in the Death and Resurrection of the Lord Jesus But I desire to leave my self and my Reader free in this Point I have now finished in four Distinctions my Answer to the first part of the Objection made against the Variety of forms in the Unity of the Soul In this part of my Answer I have endeavoured to state the presence of God with and in the Soul of man as perspicuously as my dark and narrow mind is capable of taking in and expressing a Divine Mystery of so great an amplitude and such an heigth of Glory I pass now to the second part of my Answer which concerns the Angels 2. Answer Angels with the whole Company of invisible substances or separated Forms and immortal Spirits are contained in the Unity of the Soul these two wayes 1. They are Superior and Universal Causes subordinate to the first Cause Thus they are most intimately and inseparably present in the Constitution of the Soul As Entity or Being and substantiality in their Superiour and Universal Nature descend into incorporeal Spirits and through these into Corporeal Shapes and Bodies so do all the Angels greater in Might and Glory cloath themselves with the Incorporeal Form of the immortal Soul communicating all their divers Virtues Powers and Glories to this Form in which themselves subsist and live together with it being an head of Glory to it 2. All Angelical Immortal Spirits are another way in the Soul as making up the full diversity of all Forms in it and so composing its Essence Thus all Angels all Essences all Forms of things in their immortal Substances as Intellectual Spirits meet in the proper Unity under the peculiar Character and Diversity of each Intellectual Soul as in some obscure resemblance Variety of colours in a particular colour or as all the Elements in each Element in each mixt Form under the proper Character of the predominant Element or Form 3. Answer The Intellectual Soul containeth all Corporeal Forms or Bodies in it self two wayes 1. Virtually 2. Formally 1. The Soul hath in it self all Bodies virtually from the Angels above it as the shining Bosome where the eternal Spring through Jesus Christ powres forth its living streams Here the Soul drinketh in the Essences and essential forms of things in their Angelick Truth and Goodness These feast and fill the Understanding and the Will In the Understanding or Angelick Light of the Soul they shine as the Exemplars or Patterns of all below in the visible World In the Will as in the Angelick Love of the Soul they lie as in the Womb or in the seminal Virtue or executive Power which brings them forth 2. This Soul comprehends the Corporeal World in it self formally The Essences of all Bodies as they are Objects only of the Understanding and not of Sense so are they according to the Nature and Law of all Essences Intellectual Unities and Forms in the Unity or essential Form of this Intellectual Spirit The Soul in these distinct Essences floweth forth into these shadowy forms with which our Senses the shadows of the Intellectual Light are entertained The Intellectual Unity diffuseth it self into the continued parts of these divisible Forms This Unity formeth the Proportions of the parts in their mutual Correspondencies knitteth them together unto a mutual sympathy in each natural Body For as I have
before said a mutual correspondency of parts suited exactly each to other through the whole Corporeal Frame a concurrence in all the parts of the sensations mutations or impressions seated in each distinct and divided part seemeth altogether unimaginable if there be not an undivided Unity which is one and the same in all the divided parts where all the parts meet in one and are one By this Unity alone can all the parts have a mutual proportion a comprehension penetration sensation or feeling of each other through out as they have of themselves and in the same undivided moment This rend the sympathy true and perfect The Unity then of the Intellectual Soul as it diffuseth it self into all Bodies in all their extended forms and divided parts so it bindeth them all up within it self This is the substance to these shadows and Contextures of shadowy Forms or Accidents in which they subsist This is the Spring out of which they rise up every moment This is the band which joyns and tyes them together in one This is the Bosome or proper place which incompasseth imbraceth brings forth sustains and cherisheth them I have now answered the Objection and so endeavoured to clear from all Clouds the beauty of the Soul as all Varieties shine most pleasantly in the face of it in the diversity indeed of the shadowy Image but an Angel-like Diversity and a God-like Image Thus I have finished the two Propositions in the Description of the Souls Essence Asserting 1. The Unity 2. The Variety in the Diversity 3. Prop. The Image of God resulting from the most harmonious Union of these two the Unity and the Diversity of Forms is the proper Essence and essential form of the Soul This Harmonious Union consists in a two-fold Perfection 1. The Unity and Variety of things under a form of Diversity meet in the Essence of the Soul with the Character or Propriety of the Unity and Harmony When God had drawn the several parts of his Divine Image in the several Angels and Creatures according to the Diversities of their several Characters or Properties He now summons them and calls them all together to meet in Man in him to be united and compleated in the entire Unity and full Harmony of the Divine Image Thus he speaketh to himself in the Trinity to all the Quires of Angels to all his fore-going Works Let us saith He make man in our Image in our own likeness The expression is doubled to give the more force and emphasis to it So afterward God created man in his own Image in the Image of God created he him The entireness the Eminency the Principality of the Divine Image in man is thus set forth and therefore the Dominion is immediately added to it Angels and all other Creatures have their distinct Ideas in the Divine Mind But God himself in his own essential Image in the Person of the Son the Idea of Ideas is the Idea of Man This therefore alone as it is his glorious beginning in Nature is his Beatifical End in Grace and Glory his Righteousness Rest Eternal and full Blessedness in his full immediate entire Union Conformity Communion with it The Lord Jesus is the Head the Unity the Harmony of the whole Creation in this Region of Diversity The Angels in the heights of a Created Glory next him are like Notes in a Musical Lesson Diversities in the Harmony springing forth from this Unity But each of these Diversities as the top of the Beams next the Sun standing in the highest degree of Diversity beneath the Unity bear in themselves the Universal Harmony the Universal Nature of Diversity the whole Creation in the shadowy figure of the Godhead Therefore are they in Scripture stiled Thrones Principalities Gods They are so many Divine Unities in a shadowy Image but under the Character and Property of so many distinct Diversities Thus are they ministring Spirits As they are shadowy Unities They are shadowy Gods But as they are Unities under the several Characters of Diversity they are ministring Deities or ministring Spirits They are Servants to the Lord Jesus the proper Unity and Harmony in its own full Character and Divine Property From him they minister the whole Creation in the several Diversities of the Universal Forms and undivided Essences unto man In man they all meet as in their proper Unity and Harmony answering exactly to the Person of the Lord Jesus So the Sun in Heaven by his several Beams figureth himself into a Sun in a Cloud by his side or in a clear stream beneath him Thus are the Angels so many Chariots and the whole Society of Angels one Chariot in which Jesus Christ rides forth into the Humane Nature unto a compleat Image of himself in man After this manner Angels Rule over Man are superior to him in Glory and Might as he is the shadowy Image in which all the lines of Nature meet and terminate themselves He is now the Heir under Age subject to Tutors and Guardians But the spiritual man made lower than the Angels in its shadowy Image upon the stage of the first Creation grown up to its Age of maturity in the Resurrection of Christ is now crowned with Honour and Dignity is Heir of all things Lord of the Angels Together with Jesus Christ he rideth forth upon the Angels as the Chariots and Horses which he now governs Thus in this shadowy Image and state of Diversity the Unity and the Variety meet in man with the most Harmonious Union the fullest Character of the Unity in the Variety So man becomes the principal the compleat Image of the Godhead in the whole Creation ministred from the Lord Jesus the Head and Harmony of the whole Diversity by the concurrent service of all the Angels as the whole Creation in so many Diversities 2. The Harmonious Union constituting the Divine Image in man consists in the Unity of the Soul in its undivided Essence subsisting in all diversity of Forms circling through them all returning ever into it self As the same spacious and delightfully various Prospect seen through several clear Glasses diversly but delicately shaded So the Soul by the Unity of its Essence subsists and contemplates it self within it self in all forms of things from the highest to the lowest according to their several Angelical Diversities as so many pleasingly new and richly distinct but sweet and transparent shades This is the Soul in the perfection of its natural Form a Divine Cirâ—…le a compleat Paradise Every where presenting the whole the form of a man in the Divine Image the Beginning and the End meeting themselves in each Point The Intellectual Soul by its Unity at once subsisteth diversly in all Diversity of Forms and circleth through them all within it self The Soul by its Idea and Divine Unity hath its Throne in the Divine World By its Intellectual Life and Intuitive Light it spreads its self in flames of heavenly Love in beams of heavenly Beauty among the
harmonious Motions and most regular diversity of Forms appear together by virtue of the Unity every where indivisible 3. Within the Unity of the Soul lie both the other Natures in a way proper to the nature of the Soul The Angelical the Divine Natures above are there with contracted and dimmer Glories appearing through Images of less brightness and less Majesty All Corporeal Natures are there exalted into Spirits in their Intellectual Patterns and Powers in their rational Forms and Virtues in their Imaginative figures and force in their seminal Reasons and plastical or formative Power That mystical Picture which the Prophet Esay draws of the Seraphim from the Life it self when he saw them will serve in its proportion for the figure of the Intellectual Soul They had each six wings with two they covered their Face with two their Feet with two they flew Spirits are described by Wings The Images of things springing up within them are their Wings not by change of place without them but by these inward Images are they present with things and in each place By these they work after the way of a Natural or rather Angelical Magick By raising and converting themselves to Images in their minds they bring forth new forms without as the Off-spring or Emanations from those Images like shadows from Bodies Upon this account Angels are said to work Cognoscendo by the force of figures in their minds Each Soul hath like a Seraphim six wings The face of the Soul is his Divine his Angelical Idea in which the face of God and the face of the Angel in their proper forms are seen The two uppermost wings with which the Soul covers her Angelical Face and within that her Divine Face is the Divine Image shining in the Angelical Image These wings are full of eyes within and without As by the eyes without they see the Images of Angelical and Divine Glories So by the eyes within they see the Faces of Angels and of God and in them their own faces vailed beneath these Images full of eyes These Eyes are the living Light the reflection of the Angelical and Divine Glory of which these Images are composed and by virtue of which they according to their pure Natures stand in a mutual inseparable Union with the Angels and in the Angels with the Divine Glory By vertue of this Union they at once look inward to their Ideal Beauties and outward to the Images of these Beauties The two lowest wings are the Images of all Corporeal Natures of all Bodies which cover these as the feet of the Soul Nymphs which are Souls according to Porphyrius are described in Poets with silver feet Bodily Natures in their extended and divisible parts are the feet of the Soul its lowest descent the lowest and shadowest forms figured upon it These in the Soul it self which is an Unity appear only in their seminal Unities and Beauties as Spirits in the Harmony of this Universal Spirit For this cause are they represented by silver feet shining and incorruptible for the same reason are they said to be covered with wings which are those Spirits the lowermost forms of things in the Soul the seminal Unity and Harmonies out of which Bodies immediately flow and in which they are seen as in a mystical Glass The middle-wings of the Soul are the proper Image of the Soul it self by which it performs its own proper Motions and Operations flying between those Angelical those Divine Images above and the shady forms of Bodies below The Images or Natures of Spirits are exprest by pairs of wings not only for congruity and the decency of the Parable but from the Truth of the mystery for in Spirits each Image distinguisheth it self by a most substantial Variety into its own Original and Image by that self-reflection or spiritual Generation which is the essential Act of each Understanding of each Intellectual Nature of each Spirit Thus much of this first passage the three-fold Nature united in the Soul 2. Passage Then it by thee unloosened spread doth lye Through Limbs well suited to a sympathy Per Consona membra resoluis Note How elegantly doth this Divine Philosopher and Poet at once paint out to us the Soul extended into Corporeal Forms in divisible parts languishing obscure with a faint and fading light weak with a feeble and dying force as also present in its Divine Unity the spring of Light of Life through the whole extent of these Bodies and binding them up into an indivisible Unity This Unity every where present with all the parts of the wholy Body This Unity comprehending them all in one making them all one by a mutual comprehension of each other in it self is the only ground of the Consonancy the Harmony and Sympathy The Unity of the same Spirit answering to it self every where presenting all the parts in an Unity in it self is every where in all Corporeal Forms the Beauty the Musick the Harmony 3. Passage Of motion and divinest Melody Diffus'd through things below or those on high This is the Spring and Circle Cuncta moventem 1. Note The difficulties in Motion are inexplicable if Motion have not for its Spring and Seat an essential substantial Unity which contains at once in it self the terms of the Motion its Beginning and End the Way the Forms or Parts of that which is moved Without this how shall the Motion be directed How shall the Forms or parts of that which is moved give place to or pass into the place of each other How shall the Impression or force of Motion be communicated But now all things move by a divinely natural Magick that is by the force of Harmony in the Unity of the same Soul or Spirit inhabiting and acting all presenting it self in every form part and motion Now all motions present themselves to our eyes as exact and Divine Dances of persons to a Divine Musick from unseen Musicians sounding entirely and distinctly in the ear of each person to which they all at once in their order move most agreeably 2. Note Immutablity Mutation or Change Motion differ after the same manner with Eternity Aeviternity Time This is best explained by the three-fold Unity the Divine the Angelical Unity the Unity of the Soul 1. The Divine Unity is alone a true and perfect Unity substantial supream unbounded This hath a perfect boundless Variety in it with an Uniformity All forms of things here as they are most perfectly distinct by the perfection of the Variety so are they most perfectly one by the perfection of the Unity This is the Divine World containing innumerable Divine Worlds within it self of which every one is infinitely new and various from all the rest yet entirely one with all the Rest including at once innumerable Divine Worlds all new and all the same As the Variety there comprehends all distinctions below it and infinitely transcends them So each the minutest the least distinction here being a Variety there is a new
the Soul The Mind they call the Son the World of God the first seat of all Ideas But with us Christians this Mind is the Angelical Nature the chief of those ministring Spirits to which we in the Language of the Scripture give the Name of Angels The Son of God the World of God in the first and most proper sense is the Uncreated Mind and Wisdome the Lord Jesus who as he is the second person in the Trinity is the supream Unity the one only true God The Godhead in its essential Image where first are seated and shine all forms of things in their Original Glories in their eternal Patterns as they are the Variety in the Divine Unity every one God entirely in it self in all the full Glories of the Godhead and all one God ever undivided indivisible Plutarch calleth Life a Depth This Mind is exprest by a Deep inasmuch as it is Life it self the first unbounded Life which hath no ground no limit the fountain of Life where endlesly spring up in an unconfined Circle in a bottomless Depth forms of Glory innumerable one within another Thus St. Paul speaketh That the Spirit of God in the Spirit of a Saint is a Spirit of Revelation which takes the covering off from this Deep of Light and Glories in the Soul searching out the Depth of God The Soul circleth round this Deep of the Divine Mind not after a Corporeal or Local manner but as one Spirit encompasseth another without Circumscription extension or distance 1. The Soul without consinement or adaequation contains in its Unity and Center this glorious Deep of the Divine Mind through the Angelical Mind as the Unity of its Unity the Center in its Center 2. The Soul springs forth by a continual emanation a continual irradiation or process from this Divine Mind into an entire Image of it As it â—…ees the various Glories in the circle of this Deep So doth it spring up within it self into the similitude and forms of the same Glories in the same Order and Harmony to the filling up and compleating of the same circle within it self The Lord Jesus in the Gospel at his Transfiguration appeared as the Sun in its strength and his Garments as the Light Thus the same Jesus the Divine Mind is here a Circle a Depth of substantial Light and Glories filling the Light with all Variety of forms The Soul springs forth from him all round about him as a Garment of Light a Circle of Beams all wrought with the beautiful Figures of those Glories Plato saith That there are three Kings round whose Thrones all things dance God the Mind the Soul this continual procession of the Soul from the Divine Mind through the Angelical Mind in the entire Image of it with all its Divine Forms and their Order their Harmony their Unity in the whole compass of their Variety is the mystical Dance of the Soul round the Throne of her King her Bridegroom by which at once she contemplates enjoys springs up into his Divine Form in all its Beauties and is filled with him He in like manner hath her ever before him as the Looking-Glass of his own Beauty lying and playing in himself as the Image of a Flower or Tree in the water every way circled in by him as she is centered in him As the Divine Mind through the Angelical is in the Soul so are the Divine the Angelical Mind through the Soul in this visible World centring it in themselves riding forth upon the Circuit of the Heaven and the Earth as the lowest figure of themselves at once standing up out of them and standing in them The Soul as the Exemplar Form as the Unity the inmost center the outmost Circle sendeth forth this Corporeal Image as a figure of it self formeth moveth acteth it throughout sustaineth it in it self filleth it with it self every way boundeth and containeth it within it self The vast all-containing Unity of the Soul figureth it self the circular globous round form of the Heavens and the Earth in the Union and Harmony of all the parts suffering no where any discontinuity or vacuity nor any deformity or discord in the whole From the variety of invisible Forms within it self the Soul springeth up into all the innumerable Army of heavenly Bodies in the Coelestial Orbs into all the diversity of Elementary shapes and figures in the Regions below The Harmony and Order of the Soul in all its forms and motions through them floweth forth figureth it self as a Light of Beauty shineth as a Divine Musick soundeth through all the parts and changes of the Coelestial the Elementary Sphears charming those Souls that have awakened and purified senses to take them in As the Soul within it self springeth up into each form in its proper Order bringing forth it self at once with the entire Unity of its whole undivided Essence anew in that distinct form so doth the Soul from that Original in the likeness of the same Image each new moment spring forth anew according to the innate Law of the universal Order and Harmony into the whole Heavens and Earth in a new posture and figure Thus after the similitude of its own circlings through all forms within it self the Soul incessantly turneth round the Heavens and the Elementary Orbs which by their perpetual circling through each other turn about by day and by night the restless wheel of Generation and Corruption as of all change Thus as the Soul danceth round the Throne of the Divine and the Angelick King these Heavens and the Elements dance round the Throne of their King the Soul Before I pass from the Authority and Testimony of this great Philosopher concerning the nature of the Soul give me leave to direct this Arrow to the white and mark which I aim at through this whole Discourse According to this Doctrine the Divine the Angelick Mind the Soul the Coelestial and Elementary Orbs through all their powers parts forms and motions meet in make up one Universal and Divine Harmony one Beauty one Musick All exactly in the lowest the least the weakest stroak touch or shade in most exact measure and proportion answer one another As the Face in the water answers the living Face So doth every lower Orb or Circle of things answer the superior As the reflection of it self in its own water or lustre shining forth from it and abiding in it like the water of a precious stone Each Orb or Circle of things is filled with knit together by bounded in its own Unity which floweth through all as the Spirit the Life of Order and Harmony disposing all the parts and motions in a most just measure to preserve it self and its figure entire in the whole The supream the Divine Unity sits upon every one of these subordinate Unities rideth forth in them uniteth filleth bindeth up boundeth in it self all the Orbs and Circles all in them all This shines through them runs with its beams playing over every form as one
universal Beauty one sparkling Image of the supream universal Good in the whole face of things This is a Musick sounding through all where each various form the obscurest the most minute is a string upon the golden Lute of the whole Image of things Each motion a touch of the chief the invisible Musitian The Spirit of the whole the Spirit of Unity and Harmony each touch a part of the Musick exactly answering in all Musical proportions to every other part and to the whole making perfect the Divine Consort in which all the Angels all the Ideal the first Glories in the Divine Mind bear a part with every Worm and Dust on the Earth every Wave and Drop in the Sea every Dragon and Owl in the Desert every flake of Snow in the Air. How beautiful now is the Work of God in all how worthy of a God! As his Glory is above all Heavens the highest and purest forms of Light so is his Name which is that Glory in the full expression and fair Images of it excellent through all the Earth to the lowest shades Plato saith That there is that which is the least of all things which cometh between the lowest Divisions the least parts of things which uniteth all one to another Ficinus in his Comment teacheth us That this in the sense of Plato is God who by the absoluteness and simplicity of his Unity is at once the Greatest and the Least the Highest and the Lowest the Outmost and the Inmost of all things the Band of all that can no where be excluded If this be true where now through the whole Universe of things is there found a place for that Liberty which breaketh the Band of the Divine Unity and Harmony which discontinueth the Links in this Golden Chain by uncertain arbitrary independant motions and forms arising from those motions What jarring Motion or Division springeth up without its Divine Ground without its orderly Connexion without its Patterns and Spring above to which it answers without its fellow Notes round about it to which it is tuned Where is this motion which thus jarreth with disturbeth and spoileth the universal Musick Certainly it lies without the supream the all-comprehending Unity It excludes from it self that Divine Unity which filleth all which bindeth all up into one Aristotle expresseth the Soul by a word which seems to have a full and deep sense to this present purpose Those that followed him have with great labour and pains digged in it with their sharpest wits as in a Mine from which they expected much fine Gold of Divine Wisdome and Truth It is reported of one That he raised a Spirit to intepret this word to him It is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which seemeth most properly and clearly to express that Divine Unity of the Soul replenished with all Variety Forms in the most beautiful Order as we have described the nature of it It is that which hath its perfection its end and so its beginning and so its whole way in it self This Perfection of the Intellectual Soul is the comprehension of all Truth in its Understanding the fruition of all good in the Will The universal Truth and Good are then the beginning of the Soul its Original all forms of things in the Beauties of their clearest and fullest Truth which is the eternal Light of their Ideal Glories smiling in the face of them all forms of things in the sweetness delightfulness joy in the unexpressibleness of Good the true Good all Good which is the eternal Life The eternal Love of those Original Beauties in their sacred Spring rising up fresh in the bosome of each Form this is the end this is the perfection of the Soul Thus all things were made for Christ in him by him who is the universal Truth and Good How St. Paul explains it All things are yours and you are Christs All forms of things meet and unite in the Humane Soul as their Perfection their Beginning their End Jesus Christ as he is the first the fairest the fullest Image of all Forms in one in their most exact Order and Harmony is the Father the Brother the Bridegroom of the Soul her beginning her exemplar Form or Perfection her End That Definition of the Soul the Act of an Organical Body contains the same Doctrine of the Soul in it An Organical Body is a Corporeal or visible Image composed of various members various parts and forms to be instruments and expressions of the various Beauties Powers and Virtues of the Soul by which they propagate themselves in an inferior Birth and figure themselves in a new but narrower Orb in a new but obscurer light of sense Thus the whole visible World is one Organical Body of which all particular Bodies are so many Organical parts Beauty is described to be the predominancy of the form over the matter A substantial or essential Act is all form a pure form separated from every thing of Corporeal matter The Soul then as it is an Act is all Beauty Beauty abstracted from matter a pure Light of Beauty the Essence the substance of Beauty and so of Harmony of Order It is a Maxim in Nature That the last the lowest the least in a superior Order or rank of things every way excels the first the highest the greatest in a lower rank and order According to this Rule every Soul in the excellency beauty virtue compass of its Being transcends this whole Corporeal World in the widest Circuit of its Form and largest extent of its Duration Thus the Intellectual Soul is the Act of this Universe of Sense the whole Corporeal World The Intellectual Soul is all this World with all Forms of things contained in it with all their courses and changes according to their Connexion and Order from the beginning to the end in one essential substantial undivided Act One pure Act of transparent Beauty and Order which is the Souls Unity and Essence By this the whole Coelestial and Elementary World in the emanation and springing up of all forms of things in all their motions and orders are uncessantly acted In this they subsist as shadows which have no ground of substance in themselves In this they actually are that which they are As Mathematical figures in the mind the Soul it self alone filling those figures being all the Essence Substance Power Virtue and Form in them Like shadows they vanish as they go forth from this Bosome where alone their Essences which are so many distinct substantial Acts and Unities shine and move together in a most beautiful Harmony as fixed incorporeal Stars in their proper Heaven Thus is each man a compleat world in himself Thus doth each Soul cloath it self with an Aethereal Aerial Robe on which it puts on this earthy Garment Like the Tabernacle of white Linnen wrought with all fine and rich Colours with the figures of Cherubims which had three Coverings one over another upon it of Goats-hair of Ram-skins died red of Badgers-skins
Thus the Soul rides forth in her three-fold Chariot Heavenly Airy Earthly upon the Circuit of the Heavens the purest Air and the Earth the true Venus the true Queen of Love and Beauty by which all things spring shine live and love through her Marriage-Union with her Lord and King the true Adonis or Adonai the Lord Jesus who died and lives again with his beloved Bride in the secret of Paradise in the midst of the Field of the Coelestial Light the pure Air in the bosome and nethermost parts of the Earth This is the Soul in its first make and proper state Plotinus teacheth That the first Soul which is the immediate Workman of this World in the order of its procession from the separate Intelligences or Angels and from God the only supream Father of all hath its face ever turned to the face of God and unmoveably fixed upon it from his Face it continually takes in as the Nectar of the Gods the Divine Light the Divine Life and Love it continually takes in as at an heavenly Feast as the heavenly Ambrosia the Ideal Beauty the first the Archetypal Forms in their most immediate sweetest freshest fullest Effulgency or Images This God-like Soul thus bred thus divinely formed thus nourished thus impregnated sends forth from it self this whole visible World in the figures of those first Glories in the similitude of their Unity Variety and Order without thought care or trouble without ever turning a look to this World As a Person with his Face to the Sun casts his shadow upon the ground behind him There is only this difference as this great Soul casts the shadow of this Corporeal World from it self there is no ground for it to fall upon besides the Soul it self All these Heavens this Earth and Sea with all their roulings springings fadings and floatings are then the soul it self in her lowest Form bearing the figures of all her superior Glories most curiously and delightfully wrought in deeper shades The Soul in this her lower form is her own living Looking-Glass of shadowy shaded Light in which she sees with a grateful Variety with a pleasing Reflection of her own Divine force and fruitfulness her own Beauties in a weaker fainter fading Image maintained only by continual beams from her self All Souls as they flow in their Order and successions from this first Soul by virtue of the first production bring forth to themselves and bear within themselves the whole World in its fairest and fullest measures Object If any ask these Philosophers what sign or appearance there is of this sublime state this amplitude this majesty in the soul of Man they will give you such answers as these Answ. 1. The Soul hath now lost her wings by which she flyes through the whole Heavens and Earth She now lies languishing contracted clouded divided wounded sick dying upon the ground of this earthly Body You can take no more any measure of the true nature of the Soul of the Soul in her own proper Divine Form and Image by her present state then you can of the humane Form Spirit and Life by a worm grown out of the putrified body of a man dead Answ. 2. As the Soul of a man sleeping is to the Light of this World so is the Soul in this Body to the Light of its own Intellectual Invisible Divine Form and Beauty As a Prince sleeps in some private Room with the Curtains drawn about him within his own Palace in the midst of all the splendors and splendid Persons of his Court seeming to himself in his dreams as he sleeps to be a naked forlorn Prisoner at the bottome of a dark and deep Dungeon In such a dream doth the Soul appear to her self sleeping in this Body in the midst of all her own Immortal Beauties in the Palace and Court of her own Divine Unity and Essence But I have now done with Humame Authority and Philosophy in its Testimony But as I part I will leave Philosophy with this Honourable Testimony The only and true Philosophy is the Light of Nature in its primitive purity as the scattered Beams and dispersed remainders of it in the midst of the ruines of Nature are collected strengthened and reflected from the most excellent of natural or Divine Spirits like Sun-beams centered in a burning-glass The second Authority I pass now to the Divine Authority which is the testimony of the Holy Scriptures I shall cite only two Scriptures one from the first of Genesis the other from the first of the Romans I being with the last which seems clearest and fullest 1. Scripture The first Testimony from the Scriptures is Rom. 1. 19 20. From this Text to the end of the third Chapter you have the Soul with a profound Depth Like a River rouling along with all her various serpentine windings from the Sea of Love the Divine Bosome till she return thither This Divine Philosopher after a Divine manner sets the humane Soul before us in the whole compass of her Essence in all her circlings through all forms of things as he saw her by a Light of Revelation in the eternal Design in her Idea in the heart of the Father the Fountain in the Bosom of the Lord Jesus the first seat of all Divine Designs and Ideas This Design is divided into three parts 1. The Soul in its primitive and pure state of Nature presented to us Chap. 1. vers 19. 20. 2. The Soul in her fall as she passeth through the shades beneath of Sin Suffering Death and Wrath from the 21. verse of the first Chapter to the 20. verse of the third Chapter 3. The Soul in its return and re-ascent to a greater Glory from the 22. verse of the third Chapter to the end of that Chapter I shall very briefly with all the perspicuity that I can point out the Heads of things in these three parts of the Souls course and design in the Divine Mind 1. The Soul in its primitive and pure state of Nature is presented to us Rom. 1. 19 20. That which may be known of God is manifest in them for God hath manifested it to them For the unseen things of him from the Creation of the world are seen being understood by the things that are made both his eternal Power and Godhead I shall make two Notes upon the Grammar of the words 1. That which may be known of God is manifest in them This relates to the pure state of Nature not to the Corrupt For of that it is said vers 21. Their foolish heart was darkned Things are manifest only in the Light The expression runs in the present time after the manner of the Divine and Prophetick stile which sets before our eyes all forms of things as they appear in the Divine Light where all things are ever present and appear at once in one Besides this as Paradise so the pure Image of God in the Soul seems to some not to be lost or destroyed but
hid beneath the ruines of the fall Thus Knowledge springing in the Soul seems to be a remembrance the Life of all good an awakening by reason of the primitive Image of pure Nature raising it self by degrees and sparkling through the Rubbish the confusions of the present state Thus also hath the Souâ—…n her self the measure of all Truth and Good in this pure â—…age which hidden in the Center of the Soul containeth all Forms of Truth and Good in it self 2. That Clause in the 20. vers From the Creation of the World relates not to the sight but to the invisibility of God as appears by the place the point the sense For otherwise there were a Tautology in the Creation of the World and the things that are made There is a Scripture like to this Ephes. 3. The mystery of Christ is there mentioned which is the unvailing of God that he may be seen in the Light of his own essential and eternal Glories in his own proper naked and sweet form of Love unmixt unlimited Thus he appears in the Face and Person of Christ who as he is the Godhead in its essential and eternal Image comes in the Spirit of the Gospel full of Grace or Love and Truth the Light the Life of the Godhead in its unvailed Sweetnesses and Glories This mystery is said to be hid in God from the foundation of the World The Creation of the World was a Vail cast upon the Face of God with a figure of the Godhead wrought upon this Vail and God himself seen through it by a dim transparency as the Sun in a morning or Mist is seen by a refracted Light through the thick medium of earthly Vapours But I shall now attempt from the Life in this Scripture to draw the Picture of the Humane Soul in its natural Perfections and paradisical Beauties In order to this I shall present to you three Propositions into which this Text seems naturally to resolve it self 1. 1. Proposition God is present and shines forth in the Soul of Man in the highest and fullest appearance in which any created Understanding is capable of receiving him in which he is capable of being manifested or communicated by any Image beneath or without himself This is the plain sense of those words That which may be known of God is manifested in them Every Being in every kind and degree is a Beam or Emanation and manifestation of the first the supream Being which is God The whole Creation then all the Creatures in it with all their Essences Substances Accidents in all their Orders Places Postures Motions with every Circumstance of Being are as real in their full proportion as much according to the life in the Humane Soul as in themselves They all as so many lines and features drawn from the Face of God form the Essence of the Soul by forming it into a living Image of God God himself as he is the Author of Nature is as a Sun with all the Creatures as a Ring of Beams round about him which at once hide him and discover him So the Sun the Figure with a Vail of Beams hides from every eye the too bright Glories of that naked Body of Light But by the same Beams is himself seen in a most beautiful though shadowy Image Thus this eternal Sun surrounded with this Ring of Beams forms a Pareâ—…s tâ—… similitude of himself by himself in the Soul of Man In the mean time God himself as he is before this similitude of himself shining upon it is also within it the vital Centre in the midst of it the Root the Truth the Life of it Thus are these two Suns two Eyes full set each with other as they look forth through this Image this Vail of Beams The Soul by its senses takes in only the accidental forms of each Creature the shadow of the shadow The Understanding takes hold of takes the essential Form the Substance The whole visible World is the World of sense the Object of sense The Invisible the Angelical World is the Intellectual World the proper Object of the Understanding If that which may be known of God be manifested in the Soul if every distinct degree of Being be a distinct manifestation of God a distinct mode or form of the Divine appearance then doth the Humane Soul contain the whole World visible invisible with it self in its full greatness and glory in all its most exact Distinctions and Varieties It penetrates it it fills it all within and without with its Intellectual Light In its Unity as the Divine Centre it sits and unites all In its Variety as in the full majesty of its Divine Essence it spreads it self into all Forms and so many Divine Figures in a most beautiful and Divine Order All Being in its whole compass is Intelligible the adoequate Object of the Understanding The Understanding is all in potentiality in its natural capacity tendency and desire These are the Doctrines of the Schools The Understanding then in Act in the perfection of its primitive state is actually perfectly all It is married by an Angelical marriage as in the Marriage of Spirits into a most intimate Union of Essences into a most essential Unity with the whole Creation as it is one Divine Figure of the Divine Beauty and so through this figure with Jesus Christ with God who lives and appears in it 2. Proposition All these forms of things spring up to the Soul from within it self from its own Fountain from God the Fountain of the Soul in the Centre of it the Fountain of all in the Soul to the Soul That which may be known of God is manifest in them for God hath manifested it to them vers 19. The last Clause well observed in the force of the words and the Connexion will appear to every judicious eye as I humbly conceive to have no common or vulgar sense They seem to contain in them this two-fold mystery 1. God the proper Idea of the Humane Soul that is it s most inward inseparable Principle which hath in it self the Pattern the exemplar form of the Soul sends it forth from it self forms it furnisheth filleth it with all forms of things He also comprehends and conserves it in himself as its own proper place and habitation as a Light sprung from him and abiding in him the Father of Lights He fashioneth it into an Understanding as an Intellectual Angelical Divine Sun This is the greatest Light in the Soul its utmost Centre and outmost Circle encompassing the whole Essence of the Soul the whole nature of things in all their Forms Operations and Motions This shines in the day of the invisible World This as the Region of Angels contains the Essences and Intellectual Forms of all things in it self as so many Angels or Angelical Spirits each of which is a distinct Sun a distinct world of Angels of all Angelical Spirits and Intellectual Forms In the next place God figures this Light which is
the substance of the Soul into the inward the common sense the phansy or imagination Now it is as a full Moon in the night of this visible and Corporeal World It is replenished with all the shady Forms of this night which shine in the face of it as in a Glass where they all meet and make one pleasant Night-piece Last of all The eternal Spirit the inward former and workman of the Soul contracts it and divides it into the outward senses into innumerable particular Forms These are as so many living Stars or Star-like eyes sparkling and dancing round about the Queen of this Night the Moon the common sense or imagination Through these Stars and this Moon in the Night-piece of these shady and Corporeal Forms is seen as in a Perspective as at a great distance the Intellectual and the Ideal Land of Angelical of Divine Glory which seem to cast forth these less and contracted Lights as faint-glimpses of themselves or like small sparks the seeds of the great flames As the Soul accompanied with her Original Pattern and Principle by its force thus descends so doth it by the same force in like manner ascend All the particular Forms of the outward senses the Beauties of the Eye the Musick of the Ear all Perfumes and delightful Odours the various Delicacies of the Tast the softnesses firmnesses the agreeable rests motions aequalities inaequalities in the Touch. All meet more pure and heightned in the common sense in the inward senses as in that Moon which is described to be an heavenly Earth or an earthly Heaven From thence they raise themselves resining themselves as they rise to the Intellectual Region As some believe the Sun to be the Habitation of the Blessed and to have the Blessed Fields Paradise in it So here in this Intellectual Sun all shady forms break up out of the mists of matter and corporeity into clear Suns into Angelical Essences and Spirits From hence the Soul as a bright Skie set with innumerable Suns of sweetest Light and most temperate pleasant vital warmth or as an Heaven replenished with Angels entertaining each other in a Divine Consort with Dances and Songs returns into its first Nest and its final Rest the Bosome of its Idea the Bosome of Christ in God In this Bosome of a truth hath it ever abode hath it circled round descending and ascending without going forth from it Thus hath God manifested himself in all possible Forms to the Soul according to the first part of the Apostles sense 2. God as the Souls proper Idea or exemplar Form every where present with it in every Form sets himself as a seal upon each form and upon the Soúl in that form So he is to the Soul the Impression the Evidence of the truth of each appearance by himself and of himself in each appearance Thus it is said of the Lord Jesus as he is the eternal word the Idea of all Ideas the proper Idea of man In him was life and that life was the light of men Joh. 1. The first life as it is in its Ideal Spring in the Person of the Lord Jesus the first the essential Image of God and so the Fountain of all Images shines forth into a Light of which is framed the Substance and Essence of the Soul Then it figureth this Light with its own Glories in their Divine Harmony and Order This Light these Figures are in themselves empty without force or efficacy All fullness dwells in Christ the Ideal Life in him forms and fills them This is the face of Beauty that looks forth through these Lattices This is the never-fading Flower in the heavenly Paradise which springs and puts forth it self through these Windows This rides forth upon every form into the bosome of the Soul and gives it self reception in the Soul As this first life in Christ is the Divine Seal upon every Form upon the Soul through every Form so is it the Divine ground in the Soul which receives and sustains this Seal which dissuseth in its Divine force and impression through the Soul by virtue of its Ideal Unity and Omnipresence The Original and Exemplar Life in Christ is the light of man objectively and formally It is the light in the Object which sheds it self on the Humane Spirit It is the light in man the form of his form the eye in his eye the power in his powers which taketh it in All sense is founded in a suitableness between the Object and the Faculty all suitableness in an Unity 3. Proposition God cloaths every created form in the eye of the Soul with an Intellectual or Angelical Image of himself By the things that are made are seen being understood the invisible things of God his eternal Power and Godhead saith our Evangelical Philosopher that word understood is carefully chosen and emphatically brought in The word is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 derived from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the peculiar and proper word by which the most Divine among the Philosophers in St. Pauls time expressed the Angels or Angelical Minds These Spirits were the chief Springs Powers Glories of the whole World in the number of the Creatures They were the Gods of this Creation and had the name of Gods given to them in the Holy Scriptures The Presence the Power the Authority the Glory of the Godhead next to Jesus Christ resided in them Jesus Christ the Lord and King of all reigned acted and appeared in these Angels of Might and Glory as the highest Representation of himself in his Divine Form and Majesty All this was not for their own sakes but for man as they were Guardians and Tutors to this Heir the Lord of all Each Angel was a diverse Figure of a distinct Variety in the eternal Glory in that diversity the full Glory in its Universal Image rested upon every Angel as a ministring Spirit to minister to man the full Glory He was the Heir of God the perfect Harmony the Unity in the which the whole Variety was most perfectly one married together with the Unity into the most perfect Beauty and Melody of the Universal Image of the whole Creation most exactly with the most charming agreeableness answering the Beauty the Melody of the Divine Nature as the Face in the Glass the living Face the liveliest Eccho the living Voice Each Creature hath as it s Ideal Glory in the Divine World so its Angel in the World of Angels In the pure state of things every inferior Creature had its Angel visibly sensibly present with it It s Angel formed it a Figure of it self in the diversity of its own proper Essence It s Angel cloathed it with an Intellectual Angelical Image of the Supream the Universal the Divine Beauty It s Angel dwelt constantly within this Image and shined through it After the same manner the Ideal Life and Glory in Christ made the Angel its Tabernacle in the Heavens and through the Angel each Creature below on Earth Every
Angel every Creature was a Garment of Light sweetly shaded in different degrees and manners of diverse Fashions but all Divine in which Jesus Christ the essential full Image of the Godhead walked in the midst of Paradise Thus in all the Creatures as in diverse Figures of his distinct Glories he walked forth conversing with himself and entertaining himself in the compleatness of his Divine Person through all Thus as all things were made by Christ and for him so nothing was made without him apart from him until Sin made the wound which let out the Divine Life of all Beauty Love and Joy to let in Death with its deformity and horrors The Divine Unity was entire every where All things stood together in Christ. Christ with all his Glories in every Angel with all the Angels in every Creature rode forth as in his Chariot The whole Creation was as a Contexture of Angels As the Chariots of the Lord thousands and ten thousands All were every where composed into one Chariot All were as wings of pure Light and perfumed Air on which God flies through all spreading and scattering abroad the ravishing Glances the Divine Impressions of his Beauties and Sweetnesses as he flies What a Paradise transcending all Description by any words the richest Image in any fancy was the whole World now in its primitive state What a Paradise was the Humane Soul when it comprehended when it enjoyed this Paradise with its full and distinct Glories within it self Now the Soul within it self saw within it self the eternal Power and Godhead with all their invisible Glories in an Angelical Light and Form together with all the Angels in every thing that was made 4. Proposition The Soul seeth within her self God in his own distinct and Divine Form shining forth through the Intellectual Angelical Image in the universal Composure in the full Harmony of all created Forms and through the particlar Angel or Intellectual Image in every diverse Form Those are the words of the Apostle By the things that are made are seen being understood the invisible things of God his eternal Power and Godhead This is brought in as an Argument to illustrate and confirm the foregoing assertion That which may be known of God is manifest in them Those two words have an aspect of deep Wisdome of a lively sweetness upon each other 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Things not seen or uncapable of being seen are seen The word seen importeth a two-fold sense 1. A distinct discerning sight 2. The sight of an Object through a diverse intervening form God is seen through the form of the Creature in his own Form infinitely distinct from it and transcendent to it In that Character of the Fall They glorisied him not as God It is clearly implyed that man in the pure state of nature glorified him as God which could â—…ot be if he saw not his Glory as the Glory of God in its distinction from all the Creatures from all Similitudes and Representations in his supream Unity and Infiniteness This is that which is clearly presented to us in those full expressions His eternal Power and Godhead Power saith Proclus is an Unity which like a spring comprehendeth in it self variety of Forms sendeth them forth from it self appeareth in them without as it pleaseth An eternal Power which is not lessened by any Acts or exertions of its self is an infinite Power never to be exhausted ever fresh full and flourishing This is an absolute unlimited Unity spreading it self within it self after a Divine manner distinctly without any Division or Diversity into the glorious and majestick amplitude of an unbounded equally-beautiful ravishingly-harmonious-variety This is the eternity as it is the infiniteness of the Divine Nature These two Eternity and Infiniteness being the measures of the Essence and the Existence or Duration of the Godhead are both one in this Unity inasmuch as the Essence and the Existence or Duration are here the same This Unity in which both these meet is also the Godhead it self which describeth it self to us by no Character like to that The Lord thy God is one God These expressions His eternal Power and Godhead Eternity Power in its absoluteness and infiniteness the Godhead are exegetical explications of each other All these are names of one thing the supream and soveraign Unity God in the High and Holy Place of his own proper Form set infinitely above the Head and Eye of every Creature in its most exalted Glories Object How is the Soul capable of the sight of God or any Intellectual Image of transmitting his Divine Form All Sense Understanding Commerce is founded in suitableness and similitude The ground of this is an Unity a meeting in some one thing God is infinite every Creature is finite Between infinite and finite there can be no proportion This Objection lies so plain before every common Eye that it is not easie to miss it I wish the Answer were as near or capable of being made as clear to the Understanding of every Reader I hope and shall use my best skill that every Understanding may see some light breaking through this obscurity which may be at once sweet and in some degree satisfactory Answ. 1. I shall first give a general Answer which I shall afterwards make more plain in two particular Answers We are taught by our Masters in Divinity That God is the subject of no Relation to the Creature For then he were compounded and not a simple unmixt Unity yet doth he terminate in himself Relations to the Creature Upon the same ground it is unsafe and unsound to say That God is like to man It is very sound and very safe to say That man was made in the Image and Similitude of God A finite Creature may bear a similitude and so a proportion to the infinite God although there be no mutual proportion or likeness between them God in himself converseth with nothing without himself All things to him are himself a pure undivided Unity God in the Creature cloaths himself as the Scriptures and the Jewish Rabbins speak with Garments of Light and Darkness Similitude and Dissimilitude Unity and Contrariety He turns the Heavens and the Earth as the Clay to the Sea He first himself putteth on every form so he formeth every Creature as the reflection or shadow of himself upon himself The sight of the eternal Power and Godhead in the Soul is the work of that eternal Power and Godhead God in the Creature beareth a proportion to himself and hath an Unity with himself as he is above the Creature By the same absolute Unity and Infiniteness by which he is present with each single dust in the fulness of his undivided Glories and Godhead doth he also appear in the Soul His presence is suitable and suitably virtual to each degree of Being whither it be essential in meer Being Vital Intellectual or Superintellectual more then Intellectual All things according to their several Natures have
their Being their Life their Motions or Operations in him as their proper Element their Root their Exemplar Form their terminating Object and End As he is the term from which all their motions flow So is he both the medium or way and the term the bound to which they tend in which they end By him their radical principle in the power and virtue of which Act the exemplar form of their Essence and Actions are they suited and proportioned to him as the Object End Fruit and Perfection of their Operations God in every Form is like Adam in Paradise the Father the Brother and the Bridegroom Each Creature is like Eve the Daughter Sister and Bride from her Bridegroom This Bride flows to him she turns in all her motions in him alone she terminates in her production progress end all along this Bridegroom and Bride are joyned by an inseparable Marriage-Union their Faces ever turned to each other As God by his absolute Unity and Infiniteness comprehends all forms of things within himself in a most simple and undivided Unity So by the same transcendent Unity and Infiniteness doth he in this undivided Unity accompany all forms of things in their procession from himself turning them to himself essentially vitally intellectually or super-intellectually in a manner more then Intellectual This Unity fills all is all in all the Eye the Light the Glass the Object or Image the Union the Light This Unity is the power of sight in the eye of shining of uniting the Eye and the Object in the light of receiving and transmitting Images in the Glass of being and appearing in the Object The Union of all these and the Act in the Act of vision or sight This Unity is the first principle of seeing and the last the terminating bound of sight This is the general Answer Now follow the two particular Answers which are more distinct applications and explanations of this general one Answ. 2. The Humane Soul according to Philosophers they say rouleth it self into a four-fold Orb or Globe The Sensitive Rational Intellectual or Angelical its Divine Unity 1. The first the lowest Orb of the Soul is the Sensitive The Soul in this part is all set and adorned with the sensitive and shadowy forms of things as a Meadow with the Trees and Flowers by a Riverside are seen by their shadowy Figures playing in the water So this visible World with all its Parts and Ornaments in their Order as the shâ—…dows of invisible and immortal Forms inhabit this obscurest and most shady Region of the Intellectual Spirit 2. The rational Orb is the second a more ample and more Lucid. Yet here the Angelical Forms and Essences of things are seen through the grosser and cloudy medium through the material and corporeal shades of sensitive Images This is as the Face of Heaven or the Trees and Flowers of the Neighbouring fields seen from beneath the water of an adjoyning River 3. The Intellectual part of the Soul is the Orb or Sphere of Angels This is the Souls Angelical part Here the Soul 's abstract and separate from the Body which is called the Divine Death of the Soul beholds the Intellectual Forms of things the immortal Essences and Substances the Angels in their own bright and universal Glories in their own Intellectual Air and Light which is the Air and Light of Paradise As a man sees the pleasant Plants of a flourishing Land walking upon the Land in the midst of them At the same time while the Soul thus walks in this paradisical Land she enjoyeth the pleasure of seeing the River as a shady lustre or water cast from her self within her self the shadowy figures of this Paradise with her own reflection playing in these waters and her self from beneath them with the same Land of Gardens and of Angels answering exactly looking to her self above them Give me leave to interpose one word in this place for the sake of the more learned Reader This is the Intellectus Agens or the Actual and Active Understanding of the Schools The Soul in its Intellectual part above the River This is the Passive Understanding The Soul in its Intellectual part beneath the River As that above like the living Face before the Glass appears at the brink of the waters upon the shore with all its Angelical Glories round about it in their Paradisical Region which lies within the Soul it self So the Soul beneath appears looking up from its pearly Cave at the bottom of the River like the God of the River answering and meeting it self above 4. The last and Divine Orb the highest Point and amplest Circuit of the Soul is its Unity In this it hath the most immediate resemblance to and Conjunction with the supream Unity the Divine Nature The Soul according to this its Divinest part its Unity in birth in similitude in place if I may so speak in order of approximation is nearest most immediately joyned to the Divine Essence in the absoluteness the incomprehensibleness of its most secret most sacred Unity Here the Soul as by a Divine Contract or Touch takes hold of God takes in the sense of him in his Divine Form after a Divine manner far transcending all Sense Understanding or Expression Here the Soul in its Divine Unity seeth feeleth enjoyeth God in his Unity which is his proper Essence in which he is most himself transcending all similitudes all commerce all bounds by a Divine sympathy the sweetness the reality the divinity of which no Humane no Angelical Understanding can form to it self any Image of or raise it self to any sense of This Unity of the Soul is the most immediate reflection of the Divine Unity without it self and so at once a Divine Looking-Glass in which it most immediately contemplates it self and a Divine Eye which it feasts with it self setting it self fully in it All this while this still is to be understood that there is a three-fold Immediateness 1. Of Persons 2. Of Power or Virtue 3. Of Form or Appearance St. Paul teacheth us That the invisible things of God are seen being understood by the things that are made God and the Soul in their Unities which are their Essences at their utmost heighth in their highest Glories meet immediately in a sight of each other above all sight or understanding This immediateness in the Perfection of Nature is an immediateness not of virtue only and power but of person yet is it mediate in respect to the Form or Appearance These Unities which penetrate and fill all in all their several Orbs with their immediate virtue person and essential presence see not each other in the Air and light of their own naked eternal Beauties But through that Garment of Light the Intellectual Angelical Image which they put on as they come forth into this Creation Some imperfect figure of this you have in two Swimmers seeing and embracing each other beneath the waters or in the Beams of the Sun passing through a
coloured Glass and so uniting it self to the Eye Or in a Royal Bridegroom which in the habit of a Shepheard presents and marrieth himself to the beloved Maid in the midst of the Woods Answ. 3. The Soul acts as it is not in it self nor by it self nor according to it self the Idea the first eternal Pattern and Principle of the Soul in God is the Root all the force the only measure of the Soul in its Being and in its Operations St. Paul saith I live not but Christ liveth in me This was spoken of the New-Creature and so hath its peculiar sense It is as true proportionably of every Creature especially of the Soul in primitive and pure nature I have said before that Christ is the Idea of Ideas and so the proper Idea of the Humane Soul or Person Upon this ground He affirmeth of himself I am the Truth and the Life The Idea is the truth of each thing Nothing is that which it is but in its Idea by its Idea penetrating and filling it in every the least part The Conformity to the Idea is in the Schools defined to be the first the most proper truth of each thing This Conformity is imperfect where there is any Diversity A perfect Unity alone makes a perfect Conformity The Idea is the only Unity of each Person Essence or Form The Soul is one in all its parts is one with it self in all the parts of its duration only by the Unity of its Idea The Soul as every Creature is a perpetual Emanation flowing fresh every moment from God as a Beam from the Sun as the stream of waters from its Fountain If it subsisted one moment in it self it might subsist eternally so and have a Godhead in it self by having in it self the first Principle and Fountain of Being The Soul like a Beam or Stream flows forth from its Spring in Diversity of parts If it were a pure Unity it had a Divinity in its own Nature The Soul then as every Creature is one in it self one with it self the same in each part of its Being and Duration in all the parts of Life in Death in the Resurrection only by the Unity of its Idea which alone is absolutely indivisible unchangeable Accordingly the Soul lives and moves in its Sensitive Rational Angelical and Divine Life by the force of its Idea containing it in it self and communicating it self to it The Idea contains the Soul communicates it self to the Soul not mediately or partially The Idea is the Truth the Unity of the Soul therefore are they most intimate most immediate most intimately most immediately united to each other The Idea is a simple Unity indivisible unchangeable uncapable of being communicated in part The Idea is not received or participated by any thing as without it self for then it were both divisible and changeable The Idea then communicateth it self to the Soul immediately in its entire Unity as by a Divine unexpressible Generation or Propagation within it self Thus the Soul subsisteth and operateth in its Idea by the force and according to the measure of its Idea in it self This is that seed of infiniteness in the Soul and in all its Operations from which they receive touches glimpses of Infiniteness Eternity of infinite eternal Joys and Glories which are altogether invisible to every Eye uncapable of being represented by any Image sensible or Intellectual This is that seed of Infiniteness and Eternity which by an irresistable instinct inclines the Soul so evidently so forceably in all its Desires in all its Operations to immortality and to an unbounded good nor suffers it to rest in any the softest or dearest Bosom on this side these This is that Seed the Idea of the Soul in its entire Unity which is in it self Infiniteness Eternity the purest unmixt good every where full of it self every way uncompounded undivided and so necessarily unconfined This Idea as it is the root the force the measure of the Soul so is it also its ripe fruit When gathering up all the parts of the Soul into its Divine Part unto its highest Point its Unity it at once heightneth that to the most perfect Image of it self and bringeth forth it self into it filleth it with it self taketh it into its own embraces in its purest Form by a most perfect Union as an heavenly Marriage eternally established in its own unconfined Unity But I will now conclude this Point Thus the Soul by the force of its Idea which hath an infiniteness in it is capable of taking in that which transcends all Capacities of seeing that which is invisible to every eye of Men or Angels the eternal Power and Godhead Behold What a Divine spectacle of Beauty and Delight in Paradise in the primitive state of things What an Universal Paradise Nature is the Soul is as it is in it self the whole nature of things from the head of Nature crowned with Intellectual Angelical Light in the invisible World to its feet upon the ground of the lowest shades in corporeity and matter Jesus the first the full the essential Image of the Godhead and so the Idea of Ideas the Soul the first the fairest Reflection and the dearest Off-spring of this Jesus and so the Divine Image of Images These two as Bridegroom and Bride by an Union transcending all Unions Natural or Moral among Angels or Men Yet being of all most natural the Fountain of Nature lie inseparably shining and smiling in the embraces of each other They perpetually seek and find see and enjoy themselves in the Face and Bosom of each other They perpetually seek and find see and enjoy each other within themselves in their own Face and Bosom They spring up together in all forms of things in an Angelical Image within themselves The Angelical Image is as their Chariot in which they ride forth together into all forms of things within themselves They present themselves unitedly in the whole nature of things in each distinct form of Nature with continual changes cloathing all themselves in all with the Angelical Image in a new Light and Glory That their Loves and Beauties may be ever fresh and full ever a fresh and full entertainment to each other in new and varied shapes of Delight Judicious Reader be pleased to Contemplate awhile the Unity and Harmony of the Soul in this its pure its primitive state See how the Idea of the Soul and the Soul See how all the Orbs all the parts of the Soul are knit together into a Divine Harmony a Divine Unity by which it becomes an Universal Beauty an Universal Musick See how the Idea and the Soul the superior parts of the Soul answer one another lie infolded each in other the inferior in the superior as the Copy in the Original the Plant in the Spirit of the Plant in its seminal power and form The superior in the inferior as the Original in the Copy as the Spirit of a Flower its seminal power and form in
the Flower where it appears as a Flower from beneath the water of a pleasant stream Judicious Reader can a place be found or imagined here for any Arbitrary Liberty for any extravagant Liberty for any Liberty besides that only true only desirable only agreeable Liberty the Liberty of the Harmony and Unity Is there any Liberty besides this the Liberty of the part in the Harmony of the whole keeping its proper place order course in the whole with all most plâ—…asing most charming agreeableness to it self to the whole to every part and the Liberty of the whole in the part freely fully posâ—…essed enjoyed in each part by the virtue of the Unity in the Harmony Object But you will say if there were not in the primitive state of the Soul another Liberty a Liberty of Discord a Liberty of breaking the Unity and the Harmony How was the Harmony ever changed into Enmity How fell the Soul from the Heaven of this Harmony from the heavenly Throne of this Divine Unity in which it reigned over all through all with such a full Joy and Glory to it self to all Answ. I shall attempt the removal of this Difficulty in my Discourse upon the Soul in her second state I hope there to represent the Fall springing from the Divine Harmony and Unity in the Essence of the Soul contained in it and a part of it 2. The second state into which the Soul passeth is the Fall This is the second Scene which openeth it self in the Soul a Scene of Trouble and Tumult of Darkness and Storms of Witch-crafts Devils Death and Wrath of Privations and Contrarieties which make the Variety more full which heighten set off enlarge the Harmony and the Unity In this Scene all this World riseth up and appears This the Holy Spirit with Divine skill clearly and fully openeth to us in this Scripture which is the ground of this part of my Discourse Rom. 1. 21. Because when they knew God they glorified him not as God neither were thankful but became vain in their imaginations and their foolish heart was darkned c. I will only touch the Heads of things lightly passing over them I shall comprise that which I have to say of the Fall in these four Propositions 1. Proposition The first change at the Fall of Man was in his Understanding All the expressions in this and the two following verses plainly and alone describe the Disorders in the Understanding as we shall clearly see The first Instance in the Fall is the not glorifying God as God Tâ—…lly affirmeth Glory to be as it were the Eccho of Virtue Glory is the Image of some excellent Object shining forth from it reflecting upon it and upon all things round about it Thus Christ is the Glory of God a Saint is the Glory of Christ. Man glorifieth God as God when the true and proper Image of God in the Excellencies and Perfections of the Divine Nature shineth in his Understanding from thence reflecteth and multiplieth it self in its beâ—…ms in its continual shinings upon God himself upon all Understandings all Spirits round about it Contraries are seated in the same subject The glorifying of God is the Act of the Understanding Accordingly the not glorifying of God is a defect in the Understanding the want of the Divine Image and its reflections there The holy Apostle in the following words sets forth the Fall by fuller expressions of that Defect which is opposite to the glorifying of God But they became vain in their imaginations 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 properly reasonings their foolish heart was darkned Every word here points to the Understanding as the seat of the first the principal the leading change in the Fall of Man They became vain in their reasonings Vanity is an emptiness It is the same with falshood in the Language of the Scripture an empty false shew without the substance the truth Reason is the Divine Image which is the only Light of all Truth springing and shining in the Understanding or the Understanding it self The reasonings of man in his primitive state were the several Parts the several Truths in this Image calling to answering one another by virtue of the Sympathy and Unity comparing themselves in that Unity with each other This Image in the Fall vanisheth into a counterfeit Image breaking it self into innumerable false Images full of disorder confusion and contradictions ever fighting with each other The foolish heart in the Text as the Greek word imports is the Heart without Understanding deprived of the Divine Image which is the Light Upon this immediately follows Darkness which is the privation or absence of Light Thus their foolish hearts were darkned The Concomitant and formal effect of this Darkness or rather the proper Form of this Darkness is further amplified by a two-fold Illustration if we may attribute forms or effects to privations When they professed themselves to be wise they became Fools vers 22. How manifestly is the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil here figured with man eating of it The Divine Image withdrawn the false Image composed of darkness is embraced in the Soul as the true Light the true Image the true Wisdome in which Man now seems to himself to have the power and the perfection of his own Being in himself Now the false shew of a counterfeit Liberty in the Will springs up through this Darkness Thus is the Wisdome of Man become Foolishness verse 22. They turned the Glory of the Incorruptible God into the similitude of the Image of a corruptible Man of Birds c. verse 25. They turned the truth of God into a lye Man was made a total but a shadowy Image of God The rest of the Creatures were as several parts of this Image partial Representations of that Glory each a differing Figure from the other in which something of the Glory was seen which appeared not in the other The Divine presence in its own proper and eternal Image stood in this shadowy Image filled it shined through it was the Light and Truth of it As a Sun-beam penetrates fills enlightens appears through a shady coloured Glass so was the Divine Form in the Form of Man The Truth in its shadow When the Divine presence in its own Divine Form withdrew it self into it self the ensuing Darkness fills the shadowy Image As he that looks through the clear glass in a Window sees the face of Heaven When he who casts his eye upon a Looking-Glass beholds only his own face the shadow on the back-side of the Glass terminating the beams and the sight upon the Glass So the Darkness in the Fall terminates the eye of the Soul upon the shadowy Image the shadowy Figures of the Divine Glory as the true Glory the true God Yet these Forms which now appeared were not the true shadows the true Figures of the Divine Glory nor the true Forms of Man or of any Creature These disappeared together with the Divine presence and
the Glory The darkness now in the place of these formed it self into false deformed monstrous Images in man in every Creature which had indeed some resemblance of the true and primitive Images which were in Paradise As a Monkey hath the similitude of man but in proportion height beauty life greatness power majesty differed from them as a lye from the truth The expressions of the Holy Ghost seem skilfully chosen to declare this change to us verse 23. He saith They turned the Glory of God not into the Image but the similitude of the Image of Man verse 25. They turned the truth not into the Image or shadow but into a lye These false Images of the Night and the blackness of Darkness were inhabited and acted by so many Devils so many dark Spirits the first Springs and Seats of this Darkness As an Angel filled each Form in Paradise figuring it self upon it so were all forms in the Fall filled ahd figured by Devils Thus they became Idols of which St. Paul saith They that worship Idols worship Devils Angels in Paradise were pure and sweet Lights springing freshly forth from the Divine Glory rendring every Creature pure and transparent with a Light of Glory shining in it as clear Christal all over replenished enriched and heightned with the Sun-beams This Light every where transmitted the eye and the glory through each Creature to each other married them one to another in each Creature This was a Paradise indeed of Divine Plants full of Divine Beauties Fragrances Virtues and Fruits The Devils as Clouds of Night and Darkness resting on each Creature suffer not the Light from above nor the sight from below to pass through them They at once exclude the brightness of the Divine Glory and draw the eye to themselves in each Form to rest in themselves This is the Head the Well-spring the Mystery of all Idolatry whether it be of the grosser or finer sort But I pass now from the first to the second Proposition 2. Proposition The immediate cause of the first change made in the Understanding at the Fall was the Divine Glory with-drawing or with-holding it self The immediate the proper cause of the deformity and disorder in the change was the defectibility the nothingness of the Creature of it self sinking down to nothing as the Glory removes it self from it or the Variety of the Divine fulness the Order in the Divine Wisdome the Harmony of the Divine Beauties by the power of which the Unity descending to its lowest state to a shadow of it self in Paradise and having there acted all the parts proper to that shadowy scene or state having carried it to the utmost now passeth from that shadowy Unity into a new Scene or state properly arising out of the darkness of the shadow and the lowest degree of Unity which is that of Contrariety As the Unity is the scene of Light Life Love Harmony Beauty Joy all Good So is this of Darkness Enmit Death Deformity Disorder all Evil. But I touch this transiently here and return The Perfection of the Understanding is Light or Truth The Corruption of the Understanding is darkness or falshood That which makes manifest is Light saith St. Paul Every Image then so far as it is an Image is Light Each Image is a composure of Beams sent forth from every part of the Object represented by the Image The first Light is the first Image the Image of God the brightness of the Glory of God As colours which are shaded Lights are constituted by this Light and actuated in their appearance to the eye so is every other Light Light only by and in this Light as a shadow of it Darknese is the absence or privation of Light Privations have no proper but accidental causes only Thus the Divine Glory retiring from the Understanding or ceasing to shine in it is by accident the cause of the Darkness there As the setting or departing of the Sun is the cause of Night which is not a blemish to the Sun but its Glory that in its presence are all the Beauties and Joys of Light in its abscence all the Disagreeablenesses and Melancholies of night and darkness But if at the ebbing of the Tyde when the Sea sucks into it self again the streams of water which at the Floud it powred forth from it self in the River Tagus or Pactolus a beautiful Form of golden sand present it self to our eyes in other Rivers a black ill-sented Mud offend our senses The emptiness of the Chanel the absence from the Waters is indeed from the Sea But the pleasing or displeasing Forms appearing in the absence of the waters are from the Rivers themselves In like manner all Defects have deficient Causes The change in the Fall is from the Divine Glory drawing into it self that stream and tyde of Beauties which it powred forth upon the understanding of man The Darkness Deformity Disorder in this change proceeds from the nature of the Creature from its natural tendency to that nothingness which alone is its own and its native Element as it is in it self This nothingness hath the same relation to the beautiful Essences the essential Beauties of all Forms of things of all Creatures while they stand in the Divine Image as the Contrariety hath to the Divine Unity A Cloud looseth all its lustre in a blackness and darkness a cold of Earth hath no more any sweet light to entertain the eye when the Sun takes his golden beams off from them But the Stars and Diamonds sparkle and shine in the absence of the Sun in the depth of night The reason of the difference is the opacity or shadiness in the nature of the Cloud and clod of Earth the native light in the Diamond and the Stars Thus the Creature being nothing in it self tends to nothing as the eternal Sun goeth down upon it This tendency to nothing is the proper the formal cause of all Deformities and Disorders as the springing of the Light in the Morning is of all those lovely colours which then adorn the Sky But thus much for this second Proposition 3. Proposition The change in the Will and Affections followeth the change in the Understanding as its immediate and proper Cause This lies plain in the Text verse 22. They turned the Glory of God to the similitude of a man c. verse 24. Wherefore also God gave them up to their hearts lusts to all uncleanness c. verse 25. Which turned the truth of God unto a lye verse 26. For this cause God gave them up to vile affections But you have this most fully asserted and amplified verse 28 29 30 31. As they liked not to retain God in their knowledge God also gave them up to a Reprobate mind to do things not convenient being filled with all Unrighteousness Fornication Wickedness So he goes on enumerating in the three following verses all the Evils of Sin in the Will of Man from thence breaking forth in his life
As Nature is distinguished in Natura Naturans and Naturata that is Nature in the Fountain God the Divine Nature Nature in the stream the Copy to that Original So the Scripture attributeth that to God which he in the natural order of things hath connected and linked as in a Chain for its proper cause Thus God is said to give up men to all disorders in their Will for the darkness in their Minds The phrase hath also this depth of sense in it That God as the first cause is every where in the whole Chain of Causes most intimately present and immediately operative in every effect He is the Spirit the Beauty of the Order in the whole He is the band in every step or joynt of the whole Order tying each Link to the other each Effect to its Cause each Cause to its effect He is the sole force in every Cause the sole Cause of every Effect in particular Thus God gave them up to vile affections who had changed the truth unto a lye All Imagery is the furniture of the Mind All Images are formed there The motions of the Will are raised and governed by the Images in the Understanding as their formal Cause from whose impressions they flow as their final Cause to which they tend in which they end The Understanding is a Power in the Soul of generating Images of good within it self which Images are the only Truth the only Beauty of it The Will is the Spring and Seat of a mutual Love-Union and Love-Communion which the Soul hath with it self in these Images infusing and taking in a mutual Sweetness Complacency and Joy They the Images in the mind are the Objective Cause of all the motions of the Will raising and laying them as the Winds do the Waters So God gave them over to vile Affections This manner of speaking hath a clear signification of that principal mystery in Divinity so sweet so sure so deep All good is from the presence of God the shine the smiles of his unvailed Face the Reflections of him as he appears in his own Likeness in his proper Form This makes all Light Beauty Joy All Evil is from the absence of God from his Back-parts from the Clouds and Disguise upon his Person without the Vail I cannot well proceed any further until I have cleared my way by removing an Objection or two which may be made against the Interpretations which I have made of these Scriptures and the Propositions drawn from them Object 1. The Apostle seemeth to make this the ground of the inexcusableness of men in their sins that they knew God yet sinned in the Face of that Light Upon this ground sin seemeth to arise first in the Will rather then in the Understanding This Objection is confirmed by the Apostles attributing this knowledge of God to man in his faln Estate To the Heathen as he seemeth clearly to do Answ. 1. If man hath this knowledge of God in his faln state yet was that Perfection in which we have described it only in Paradise Answ. 2. The Holy Spirit seemeth expresly to place the Knowledge of God antecedent to the first Sin the not glorifying him as God for this was either the same or Concomitant with or resulting from the vanity of the reasonings in man the want of Understanding the darkning of his Heart Answ. 3. There is indeed a constant Glory from the Face of God shining in man through all changes and states A Light which can never be extinguished by any storms But this Light of Divine Glory shineth in the midst of the Darkness which arose upon it within which it withdrew it self in the first moment of the Fall and hath ever since dwelt This Darkness comprehendeth not the Light receiveth it not rejecteth it as a Reprobate a false Light so casts it down from the Throne in the dominion of the Soul and reigneth it self in the place of it This truth is with Divine Authority affirmed with a Divine clearness and elegancy illustrated in those words As they liked not to retain God in their knowledge God gave them over to a Reprobate mind to do things not convenient What a manifest Connexion of these four things have you in this Scripture 1. A Knowledge of God in the Mind 2. A Rejection or Reprobation of that Knowledge 3. A Reprobation or Corruption of the Mind in the Rejection of this Light of Glory 4. All Evil generally mentioned under the Character of Inconveniency or Uncomeliness in the end of this verse particularly and distinctly recited in three following verses flowing all from this Reprobate or Corrupt Mind But we shall more evidently more delightfully behold this mystery of the Fall this Mixture this War of Darkness with the Divine Light its triumph over it the presence of the Divine Light in the midst of this Darkness maintaining its Glory unshaken unstained in a constant opposition to the darkness in the mind of faln man if we observe and unfold the elegancy of the Holy Ghost in these words Those words They liked not to retain A Reprobate Mind are in Greek the same in their Root and Essence They manifestly allude to each other with a great power and pleasantness of sense The Original word primarily and properly signifieth the trying the truth of any thing as the Gold is tryed by the Touch-stone or by the Fire God in the presence of his Glory resides in every Creature beneath the form of that Creature as a Vail wrought with a Figure of himself Thus he constantly resides in each Creature as the Root and Being of its Being In the pure nature of man he shines through the Vail of the Angelical or Intellectual Image as a transparent Vail of finest Lawn or sweetest Light sprung from his own Face In the Fall God drawing in the Beams of his Glory by the mysterious Operations of the Divine Wisdome in the place of this pure and pleasant Light thick Darkness fills the Angelical Image of God in man The Divine Presence and Glory stands in this Image presenting the Light of its unchangeable Beauties to the eye of the Soul in the midst of this darkness The Understanding now taking in the Divine Glory through this dark medium through the darkness takes in a dark and falfe Image of it It tryeth and toucheth the Glory in this false Image upon it self now darkned and depraved It receives the Image as a true Image but rejects the Glory rejects God as reprobate Gold as a false counterfeit Divinity and Glory God in like manner by the presence of his Glory toucheth and tryeth the Understanding rejecteth that as a Reprobate Mind This Reprobate Mind he leaveth to it self and man to this Reprobate Mind from this source issues forth all the Evils of Sin and of Sufferings Object 2. How in this order of things is man rendred inexcusable which seems to be a principal Care and Work of the Holy Spirit in this Scripture Answ. An excuse is
the removal of just blame by the removal of the cause As Praise and Glory are the Eccho or Reflection of Virtue of some good so Blame and Shame are the Eccho the Reflection of some Fault or Evil. The fault in man is the deficiency which ariseth from the defectibility or nothingness inseparable from the nature of the Creature in its shadowy state in the purity of its first Creation This defectibility and deficiency this nothingness and tendency to nothing in the Creature is evidently discovered past all denial or excuse For when God hath cloathed the Creature with the Glory of his own Image in all Knowledge Righteousness and Blessedness The Creature hath no power in it self to retain or maintain this Glory or the least glimpse the least stricture of Light from it one moment In the same moment that God with-holds his Beams and Influences the Soul sinks into the depth of darkness in which darkness it springs up the same moment into all the evils of Sin Deformity Death Wrath Torment Thus man in his best state is Vanity a shadow which hath nothing of its own but nothingness a tendency to nothing Thus being in Honour he continueth not but sinketh into his own nothingness when once he is left to himself This nothingness in the nature of the Creature is not to be understood a meer simple nothing for this hath no existence no expression no attribute no effect nothing can be said or thought of it This nothingness of which we speak or Not-Being is a contrariety to Being so to all the Beauty the Blessedness of Being This is the Contrariety it self which is a part of the Variety of things in the Unity of the whole This taken apart in it self is the breach of the Unity and the Harmony the first and blackest ground of all Discord Division Darkness Enmity Death of all the evils of sin and sufferings Object 3. How is God inexcusable who frames a Creature with this defectibility this Contrariety this Necessity of all Evil in its nature then leaves it to it self to fall inevetiably into all Sin then condemns it and casts it into all manner of Torments into all the Evils of suffering for Sin Answ. Sufferings are the immediate inseparable Companions of Sin The Contrariety when once it hath broken the Harmony of the shadowy Image of God in the Paradise of pure Nature by the withdrawing of the Divine Unity which by its presence tuned it to and bound it up in a Divine Harmony now breaks forth over-runs all with all manner of Evils of Sin of Shame of Sufferings of all kinds But that which seemeth to me alone to justifie God is the design in the whole My desire is here with all humility and submission to conceive and express so high mysteries the way and the Glory of God in so great and Divine deeps The design which with all humility I conceive not to clear God but to represent him through all his way most glorious in the Beauties of Holiness in the most spotless the exactest Justice in the richest lustre the highest sweetness the most exalted Grace of all Goodness and Love hath several steps or parts 1. The first step is the Discovery of man and the Creature in its primitive nature in all its good and glories to be shadowy an earthly and shadowy Image in an earthly a shadowy Paradise 2. The second step is the Declaration of God to be the only fountain and fulness of all good in whose Face and Presence alone are the Beauties and Pleasantnesses of all good whose absence makes the Night of all trouble and evil 3. The opening of new fuller higher Glories in God then did shine forth in the first Creation in the most exalted Natures of all the Creatures of Men or Angels These new Glories of the Godhead open themselves in the last step the full harmonious triumphant close of the whole design after this manner 1. The heighth of the Contrariety between the good in God and the evil of Sin between the purity the beauty of Holiness in the Divine Nature the filth the deformity of sin display the Beauties in the Face of God with a new heightning a new lustre infinitely more sweet and ravishing 2. The Power of the Divine Wrath brings forth a new Scene a new World full of new Forms of things New Wonders in Heaven and eternity in the Divine Nature the Divine Wisdom and Work 3. What is the Glory in the force and riches of the Divine Unity spreading it self into so vast a Variety unto so remote a distance from it self to such Contrarieties to such Extremities comprehending them all in it self gathering them up tuning them all and binding them up into a Divine most agreeable eternal Harmony of all most ravishing most pure most perfect Beauties and Sweetnesses in it self discovering them all to be most melodious musical parts of the Divine Variety and Harmony eternal Varieties of Beauty and Sweetness in the Divine Unity 4. Lastly The shadowy happiness of the Creature is changed into a substantial one There is wrought out by these changes a far more exceedingly exceeding weight of Glory in Man a Glory infinitely transcending that of the first Paradise Now open themselves all these newer fuller higher Glories of the Godhead to man in man Now is man formed to a Divine Image infinitely newer fuller higher in the most immediate similitude and fruition of these highest Glories Now is man brought from the shadowy Union with God in the shadow of the Angelical Image through the dissolution of that Union and Image to the most intimate immediate inseparable Union the most perfect Union with God in the utmost Perfection of all his Excellencies wholly unvailed in the purest Essence of all his Glories in the eternal Spirit the Spirit of all the Divine Beauties Loves and Joys in the most heightned Unity in the most ample and unconfined Variety of the Divine Nature in the highest and sweetest Union of both these Now man sees enjoys God as he is in his own Likeness perfectly without transcendently above all Vails all Clouds all Shadows all Mixtures or Mutability Now is man as he is in the same Likeness together with him without above all Vails Clouds Shadows Mixture or Mutability Now God and Man awakened together as out of a sleep and the dreams in the sleep into the same Righteousness are satisfied with the same likeness in each other reflected from man as the Son the Image of God the Father of Lights the Original Glory But I now am sliding into my last Proposition and have indeed in a great degree prevented my self in it 4. Proposition The change in Man at the Fall did fall from the Divine Harmony in the Universal Design was comprehended in it and part of it I shall add to that which I have already written above only one Scripture with a short gloss upon it for the establishing of this Proposition St. Paul thus discourseth Rom. 8.
19 20 21 22. For the earnest expectation of the Creature waiteth for the manifestation of the Sons of God For the Creature was made subject to vanity not willingly but for him who hath subjected the same in hope Because the Creature it self shall also be delivered from the bondage of Corruption into the glorious liberty of the Children of God For we know that the whole Creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now Observe here that Creature and Creation are both the same word in Greek Where you read the Creature in the 19 20 21. verses you may as well read it the Creation that which you read the whole Creation verse 22. is as properly every Creature There are two Questions which here naturally arise and are absolutely waved by me as having no necessary Connexion with my present purpose Quest. 1. The first Question is this In what sense the Creature or Creation is understood by the holy Apostle Is the whole Creation one entire living sensible Image of the Divine Nature in which every Creature as a part of this Divine Image partakes of the same life according to the Doctrine of Campanella Shall we say with Plato Every thing that is is an Act of Life and so nothing of Being without life Or may it seem agreeable to the Scriptures that all the Creatures stood together at first before the breach made by the Fall in the Unity of the Spirit in Christ the Head of the Creation without whom or apart from whom nothing was made that was made as St. John teacheth us Did every Creature stand now in Union with its proper Angel through its Angel with its proper Idea in Christ the Divine Mind and the Universal Idea Was every Creature thus cloathed with the Angelical Image partaker of the Angelical Life Did it through these receive the Divine Image the Divine Life of its own Idea That the whole Creation might seem a Contexture of Angels filled with Ideal Lights all meeting together in one chief Angel and one Universal Idea which is the Lord Jesus Had every Creature thus a sight and sense of the Divine Design in the Fall was it thus capable of a willingness and an unwillingness in its submission to it as it considered that particular state or the general design with the Divine end of all As it considered it self in this dark part to be acted by it or the eternal Spirit in its universaâ—…â—…ontrivance and the Mark the heighth of Glory to which it directed all Do the Creatures still though bound in Chains of Darkness retain so much of this Angelical Ideal Light and Life as to hope to groan for a return from their Captivity into these Angelical Ideal Forms and so into the glorious liberty of the Sons of God whom St. James saith to be the First-fruits of the Creation Whether this be so or all these terms of Will of Hope of Groans be by a figure attributed to Subjects without life or sense or some other sense be righter than either of these I consider not now as being unconcerned Quest. 2. The second Question is whether the individual Creatures did all pre-exist being together in Paradise before the Fall in their Angelical Spirits and Forms Was among these Mankind with all individual Persons not only in a Representative but a Collective Adam unto whom Adam in his own distinct Person was the Head and the first born Did those thus who now groan under the ruines of the Fall then fore-see it in the Divine Design having an aversion to it in it self yet subjecting themselvns to it for God Are these who now through all Generations groan and travel in pangs for the delivery of the Divine seed in them unto the Birth of a new Glory the same who then had this Divine Seed of a sure Hope sown in them for their return And not for their return only but for their Resurrection unto a sight of the Face of God with a new and fuller Glory shining forth without any shadow or Vail purely and immediately upon them all through them taking them up into it self as a new Super-Coelestial eternal Paradise as far excelling their first Paradise as the Heavens are above the Earth as Eternity transcends Time But these then where have they been since the Fall Were they thrust down to the nethermost parts of the Earth imprisoned in the deep shades of the Earth below and bound there in Chains of Darkness Are they there reserved in the silence and sleep of that Death which came upon all by the Fall until as Seed buried in the ground they according to their several seasons spring up into Corruptible Forms and a wretched Life for a moment upon the stage of this World to act new parts in order to a refining through a Baptism with Christ in the fire of his Sufferings of his Death and the making of all new by this refining in the Glory of his Resurrection Dear Reader these Questions may be thought by some curious and difficult without use fruit or ground in the Word of God To others perhaps they may seem of great moment to open the mystery of God to unvail his Glory in the wonder of his Works which are sought out by all those who love him Some may esteem them of great advantage to enlighten the Daknesses and make easie the Difficulties about Principal Doctrines of the Christian Religion as that fundamental Truth of Original Sin that most sweet and sacred Mystery which is the Antitype to this Type Our justification by Jesus Christ the Return of all to life in the last Adam as all died in the first Others may believe that as God sheds abroad richer Anointings of the Light of his Spirit we shall see lying fair before us greater and stranger things than these which now like fresh colours in a beautiful Object appear not at all for the want of light in the Air in our Spirits As the eternal Sun shineth as the Heavens in the Scriptures and the Spirit shall open themselves they expect to see the Angels of Glory and of God the Divine Glories descending and ascending upon the Son of Man the Person of the Lord Jesus as a mystical Ladder reaching through the whole Creation from the top to the bottom where each rank of Creatures is a step in this Ladder a Divine Glory in the Angelical Form upon the Wings of its proper Angel descending and ascending But I leave these things to the freedome of every Spirit as bringing no weight to my present purpose begging thy pardon Christian Reader for this mention of them as being fairly led to by the present Scripture and willing to take the occasion of diverting thy self and me as I hope not without some spiritual pleasure and profit through the candour of thy Mind I shall take hold of that alone which seems to lie clear in the words of the Text and gives a full confirmation to my Proposition which is this That
the Fall springs from the Harmony of the eternal Design in the Divine Mind being comprehended in it as a part of it I shall proceed by a few short steps 1. The Intellectual soul in the first Man is manifestly eminently comprehended in this Scripture by a Reason from the stronger This not only is a principal part of the Creation but contains in it self according to its primitive state the whole nature of things together with the compleat Image of God in Nature This is the Essence of the Intellectual Soul 2. This Soul in this Image and so in its own Essence as in a Glass beholdeth the Harmony of the Divine Work as it hath the Harmony of the Divine Nature figured upon it in its Perfection from the beginning to the end Through this Image as a finely-shadowed Vail it hath a view of God himself in the invisibility of his Power and Godhead In the same view it taketh in the Universal Harmony of the Divine Work and Design as it lieth in its first ground in his invisible Power and Godhead Invisible to the purest eye of Nature in their own naked Glories but visible through the Divine Cloud or Sky of the Natural the Angelical Image of God in Man 3. In this Image light and view of the Godhead The Soul now seeth the Fall in the Divine Harmony in the Harmony of the Divine Image and its own Essence it seeth this as the next Scene ready to open it self as the next state into which it is immediately to pass by the force of the Divine Harmony The Soul seeth this state in this Glass apart by it self as a state of highest Contrariety to the Purity the Light the Peace the Calm the Incorruption the Virtues the Joys the Harmony the Life the Love the Divinity of its present state It hath a Prospect of it as a Scene of monstrous Defilements Shames Confusions Troubles Darknesses Tempests Horrors Enmities Deaths where there is no Light no Rest. Thus the Soul hath the highest aversion to this state But at the same time the Soul hath a view of this Scene as it stands in the Universal Harmony so it sees shadowed out to it through the natural Image in this shady light of Nature a Glory of the Godhead springing up through it by the Power of the Divine Harmony incomprehensible to the Soul in its purest Light infinitely transcending all those Divine Glories which have hitherto appeared to it in the Godhead and all those which it is by any means capable of figuring to it self It became him saith the Author to the Hebrews being to bring many Sons to Glory to make the Captain of their Salvation perfect through Sufferings Thus the Soul in Paradise beholding in the Glass of its own Essence this state of Sufferings to rise up out of the unsearchable depths of the incomprehensibly ravishing and transcendently perfect Harmony in the Divine Essence understanding also the Harmony to be made perfect and the Glory of the Godhead raised to its utmost its purest heighth and beyond the reach of every Intellectual or Angelical Eye by this Variety in its proper place Now for God is subject to this bondage of Vanity and Corruption This Soul in like manner sees in that same Glass an Hope that cannot fail set before it The Seed of a Divine Hope Jesus the Hope of Glory the force and power of the Universal Harmony sown in it A sure Hope that shall accompany it through this Wilderness of Wastness Tempests and Horrours where no water is no Light 〈◊〉 Life no Truth of any good but empty and black shades in a dark and dreadful Night In this Hope it sees the assurance of a passage out of this Wilderness into a good Land a Land flowing with Milk and Honey a Land flowing with Rivers of Waters and full of Springs A Land of Rest and Bliss 4. The Soul thus by this prospect in Paradise is submitted and subjected to its change and fall with an unwilling willingness God now according to the Law of the Divine Harmony in his own Image and in the Essence of the Soul withdraws the Light of his Presence within a dark Cloud from this Cloud falls a deep sleep the sleep of Death a death to the only true the Divine Life upon Man The Soul now like Abraham falls into a terrible dream a blackness of darkness full of horrour passeth over It seeth it self the whole nature of things visible invisible within it self dead divided dissolved all broken and scattered into pieces A burning Lamp the burning Torches of Lust Rage Divine Wrath pass between these mangled pieces Thus the Soul lies in this sleep and dream with hope only as a gleame of heavenly Light now and then breaking upon it through these melancholy shades until Christ the Seed of Hope revive in it When he awakens himself in the Soul he awakens the Soul by his Voice sounding through it Awake thou that sleepest stand up from the dead and Christ shall give thee Light At the awakening of the Soul the dream flies away as if it never had been The Soul now sees her lost Paradise her lost Purity her lost Peace her lost Love and Joy her lost self with the whole nature of things in its Virgin-Image present with her as if they had never departed from her All past seems as the dream of a moment while she slept upon a Bed of Spices in Paradise in the Bosome of her Beloved But her Beauties and Paradise are not now as before They are no more shadowy Images shady Lights and Mediums or means through which her God appears to her which his Glories dim'd and refracted by the Vails through which they pass No being now awakened into the Resurrection of Christ God himself in his naked Beauties in the purest and sweetest Light of his Divine Essence appears to her as to himself He in the Light of his unvailed Glories is both her beloved Object and the blissful Medium or means through which she sees him The Soul now is in the Light as He is in the Light his Face shining like the Sun of Eternity in the strength of all its Glories the Glories of his supream loveliness and Loves is the Glass in which she sees her self her lost Purity and Paradise the whole nature of things within her self as they all lie in the Harmony of the Divine Nature In this Glass she sees and enjoys her Fall it self as a part and the perfecting of this heavenly Harmony All the storms and darknesses in that Scene have now their Vizors taken off and appear to be living Glories glorious Spirits glorious Varieties in the Unity of the eternal Spirit Thus the Soul enjoys her self with all past present or to come as eternally present with Christ in God Now this Bride repents not of her subjection to the Fall by which she hath passed into this last state more excellent then the first which indeed is the first Now she seeth that
it self in its Essence and Operations in its self and in all its works Thus is Righteousness also as Justice the Harmony and Unity of things The Divine Righteousness is the Divine Harmony and Unity diffusing it self through all things and knitting all things together as Links in one Golden Chain The perfection of Harmony is the Unity in Variety The Harmony is perfect when the Unity is entire and the Variety full A full Variety is that in which nothing of Variety is wanting A principal part in the Variety extending it to a greater amplitude is the Contrariety This then is the Divine pleasure and glory in the Harmony when the Unity by its Divine fruitfulness and force brings forth it self through all degrees of Variety into the remotest forms the most opposite Contrarieties and Extreams When it brings forth it self through these into it self again and reigns triumphantly at once as over the whole so over each part of the Variety residing on the whole as one Throne one Kingdom and on each part as a distinct Throne a distinct Kingdom equal with the whole The Divine Harmony is Three-fold 1. The first Harmony is that of the Godhead of the Divine Essence in it self This is the essential Righteousness of God As it is the Righteousness so is it the Love the Joy the Loveliness the Wisdome Power Glory of God All the Excellencies of God in one one and entire in every Excellency by the Unity Yet in every Excellency most highly distinct by the Variety in the Harmony The Harmony of the Divine Essence is that sacred and adorable mystery of the Trinity the mystery of God 2. The second Harmony is the Harmony of the Divine Nature as the Original And the Harmony in the Nature of the Creature as the figure married together into one Divine Harmony by a mutual and mysterious Union By this Union these two mutually subsist in each other shine upon shine in and through each other The Original Harmony is the Principle of subsisting and shining This is the Head the Person which gives Being Beauty Subsistency Lustre to its own Figure in the created Harmony shining upon it self in and through it This is the Mediatory Righteousness or the Righteousness of God in Christ the Righteousness of the Gospel of our Justification Sanctification Glorification This Righteousness in Christ as our Head comprehending us in it self by virtue of the mutual Union cloathing us filling us overflowing us is our Justification the Beauty of our Persons shining in the Glory of our Head entire from the first moment and unchangeable This Righteousness by virtue of our mutual Union with our Jesus in the Unity of the Spirit as our Root springs forth in us transforms us into its own heavenly Image carries us up into a Communion with it self in its own Divine Life Beauties and Joys Thus by the gradual growths of this Righteousness in us are we gradually sanctified through all changes of life doth this Plant grow in us by Night and by Day In Death it arrives at its perfect growth Our Sanctification thus in Death made perfect is the glorification of our Persons In one moment doth this Divine Righteousness this heavenly Harmony take us up into it self unto the justification of our Persons in its spotless eternal universal Beauties to the filling of us with the unexpressible Peace and Joys of its most sweet eternal universal Musick and in the same moment it springs up in us unto our Sanctification to the framing of us by degrees unto the same Beauty and the tuning of us to the same Musick in our selves This is the moment of our New-Birth our Marriage-Union with our Jesus our believing This is the second Righteousness 3. The third Righteousness is that of the shadowy Image in the primitive state of the Creation This is the Righteousness of Man a shadowy Righteousness the shadow of the eternal Harmony This is the essential Form of Man in pure nature This is the Reason of Man the shadow of the eternal Reason the Word the essential Harmony in the Divine Mind The Lord Jesus being the first the supream the essential Image of God is also the first the supream the essential Harmony the Essence of Harmony in its eternal Spirit the essential Harmony the essential Righteousness of the Divine Nature The Lord Jesus is the Original the Universal Image the Image of Images the Idea of Idea's the Spring the Seat the Truth the first of all Ideas He is the Idea of the Godhead of the whole Creation of Man of every Creature Thus is he the Root the Rule the Harmony the Righteousness of the whole Creation of Man of every Creature Having laid these grounds for the illustrating of the Doctrine of St. Paul I will now from St. Paul and upon these grounds sum up into a close this part of my Discourse concerning the nature of the Humane Soul or Man The Essence of the Soul containeth the fulness of all thing in it in one substantial indivisible Act. The Soul opens it self into this fulness of things by a three fold Revolution within it self within the spacious Palace of its own glorious Essence 1. From the Bosome or Womb of its own Ideal Glories which are the Original the Measure the Bound of the Souls Essence and Perfection the Soul descendeth into a shadowy Image Thus it first appears upon the beautiful Stage of this World in its first Creation God himself in his invisible Glories with eternity in his eternal Power and Godhead is now in the Soul is seen by the Soul but shadowed by this shadowy and vailing Image within which he resides Thus hath the Soul within her self her Idea in Christ in God in Eternity as her Fountain in Eden which flowing forth all through the Soul in this shadowy Image makes it all a sweetly-shadowed Paradise This is the first Revolution 2. As in the Harmony of this shadowy Image lies the Contrariety a part of the Variety in the Harmony So from the Divine force of this Harmony acted by the Ideal Harmony lying hid in it the Soul rouleth it self out of the lowest and remotest degree of the Unity into the Contrariety as a Note in a Musical Lesson upon the Lute struck and sounding in its proper time Now is the Beauty the Integrity the Sweetness of this shadowy Image in Deformity in Ruines in Bitterness and Enmity Sin and Death swallow up all The Soul stands in a Contrariety to the Divine Purity Love Light Immortality In the place of Purity is Filth of Light Darkness of Love Enmity of Immortality Death God now being the Supream Unity and Harmony opposeth himself as most directly most highly most irreconcilably contrary to this Contrariety to the breach of the Unity to the discord in the Harmony that he may subdue it and reduce it unto an Unity for the making up of the Harmony and so making it more full by the Contrariety more sweet by the Enmity Thus the Divine
Love in the shadowy Image having lost it self in the enmity at the Fall The Divine Love it self in its eternal Image disguiseth it self in a form of wrath flaming forth with unquenchable burnings until it have devoured the Enmity and the shadowy Image it self in the Enmity unto the discovery of the eternal Love vailed beneath its shadow and buried in the Enmity All thus consumed meet again in the triumphant and pure flame in which the Divine Love meets with and embraceth it self But thus much of the second Revolution 3. Now the Soul with the whole nature of things in the shadowy Image the shadowy Harmony the shadowy Righteousness of its first Creation is lost by the dissolution of the Unity in discord and Deformity Sin Death and the Divine Wrath. Now Gâ—… in the essential Image the essential Harmony the essential Rightâ—…usness which is Love it self loveliness it self Power Wisdome the Essence of God declares himself our Jesus our Saviour He declares himself without the Law or the Prophets not from any Merit or Power in the Creature but of meer Grace from the sweet innate force of the Divine Harmony in himself by the beauties of which he is powerfully attracted and acted to the Musick of which he moves in all his actings with highest pleasure This essential Image and Harmony from the beginning lies hid beneath the shadowy Image at the bottom of it as the substance to the shadow which hath no possibility of subsisting in any point or degree of Being without it St. Paul calls this The mystery hid in God from the foundation of the World that is hid beneath the foundation of the World which was a Vail cast over the eternal Glories while they figured themselves in Divine shadows upon this Vail But now our Jesus the second Person in the Trinity the essential Image the essential Harmony the Righteousness of God becomes a Creature springs up from beneath the foundations of the Creation into an Humane Soul and Body in the midst of it ruines This Jesus is the Original Image of the Creation of Man of every Creature the Root the Rule the Actor of all who virtually eminently comprehends all in their distinct Ideal Forms within himself as so many eternal Beauties in his own eternal Beauty who bringeth them forth from himself beareth them in himself as Flowers in their Garden-beds who figureth himself in the riches of his glorious Varieties upon them to make of the whole one beautiful Figure of his own Beauties a Daughter Sister and Bride to himself He therefore now the Seed of Hope of Promise sown in the Soul dying together with the Soul in the Fall now comes up through this death in the form of a man faln man the Image of the whole which contains the whole in it self Thus he reduceth the Contrariety to the Unity He restores the Harmony he atones and reconciles all all manner of wayes 1. He bringeth all the Contrariety into the Harmony by bearing the Fall Guilt Shame all Deformities all Deaths the Divine Wrath the ruines of the Fall in himself who is the eternal universal Harmony and Righteousness Thus eternal Life dies without Death giving an eternal Life and Glory to Death in his Person Thus the Righteousness of God is made Sin for us without Sin He is altogether lovely every thing of him is not only lovely but loveliness it self Yea more loveliness a knot a spring of loveliness So sings the spiritual Bride of her Beloved in that Song of Loves The bushes of his Hair black as a Raven the Bird of Death in their order and place springing forth from his head of finest Gold the purest light of Glory encompassing it with their deep shade and setting it off are Divine Beauties 2. This Person the eternal the universal Image and Harmony of the Godhead of all Glories of all things gives himsâ—… in the extremities of all Sufferings unto Death to be a Sacrifice to the Holiness Justice Wrath and Glory of God He is a Sacrifice of infinite value and force a Sin-Offering expiating all Sin with a transcendency of Merit A Peace-Offering which charms the most offended spirits which changeth into a Golden Calm of Divine Love and Joy the most raging tempests of wrath raised through the whole nature of things from the breast of the eternal Spirit 3. He bears in his own Person the whole Contrariety the Contrariety of evil in the enmity of Sin to the Divine Good in its Love and Glory The Contrariety of the Divine Good in its Love and Glory to the evil in the deformity and enmity of Sin All the fiery darts of both these Contrarieties in their utmost force and fury meet in his Bosome the Bosome of Divâ—…e Beauty and Love exposed nakedly to them both Thus he fills up the design of his Father to make known the power of his Wrath. Thus he draws forth to its largest compass and heightens to its utmost point this Scene of wrath to make the Variety full and the Harmony absolute 4. Jesus the supream Harmony the everlasting Righteousness by dying carries the descent of things to the lowest point He makes an end of Sin Sufferings Death and Wrath for ever by the dissolution and end of the seat the subject of all these the shadowy Image the Creation of Nature in his own person The death of Jesus Christ is as the midnight of things The Sun of the eternal Image and Glory having by its course in the shadowy Image touched the utmost bound of distance from it self now begins its return to it self again 5. This Jesus by his Resurrection carries up with him in his own Person all things the whole Creation the shadowy Image with its Primitive Purity and Paradise the shadowy Image with its fall ruines and deaths into the Glory of the eternal Image unto an Union with it immediate naked entire eternal in one Light in one Spirit Where there is now no more any vail or shadow Now all appear Beauties and Glories divinely-harmonious being seen in their proper place and order in the Divine the Eternal the Universal Harmony 6. Lastly The Lord Jesus now in an humane Soul and Body being risen from the Dead and ascended up on high comprehends reconciles fills all things shining through all assimilating all to himself in the spiritual Glory of his own essential eternal Image in his own Person the most glorious unbounded Head of all Now according to the fulness the fruitfulness the Divine Order of the Ideas the Original Images of all things in the most ample and blissful Harmony in his Person He comes up he springs forth in his Spirit in the Spirit of this Divine Image this Harmony and Glory with the fulness of his Person of this Divine Image Harmony and Glory in the Soul of Man As he springs up he rends the Vail behind which he ever resided he reveals himself to the Soul in the Universal Harmony of his Person and his whole work
is no perfection I shall make way for the explanation and confirmation of this by distinguishing necessity into a 1. Necessity of Coaction 2. Necessity of Nature 1. A necessity of Coaction is from an outward power restraining the subject from acting according to the principles of its nature or constraining it to Actions besides or against its nature This necessity is indeed contrary to true freedom A freedom from this necessity or from a capacity of being thus necessitated is the perfection or excellency of man 2. The necessity of nature is that which is founded in and flows from the Essence it self the essential and internal principles of each nature This necessity is so far from being inconsistent with Liberty that it is the establishment and firmness of the subject in its proper freedom The demonstration of this is clear in the Divine Nature for as God alone is Ens perfectè liberum A Being most perfectly free so is he according to the Doctrine of all the Schools alone Ens absolutè necessarium A Being absolutely necessary And as is his Being such is his Understanding such is his Will such are all his Acts necessary and necessarily good as they are most perfectly free For his Being in the absoluteness and simplicity of it is his Understanding his Will one pure simple and eternal Act goodness it self The learned Prideaux in the Chair at Oxford rightly teacheth us this That God in those his first Acts of Election although he be not moved by any Causa 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is any cause from without giving occasion for these distinguishing Acts is yet determined to them by a Causa 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A reason from within from the glorious secret of his own Essence which hath so much the more of a Divine force in it by how much the more it is incomprehensible to us 2. Answ. The freedom of the Will if it be rightly understood and stated will as I humbly conceive appear far more beautiful glorious and divine in these three Circumstances 1. The Liberty of the Will is truly Divine in the amplitude of its Object which is goodness in its utmost latitude and fulness in its utmost heighth and glory The Will of Man is not determined or confined to a particular good or an inferior good to that of meer nature or of sense It hath its freedom to range through the flowry and spacious Field of all good in its richest Variety yea to soar up to that blissful Paradise of the supream good it self in the third and highest Heavens there to spread it self and roul it self in the midst of all the Treasures of all the distinct Beauties and Joys of every good as all meet here with the highest lustre with the purest and most perfect sweetness in the bosome of this first and chief good 2. The Will of man is in this divinely free that it always acts after an irresistable manner according to its own proper Nature so that nothing can move it but per modum interni principii and secundum morem objecti propositi after the manner of the inward Principles of its own Essence and the proposal of its Object As the Divine Will is goodness it self in its greatest amplitude and perfection so is the Will of Man which is the Birth and Image of the Divine Will goodness in the seed which as the Divine Goodness is presented in various appearances so it can by no means by no power beneath a power of creating and annihilating be restrained from springing up and flourishing and flying into the bosom of that appearance to become perfectly one with it as a most chast and affectionate Bride with her most beautiful and beloved Bridegroom If this Bride the Will of Man embrace a Stranger or an Enemy in the place of her own Beloved it is by being first deceived by his coming and presenting himself to her in the appearance of her Bridegroom The woman being deceived was first in the Transgression Sin deceived me and so slew me saith St. Paul Thus is the Will of Man not like to that figure in the Poet Monstrum informe cui lumen ademptum A rude unformed power acted without Light without Order without Principle or End by a rash uncertainty in an unformed darkness This were no liberty but the greatest servitude of a Spirit bound in Chains of Darkness and hurried by the Power of Darkness it knows not how nor why nor whither No the Will of Man is in its own uncorrupt state a beautiful Virgin with fair eyes like Doves washt in Milk by a Divine Love carried in a Divine Light to the Arms of her Beloved the Divine Beauty and Goodness In its faln Estate while in the midst of false Lights and false appearances raised by that great Inchanter the Prince of Darkness it is held in the Serpentine embrances of false Lovers as in nets and bands yet is it its own Beloved and Bridegroom which she loves and seeks in all these It is also its essential inclination and love to the Divinity of the true loveliness the true good which is abused and by which advantage is taken for it self to be abused by all these Impostures and false loves Good is that which all things desire saith the Philosopher That God whom ye ignorantly worship that God preach I saith St. Paul to the Athenians The highest piece of Worship is the inclination and motion of the Will our Love Object But you will say What preheminence hath man by his freedome the inclination and sensitive Appetite of bruit Creatures may be allured but cannot be forced no more than the Will of Man Answ. I give two Answers to this 1. The Civil Law saith That he is free who is sui juris in his own power the freedom of each thing is a power of acting according to the Principles of Nature and the Law of its own Essence As then the excellency and preheminence of each Essence or Nature is such is the dignity of the freedome or liberty of working according to that nature As Reason the essential form of man which is the Universal Harmony of all good transcends the life of sense confined to the inferior and shadowy Image of good in its immortal substance So doth the rational Appetite in its freedom which is as ample as reason it self and diffuseth it self at liberty upon the blissful Bosom of the Universal Good excel the sensitive Appetite tyed up to the narrow and fading Objects of sense 2. The Will of Man is a rational inclination to the rational intellectual eternal and supream good This is the Coelestial Love which is born up upon its two wings of Rational that is Coelestial delight and desire While it continues in its naked state of Innocency and true Freedom it hath a liberty and power in it self in despight of all impressions of outward force to fly above them all upon these golden wings into the Bosom of the Divine Will
which is the universal and supream good there cleaving to and becoming one with that blessed and triumphant Will it hath no more any sense of opposition or force all things now round about it make a pleasant Musick to it in the Harmony of the Divine Will and shine upon it with a most ravishing and heavenly lustre as they lie together in the Divinely-beautiful Form of the first and universal good This is that true Liberty of the Will of Man in which he transcends all other Creatures here below by which he triumphs over all Chances and Changes over all Confinements and Comâ—…lsions over all the extremities of Force and Fury while it keeps these wings unlimed uncloged unclipt by the filth or guilt of fleshly lusts while it preserves it self from the Chains of Vice 3. I come now to the third Circumstance of the Liberty of the Will Man is to be considered in three states 1. Of pure Nature 2. Of the Fall 3. Of the restitution by Christ. 1. Man in the state of pure Nature is an Image of God an earthly Image Gen. 1. God said let us make man in our own likeness after our own Image let us make him Some interpret this of God in the three Persons others of God Cum indumentis suis as the Jews speak of God in his holy Angels Both together make a proper and full sense God in the holy Trinity God in all the various Virtues of the Divine Nature spread first through the innumerable company of Angels and by them through the whole Creation sets himself as a seal upon man in whom as the Consummation and Crown of his whole Work by this impression he unites all into one Nature and Essence which is a compleat Image of himself and a comprehension of the whole Creation Thus now the Essence the Faculties the Operations of Man are a shadowy similitude and figure of the Divine Essence the Divine Virtues and the Operations of the Divine Nature Thus the Will of Man is a shadowy figure of the Divine Will and its freedom a shadowy resemblance of the Divine Liberty like the colours of a Rainbow in the Cloud which are so many reflections of the light of the Sun That which we say in natural Philosophy Exiisdem nutrimur ex quibus gignimur We are bred and nourished composed and continued by the same things is most true in its application to the first or universal cause with its effects As the Sun is the formal efficient cause of its beams which are its shadowy Image in the air and as the living face is the formal efficient cause of the face in the Glass so is God to man his Image and shadow The continued out-shinings and Operations of the Sun make maintain and act anew its beams every moment The continued stream of Species or beams from the living Face every moment form anew the Face in the Glass with all its meen and motions So doth the Divine Essence the Diviue Understanding and Will every moment by the continual influences of each moment compose and conduct their Image the Essence the Understanding the Will of Man as the Face in the Glass in their whole make manner and motions This is not a diminution but the perfection of Liberty in the Will of Man For God in his holy Angels as superior and universal Causes works upon the Will of Man or rather in it after the manner of an internal Principle So that well known Maxim of the first Philosophy assures us That the first and universal Cause is of all Causes most intimate with every effect As in logical Definitions the summum genus or the highest nature enters into the Definition and so into the Essence of the lowest Species or kind of things inasmuch as it enters into and constitutes the next genus or nature together with all the intermediate natures For examples sake Substance and so Being it self in its highest and most absolute form is comprehended in and constitutes the nature of man descending into it by the intermediate steps of Corporiety and Animality that is becoming first a Corporeal Substance then a living Corporeal Substance lastly a rational and so a man In like manner so is the first and universal Cause the most internal and essential Principle of every effect of all humane Operations of all the acts of the Will For it is the Essence of every Essence the Being of every Being the Act of every Act the first the formal Cause the most immediate the most intimate Cause of every Effect Let me add to this for a Conclusion as the Crown upon the liberty of man in pure nature that his conformity to God as an Image to his Original is his Perfection in this doth his Will become a most beautiful figure of the ever-glorious life the Divine Will that its Liberty is the free-springing flourishing and fruitfulness of it in all good through the whole Latitude and Amplitude of the most spacious and blissful sphere of good and so that a most pleasing and agreeable necessity of being good is inseparable from this sweet and ample freedom while it continues in the state of a Divine Image and Figure 2. In the Fall of Man we read according to the Language of the Scripture of his being deceived being brought into servitude being a Captive in bondage to Vanity and Corruption and of being dead While they boast of Liberty saith St. Peter they themselves are servants to sin For to that of which a man is overcome he is a servant It is the Observation of Plato That the names importing any thing of good natively signifie a freedom of motion as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 good from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to run swiftly On the otherside the names of evil express a restraint from motion as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 malice from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to lie down upon the ground In like manner the Hebrew word for Darkness signifieth restraint and confinement by force All Liberty being an enlargement of Being is comprehended in the nature of good alone Neither is there any thing so inconsistent with Liberty as evil which is a privation of Being Plato therefore rightly expresseth the Soul in her faln state by the loss of both her wings which are an Intellectual Light and an Intellectual Love or the Light of Reason in the Mind spreading it self with a clear brightness as one of the golden wings and the force or freedom of the rational Appetite to good in the Will extending it self in a pure flame as the other of the golden wings To this I might add the testimony which the Scripture gives of another seed that of the Serpents springing up in the Soul unto its fall in its fall and through its fall of the Soul being now the Child of the Devil being implanted into the Powers of Darkness of being acted by the Prince of the Power of the Air the Spirit which is now become its Root its
Head its inward Principle 3. The Soul of man in its Restitution by Christ hath Jesus Christ as a quickning Spirit in him as the principle of its Life as its life it self I saith Christ am the Resurrection and the Life I saith St. Paul by the Law am dead to the Law I am crucified with Christ and now I live yet not I but Christ liveth in me He saith St. Paul that is joyned to the Lord is one Spirit Man is now become the heavenly Image of God and one Spirit with Jesus Christ in Glory As he hath now the Understanding of Christ according to St. Paul so hath he also the Will of Christ. This heavenly Bridegroom and heavenly Bride are one Divine Spirit bear one Divine Image have one Life one Righteousness one Glory one Understanding one Will and dwell together in one Light as God is Light in one Love as God is Love in one immortal Joy unspeakable and glorious The Soul now is a chast and spotless Bride which bringeth forth all the rich and heavenly fruits of her Spirit her Understanding her Will her whole Life inward and outward by her own heavenly Husband alone by the sweet force of her Union with him and the Divine Virtue of his embraces that they may be fruits to God that is Divine Fruits having the life virtue and sweetness of the Divine Nature in them the form and beauty of the Divine Nature upon them for a feast of Joys and Glory to God himself to feast both his Eyes and his Heart If then the Soul restored be one Spirit with Christ as in the Spirit of Christ so in the Spirit of a Saint the most pleasant liberty and most potent necessity meet in one The Divine Harmony of the supream and universal good is at once the spacious and blissful Field of this Paradisical freedom and the golden Chain of this most grateful and most glorious necessity The Spirit of Christ is eternity it self which as it spreads it self beyond and above all consinements to a Variety endlesly fresh and flourishing is the sweetest Liberty As it comprehends all things in a most entire undivided Unity the supream Crown and Circle of all true Life and Glory is the highest necessity Eternity hath nothing past or to come in respect to it self being far above all Changes all Beginnings and Ends of things It is the supream Power which rules them all and the supream Wisdom which measures them The Soul then now become one Spirit with Christ is in that Spirit together with Christ seated upon the Throne of Eternity by its Union with this Spirit it reigns upon this Throne over all things by having this Spirit in it self by being one Spirit with this Spirit it hath in it self that soveraign Power and supream Wisdom it is one with that soveraign Power and supream Wisdom which rules and measures all things Thus the glorious Bride of Eternity having her heavenly Bridegroom in her embraces cloathed and crowned with the same heavenly Image being now in the true state of her own proper person in her sirst and last state in her own proper unvailed Substance and Original here with her Bridegroom is her own rule and measure in this heavenly Image which is her true substantial self her Eternity She is also a rule and measure to her self in the earthly and shadowy Image and in all her Pilgrimage through the Regions of time below whether they be the sweeter shadows of the Light above or the melancholy shades of a deeper Darkness This is the true Liberty of Man and the freedom of his Will which is as the liberty and freedom of the true eternal good diffusing it self into all the unsearchable riches of its manifoldly various Varieties varying setting off sweetning and heightning it self by all the ravishing excesses of Harmony of Light of Love by all the extreams of Darkness Discord Contrariety and hate reducing and binding up these also into a most ravishing Harmony by the excesses by the victories and triumphs of the Divine Light and Love So keeping together with this sportful Liberty the golden the firm Adamantine necessity of being it self still through all that is good the true and eternal good This Divine Liberty of the spiritual Bride which is her Kingdom in her self over all is divinely expressed by the blessed Bridegroom himself in that most mysterious Song of himself and his Love composed by himself in the Person of Solomon He there in one place chargeth the Daughters of Jerusalem that is all the holy Angels and spotless Spirits by which the affairs of the whole Creation are administred By the Roes and Hindes of the field that is by all those Pleasures Loves and Lovelinesses with which he sports himself in the midst of them in the Paradise above who alone is the lovely Roe and the lovely Hind That they awake not nor stir up his Love until he please Cant. 2. 7. Thus it is manifestly in the Hebrew although our Translators have changed the Feminine into the Masculine and set the Bridegroom in the place of the Bride But the sense which the words grammatically import is this That as the heavenly Bride is one Spirit with her Bridegroom she sits above together with him upon his Throne in eternity from thence together w th him gives to all the heavenly Ministers their Commissions that nothing moves in her own person or round about her here below as she is in her shadowy disguise and pilgrimage but as it is ordered by her self above in the bosome of her Bridegroom And according to that order executed by the heavenly attendance which wait continually round about the Throne of her Bridegroom 2. Reason If the Will of Man be not free and do not freely determine it self in all moral Actions being undetermined in its own Principles or by any superior Causes what entrance doth sin find How doth any thing of a stain or guilt lie upon the Soul How is God just in the effects of his Wrath upon those that sin if they sin by an inevitable necessity of Nature and a predetermination by the connexion of Causes or by the immediate and intimate operation of the first and universal Cause I shall give my Answer by several steps 1. Sin hath no positive being if it hath God who is the first and universal Being the Fountain of Being is directly by himself and not by accident only the Author of Sin in its formality as Sin Otherwise we must with Manes set two Gods upon two distinct Thrones one of Light or Good the other of Darkness or Evil. Or we shall be forced with some Heathen Philosophers to establish two first Beings equally Uncreated and eternal One God the Agent The other Matter the Patient So where the Agent subdues the matter to it self all Forms of Goodness Beauty Life and Joy spring forth where the matter invincibly resisteth the power of the Agent there are the Regions of all Evil Darkness Death
and Hell But this Heathenism and Manicheism are exploded as by the universal consent of all sober Christians so by the voice of reason it self For if there be two first Beings these agree in Being they differ in being two Being it self as it is One making both these one in its self as it is pure is before and above that state in which it is allayed and abased by being mixt and compounded with those differences which make it two This then alone is the first and supream Being the eternal One the only true God 2. If God then be not properly and directly the Author of Sin Sin is no positive Being but a privation only So the Scriptures express it which call it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an irregularity a falling short of the Glory of God a missing of the mark 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Divines generally teach us That the Sin consisteth not in any Act but in the Deordination in the privation a want of the due order appertaining to the Act. Sin then being nothing positive but a meer privation can have no efficient but a deficient Cause only This deficient Cause is that defectibility which is inseparable from every created Nature Darkness is the privation or absence of Light which naturally and necessarily accompanieth obscure and opact Bodies as the Air the Water and the Earth While the Sun shines upon them this deficiency or want of Light discovereth not it self All things are illuminated and the natural obscurity of these Bodies illustrated by the Sun-beams when these beams are withdrawn or intercepted then the defect of Light natural to these substances appeareth and so the darkness is predominant Thus every Creature hath in it self a tendency to annihilation being of it self like the Earth before the beautiful work of the first day which was light void and without form Thus the Soul of Man in its Understanding and in its Will hath naturally of it self a tendency to unreasonableness which is a degree of Annihilation the privation of that two-sold Beauty Truth in the Understanding and goodness in the Will While the Face of God shines upon the face of the Soul by a continued irradiation as in the first moment of the Creation these Intellectual Forms of Divine Beauty Truth and Goodness flourish in the Soul binding up the natural defectibility both of the Understanding and the Will in the golden Chains of an heavenly Light and heavenly Love but in that moment in which God turns away his Face with-draws his beams in the same moment the Soul of Man is left naked its natural defectibility prevails the privation or absence of Truth is now the darkness the deformity of folly and falshood The privation or absence of Goodness is now the evil and the disorder into which as a bottomless pit the Understanding and the Will and the whole Soul with these miserably endlesly sinks This is that horrible pit out of which sin ariseth the defectibility or nothingness of the Creature in it self This is the way by which it ariseth upon the Soul over-spreading it and carrying it back into that pit of horrour the deflectibility or nothingness of the Creature prevailing in the absence of the Divine beams The Royal Prophet divinely sings the penury of the Creature and the Praises of the great Creator in this Mystery Psal. 104. 29. Thou hidest thy Face they are troubled thou takest away their Breath or Spirit they die and return to their dust Thou sendest forth thy spirit they are created and thou renewest the face of the Earth It is a truth asserted by all Philosophers and Divines That the Understanding acteth necessarily being infallibly and irresistably reduced into act by its Object duly presented The Scripture manifestly teacheth us that sin entreth into the Soul by the Understanding Those two places which I have cited above are clear The woman being deceived was first in the Transgression Sin deceived me and so slew me St. Paul speaketh in both these places of the first entrance of sin into the World in the person of the first Woman and in his own person set as a figure of all Mankind as it was collectively and representatively in the first Adam Musaeus joyns these together 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Light going out and Leander perishing Man is deceived and so slain by sin As the Light of Truth goes out in the Understanding the Life of Goodness dies in the Will As the sight and light of the eye from the natural composition of the eye faileth as the irradiations from the Sun which it enjoyeth either mediately or immediately from the body of the Sun it self or from other luminous bodies depending upon the Sun are obscured So is the Souls eye the Understanding obscured according to the proportion in which the Divine illuminations in the way of Grace or Nature cease In these two first steps I have endeavoured to make clear the nature of Sin and the way of its entrance into the World in which we see a most genuine conformity to the dependance of the Will and of the whole Soul in all its changes and motions upon the first Cause as a link in the mystical Chain of the order of Causes The beauty and goodness of the Soul in its Understanding and its Will flow in the golden Pipe of the order of Causes as golden Oyl from the first cause as the Olive-Tree flourishing upon the Mount of Eternity As this golden stream from its Well-head fails beauty and goodness are no more in the Soul The deficiency or privation of these is the evil of Darkness Deformity Sin and Death to this intellectual and immortal Spirit But the knot seems to be tyed stronger by this discourse man sins inevitably by the necessity of his nature The first and free withdrawings of the Divine influence give way for the deflectibility of the Creature to spring up into those defects which are properly and formally the evils of Sin the first and greatest evils the fountains of all evils How then doth shame or guilt lie upon the Creature Why is God yet angry How is he just in punishing Is not the evil of sin from these grounds clearly cast upon God as the Author of it I shall endeavour to answer these Objections and to remove these Difficulties in the three following steps 3. I shall endeavour here to bring in some clear light into the obscure shades of this doubt how shame and guilt lie upon the Soul when it falls inevitably from the necessity of its nature Shame is a fear of Infamy from a sense of Deformity Deformity is the absence of the Divine Form originally present and so proper to the subject The subject of the form or beauty while it is present is also in its absence the subject of the privation and deformity To the deformity is annexed the reproach or disesteem Esteem or disesteem is a right judgment and so a value of each thing according to its proper state
or nature Where the sense of deformity is there will also be the fear of infamy and so the shame When Venus and Mars were discovered in Vulcan's Net an immortal laughter arose among all the Gods who were Spectators as we read in Homer When the Soul once in its first Creation cloathed with a Divine Beauty and so placed in the Paradise of a Divine Light and Joy seeth it self despoiled of this heavenly Robe in the nakedness of those deformities of the darkness into which as hidden in the depth of its own nature it sinks when the Divine beams that raised it out of that dark Deep and enriched it with its heavenly Ornaments are retired can it be without a sense of this deformed nakedness without shame without impressions made upon it by the apprehension of that state in which the innumerable company of heavenly Spectators now behold it with a disesteem and aversion suitable to that state Neither is the justness of the aversion and disesteem in all the heavenly Spirits or of the shame in this faln Spirit lessened but rather encreased and heightned by this that the deformity springeth up with an inevitable necessity from its own proper nature for the discovery of that which this faln Soul is in it self together with every Creature and the distinction now manifested between that which is of God as the Fountain in Eden whence alone all Paradisical Beauties and Joys flow in the Creature and that which is of the Creature it self which is in it self a dark horrid and bottomless pit where all wastness woe disorder deformity confusion desolation Deaths and Hells dwell together and whence in swarms they break forth as from a cursed womb like the smoke and the locusts from the bottomless pit in the Revelation the discovery of this in the faln Spirits makes their shame and abhorrency of themselves more just and high as also the Songs of Praise which the heavenly Spirits day and night sing to their Creator and Preserver as more highly just so more highly sweet and glorious Thus much for the shame let us now pass to the guilt Guilt is the obligation of the Sinner to the Justice of God Justice and so most eminently the Divine Justice which is the measure of all Justice is that which giveth to every thing its due that which is proper to it it s own That is due to every thing which is proper and suitable to it according to its place in the whole for the preservation restrauration or perfection of the Order in the whole When a Spirit by the abstraction of the Divine Beauty and Virtue is now sunk into its natural weakness and deformity nothing now is any longer its own nothing now is suitable to it but that power of darkness that principle of waste emptiness of even dreaded and hateful nothings Now the path in which the supream Justice presiding over the Universal Order and Harmony of things acts most pertinently towards it is to abandon it to those powers of darkness which rise up from its own proper Root to display themselves more fully upon it in their ugly and hateful shapes in their tormenting horrors in their horrid torments the dissolutions of the blissful Unity in distracting divisions and confusions the extinguishing of the sweet and beautiful Light in affrightful shades of amazing darkness The chief skill in Pictures consisteth in the evenness and justness of placing the shades that according to the degrees of the declining Light the shades may gradually increase until they sink into the deepest obscurity or be bounded by a new light springing up out of these shades Such is the Law of the Divine Justice which is the great and wise Spirit of the Universal Harmony in this Divine Poem or Picture the work of the Creation as the heavenly form of goodness or beauty in the best and most beautiful season which draws it self from any part of this work Privation the principle and form of all evil spreads its black-wings over it encreasing its hellish shades and darknesses upon it in the bosome of which it hatcheth all the ugly Births of deformity woe and horror with an amazing interminating infiniteness until the sacred Light of the Divine goodness and beauty arising upon it bound those unformed shades reducing all to and binding up all with the Adamantine Chains of a triumphant Harmony in the Glory of God In this third step we have endeavoured to fix the shame and guilt of sin upon the Sinner but glory upon the Divine Justice in the sufferings which come by sin 4. Step. We are in our next step to give an answer for God to those who in their Expostulations ask why he is yet angry The solution of this doubt is obvious and common Anger resteth in the bosome of Fools Fury is not in him who worketh all things according to the counsel of his Will His Wisdom and his Will are both one His Justice and his Power are both one and one with the other two his Wisdom and his Will As he is one pure Act of Omnipotency of Beauty of Love of Joy of all Excellencies at their greatest heighth and in one so is he Wisdom Will Justice Power all in one He is Power as he is a pure Act of Almightiness He is Wisdom as he is a pure Act of highest and most Universal Harmony He is Justice as he is a pure Act of entire and most perfect Order He is Will as he is a pure Act of highest and most diffusive goodness of the richest sweetest and fullest loveliness which are the proper Objects and so perfections of the Will He is Will as he is a pure Act of most heightned and comprehensive Love Joy Complacency which are the most proper and perfect Operations of the Will Fury then is not in him who thus worketh all things according to the counsel of his Will where Justice Power Wisdom and Will meet in one at their purest heights in their greatest freedoms in their most proper and perfect Operations Anger is then attributed to God per Anthropopathiam while by the suiting of the Language to the capacity of the Hearers God is represented to us in the form and in the fashion of a man It is also a metonymical way of speaking which expresseth the effect by the cause So the Scripture speaking with the Tongue of a Man as the Jews express it representeth those effects of the Divine Providence by the names of the anger of God the wrath of God which answer to those effects that commonly proceed from anger and wrath in men Job faith in one place When the scourge falleth alike upon the innocent and the wicked God laugheth at it When wicked men suffer for their sins when innocent persons are refined by their sufferings the Eye of God is fixed upon his own Divine Loveliness and Glory alike in both The purest and most perfect Love acteth him toward this most pure and perfect Loveliness and Glory alike
in both from the meeting and blissful embraces of these two this Love and Loveliness in the Divine Nature his Joy and Complacency is alike in both equally full equally at the heighth A Divine Philosopher with a pleasant and beautiful Allegory teacheth us That the expansion of Light in the heavenly Bodies which is the Act of the Angelical World in this their most beautiful Figure is Risus Coelorum the laughter of the Heavens God maketh every thing beautiful in its proper place and time to kill as to make alive unformed deformed privations as the fairest and most flourishing forms In every Act of Providence in every accident from the beginning to the end of things he equally preserveth and perfecteth the Divine Order and Harmony This golden Harmony extended like the sweet Light of Heaven over all things is as a Divine laughter the complacency of the Divine Nature in its Work in its Image in it self I have yet one thing more to say before I take my other step We learn from Philosophers That heat and cold which continually fight in the Elements below are in the heavenly Bodies but after so eminent a manner that there they meet and enfold each other with a most harmonious agreeableness By the Laws of Divinity we are answerably taught That Anger and Love as all forms of things most discordant in the Creatures are first in the Divine Nature But they are there with an eminency with a transcendency in which they are refined and heightned far above all imperfections Here they all meet as most grateful and most agreeable Varieties in the entire and undivided Unity of the same eternal Light of the same eternal Love of the same eternal God As from this heighth of a most perfect Unity these Divine Varieties bring forth their various effects in shadowy resemblances here below they make the figure of the whole divinely one and divinely beautiful As Divine Seals they likewise impress the figure of their own Divine Unity upon each single effect Thus the whole work in general each single effect in particular is a divinely beautiful figure of the Divine Beauty shining with delightful beams upon those Eyes and Spirits which anointed with a Divine Knowledge see the golden and secret Seal this glorious and sacred impression of the Divine Unity upon it Thus we have spoken of the shame and guilt of Sin as also of Anger and in part of the Justice of God concerning which there remaineth more to be said 5. Step. We have yet before us that great Deep which swalloweth up all Understandings the face of which seemeth covered with a thick and impenitrable darkness Let us pray to the Father of Lights for irradiations from his eye that so this unfathomable Deep may discover it self to us as a blissful Deep of purest clearest and sweetest Glory If God first from the counsel of his own Will alone withdraw those beams which are all our Light and Beauty and we then by the inevitable necessity of our Natures wander as deformed shades in a wild darkness through the Regions of Sin Death and Hell Is not God now in a moral sense clearly and fully the sole Author of Sin and Evil This is the knot which indeed standeth in need of the Rosy Fingers of the heavenly Morning the beams of the eternal Day to unty it How shall we in this place vindicate the Justice and Goodness of God I have here three things to propound 1. Let us impartially and ingeniously consider whether the freedome of the VVill to determine it self absolutely in all its Acts reflect a greater Glory upon the Justice and Goodness of God than the VVill predetermined in its Essence in its superior Causes in the first and universal Cause That we may make a clearer judgment in this case let us compare these two different states of the VVill together with several Antecedents and Consequencies by placing them both in our view one by another as plainly within as narrow a compass as we can Let us set that Free-will in our eye after this manner God brings forth an Intellectual Spirit with a Divine Light of Truth in its heavenly Beauties shining upon its Understanding with a Divine Love of the true Good with all its heavenly Sweetnesses springing in its VVill. He now sets down the will of this Spirit upon such a ground of indifferency and absoluteness in it self that being undetermined into any forms of good or evil the most heavenly or the most hellish it is equally free for it in the face of all this blessed Light shining in the Understanding in the midst of all the heavenly sweetnesses flowing from the bosome of the true Good through the VVill it self to cast it self forth from the bosome of the eternal Good Appearing thus in its own naked and Divine Form and to cast it self into the embraces of the foulest evil the fountain of all evil presenting it self as evil in its own most direful and haggish shapes A great part of Intellectual Spirits far the greatest part of humane Spirits placed by the Divine Providence in this state refuse the good choose the evil so render themselves obnoxious to the Divine Justice and become by the pursuits and inflictions of that Avenger the lost Subjects of all horror and woes without end Let us now in the like manner cast our eye upon the Will predetermined in its Causes God brings forth an Intellectual Spirit compounded Ex aliquo Dei ex aliquo sui With something of God something of its own That of God in it is all the good of it the clear Face of the eternal Truth shining in its Understanding as in a Christal Mirror the sweet flame of pure Goodness and as pure a love to this Goodness burning in its VVill as upon the golden Altar in the Temple of God the beams of this Beauty and the flames of this Love unitedly spreading varying and forming themselves through the whole Person and Life of this Spirit into all Divine Virtues and Joys by which it becomes as God himself descended into a God-like Image of God himself This is that of God in the Creature That which is ofits own in this Intellectual Spirit is beneath all this heavenly beauty and goodness a deflectibility inseparable from the nature of the Creature bound up only by the heavenly charms of this Divinity resting upon the Person of this Spirit God in the depth of a design perhaps too blessed and too glorious to be penetrated and fathomed by us as the eternal Sun ascends up on high going away from this Spirit and carrying away with him his whole train of immortal beams with a Divine Light Heat and Virtue Now like a mournful and hated darkness from below the natural defectibility of this Spirit covers the whole face of it making it like Hell it self the seat of all evils both of Sin and Suffering which lie eternally upon innumerable multitudes Let us now consider the two-fold Law or
a delightful sweetness both in the Subject and in the sense and all the various perfections or proportions of the whole and of the several parts concentring in each part giving a perfection to it and receiving a perfection from it and thus reflecting the distinct and united perfections of the whole and of all the parts mutually and endlesly upon each other and so shine forth carrying as in triumph upon every sparkling beam the multiplied reflections as so many Coelestial Venus's exactly answering one another and all in one into the beholding and ravisht eye But this will be confirmed and made more clear to us in that which followeth Fourthly God maketh all things for eternity verse 14. I know that whatsoever God doth that shall be for ever God's ever is eternity Eternity as we learn from Philosophers and Divines is a perfect Unity comprehending all Variety within it self even Time also with all its successions divisions and distances without and above time succession division or distance It is defined to be Tota totius boni simul semel possessio A whole possession of the whole good at once and in one Thus God worketh all things from eternity in eternity and for eternity Thus he maketh every thing beautiful as it is seen in the light of eternity which alone is the light of Truth Time being the shadow of Eternity and a Vail upon it for in this light in which the Works of God are all wrought in which alone a true judgment may be made of them every particular is seen as it lies in the whole as a part of the Variety in the whole Variety and in the Unity The whole Variety and the Unity appears entire and compleat in every part so the fulness of the Divine Work the fulness of the Divine Beauty and Glory spread through the whole Work is united in every part and fulfilleth all in all Object Perhaps you will say Are moral privations as well as natural is sin also comprehended in this discourse Hath God also set a season for that and made that beautiful in its time Then is it no more sin if it be not a deformity Then is it a grace if it be a beauty A Divine Grace if it be a Divine Beauty And a Divine Work if it be made by God How genuinely does the Opinion of the Ranters flow from these Principles That then only we see things in the Light of the Gospel the only true and eternal Light when we see no more any distinction between Good and Evil Grace and Corruption the deformity of Sin and the beauty of Holiness the Works of God and the Works of the Devil all say they seen by an eye truly illuminated is a Divine Work a Divine Grace and Beauty Answ. I reply first in general to ranting Principles and Practices as St. Paul doth with abhorency and detestation God forbid far be it far be these Principles from the mind and life of every good man as they are far from the Divine Truth from the Mind Life and Work of God formed by the Devil from a Seed of enmity to God unto the Glory of the Gospel in the Womb of the blackest darkness in the darkest depth of the bottomless pit But my more particular and distinct Reply is this 1. If sin be a positive Form of Being then it is originally and eternally comprehended in the first Being the only Fountain of Being it floweth from it lieth in the frame and order of the Universal Being It beareth upon it the impression and character of the first Being with its Beauty it beareth a part with the whole or universal Being making up the perfection of the whole and cloathed with it crowning it and crowned by it All this upon that supposition will necessarily be true of it most properly most directly by it self and not indirectly or by accident only But according to the narrow compass of my knowledge or understanding this supposition and consequent both are contrary to the common current and general stream of Philosophy and Divinity 2. If sin be a privation of Grace it is to be considered two wayes 1. In Principio 1. In its Principle 2. In Termino 2. In its Term or Subject 1. The privation of Grace is to be considered in its Principle As a privation hath no Being so it hath no Principle in a proper sense if we may apply such language to it Privation which is no Being with its particular modification and bounds hath for its proper Principle Non-entity or not Being in its universal sphere or compass as the narrow and mid-land Seas are divided from the vast unbounded Ocean But the Principle from which the privation of Grace ariseth in its Subject by consequent and by accident is Grace it self in its first Principle with-holding or with-drawing it self The Principle of Grace is God alone the Privation of Grace as it is the with-drawing or the with-holding of this Principle in its Operations or Influences so it is immediately consequent to originally comprehended in the Acts of the Divine Will and the Divine Wisdom This privation of Grace lying thus in the Principle of Grace comprehended in the Acts of the Divine Wisdom and Will as their term and bound hath its part and place in the Divine design It is now and here in this Prospect a part of the Variety as a Contrariety It lies within the embraces of the whole Variety it lies in the bosom of the Unity which is the Spring the Seat the Throne of the Variety So the whole Variety in the Unity the Unity in its full Variety and at once after the manner of eternity spring up in it shine through it look forth clearly and compleatly in the face of it richly cloath it all over After this manner is the privation of Grace in its Principle in the Acts of the Divine Will and the Divine Wisdom a Divine Workmanship a Divine Beauty Agreeable to this is that common Principle of our Divines That God hath his influence upon Sin to order it to bound it in all its circumstances to reduce the disorder of it into order to make it serviceable to the order and the beauty of the whole In this sense Proclus affirms in his Divinity That there is neither Privation or Corruption 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Totis that is according to his sense In Divine Intellectual Spirits which by the light of Eternity comprehend in themselves in one view the whole Work of God the whole nature of things with all their Varieties and Contrarieties as an entire piece an entire Image The Divine Workmanship the Divine Beauty of the supream Spirit whose Unity is figured upon For here the Divine Form and Beauty of the whole resting upon every Privation or Corruption makes that also in the whole a Divine Unity and Perfection 2. Privation is to be considered in Termino vel Subjecto that is in the Intellectual Spirit as the Seat or Subject Divines say That
duality unfoldeth it self into the Ternary number As in the blessed Trinity the Father shines forth in the Person of the Son his Beauty and beautiful Object Both these breathe forth themselves into the Spirit the mutual Love the Marriage-Bed of these two When thus the Varieties and Distinctions of things proceed by even and just degrees springing up naturally and immediately out of the bosom of each other as they lie naturally and nakedly in the bosom of each other according to their Divine Love-sport and play in the Palace of their Father the supream Unity now the Unity shines and triumphs with a full Joy and Glory in the Face of the whole and of each part Now it flies singing and sporting it self upon the golden wings of a most ravishing Harmony over all According to these two Rules I shall proceed in my Answer upon which it rests as upon its two Pillars Jakin and Boaz Establishment and Strength God is the God of Order saith St. Paul Order is the sacred Harmony of the Divine Nature the Divine Nature the Divine Beauty the Divine Musick all in one first in their Architype then figuring themselves upon the whole Work of God sweetly flowing through it all shining smiling and playing every where upon the face of it This Order with a Divine skill by just degrees and harmonious proportions slides into its contrary which is disorder by which it sets off and heightens it self making the Variety more full The first the highest disorder the fountain of all disorder is Sin This is the disorder of Intellectual Spirits the chief of all the Works of God the Head the Guide the measure of all the rest All the other Creatures are to these as light cast forth from the body of the Sun which is the Sun's shadow or as shadows in this life the shadows of this shadow St. Jude expresseth the Sin of Angels by their disorder The Angels which kept not their first state but left their own Habitation State is in Greek Principle they kept not their first Principle the supream Unity They held not the Head as St. Paul expresseth it They left their proper Habitation the Divine Image the Divine Order and Harmony their proper place in that Harmony where they were divinely-beautiful and made an heavenly melody in the heavenly Consort and Quire The Psalmist saith of man and his sin Man being in honour continued not but became like the Beast that perisheth Honour is the delicate gloss or sparkling lustre of a true Beauty especially the beauty of Spirits delightfully shining forth and reflecting it self upon all Spirits round about it The Divine Order and Harmony alone is the true beauty every where This is immortal Thus man by sin breaks himself off from and so becomes like the Beast without any sense of or sensible subordination to the Order and Harmony of the whole While he cuts himself off from this he dies his disorder is his death the true life of man vanishing together with the Universal and Divine Harmony Every contrary supposeth or constituteth its Correlate contrary the contrary to disorder is order That then which the Scripture speaking with the tongue of a man gives the name of Displeasure Anger Wrath in God is no other than love it self in its naked and golden smiles the Divine Beauty in the purity and simplicity of its most native and unchangeable sweetness the Harmony of the Divine Nature as a Glory eternal calm and Sun-shine opposing themselves to the discord deformity enmity of Sin As they say ill natures are tormented by Musick as the evil Spirit in Saul was cast out by David's Harp So is anger in God the most delicious the most transporting melody sounding through the whole nature of things from Jesus Christ the Universal Image of the Divine Nature and the golden Harp of God which either charms the Spirit of disorder or torments it Contrariorum remedium est contrarium One contrariety is the cure and remedy of another Disorder is reduced into order by the Divine Harmony setting it self in an opposition and contrariety to it While the opposition between these contraries remains they heighten one another This state of opposition is in the Divine Poem or Work as the scene of storms and tempests of Blood Confusion of the blackness of Darkness of Death and Hell This scene coming in as a part of the Variety sets off with a greater heightning even to an extasy of wonder and delight the Sweetnesses the Beauties the Glories of the Divine Harmony surrounding it springing up shining forth with a golden calm and lustre in the midst of it St. Paul divinely represents this to us Rom. 5. ult The Law came in that Sin might abound that where Sin abounded Grace did superabound That as Sin had reigned unto Death so Grace might reign through Righteousness unto eternal Life by Jesus Christ our Lord. The Law which is the contrariety or opposition between the Harmony of Divine Love and the disorder the confusion of Lust 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 came in by the by or by the way in the course or stream of the heavenly Harmony of the general and grand contrivance of Divine Love to set it off and heighten it to raise and transcend all expectations to extend and surprise all Understandings to make the melody of the whole more full by the Variety and more gloriously triumphant by the Discords The evils of Sufferings according to the Law of the Divine Harmony which is the Image of the Divine Wisdom the first Beauty of Truth the Image of the Divine Will the first love and goodness in the Creature have their entrance three ways 1. Every Principle unfolds it self into all the powers and forms contained in it so the evil of Sin which is the root of Disorder springeth up into all manner of disorders through Spirit Soul and Body into all manner of evils of blame shame pain sorrow torment Lust when it conceiveth bringeth forth Sin Sin when it is perfect bringeth forth death All Disorders all Evils all Sufferings are steps and forms of death 2. The disorder of Sin as it is the contrariety in the Harmony is reduced into order and made harmonious in the whole by the opposition and contrariety of the Harmony as in Musick the setting the Concord by the Discord makes the Melody Now as the Harmony is all good of Grace Joy and Glory every good in every kind being a particular Harmony in the universal Harmony so where the Universal Order the Spirit of Order which is the Spirit of Christ and God setteth it self in a Contrariety to any disorderly Spirit there all good of every kind is withdrawn all evil as of loss so of pain ariseth God saith in Deuteronomy If you walk contrary unto me I also will walk contrary unto you Then all Plagues are reckoned up the natural consequencies of this Contrariety Then saith he several times over If you go on to walk contrary to me
I will yet bring seven times more Plagues upon you As the opposition and disorder and sin encreaseth so the Divine Harmony also is heightned in its contrariety to it All this is done that the evil of sin and disorder the beauty and sweetness of the Divine Grace and Order may set out the Contrariety This also is that the distinction between the Ceator and the Creature the heavenly Image the Original and Substance which is all pure Light and Good without any mixture of Darkness or capacity of Evil. And the earthly Image the shadow which is composed of a figure of Light and true Darkness from which sin with all evils spring and take life according to the Language of the Apostle may be more clearly discovered Thus by the breaking in of sin by blame and shame and sufferings which are as so many Glasses to set before sin the deformity and ugliness of its own face the Creature the shadowy Image is humbled is broken to pieces is brought into the dust that it may give all glory and attribute all good to the Creator the Original and eternal Image that it may resign it self to it seek its rest alone in it and that it may finally return into the bosom of the Original Glory which in these wayes by these degrees through the breakings of it springeth up in it breaketh forth through it and bringeth it back again to lie down eternally in that Bosom of purest Love and Light where it was at first from eternity where it hath been eternally hid with Christ in God All this God doth that he may eternally display the unsearchable Riches of that Variety and Fulness which is in himself that he may swallow up the Understanding of every Creature Man or Angel into an admiration and adoration of the incomprehensibleness of his Wayes his Wisdom his Blessedness and Glory who at once bringeth forth these Varieties which like Morning-Stars and Sons of God in the purest unmixt Light and Love dance and sing together in his Bosom into such fighting Contrarieties upon the stage of the earthly and created Image here below making that the seat of deformity shame woe and death while it figureth out the highest Joys and Glories of eternal Life above who again gathers up all these jarring and tumultuous Contrarieties into the first state and supream Unity where the Variety is far more vast and boundless in the whole far more full and distinct in each branch of it where the whole is all an eternal Melody an eternal Beauty an eternal Joy unexpressibly Divine pure and ravishing where each branch in its own distinct Form is a Beauty a Melody a Joy equally pure perfect and ravishing with the whole being crowned with the Unity and Eternity which is the highest Unity This St. Paul representeth to us clearly and fully in the person of each Saint when he saith Heights and Depths things present and things to come this World Life and Death all things are yours and you are Christs and Christ is Gods All things are Divine distinct eternal Glories in the person of a Saint as a Saint is taken up into the Glory of Christ as Christ is in the Glory of God 3. The evil of Sufferings is the proper way in the Universal Order by which the disorderly Spirit with its disorders returneth into order to possess and enjoy in it self the Divine Beauty and Musick of the whole Guilt is the Obligation upon each Spirit from every Act of disorder unto the Divine Justice which is the Law of the Divine Harmony seated originally in the Divine Nature from the opposing it self to the disorderly Spirit and the reducing it by the opposition into order This is done three wayes 1. By Expiation 2. By Compensation 3. By Abolition 1. Expiation or atonement is the bringing in of something Sacred Divine and Perfect The Heathen in their Expiations generally made use of brimstone which seemed to have something Sacred and Divine in it as appears by the Greek name 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifieth both brimstone and something Divine perhaps the reason is its aptness to take fire and its resemblance in its pure and fiery flame to the Coelestial Bodies 2. Compensation is of like to like by an equality this turneth the Discord into a Concord and gathereth it up into the Unity 3. The Abolition is the effacing and blotting out the disorder bringing it forth now into order where the deformity of the discord is swallowed up into an amiable and beautiful Harmony This is the chief part of the expiation or atonement in which the Ancients to this end made use of a living stream or fire as things Sacred and proper for purification But this whole work is comprehended in the mystery of Christ it is begun and finished in his Person alone literally or mystically 1. Expiation Jesus Christ the eternal Spirit of the Divine Order and Harmony springs up in the midst of the disorder and takes it all upon himself by taking Flesh. This is the beginning of the Expiation this is the truly sacred Divine and perfect thing brought in to expiate the confusion and the abomination This is the supream Unity the supream Harmony Love it self the Prince of Peace and Harmony the God of Order discovering himself as a sacred and eternal Root at the bottom of the disorder in whom that also stands after an orderly and harmonious manner while he himself also is springing up through it This is the beginning of the Expiation 2. Compensation This Jesus which is Divine Love it self appearing in the enmity the Divine Harmony it self in the disorder seats himself as the mark of the opposition and contrariety by which the Divine Order in the Spirit of Order which is himself sets it self against the Disorder to subdue and reduce it he receiveth himself into his own bosom and heart all the invenomed arrows and fiery darts which the Justice and Wrath of God that is Love it self casteth forth in its highest opposition and contrariety to the enmity This contrariety of the Divine Love to the enmity which hath violated and slain this Love in breaking the Harmony is maintained by a War of Blood and Fire till it come to its ut most height till the contrariety of Love to the enmity be fully displayed and discharged till the enmity and disorder that work of the Devil be subdued and destroyed together with the dissolution of flesh it self The earthly and shadowy Image the seat and ground of sin and enmity by the death of Jesus Christ who hath taken our Sins and Nature upon himself as the first root and ground of all O sweet and Divine Mystery O musical Discord and harmonious Contrariety O peaceful and pleasant War where the supream Love stands on both sides where as in a mysterious Love-sport or a Divine Love-play it fights with it self suffering for it self dying by it self and so it self sinking by death into its own sweetest bosom and dearest
God in it is a Divine secret and mystery of Grace and Glory which hath such recesses such endless Varieties in it that it cannot be traced by the Foot or discovered by the eye of any Creature St. Paul foundeth this incomprehensibleness in the Work of God upon the incomprehensibleness of the Divine Mind He foundeth this unbounded Treasure of Divine Goodness and Glory in the Work of God upon the absoluteness freedom of the Divine Nature ver 35. For who hath known the mind of the Lord and who hath been his Counsellor or who hath given first to him that it may be given again to him by way of return or exchange As are the Riches of the Divine Mind which first forms in it self the Ideas of all its work and then forms every work according to that Idea which rests upon every Work as the Seal upon the Print in the Wax such are the Riches of God in every part of his Work As is the absoluteness unlimitedness of the Divine Nature which consulteth with nothing considereth nothing in the Creature but taketh the measure and the manner of all his Works from eternal patterns in his most glorious Essence and is put on and taketh the rise of all his Works from the ever-ful ever flowing over-flowing fountain and boundless Riches of his Godhead such are all the operations and emanations of the Divine Nature Thus St. Paul concludeth and justifieth the Divine Wonders of incomprehensible Riches Wisdom Knowledge The Divine Wonders of an absolute unconfined freedom in all the Works of God by the cause of all verse 36. Because of him and by him or through him and to him are all things Plato maketh three Causes alone the Efficient Formal or Exemplar and Final St. Paul wraps up all these in one in God alone He is the beginning the way the end of all He is the Fountain out of which they all arise in their several streams He is the Chanel in which every stream runs along He is the Sea into which they all flow where they lose not their Distinctions but rise up to the perfection of them in this Marriage with the first the full and unbounded Glory To what unbounded expectations of Divine Riches surmounting all expectations in every Creature may we now raise our thoughts when the beginning the way the end of every thing thus lies in the Godhead when this Bosom the Treasures of all Glories and Sweetnesses is to every thing its Fountain in which it riseth its Chanel in which it runs along its Sea in which it ends How justly doth St. Paul set a Crown of Glory upon the Head of the Deity in all its Works To him is glory in the Generations so may we most properly read the words How sweetly doth he seal up his own Faith Understanding Love in sweetest Rest and fullest Joy with this Glory Amen Of him through him and to him are all things To him be Glory for ever Amen Thus this last Scripture in a clear Harmony with the other two seems to give a sweet and full close to the Divine Musick of this heavenly Truth and leaves these divinely-delightful touches upon our Spirits 1. God the only Good is equally absolute entire universal in shutting or locking up all men in Unbelief the Prison the Dungeon of deepest darkness as in shewing mercy which is the opening to them the taking them into the Palace of eternal Light the Light of Life the Light of Love the Light of Glory He shuts and none can open he opens and none can shut These are the two Cardinal Acts the shutting up under belief and the shewing mercy Upon which the whole work of the Divine Providence moves through Earth through Hell and Heaven through Time and Eternity 2. Shewing mercy is the end shutting up in unbelief is the means or way to this end Mercy is one of the sweetest names of Love the shutting up in unbelief is then an Act of Divine Love For all motions to the end are in the virtue of the end the end is the light the life the loveliness of the means All means and ways to the end are first comprehended in the end The end by it self immediately formeth them upon the Spirit of the Agent The end through the Spririt of the Agent bringeth forth it self into them as so many tendencies to it self as so many gradual orderly springings forth of its self The end at the last comprehendeth them all again in it self as making up the perfection of the end and having their perfection in the end Thus the severity and wrath of God in its severest Act the shutting up men under unbelief is Love and divinely-lovely 3. God and Love in this Work of his appear to be both one For Love is the end of Wrath By being the end it is also the beginning and the way So also is God For of him and through him and to him are all things to whom is the glory through all Generations The highest expression of God unto our capacity as he is in the simplicity of his Divine Essence is Love This is his Glory as he is unvailed unclouded This is that that darkens and thickens it self into every Vail or Cloud This is a sweetning a gilding upon every Vail every Cloud God as he is Love is the beginning the way the end of every Work through every Generation and so the Glory in every Work to all generations 4. God in his Work is absolute and absolutely free He taketh no counsel he is touched with no motive from any thing without himself The reason and rule of all his Works is alone from himself from within All within is the Unity the simplicity of the Divine Essence uncapable of any mixture or composition all meer clear pure Love 5. The Work of God in shutting up in unbelief and shewing mercy is an unfathomable Depth But is a shining Depth of most perfect Beauty and sweetest Light For it is a Depth of Divine Wisdom it is a Depth of Glory and unsearchable Riches It is a most delicious Depth of Divinest Love the unsearchable Treasure of all the most lovely and most loving Sweets and Joys The work of God is unsearchable incomprehensible infinite but an unsearchable â—…ncomprehensible infinite Love and Glory Let us therefore eâ—…pect in this Work to meet with Difficulties too great for our Understanding Let us be content to say Here is a Depth unfathomable not to my Spirit alone but to every finite Spirit of Man or Angel Then let us add from our knowledge of whom whose the design and the work is It is a lovely a delightful Depth a Depth of purest Glories and richest Loves So let us gladly cast our selves into it to be swallowed up by it concluding all with these words I cannot receive nor comprehend thee Do thou receive and comprehend me O Depth infinitely too glorious to be comprehended by me O my self infinitely blessed in being comprehended by thee I
come now to the third Reason I am to answer Reason 3 The Language of the Scripture in the whole current of it seemeth generally to run along upon this ground of an undetermined freedom of the Will of Man The Divine Will is cleared from the evils of Sin and Suffering The Will of Man is charged with them Agreeable to this are the Divine Precepts Prohibitions Promises Threatnings Admonitions Reproofs Complaints Expostulations which compose a great part of the sacred Writings Answ. I answer by a distinction This manner of Language As I live I desire not the death of a Sinner Why will ye die O house of Israel with all expressions like to these are either 1. Proper and plain 2. Figurative and mysterious 1. If they be proper and plain two great Difficulties arise 1. The true and living God thus represented appears like Homers Gods and the Gods of the Poets Weak querulous passible ever in contentions and combates 2. While the Divine Will in that on which it fixeth it self with so great truth and intention is capable of being opposed and defeated it appears destitute of Wisdom Power and Blessedness 2. If they be figurative and mysterious The figures first are to be determined and the mystery vailed beneath the figure to be discovered before we can establish any certain or clear sense upon them 1. The figure made use of in this manner of Language is by the consent of Divines complicated of an Anthropopathy and a Metonymy 2. The Anthropopathy is then when passions proper to man are attributed to God 2. The Metonymy is of the cause set for the effect and the things signified in the place of the sign So those changeable passions in created Spirits which bring forth and express themselves by changes of good or evil the effects and signs of those passions are applied to the unchangeable God when he bringeth forth the like changes in his Work So the Jews say That the holy Scriptures speak with the Tongue and in the Language of a Man But all such figurative expressions concerning God are to be understood with this Caution Every thing indeed in the Creature is a figure which hath its Original pattern answering to it in the Divine Nature But all imperfections attending the figure are to be removed All perfections in their utmost heights and most absolute fulness are to be attributed to the Original pattern when by the shadowy figure in the Creature you look to the exemplar and primitive truth in God So by these changeable and diverse passions in man you are to represent to your selves in God a Goodness a Power an unsearchable Riches of Variety and manifoldly various Wisdom and all these apart and together with the most absolute simplicity and highest Unity in the Divine Essence producing all diversities of accidents all changes of good and evil in the Divine Design which cometh forth at once as one piece divinely Rich in all Varieties from him and as one entire Image filled with the riches of all distinct Beauties of him who is unchangeable and most perfectly one 2. Having thus determined of the Figure Let us try to lift up the Vail and discover the Divine Mystery beneath this Figure I shall endeavour to take a Prospect of this Divine Secret and hidden Glory by several steps or degrees 1. The letter of the Scripture in the general â—…ream and current of it is the Ministry of the Law So St. Paul in divers places distinguisheth the Law and the Gospel or the Covenant of Works and the Covenant of Grace 2 Cor. 3. 6. Who hath made us able speaking of God Ministers of the New Testament or the New Covenant not of the Letter but of the Spirit for the Letter killeth but the Spirit giveth life In the following verse the engraving of the Law in Tables of Stone and Moses are mentioned Again in prosecution of the same Discourse Moses with his Vail is brought in To this are opposed in the 17. and 18. verses The Spirit of the Lord the liberty of the Spirit the sight of the Glory of the Lord with an unvailed Face the tranfiguration of the Soul into the same Image from glory to glory and all this by the Lord the Spirit These things laid together seem to make it clear that in the sense of the holy Apostle the letter the proposal and pressing of any truth or goodness upon us in a literal and moral way only whether outward or inward amounteth to no more then the old Covenant the Ministery of the Law on the other side the new Covenant the Gospel is the Spirit himself ministring himself through the letter to us taking off the Vail which lies upon the letter and upon our hearts bringing us forth into the Liberty the open Light and the Divine Life of the Spirit giving us a naked view of the Face of Christ in his spiritual and heavenly Glory and by this view transforming us into living Images of the same Glory springing up and encreasing in us unto the perfect day of eternity Suitable to this is that of St. Paul Rom. 10. 5. Moses describeth the Righteousness which is of the Law That the man which doth these things shall live by them Whatever imposeth upon us any thing to be done by us as an antecedent condition to any consequent good is the Law opposed to the Gospel The Law maketh Precepts the ground of Promises He that doth these things shall live by them But the Gospel maketh Promises the sure the sweet the precious pleasant ground of Precepts So St. Peter 2 Pet. 1. teacheth us That by the Glory and Virtue of the Godhead calling us to it self most great and precious Promises are given us that by these we may be made partakers of the Divine Nature So St. Paul engrafts Evangelical Precepts upon Evangelical Communications of the Divine Nature through Evangelical Promises Work out saith he your salvation with fear and trembling for it is God that worketh in you both to will and to do Phil. 2. 2. The proper end of the Law in the design or effect is not Love Righteousness Life and Blessedness but Condemnation Death and Wrath 2 Cor. 3. 7. It is called the ministry of Death At the ninth verse The ministry of Condemnation St. Paul in another place speaketh plainly That if there had been a Law which could have given Life Righteousness should have been by the Law St. Paul instructeth us in two eminent essential differences between the Law and the Gospel First The Law by Descriptions Commands Allurements Terrors setteth Righteousness before us but infuseth not a new Nature a new Life into us which may of its own accord bring forth Righteousness as Plants spâ—…ing up out of the ground and out of their proper root Secondly the Law not giving Christ himself to us to be a quickning Spirit in us to be our Life to be one Life with us cannot give us Righteousness either to the acceptation of our
Persons or to the Sanctification of our Natures 3. The Law which is the Ministry of Wrath is not the first or chief design of God that in which he begins or with which he ends The Divine Love the Beauties of Holiness and the Divine Nature Immortality the Glory of God founded and wrapt up in that one Seed which is Christ from whom together with whom for whose Joy and Glory sake they spring freely fruitfully irresistably subduing all things to themselves These are the first and chief design of God the good pleasure of his Will So St. Paul teaches us Gal. 3. That the promise in the Seed was first and the Law came after that which cannot therefore frustrate the design of the Promise and of the Seed There is a beautiful and rich Scripture opening the Glory of the Divine Design of the Lord to us Rom. 5. 20 21. But the Law came in by the by that Sin might abound but where Sin abounded Grace hath abounded much more That as sin reigned unto death so Grace might reign by Righteousness unto eternal life through our Lord Jesus Christ. Two things are remarkable here 1. The way of the coming in of the Law 2. The end of bringing in of the Law 1. The way of bringing in of the Law is most elegantly and amply expressed in that one word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Law was not brought in first from the beginning nor for its own sake that it should be the end Grace the Divine Love the everlasting Righteousness eternal Life in the Seed the eternal Son of God the Image and fulness of the Godhead the brightness of his Glory Jesus Christ was the great design for which all things are constituted to which all things serve In which God beginneth and endeth all his Works all his Counsels and in which he eternally resteth In the stream and current of this Design the Law it self is brought in as subservient to it In Dramatick Poems which have the design laid in some one entire great and glorious action the continuance is set off heightned by two eminent parts in it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a knot tyed fast in the course of the action then the uniting of this knot which makes the action more full of Variety more glorious more delightful Thus in this great action of time and eternity the bringing of the Sons of God to Glory by their glorious Captain Jesus Christ the Law is brought in in the course ofit as a knot tyed fast which no created Power is able to unty or to understand how it should be loosed This is the way of bringing in the Law 2. The ends of the Law are of two sorts 1. The proper and next ends 2. The extrinsecal and Ultimate ends 1. The proper and next ends of the Law are Sin Condemnation Death and the Divine Wrath. So that St. Paul saith in this Scripture That the Law came in that Sin might abound 1. The Law let in Sin so St. Paul teacheth us expresly Rom. 7. 8. Sin taking occasion by the Commandment wrought in me all concupiscence Again as the 11. verse Sin taking occasion by the Commandment drceived me and slew me 2. The Law heightens Sin so that expression testifieth The Law came in that Sin might abound 3. The Law by bringing in Sin bringeth in upon us a spiritual Death in Sin St. Paul speaking as by a figure of all Mankind in his own person Rom. 7. 9 10. I was alive once without the Law that is in Paradise but the Law coming sin revived or sprung up into life but I died These three ends of the Law flow from it not by it self nor from the nature of the Law but by accident from the weakness of the Flesh and of the Creature So you read verse 10. The Commandment which was unto life in its own nature was found to me unto death in the effects of it verse 13. The holy Spirit opens the design in these effects of the Law Is then that which is good namely the Law made death to me But sin that sin might be made manifest wrought death to me by the good that sin might become excessively sinful by the Law God having a design which he intended to enrich with the fullest the highest Glories of his Godhead brings forth in the course of this design a dark scene of all evils Sin Death Wrath The evil in this scene is carried on to its utmost extent and heighth Thus the Variety becomes more full in the whole design and the chief design is heightned in its sweetest Glory God through his infinite Wisdom so bringeth in this scene of sin and evil that himself is perfectly pure and good in the contrivance and conduct of it He setteth up a Law good holy and spiritual but such that sin inevitably may take occasion from it through the frailty of Flesh and of the Creature to spring up by it unto an overflowing Flood to display it self over all things in its fullest foulest Forms and Births 4. The Law hath for its proper end the conviction condemnation and death of all men 1. The conviction of the Law is two-fold 1. Man is convinced of his frailty and consequent mutability in his Primitive state before the Fall So saith the Psalmist Man in his best state is altogether Vanity He is the shadow not the very Image the true Glory He hath a shadow of Righteousness of Wisdom of Power a shadow only of Life a shadow of Being Christ only in his heavenly Image and eternal State is the Life it self the truth of all these Man in Paradise had no Being Life or Motion of himself or in himself As a meer shadow is no more than it is in its proper substance on which it depends If it be any thing in it self it is no more a shadow but the substance The Spirit saith of the Heavens and the Earth That God turneth them as the Wax to or by the Seal The Divine presence and appearance in man newly created was the Seal to this Virgin Wax which as it changed changeth the impressions upon it together with its whole form 2. The Law convinceth man of his faln state of the evil of this state that there is no good or power of good at all in him That the whole person and nature of man is only evil and altogether evil Thus St. Paul chargeth Mankind universally Jews and Gentiles There is none that doth good no not one The poyson of Asps is under their Tongue they are altogether corrupt They have not known the way of peace He presseth this charge universally by these words Now we know That that which the Law saith it saith to those that are under the Law Now we know that all Mankind according to the state of nature and in the first Creation is under the Law if there be any difference found among men it ariseth not from nature or the principles of
Creation but from common Grace supernaturally communicated by virtue of the heavenly Seed all along sown and springing up in the nature of man Now to this conviction as to their proper end are directed The precepts the vehemency of exhortation expostulations comminations and allurements which God maketh use of to man through the whole Scriptures That man may be sensible if he be capable of any sense that he is dead in sin that there is no principle no power of good at all in him which may be a ground to receive this good seed cast from without upon him that it may take root in it and bring forth fruit by it 2. The Law is a ministry of condemnation so St. Paul expresly stiles it This conviction and condemnation both the holy Apostle presenteth clearly to us when he saith That the end of this whole ministry is That every mouth might be stopped and the whole world become guilty before God 3. The last end of the Law is Death Death upon all Mankind upon the whole person of man a spiritual and natural death Death here where man is truly dead while he seem to live Death in the departure out of this life death after this life in Hell in torments This death is without any Ransom or Redemption within the compass or power of the whole Creation These are the proper and next ends of the Law Before I come to the remote and Ultimate ends I shall make my way clearer by answering an Objection which may here set it self in our way Object Is it not the proper and next end of the Law to be a rule of Holiness and a guide to it Answ. Indeed not rarely the form of each thing being its perfection is called the end of it But if we distinguish the formal and the final cause this is not the end but the essential form of the Law The true form and essence of the Law is a proposal of good and evil to man as the object of his choice In the Law we have before us the good of Holiness with its Divine Nature and Beauties with its attendant joys and blessedness The evil of sin with its hateful form and the monstrous disorders in the nature of which an Angel becomes a Devil and which is the proper constitutive form of a Devil together with the consequent horrors and torments extending themselves to the nethermost Hell Thus is the Law as now we speak in its essential form a convenant of works presenting to man holiness and sin with life and death accompanying them that he may make his choice by embracing holiness taking life in it and together with it Or by entertaining sin receiving death into his whole person and all his solaces round about him From this essential form of the Law see how the Law is directed to the fore-mentioned ends Man is composed of the light of God and his own proper darkness These two the Schools call the Act and the potentiality the form and the matter being and not being which constitute every Creature The darkness or nothingness which is the Creatures own is the proper ground of sin which is its own form and is a privation or deficiency a falling to nothing While the Divine Glory shines upon man tempering forming and confining this darkness by its own light to an harmonious Union with it it becomes the Daughter and Image and Spouse of this Light Now sin lies dead in us but the man lives This Divine Life shining in the darkness and through the darkness is to him a Divine shadow of the Divine Light While these two stand undivided and undistinguished to man in the Unity of the Divine Image and in the simplicity of this Divine Unity sin finds no way can take no occasion to bring forth it self into life The Law comes this distinguisheth between the Light of God and the darkness of the Creature in man This is the temptation and the state of tryal Abide saith the Lord to man with thy darkness in the Divine Light as a shadow of the Divine Glory in the simplicity of the Divine Unity so shall this Unity this Glory be a Tree of Life to thee thou shalt eat of it and live for ever Thou thy self shall be as the fruit upon this Tree which shall never fail nor fall But if thou choose to thy self thine own darkness if in this darkness thou distinguish and divide thy self from the Divine Light seeking to captivate this Light in thy darkness and to turn it to a glory to thy self as if thou hadst in thy self and in thine own darkness the root upon which this Divine Light with all its beauty force and sweetness grew This division in thy self will prove to thee the forbidden and that cursed Tree of knowledge of Good and Evil in eating of it thou shalt immediately die God thus in the Law presenteth this trial to man That he may discover man in the earthly Image of the first Creation with all his Strengths and Beauties to be altogether shadowy That he may make way for the dissolution of this shadowy Image in order to the springing up of the heavenly Image as its proper seed through it into its ripe fruit and perfect form God with-holds his Divine presence appearances and influences from man during this trial Now the darkness which alone is mans own discovereth it self in its own proper deformities and confusions it predominateth in man captivateth man entirely to it self becomes his choice and his Lord. Thus now sin springs up thus it takes life to it self bringing forth death together with it which is the perfection of sin and of the Original Darkness dividing it self from the Divine Light heightning it self to an enmity against the Divine Light making it self by this means as a Mark and a Butt of opposition to the Divine Light against which it shooteth all the fiery Arrows of the Divine Displeasure and Wrath. This seemeth to be the proper meaning of St. Paul's words before cited I had not known concupiscence if the Law had not said Thou shalt not covet I was alive once without the Law and sin in me was dead But when the Law came sin lived and I died Sin taking an occasion by the Law deceived me and so slew me That of mans own the darkness was the Womb out of which sin the delusion of sin and death by sin spring forth into life There is one note upon this Scripture which is very necessary for the enlightning of the whole sense Some Copies read in the 9. vers 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sin revived this supposeth a former life of sin this seemeth uncapable of any sense agreeable to the Text the Context the Design of the Apostle in this place But other Copies as that interlineary Greek Testament of Arias Montanus readeth it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sin lived now first took life This reading alone furnisheth us with a sense in which all the expressions of the holy
our Hope our End comprehending all the Objects of our Hope all our blessedness in himself This Christ thus coming to us forming a Divine Nature a Divine Light a Divine Eye a Divine Understanding in us shining forth in the midst of us setting all things good and desirable in an invisible and eternal Glory in their heavenly truth and substance before us open and manifest in the midst of us with their naked shining flowing Beauties and Sweetnesses to be possessed to be enjoyed by us to become one Spirit with us to form themselves upon us to transform and to translate us into one Spirit and Image with themselves in the fore-tasts and first-fruits as the earnest and pledge of our hopes springing up to a full fruition This is our most holy and most precious Faith the Faith of the Gospel opposed to the Works of the Law This coming of the Faith in this verse is expressed before verse 9. by the coming of the seed why then was the Law It was added because of Transgressions until the Seed came The Law then is a Prison In this Pâ—…ison all men are kept bound in Chains shut up with Locks and Bolts and Bars which no force can break until the Seed which is Christ come This heavenly Seed alone springing up into a new Nature a new Creature a new Person into an heavenly Image and a Son of God in him alone brings him forth into the Liberty of the Glory of the Sons of God Now before this Jesus thus springing up and shining forth in him the Prison of the Law is dissolved and vanisheth like an enchantment The place in which it stood is known no more for all is covered and filled with the Light Liberty and Love of the eternal Spirit over-flowing and encompassing this Son and Heir of God this fellow-heir with Christ. So saith St. Paul to Timothy 2 Tim. 1. The appearance of Christ in the Gospel abolisheth death and bringeth life and immortality to light 2. The end of the Law is to be a shadow of Christ and a Vail upon Christ. In the Epistle to the Hebrews we read That the Law had a shadow only of good things to come not the very Image Chap. 10. vers 1. Jesus Christ the Image of the invisible God is the very Image of all good things to come in the Spirit and in eternity The Law had a shadow of this Jesus with these good things contained in him The Law was also a Vail upon this Jesus who with all these invisible eternal beauties and blessednesses lay hid and lived after an hidden manner in these shadows and figures of the Law as beneath a Vail You may see this 2 Cor. 3. 15 16. St. Paul saith of the Jews While Moses is read the Vail lieth upon their hearts But when there is a turning to the Lord the Vail is taken away He goeth on But the Lord is that Spirit where the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty that is freedom from the Vail There is a beholding with open face the Glory of the Lord Jesus a transforming of the Soul into the same Image with an encreasing Glory by the Lord this Spirit Thus Jesus with all his Glories was vailed in the Law By the removal of the Vail the Law becometh Gospel The naked Glories of our Jesus flow forth upon us and form us into one Glory with themselves St. Paul teacheth us 1 Cor. 1. 10. That the Fathers were all baptized into Moses in the same Cloud and in the same Sea eat of the same spiritual Bread drank of the same spiritual Rock that followed them and that Rock was Christ. Upon the same account that Bread that Sea that Cloud was Christ. Christ was shadowed upon all these and vailed beneath all these The Clouds Thunders Fires Tremblings and Earth-quakes at Mount Sinai were shadows of Christ and vails upon Christ in his most glorious Person suffering and dying The top of Mount Sinai where God and Moses conversed familiarly with Faces shining mutually one upon another being mutual Feasts one to another was a shadow of Christ and a Vail upon him in his Resurrection and Ascension Divines teach us That the Law is the Gospel vailed and the Gospel the Law unvailed The Jews say That the Ten Commandments are founded upon the Name of God The Name is the Image of the thing Christ who is the very Image is the true Name of God and of all true things comprehended in God The Moral Law with all the Precepts and Duties of it is Christ in his heavenly and Divine Nature in us but vailed with the Letter with the darkness of the Letter yet in that darkness doth the heavenly Image figure it self making the darkness it self a shadow of its Glory How rich and how sweet is our Jesus and the mystery of God in him through all his works The Law it self hath no Darkness no Death no Fire so full of Dread Horror and Destruction which looked upon with a right eye is not unexpressibly beautified and sweetned by this that Jesus Christ with all the treasures of eternal Love Beauty and Joy is shadowed upon it and vailed beneath it The Fathers under the Law acquainted with this mystery conversed with Christ saw his day grew up into him through this shadow beneath this Vail seeing and embracing him shadowed also in their own persons and lying hid as under a Vail in their Hearts and Loins in their Flesh and Spirit 3. The Law prepared the way of Christ. John the Baptist who came to restore all things to their Primitive purity in the Ministry of the Law is represented as an Angel sent before the Face of the Lord to prepare his way The Law is a three-fold preparation for Christ. 1. By Conviction Condemnation and Death which all discover a necessity of Christ make him precious make him the desire of all Nations make all wait for him as the only blessed One and their only Blessedness Crying Blessed is he blessed is the Messias the Christ blessed is Jesus who alone comes in the Name of the Lord in the Form Power and Glory of the Godhead 2. The Law is a preparation for Christ by the Righteousness of Morality and of the Letter 3. By setting Christ before us in a shadow and under a Vail So the Law fills up the Vallies and makes the Mountains plain It humbleth and bringeth down every high thing it raiseth up every dejected and dispairing spirit It turneth all reliance or glory in our own Righteousness or Strength in our own Reason or Will into shame It takes away our distrust and despair turning that into hope and a joyous expectation It first burieth all the beauty strength excellency and life of the Creature in a grave of Sin Death and Wrath as deep as the nethermost parts of the Earth as the nethermost Hell Then it shadoweth Christ upon this Grave and sheweth him hidden beneath it as under a Vail and as a Seed of
the Perfection of each Being That which all things desire that which equalleth and transcendeth all desires As St. Paul saith to the Athenians That God whom ye ignorantly worship I preach unto you So by these unquestioned Principles it seemeth unquestionable That God as he is in his own proper Form is alone that Object which all things in Heaven on Earth and under the Earth love seek and adore If he shall please to lift up his Vail and discover his Face to be seen by all eyes of mortal or immortal Creatures all casting away their several Idols would run swiftly and unanimously into his Bosom alone crying out with an universal shoot This is he whom our Souls love This is our Beloved This alone is the Good which we have pursued in all things through all things Here is our Rest for ever If any Spirit then hate God it directeth its hatred not against God but a false Image which it hath set up to it self of God as an hater of him as a cruel one as extending himself to a larger compass in severities and wrath than sweetnesses and loves as an hard Task-Master requiring Brick when he affordeth no Straw as an enemy or a neglecter of the joy and felicity of his Creatures as raising a pleasure and glory to himself in the shame and ruine of his own Work or at least from a want of natural goodness and kindly affection leaving his own Work his own Birth to shame and ruine when it is every way in his Power to make it good and great in Blessedness and Glory So now it is no more God which this Spirit hateth but an Idol set up within it self in the place of God So sin deceiveth it first and then killeth it by a misplaced hatred upon a mistaken Object So this Spirit sinneth by falling short of the Glory of God and manifesteth its sin by this to be nothing positive but a privation only 8. Reason This predetermination of the Will placeth Man in the same rank with Automata the self-moving Works of Art as Clocks and Watches These are determined by the Workman to a certain motion which they cannot vary and being put into motion by the hand of the Workman they continue it without any power over it unto its designed period Such a piece of work Man seemeth to be if the motions of his Will upon which all other Humane motions depend be not in his own power Answ. What if Man be not allowed that Prerogative in respect to the superior and universal Movers which these works of Art have in respect to the Artificer He frameth his pieces for their motion he putteth them into motion they now continue their motions without any assistance from the Workman the Author of their frame and motion Man lives and moves and hath his Being in God Every distinct moment of his Being Life and Motions are new and distinct emanations from God as in their first Beginning as at their first Creation yet are the preheminencies of this self-mover the Soul of Man many great and glorious above the self-moving works of Art 1. The motions of the Will are Intellectual The Soul in the actings of the VVill understandeth reflecteth upon its own motions It comprehendeth the beginning the end of them their causes out of which they arise their nature and differences their course and stream in which they run along their effects and consequents in which they determine 2. The motions of the VVill are with a relish and agreeableness They all flow from Love the love of Good the love of Beauty which is good in its proper Image or appearance This is the first and great wheel in the VVill which puts all the wheels of the other affections or passion sinto motion The motions of the VVill tend all to delight and joy as their mark to the delightful and joyous fruition of the beloved Beauty the beloved Good in the which the VVill together with the whole Soul and the whole Man hath its rest and its end 3. The Soul of Man in the motions of the Will is acted by superior and universal Causes not as an external hand or power but as internal Principles as the springs of Being and Beauty of Life and Light of Activity and Motion of all power sense and relish which are essentially comprehended in the Essence of the Soul and Will which continually feed it Give me leave here again to cite those uncontroverted Maxims in the Metaphysicks the universal cause is most truly is most of all the Cause in every kind of casuality So is it most truly most of all the essential the formal cause of the Soul and of its Will The universal Cause is most intimate to every effect It is then most intimate to the Will and to the operations of the Will VVe read in Proclus That the Soul containeth all things in it self 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is after the manner of a Soul The subordinate and supream kinds of things are comprehended in the inferior kind entring into the definition and essence of each specifical nature together with it Thus man comprehendeth in his Essence the superior forms of a living Creature of a corporeal substance of substance it self in its abstracted eminency of Being the Fountain and Head of all these After the same manner the Divine Ideas their eminencies and virtues the Angelical forms in their powers and properties descending and forming themselves into an inferior Image in which they are all united constitute the Essence of the Soul and are complicated in it But to conclude my Answer to this Reason Doth this darken the glory of the VVill of Man Doth this confine it destroying its freedom and its Joy that it acteth and moveth in conformity to in communion and fellow ship with the Divine VVill from the same Principle in the same amplitude to the same end by the same necessity of good alone of the supream the universal Good comprehending all things in it self unchangeable in all This is the proper nature of Man and of his VVill that Divine Similitude and Image in which he was first created 9. Reason But the Variety of things that it may be entire requires it that there should be in nature a free agent undetermined to motion or a cessation from motion to this or a contrary motion having the disposal of it self of its own acts independantly entirely in it self Answ. 1. I do not remember that I have hitherto read or heard this pleaded That the VVill is equally undetermined and free to Good or to Evil presenting themselves in the formalities or appearances of Good or of Evil. This were to affirm that evil equally with good is the Object of the VVill That all things desire evil in its own proper form as much as good Yet this Variety here asserted clearly asserteth this 2. A full Variety is directed to the most perfect Harmony as its end It is the Unity preserved entire in the Variety
which composeth the Harmony and is the Soul of Harmony Variety it self being a singular name is an Unity Things absolutely divided and separate one from another make not a Variety This ariseth from the Unity in which they agree in which they are bound up together like Flowers in a Posie and presented in one Form in one view to the eye or to the mind A part of the Variety then which by its independancy upon the whole breaketh the Unity dividing it self from it destroyeth both the end and the essence it self of the Variety which are the Harmony and the Unity 3. Nature is the Law of Being Variety is Being varied Is not this a contradiction in the terms that the Law of Being that Being varied should call for as its Perfection a Being independant upon Being it self the first the universal Being that is should call for a Non-ens a not Being Such doth that VVill seem clearly to be in its essence motions and actions which in these in any moment and point of these in any circumstance is absolute in it self independant upon the first and Universal Cause the Fountain of Being Being thus cast into the bosom of the Divine Variety in which Nature and Grace the Fall and the Exaltation of things things visible and invisible of the Creature and the Creator lie and spring together as in their Garden-Bed Here with this Variety we will close our Discourse and in this Bosom take up our rest Jesus Christ in his Discourse to Nicodemus representeth the spiritual Birth by this similitude Joh. 3. 8. The wind bloweth where it listeth and thou hearest the sound thereof but thou knowest not whence it cometh nor whither it goeth so is every one that is born of the Spirit St. John saith 1 Epist. 2. Chap. 10. vers He that hateth his Brother is in darkness and walks in darkness and knows not whither he goes O that all the Lord's people O that all Mankind were enlightned with the heavenly brightness and splendor of the Divine Love anointing their Spirits with the heavenly perfume of the same love to their Brethren that is to every other Person or Spirit as St. Paul explains it Rom. 13. 8. He that loves another fulfils the Law That which the other Scriptures call a Neighbour a Brother is here Another every other person This Love would be an anointing of light upon the eyes of our mind giving us a clear and sweet prospect round about us in which we should not only hear a sound or a voice but see whence we came whither we go where we are the truth of all this and the way By the practice of this Divine Command To love one another we should as by a shining hand from Heaven dropping Mirth upon our Spirits be lead to the reason and the root of this Love which is the Divine Variety now mentioned the Jerusalem above the Mother of us all free and unconfined This is to love another according to the heavenly Command and to love another as my Neighbour my Brother to love every other person and thing as a fellow Branch with me in this Variety But if we will see the sweet and glorious Light of this heavenly Love we must not take the Variety alone but joyn to it the Unity and the Union of both these which are integral essential and primary parts of the Variety which are every way equal to the Variety and distinctly essentially comprehend it in themselves Thrice happy is that Spirit which by the Initiations Sanctisications and Anointings of the eternal Spirit hath been admitted to this Sacred and Supream Mystery To behold this Trinity the Variety in its first highest and unbounded form The Unity most absolute entire and undivided The Union of both these every way mutual and perfect O what Joys what Glories how pure how high how universal filling all in all transcending all things and thoughts open themselves to this Spirit who now sees himself a Variety of the same joy and glory in these joys and glories who now sees himself one eternal Joy and Glory with all these Joys and Glories in their Divine Unity What an eternal Marriage-day doth this Spirit now enjoy while at once by the bond of this Divine Union it seeth it self a distinct beauty and blessedness in the midst of all these innumerable glories equally distinct from him and one from another with the first the highest the most full distinction which is the perfection the compleatness the life of the Variety and yet in the same Scene in the same appearance and person one with them all as they all are one in the first and highest Unity This Spirit now seeth those Divine beauties and truths shining upon it with a most ravishing amiableness which we have toucht in our former discourse as the Divine ground on which the determination of the Will is built from which spring up those great and Sacred mysteries of the Gospel and the Law together with all the several Seeds or Forms of Light and Darkness Life and Death Nature Sin Grace and Glory comprehended in them The Seed of God which is the Seed of the Divine Unity and by St. Paul called one Spirit 1 Cor. 6. Hath been first before the world was in the Bosom of the Father in the Arms of Christ. So saith Jesus to his Father Thine they were and thou gavest them me This Divine Seed is brought down into a shadowy Image as a sleep and a dream in a sleep It still descends lower by the Fall not only to the remotest distance from the Purity Pleasantness and Glory of its Original but to the greatest estrangedness from it and opposition to it as a tragical dream of some excellent Person or Prince in a troubled sleep God several times mentioneth it with several senses and applications as a Sacred and Divine mystery That he calleth his Son out of Egypt It is his own Seed his own Son which first descended into Egypt the House of Bondage a Land of darkness and of Devils where almost every Creature was an Idol-god and so a Devil By an heavenly and Divine Call as by the returning of the Sun in the Spring to the Plants This Seed of Glory and Eternity sown and sunk so low by degrees comes up and returns again through all the beautiful the various the encreasing Forms of Light and Love springing up out of Darkness and Wrath. So at length it arriveth at its first habitation of Glory and Delights in the Arms of Christ in the Bosom of the Father It now flourisheth in the prime in the full blown Beauties and Joys of that life which it had at first which it ever hath had hidden with Christ in God the Life of eternity Thus is the Variety compleat thus is the whole Variety fully displayed in the heavenly Seed being carried along through all distinctions diversities contrarieties of forms and states of Good and of Evil. Thus is the Seed it self preserved pure through
the extremes of infiniteness and finiteness of God and the Creature comprehends both in One in himself fills up the middle space between both is the way by which God descendeth into the Creature and the Creature cometh forth from God by which again God reascendeth together with the Creature and the Creature returneth unto God Having laid down these grounds I shall now upon them build up and establish the Mediatorship of our Lord Jesus in the Work of Nature by these three Propositions as so many stories in this Divine Palace of our Saviour's Person raised one upon the other 1. Jesus Christ is essentially eternally the only true God infinitely transcending all Created Excellencies or Powers 2. The Lord Jesus standeth in the middle between God and all Creatures comprehending both entirely in One in himself with an admirable Beauty and Harmony uniting both by himself with an incomparable Love and Sweetness 3. Jesus Christ is the Way by which God descendeth into the Creature by which the Creation cometh forth from God The first two Propositions seem to lie in those words The Image of the invisible God the first-born of every Creature Here I hope to discover them lying clearly and beautifully infolded in the imbraces of each other I will begin with the Godhead of Christ. 1. Our Saviour our Jesus is essentially the eternal the only true God I shall indeavour to set before our eyes our Jesus unvailed and shining in the pure unmixt Glories of his Godhead by the Lights of two Principles which I think will be granted to me by all who acknowledge a God 1. God is eminently transcendently a vital Act. 2. God is eminently transcendently an Intellectual Act. 1. God is eminently transcendently a vital Act. The Psalmist saith to him With thee is the Fountain of Life St. John in the close of his first Epistle saith of him This is the true God and eternal life He is life it self life pure absolute unmixt unconfined eternal infinite a Fountain ever equally unexhaust a Sea unbounded Life is a perpetual Generation The chief and most essential Power of life is to bring forth its like to propagate and multiply it self in Images of it self The most perfect Life bringeth forth it self into the most perfect Image The most perfect Image hath two Properties 1. It is most perfectly distinct from its Original Take away the Distinction and you take away the Generation the Relation the Representation the Image it self As the Distinction is more or less perfect or imperfect clear or obscure so are all these 2. The most perfect Image is the most exact Representation of its Original most exactly answering it neither exceeding nor falling short nor varying in any part Thus the most perfect Image is most perfectly One and the same with its Original Thus God is a vital Act. 2. God is eminently transcendently an Intellectual Act. In every Intellectual Act three things meet in One Life Light Love 1. The Intellectual Life brings forth it self into an Image of it self within it self in one Spirit one Essence one essential Act and Form with it self 2. The Intellectual Light gives the Intellectual Spirit a seeing knowing understanding comprehension and possession of it self in this Image 3. The Intellectual Love is the mutual Union and Communion of these two the Original and the Image a continual sweet pleasing intimate essential and most agreeable motion of tendency or inclination to each other of unexpressible joy and complacency in each other The Life here is the Generation ever in Act ever perfect The Light is the Image ever actually springing ever actually compleat The Love is the conspiration or the meeting of these two in One as they are Distinct and One Where these are most perfect they are most perfectly distinct most perfectly equal most perfectly One and every One most perfectly and most distinctly all Three in it self The Original and the Image most perfectly adaequate to and exactly in all parts all properties answering each other do alike mutually imbrace comprehend bring forth each other within themselves and within each other The Love being the mutual imbraces and selffruitions of each other equally comprehends both is equally comprehended of both These Three are therefore called Persons being all equally One equally Distinct equally Compleat in one Intellectual substance and subsistence in an Intellectual Essence and Existence having equally their Root or Original their essential Form or Image their operation that is their Life-Spring their Light their Love entire in themselves all infinite eternal without Beginning End or Bound Behold here our Jesus in the high and holy place of Eternity the Image of the invisible God equally God with his Father having his Father in Himself equally invisible to every created eye or finite capacity by the same excess of Light and Glory Behold here the Jesus of the Christians at once the Son of God and God the Father of all at once the second Person in the Trinity and the Trinity compleat in himself which is the Godhead gloriously displaid in the admired adored beloved fulness of Power Beauty Majesty of all transcendent sweetnesses of Life Light Love and Joy a Life ever bringing forth it self a Light or Image ever springing up in the Bosom of this Life which is it self a Love by which this Life and Image are uncessantly eternally in an endless Circle bringing forth each other springing up in the Bosom of each other multiplying themselves into ever-fresh unsearchably rich Varieties in the mutual imbraces of each other with sweetnesses and delights unexplicable ever new ever full ever the same This is the first and principal sense in which our Jesus is the Image of the invisible God This Image is the most perfect Birth of the Godhead within it self All Images all Forms of things which lie wrapt up in the infinite Virtue or Power of the Godhead all which it ever brings forth through Eternity or Time all which it is capable of bringing forth the whole fulness of the Divine Essence or Nature with all the unbounded innumerable Virtues and Powers which as so many fresh everliving Springs open themselves in it flow forth most distinctly most compleatly into their first their most true their most proper Forms and Images here in this Image of which we speak This Image comprehends them all in One in it self and so becomes the Paradise of the Godhead in the heighths of eternity Our Jesus as he is this Image of the Godhead in the Godhead the second Person in the Trinity the Birth of the Father is the first Distinction the first Variety He is then the supream the absolute the most absolutely unconfined Distinction or Variety the Fountain of all Variety and Distinction This is the Wisdom of God with its unsearchable Riches the first the most exact Distinction and Distinguisher All Distinctions and Varieties of things which ever do exist or are capable of existing any where exist first here most perfect and
most perfectly distinguished Here they are all most perfectly One in the most entire Unity of the Godhead in the Father and together with the Father in the Son Here they are in this entire most absolute and undivided Unity as entirely as highly various and distinct as they are One. Here by the transcendency and simplicity of the Unity which is entire thorow all and every where undivided each Distinction each Variety is an absolute unconsined Unity comprehending most perfectly the whole fulness of the Godhead with all its endlesly new and various Varieties in its own proper Variety and distinct Form This is the the amplitude of the Godhead its Majesty and Glory in its own essential Image within it self Aristotle as I remember in his Ethicks defines Glory or Majesty to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Beauty with a greatness or amplitude What is the Glory of our Jesus what is the Majesty of our God when he appears in his own Image casting off every Vail and discovering his open Face in our Jesus How doth he with every glimpse of himself fill all the senses all the understandings all the capacities of Men and Angels with the overflowing Pleasures of his Beauty in the heighth and amplitude of it transcending all Glory all Majesty in their most exalted heights in their most extended amplitudes The supream and most entire Unity the first the fullest the most ample and unconfined Variety meet here both in One. Here they make a Beauty infinitely high infinitely ample in the Face and Bosom of which all Beauties endlesly new endlesly various spring up and shine and smile together while each distinct Beauty presents the entire Form of the Universal Beauty with all its distinct Beauties entirely infinitely new and distinct Our Jesus in this Divine Image is the Divine Understanding the internal eternal Word in the Divine Mind In this Image then stand together in One all forms of things according to their most exact natures and distinctions as they are ever known to God as they ever appear before him whose Knowledge is the only measure and ground of all Truth both in Being and Knowing To what tends this Discourse To this Our Lord Jesus in this eternal Image is the Universal the entire Idea of the Godhead the Treasury of all Ideas He is all Ideas in general each distinct Idea in its proper Unity and Distinction He is all those unlimited Glories in their most exact Ideas or Images in which the infiniteness of the Divine Nature is uncapable of being any way figured or shadowed in the finiteness of the Creature He is all those Glories in their proper Ideas yet still with an infiniteness of Glory which cast forth their beams and their shadows which compose the whole Creation and constitute every particular Creature Now you see our Lord Jesus the Image of the invisible God and the first-born of every Creature As he is the Godhead in its full Idea or essential Form and Image so is he the whole Creation every distinct Creature every distinct Form Circumstance Motion Variety of each Creature in its eternal Idea or Pattern in its first and most exact Truth as it is known of God as it is seen and contemplated by him in that beatifical Glass where all things appear at once in their most exact Truth and most exalted Beauty This Glass is the Idea or the essential Image of the Godhead within it self This is our Jesus our God in the highest and fullest Glories of his Divine Essence I have now finished my first task in the Mediatorship of Jesus Christ his Godhead in its simplicity and absoluteness the most pleasant and rich ground the most beautiful and blessed Crown of his Mediatorship I am sensible how large I am upon this Subject into how vast a Sea I have cast my self But I hope my Reader thou findest it a Sea of Divine Beauties and Pleasures where both our Spirits together swim dive and bathe themselves with a sense of unexplicable sweetnesses and satisfactions from the Floods of Light and of Love at once refreshing and swallowing up into themselves our whole Spirits our Understanding and Will I hope also if I deceive not my self as how apt and likely I am to deceive my self in all things I desire at all times to be sensible But if I do not now deceive my self I hope thou seest how pertinent this part of my Discourse is to my principal Theme for the illustrating and confirming it How beautifully how delightfully do we see in this glorious Image within the Vail now unvailed by its own Beams as the rosie Fingers of the Morning of Eternity dawning in the Gospel drawing aside the Vail the highest Necessity and the greatest Liberty matched and united What Liberty is equal to this where a full and pregnant Unity from its own spring within it self diffuseth it self unto an endless boundless Variety triumphing every where thorow all in each imaginable point with the undivided unconfined fulness and freedom of all its Glories What necessity so great as this where this Unity by the eternally unalterable Law of its own nature brings forth it self unvaried into all this Variety where this Unity as Links of a golden Chain joyns all these Varieties by an immediate immutable order and connexion to each other where this binds up all this unbounded Variety in its own streight and sweet imbraces What Beauty so beautiful what Delight so pleasant what Harmony so agreeable as this Divine Marriage between the most absolute Unity and the most ample Variety in the Palace of Eternity between the most unalterable necessity and the most unconfined freedom in the Divine Nature The Schools say That God alone is Ens necessarium A necessary Being the highest Necessity and that other Beings compared with him are contingent in respect to themselves They also teach us That all this which this supream adorable Being is in the infiniteness of his Divine Powers and Virtues in the infiniteness of his Divine Essence all this he is in a pure immutable Act. Yet is he in this highest necessity and most immutable Act the freest Being the freest Agent Do we not in like manner by contemplating this all-charming Person of our Jesus this supream Image in the Godhead the Seat of all Beauties and Truths Do we not see the Liberty of all things in their most proper most glorious Heads and Springs in their eternal Originals their Ideas the first-born Images of themselves How do they here each of them reign and spread themselves through the amplitude and infiniteness of the Divine Variety seated upon the Throne of the Divine Unity in the Palace of this Universal Image or Idea of the Divine Nature every one in its own distinct Form Is not this the ground of all Liberty this the truth of all Liberty in the inferior Forms and orders of things not a freedom from the force or conduct of their Ideas their Divine Heads and Springs in the
Bosom of the Divine Being but the Spring of these Ideas in them forming them figuring themselves upon them acting them diffusing themselves thorow them in all their growths and fruits The Metaphysical Truth of things comprehendeth all kinds and degrees of Being Divine Natural Moral Mathematical all kinds of Truth Divine Natural Moral Logical Every thing as it is is metaphysically true The metaphysical Truth of things is defined to be the conformity of each thing to its first Truth to its Idea in the Divine Mind So far every Logical Truth the truth of every Proposition Affirmative or Negative is true as it answers its Idea in the Divine Understanding which is our Jesus the essential Image and so the essential Wisdom the essential Truth the essential Liberty of the Godhead the Mediator of all Births all Images of all truth and liberty thorow the whole nature of things But let us now proceed The Lord Jesus being a Mediator uniting two extremes toucheth both standeth in a middle state between both filling up the middle space and so maketh both One. We have already seen the Lord Jesus in the heighths of the Godhead in the excesses of Glory Let us now take a view of him in his middle-state between both 2. I shall indeavour to prepare the Way of the Lord Jesus as he comes forth in the Mediatory Glory of this Middle-state by two general discoveries of his Person and Beauty here 1. Our Jesus in this middle-state is the Divine Union of Unity and Diversity of the Unity of the Divine Nature of the Diversity of all Created Natures in One Divine eternal Person and Spirit One of the two Extremes is the supream Unity comprehending all Distinctions in it self preserving it self absolutely entire eternally undivided in all The other extreme is the Diversity of the Creatures where the Unity is broken into all manner of Distinction being every where imperfect and at its highest point but the shadow of it self The middle between these Two is the Union of these extremes where all the most differing distant divided Diversities the most diverse forms of things dwell together in one Divine Image in one Divine Spirit and Person where the supream and most absolute Unity spreads it self thorow all the Diversities unites them all in one undivided Glory shines entirely in the whole and in each part 2. Our Jesus in this middle-state as our God appears in an all-ravishing all-admirable all-adorable Beauty in a Beauty distinct from that of the Divine Essence in its simplicity distinct from that of the Divine Image in the Creation joyning both in a new Beauty presenting all the various Beauties of both in a new Variety How pure how pleasant are the Glories of the Godhead in its own essential Image How pure how pleasant is the Image of God in the whole Creation with all the differing Forms and Motions in their whole course and compass from the Head to the Feet from the first rise to the last end and rest of all seen in one view at once How unexpressibly how divinely transporting sweetest excesses and raptures of most glorious joys is the Harmony between these Two when they are seen together in one Divine piece in one Divine Person in one undivided View and Spirit This Person this Prospect is our Jesus in his middle-state This is his Mediatory Kingdom This indeed in a Divine most desirable and most blissful sense is the Personal Reign of the Lord Jesus Here doth he in the Divine fairness and fulness of his blessed Person sit upon a Throne of Grace and Glory thorow the whole Variety of all Uncreated and Created Forms of things in the whole and in each part as in the whole Here is he the Marriage and the Marriage-day of God and the Creature of Eternity and Time with all its divided Forms successive Motions disagreeing changes of Lights and Darknesses Lives and Deaths Here is he the Marriage of each thing with its Idea in his most spacious and most glorious Bosom where all the Fountains of Being and Beauty of Life and Love open themselves Here all things the highest Lights of Glory and the lowest shades the most contracted and obscurest Form with its Idea infinite in Majesty and Glory lie together mutually infolded in the inseparable and joyous imbraces of each other shining thorow shining in each other mutually set as Seals upon the Bosoms and Hearts of each other This is Jesus the same yesterday to day and for ever standing in the middle-space between Eternity and Time joyning in one Eternity with all its Glories and Time with all its diverse Births and Successions This is the first Procession of the whole Creation and of every Creature in the Person of Christ before any Creature comes forth into its own proper and single created state Thus is Jesus Christ in a second sense the Image of the invisible God and the first-born of every Creature Thus all things are made by him and he is before all as he is the Divine Draught and Plat-form of the whole Creation with the whole Contrivance and Conduct of it from the beginning to the end as God first bringeth it forth from his own Mind into a most beautiful and exact model where he hath it ever before him in its Union with the general and distinct Ideas of it in his own Mind that he may compare them and with a pleasure worthy of God himself behold them in their mutual most exact and Divine Correspondency Here Jesus Christ manifestly hath in all things even in every created form of things as it is the emanation of some Divine Beam the preheminence He is first in every Form He is there indeed with the excess of a Divine Glory Here all fulness dwells with a perfect and full complacency in our Jesus All Uncreated Glories all created Forms as the Births and Images of those Glories dwell together here with incredible Joy as the fulness of each other as the Divine Mother and her lovely Child exactly like its Mother mutually clasping each other with tenderest and immortal embraces Having thus prepared my way I will pass to the more particular Explications of this Mediatory Glory 1. God as he is in the simplicity of his Divine Essence in his first and supream Glory is the Head of our Lord Jesus in this middlestation The Head of the Woman is the Man the Head of the Man is Christ the Head of Christ is God according to the Doctrine of St. Paul Philosophers and Divines frequently express the weak the shady the passive the material part of things by the Female the Woman the virtue the brightness the active the formal part by the Male the Man If we may so far have respect to an Allegorical or an Anagogical sense in this Scripture We may interpret the Apostles words after this manner The visible and corporeal frame of things hath for its head the Angelical Nature and World which containeth all vital and substantial Acts
all Spirits all Forms in their separated state Here are the Essences of all things in their abstracted Beauties Jesus Christ in his Mediatory Kingdom and World is the Head of the Angelical Image The Head of this is the Divine World the Divine Essence Plato saith All the Members were made for the Head The Head in that spiritual sense in which we have spoken of it is the inmost Center the utmost Circle diffusing it self thorow all incompassing infolding and comprehending all It is the beginning the end the strength the truth the glory of all with a transcendency of excellency in every kind surmounting all Thus is God thus is Jesus Christ as he is the essential Image of God the Divine World in eternity the glorious Head of his Mediatory Kingdom shining with infinitely rich and delightful splendors above all over all in all Thus is God the Person the Unity which brings forth this Divine Image which spreads himself thorow it lives and subsists in it gives it its life and subsistency in himself joyns it altogether in one Divine piece by the Unity of one Life one Spirit one Person 2. God is here in a Created Form appearing with a middle-glory between the shade of the Creature and the unapproachable shinings of the Godhead uniting both by a Marriage which all things in Heaven in Earth in the Seas beneath both celebrate with Divine Feasts and Triumphs God in the Creature is seen by a shadowy Image alone which lie as a Vail upon the pure Glories of his Divine Face and Person He now shines forth like the Sun in a cloudy day by that obscure Image of his Coelestial Form a reflected refracted Light God in the Kingdom of the Father the Father of Lights in the simplicity of the Divine Nature is the eternal Sun at its heighth at its Noon-sted in its Meridional Glories God in the Mediatory Kingdom which is properly the Kingdom of Christ in his personal Reign resembles the lovely Morning the golden Hour of the Day when there is no more shades or pure Light but both are mixt and sweetly married into the pleasant Flowers of Saffron or Roses breathing their sweetnesses thorow the whole Air and Universe God in Jesus Christ is now the Sun ascending shining forth in its strength but not at its full heighth God and the Creature are like two Lillies or Roses joyned upon one stalk in a fair Morning or a bright Forenoon or like two Friends in this sweet season in a Garden of Roses embracing These mutually possess enjoy the full Beauties the full sweetness each of other but not fully clearly but not compleatly until the Sun come to its full heighth In the Schools the knowledge of things is divided into three kinds 1. Meridianam the Meridional or Moon-Light of Knowledge 2. Matutinam The Morning-Light 3. Vespertinam The Evening-shade 1. The Noon-Light of Knowledge is the sight of things in their eternal Ideas in the eternal essential Idea or Image of the Godhead which is the eternal Word our Jesus 2. The evening shade is the Creature appearing in its self by its own obscure and fading Light 3. The Morning-Light of Knowledge is applied by some to the second quire in the first Order of Angels the Cherubims These are the Lights flowing from the Second Person in the Trinity the Light of eternity and of the Divine Essence as the Seraphims the first quire are Love the Love-Unity the Angelical Figure of the Father the Unity in the Trinity the Fountain of all Divine Births of all Divine Loves and Lights the Love-Spring and so the Life-Spring in the Godhead In these Angelical Loves the Seraphims are all forms of things as in their first their sweetest created Love-Springs and Love-Unions In these Angelical Lights the Cherubims are all forms of things as in their first their richest created Beauties and Ideas But these Cherubimical Beauties these Angelical Ideas are too faint and fading to be the Morning-Light All created Glories the most heavenly are no more than Evening-Glories which the setting Sun hath left behind him They all by degrees sink into the darkness of the night and disappear for ever Our Jesus alone is the Day-spring from on high the Rosie Morning and the rising Sun In him alone all created Loves and Beauties Cherubim and Seraphim rising again from the depths of night unto a new Sweetness and Glory have their eternal day Thus the Spirit speaketh to the Lord Jesus in the Psalmist and the first of the Hebrews The Heavens wax old as a Garment thou changest them and they are changed But thy throne O Lord endureth for ever and ever See in the Heavens in the powers sweetnesses and beauties of Heaven a night of old Age and of Death See in this Death a Day-Spring of new and immortal Glories in the rising of the Lord Jesus upon them and their rising in the Circuit of his Throne He alone sits upon that Throne of ever-new ever-springing eternal Light But thus much of this second Character of Jesus Christ in his Mediatorship or Middle-state 3. God in his essential Image replenished with the eternal Ideas and Patterns the Original Forms of things is in this second Image thorow the whole universal Form in all the particular and distinct Forms the Root and Seed of all This is the Vis plastica the Ratio seminalis the formative Power by which the formal reason or proportion according to which all things in their created Image spring up are framed are acted in their essential accidental Forms Powers Operations and Motions The Father hath sent me forth and I live by the Father All mine are thine and all thine are mine Thine they were and thou gavest them me This is the Language of Christ concerning his Father and to his Father The eternal Idea of the Godhead which is our Jesus in the heighths of his Divinity the distinct Ideas in the Bosom of this Idea of the Divine Essence are respectively the proper Places the Parents the Patterns the Husbands of Jesus Christ in this Middle-Image and in all the particular Images which shine here as Stars in their native Heaven as Flowers in their Garden-beds to which in the Song of holy Loves the Cheeks of this Jesus are compared Thus is our Jesus in the Gospel divinely drawn in an admirable Picture representing him after his descent out of this state rising again in it He is presented to us in his transfiguration on the Mount with his Face shining like the Sun in its strength and his Garment as the Light O most admirable and Divine Figure of our Jesus in his Mediatory Kingdom and Glory The Face the Person of our Jesus is the Sun it self the eternal Sun the Divine Nature shining forth in the strength of its light and heat its Beauties and Loves The created Image is as the Raiment upon this Person but a Raiment of Light of the Flower of Light Sun-shine of the Godhead a Garment made of a
Contexture of Beams living in and springing immediately freshly every moment from this entire Person which is all one most clear and lively Face of the most compleat and Original Beauty The Divine Person is not hid but shown by this Garment Mi Jesu pelluces Our Jesus shines all clearly thorow it far more clearly than a beautiful Person swimming all naked in a clear stream or the richest Diamond in a Case of purest Christal The Person here the Divine Sun is at once the eminent Head of all the Beams shining above them the vigorous Root of all the Beams springing up in them the pleasant and glorious flower flourishing forth from the end of every Beam the full Glory filling with it self each part of the Beam and every where in every Beam presenting it self entirely to every eye All the Beams in One are one entire Image of this Sun Every distinct Beam a distinct Birth and Figure of a distinct Ideal Light and Glory in this Sun Yet is the Sun in that full compass of all its Glories seen by every eye in every Beam For so is this Divine Sun the essential Idea of the Godhead the same one undivided entire full in all the Ideas in all the Original Forms and Patterns of each Creature The Beams here are Daughters Sisters and Brides to the Sun They flow forth immediately from it They stand upon the same root of the Divine Nature and Personality God is the only Person in this Jesus Both are cloathed with the same Image Both by mutual embraces lie in the bosoms of each other wrapt up together in the same Joys and Glories Yet are the Beams and created Beauties in this Mediatory Image not only distinct as the Ideas in the Godhead where the most perfect Distinction is married to the most absolute Unity with a most exact equality But all the Forms of created Glory here have besides a distinction from their Sun the Divine Glory and from each other a diversity also an inequality a subordination in an hypostatical or personal Unity But I now anticipate my self This will have a more proper place in the following Character of our Jesus in his Mediatory Kingdom 4. Christ here in his created Nature is a Spirit a great and universal Spirit comprehending the whole Creation eminently in himself before it have a subsistence in it self The whole Creation is here in greater majesty in greater clearness and glory than in it self when it is freshest and fairest It is the very Iustre and effulgency of the Godhead it self all transparent the Divine Essence at once shining thorow it filling it cloathing and comprehending it as a Temple founded upon it self framed by it self of its own most immediate Light and clearest brightness The King's Daughter is said to be all glorious within and her Garments of wrought Gold Psal. 45. The first Marriage is that of the most High and holy Trinity to which eternity it self is the Marriage-day celebrated with Joys and Glories transcending all measures or bounds The Father and the Son are here mutually the Bridegroom and the Bride while both are in both the Father in the Son the Son in the Father the Love-Spring in its lovely and beautiful Image the Lovely-Image the first and highest Beauty in its Love-spring the first the sweetest the fruitfullest Love and Fountain of Loves The Holy Spirit the conspiration of both these in One is their Marriage-band and Marriage-bed where they preserve entire their Unity and their Distinction in a most blissful Union to make their Loves and Joys more full From this Marriage-bed doth flow the God-like Race of Divine Ideas surmounting all numbers and natures of things The second Marriage is in this Middle-Glory between the Uncreated and created Beauty joyned together in one Divine eternal Person and Spirit The Divine Nature is here the King and the Bridegroom this created Spirit is the Kings Daughter his Queen and his Bride This Queen is described to be all glorious within and to have her Garment of wrought Gold The Hebrew word within signifieth properly in her Person in her naked Face which are within all her Garments and Vails Her God her Bridegroom Jesus in his essential Image her eternal Idea is her Person her Face her internal Form Thus is she all glorious within For the Lamb himself her Bridegroom is her Glory The Glory of the Lord himself in his eternal Splendors enlightneth all within This Queens Garment is all of wrought Gold The word Wrought signifieth properly a work of Eyes set all over the Garment So Dr. Hammond expoundeth it Her Garment was all over set with round Oes like so many Eyes or Suns wrought in Gold The created form of this Spirit being the pure lustre of the eternal Sun the Divine Essence is the Queen's Garment The numberless Ideas of the Divine Nature in each of which the Godhead it self is entire in its Sacred Unity comprehending all its Ideas or Variety in a Variety entirely thorowout infinitely fresh and new form in this Garment secondary Ideas their own most immediate fairest and fullest Effulgencies or Life-Pictures In every one of these is this Queen also according to the Original Patterns in her Father King and Bridegroom compleat with all the full Glories of her Person and equally distinct in a new Variety of all her Glories as a new Queen a new Person a distinct Spirit These are the Divine Suns and Eyes in the Garment of this Queen in which the eternal Eyes and Suns shining in the Divine Essence look forth as thorow Casements of pure living and immortal Christal Each Form each distinction of every kind in the Creation here below is such an eye such a Sun wrought in Gold such a Spirit of incorruptible Glory such a Bride and Queen to the eternal King Every one in particular is a spiritual and heavenly Member all together make up the spiritual and heavenly Body of our Jesus in this Personal Kingdom of his where he in his own Person is a Kingdom to himself containing the Creator with the Creation in all their Amplitudes and Varieties married together into one Person Spirit and Glory which is to it self Bride-groom Bride Ofspring and All. See if this be not that heavenly Hierusalem the Hierusalem above which is indeed free in the spacious embraces and unlimited Amplitudes of the Godhead which at the same time is by the inviolable sweetness of a sweetly-invincible necessity the eternal Law of supream Love confined to these embraces in which she becometh the glorious Virgin-Mother of us all Is not this the Hierusalem whose heavenly transparencies whose Divine lustre whose unstain'd incorruptible Beauties and Virtues are figured by Gold Pearls precious Stones and Glass Glass of Christal Is not this that Bride of the Lamb which cometh down from God out of the Heaven of the essential Image of the Godhead as out of the Bosom of her Father and Bridegroom with this Character in which the perfection of Beauty and
the sum of all Perfections is divinely seated Having the Glory of God But let us here a while feast our Understandings and Affections our whole Persons with all our Powers upon our Jesus whom all our desires cannot equal Let us endeavour to take a more distinct and exact view of the Mediatory Glories of his blissful Person in this divinely-admirable piece his created Image For this end we will fix our eye for a short season upon the threefold Riches of this Work 1. The Variety 2. The harmonious Order in each part of the Variety 3. The Unity of the whole of each part with the whole and with it self Now gentle Reader let me humbly fore-warn thee that I may not seem too far to transgress the laws and limits of that Method which I have prescribed to my self in treating of the Mediatorship of our Lord Jesus by touching here in this part and taking in all things of the Creator and the Creature of the Fall and the Recovery of Nature and Grace I intreat thee therefore to consider and bear in thy mind when thou meetest with this these three things 1. The Person of our Lord Jesus in this Mediatory Image of which I speak unites all Here God is come down somewhat from the heighths of his unapproachable Light nearer to us Here God is with a delicate and transparent Veil of his own clearest Beams not hiding any of his Glories but tempering them after the sweetest manner to a more pleasing suitableness unto us that we may with a more agreeable familiarity and a more familiar delight feed the eyes of our minds with them Here is the Creation in the whole Circuit of it with an Amplitude and Glory far beyond far above it self Here it lies together all as one piece not only in it self but in the most richly heightned Light of Christ's Divine Person and Spirit Here it lies in Union with the Divine Nature in its essential Image filled with the eternal Ideas the numberless Original and exemplar Glories of all things composing one piece subsisting and shining in one Person together with these No Form or Person in nature drawn with greatest care and pleasure by the hand of the most skilful Painter a Titian Portogenes or Apelles or contemplated in its Idea shining in the Intellectual Light of some excellent and Divine Spirit so far transcendeth it self seen by a common eye in it self As the whole Creation with each minute part and motion is glorified here in the Spirit and Person of our blessed Jesus with an heightning far transcending the most exalted Beauties of its own proper state Here the Creation appears as the Sun-beam where it is immediately united to the Sun being far more full far more bright and crowned with the Sun This is that Divine Glass which God in his supream Wisdom hath framed that himself may have ever before him all his Works as they are presented here in one most lively and lovely view as also that his Work his Creature in this Glass alone may take a view and measure of it self of him of his way and his glory Think then Christian Reader that all things here treated of are now before thee in this Divine Spirit and Person as Flowers of Spices in those beds of Spice which are the Cheeks the Face of thy Jesus thy Beloved thy Delight Thine and Ours 2. This Discourse of the Creation and Redemption as they lie here in the Person of Christ their efficient exemplar and final Cause prepares our way for our contemplation of them in their proper places We know things by the knowledge of their Causes 3. Our stay here will be compensated with the compendiousness of our way in the following parts of our Discourse upon the Mediation of Christ. He that hath newly seen a Rose flourishing upon its stalk and root in the Garden with a more easie and transient view takes in the beauties of a painted Rose so far as he respecteth nature alone It is now time to come to a Distinct Contemplation of that threefold excellency which we mentioned The Variety in this Divine Piece the Order of the Parts the Unity of the whole and of each part 1. The Variety which renders the beauty and the delight in any piece more full is that it self be most full The things which make the Variety any where full are these 1. The Variety from its highest state extends it self to the most remote distance by even and united steps that all the distances be full 2. The Variety passeth into and loseth it self in the Contrariety carried to its greatest heighth and to the utmost point This most enlargeth the Variety most heightens and sets off the Unity the Beauty most excites enlargeth and heightens the Understanding This is of so great a moment this containeth so Divine a secret so high a mystery of something surprising transporting beyond that which is understood that no Work of God or of man wrought with any skill wanteth it or rather hath not the greatest skill laid out upon it to carry it farthest No Work pleaseth our Eye our Ear our Mind all falls flat to all where the Shades the Discords the Contrarieties are wanting The wisest man saith of the wisest God in his Ecclesiastes That God hath set one thing over against another that man may find nothing to add to the perfection of his Work Light and Darkness Life and Death Contraries one opposed to another How in an History in a Theatre do we take the greatest pleasure to have afflicting passions of pity fear grief raised in us even unto sighs a real melancholy and tears while we know that this is only a part in the whole a Scene which adorns and heighthens the beauty of the whole and then loseth the melancholy of its shade and discord in the universal lustre and sweetness 3. In the last place that which makes the Variety full is the return of the whole thorow the Contrariety by a sweet and full close into its Unity the return by the Contrariety from its low estate to its first and most perfect heighth The Lord Jesus in his Mediatory Person is the fairest the richest Draught or Portrait of the Divine Design and Work as it lies in the Divine Mind animated and heightned by the most immediate intimate mutual Union with the Divine Mind Here therefore is to be expected the most ample Variety The Lord Jesus is stiled in the Scriptures The Wisdom of God He is the Wisdom of God in every sense 1. He is the Wisdom of God in the Divine Mind 2. He is the Wisdom of God in the Divine Work brought forth from that Mind 3. He is the Wisdom of God in the Divine Model of that Mind and Work intervening between both and uniting them Proclus defines Wisdom to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a fulness of things Our Jesus is the highest Wisdom the first the fullest the richest Variety St. Paul gives to this Wisdom the
Epithete of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a large Gallery or Porch in Athens painted at the cost and order of Pericles by the most skilful Artists with the most exquisite skill and with that which is the most heightned point in this skill for life and delight the greatest Variety was called from this peculiar excellency the Variety in the Pictures 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Our Jesus is replenished and adorned with the richest Variety of Divine Forms which that Divine Painter Naetura Naturans the eternal Nature the eternal Spirit is capable of bringing forth Thus is our Jesus become not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Porch or Gallery of Divine Variety for God himself and all his holy Ones to walk in Here do they contemplate themselves the Ideas of their own Spirits all their Works in their liveliest and sweetest Figures Ah! how is the King how are all his glorious train tyed eternally in this Gallery But thus much for the first excellency in this Mediatory Person of Christ. 2. The second is the Harmonious Order of all the Parts These are five 1. Divine Love in its eternal Original or the Divine Unity at its full heighth This is Jesus Christ in his Godhead as he is the essential Image of the Godhead One with the Father as he is the Head the Root the Bridegroom To himself in his created Image sprung forth from subsisting in the Bosom of the essential Image and Glory All Forms in the heighth and exactness of their several Distinctions in their first their fullest Variety are here at the heighth in the absoluteness of the Divine Unity which is most heightned purity the perfection of Light and of Love 2. Divine Love descending into an Image of Light or the supream Unity in a clear and sweet Union with Diversity This is properly our Jesus in his Middle-state in his Mediatory Image Here are all forms of things with all their Distinctions at once in the most perfect Unity and in a Diversity with a subordination Yet is this a clear and shining Diversity a Diversity without distance or division every where full of the Divine Unity 3. The third Part in this Glory of Christ is the Divine Love declining into a shadowy Image or the Divine Unity shaded with the Diversity yet sweetly figuring it self upon the Diversity and subsisting with all its Glories beneath it This is the Divine Love in a sweet sleep fill'd with a pleasant dream where all the Divine Forms vailed with the shading Diversity seem to act a Divine Masque to the Divine Musick of eternal Love seeming to sound at a great distance thorow these shades In the first of Genesis a deep darkness is the ground of the whole Creation This is exprest by Bohu and Tohu Bohu He is in it Tohu the last bound ultima linea rerum This is the Chaos the ground of the first Creation a Divine shadow which the Divine Glory casteth from it self with which it surrounds and vails it self in which himself with all Divine Forms doth lie as the glories of a Plant in its seed under the Earth or as Man with all his Intellectual Angelical Divine Powers Notions Glories in a deep sleep This the Jews call the darkness round about the Throne of God and apply to this the black Locks like a Raven upon the Bridegrooms head of fine Gold in the Canticles This is the Philosopher's Materia prima Metaphysica first Metaphysical Matter out of which Angels Coelestial Bodies Elementary Forms sprung as Flowers out of the ground of Paradise Out of this Darkness God called the Light of the first Day the Primitive Light of the Creation which by varying it self with the Diversity of shades from this ground of the Divine Darkness springs forth into all the several Lives Forms and Motions thorow the whole Nature of things This is not the true Light which hath no darkness in it but the shadowy Image of that Light The Darkness out of which and in the midst of which this Light shineth is the sweet sleep of the eternal Love The Light is the pleasant dream in this Divine sleep Thus Man the Diapason or full Musick of the whole Creation composed of all the several Forms as several Notes is said to be made Betzelem in a shadowy Image of God The same word is used by the Psalmist where man is said to walk in a vain show In which respect the Holy Spirit pronounceth the purest Beauties and Joys of the earthly Paradise to be Vanity Dreams and no more the shadows or figures of things in a Dream Man in his best state is altogether Vanity I beg thy leave Christian Reader here to make use of that History if not in an Allegorical yet an accommodated or Allusive sense God cast Adam into a deep sleep and then divided Eve from him and brought them together again no more as one person but two Before the Spirit had said God made man Male and Female made he him As if Man had been then like the Angels which neither marry nor give in marriage but comprehend both Sexes with all their Progeny as a full Quire in one Person in one Spirit For thus they say of Angels Every one is both Male and Female in himself a God-like Unity diffusing it self within it self into all Variety with a Divine amplitude without division or distance But thus our Jesus first is both Bridegroom and Bride within himself he comprehendeth the Divine Nature the Universal Image of the whole Creation in one Divine Person Spirit Life Image Joy and Glory But then by the Law of the eternal Harmony in the Divine Nature in its essential Image he falls into a sweet and deep sleep In this sleep as in a Divine dream is the Bride divided from her Bridegroom Now they with their Race of Divine Forms meet in diverse Persons as shadows of themselves Yet do they in their Peâ—…sons in all their Motions bear the Divine Impressions and amiable Figures of their eternal Ideas in the Love and Light of eternity These eternal Ideas while they sleep in these shadows yet awake beneath them above them to act them to shadow forth their own Sweetnesses and Beauties upon them These shadows of this dream are indeed shadowy compared with the eternal Glories yet have they a real Being a real existency in theiâ—… own place and order But we will now pass to the fourth part of this Divine Piece 4. This is the Divine Unity opening it self in the shadowy Image into a Contrariety the utmost point of its Variety This is the Divine Love in a storm in its dream and sleep The Divine Love is here in a disguise God who is Love calleth the Work of Wrath his strange Work The ministry of the Law and the Letter which casts a Vail upon the Face of God is the same in the Language of the Scriptures We read in the Revelations Of the Wrath of the Lamb. Wrath is the
Beauties as a new ground and root beneath all This is the form of the wrathful state The ends of eternal Love as it acts this part under a disguise next to the Ultimate end the eternal Glory in the Divine Idea are these The shadowy Image beneath which the true and eternal Glories lie as in a sleep is discovered to be a shadow and then dissolved The darkness of its ground arising to swallow up the Light of the Divine Figure in this Image when it hath so manifested it self vanisheth away in a moment being swallowed up into the eternal Light of the Divine Love Eternal Love in the Person of Christ now sings that Song O Death I will be thy death The Ideal the eternal the truly Divine Lives and Beauties from the Mediatory Person of Christ which lay hid beneath the Foundations of this World and shadowy Image now spring up in the shadowy Image by its dissolution Now the shadowy Image riseth again into its Ideal Divine Life and Form Now is it with a solemn and universal Joy married to its eternal Idea its Original Pattern and Archetype in the Bosom of the heavenly Image the Mediatory Person of our Lord Jesus Now is that shadowy state of the Creature and the scene of wrath in that shadowy state like a Masque at Midnight when Princes are married a triumphant enlargement of the Varieties a Divine heightning of the Beauties and Sweetnesses in the Joys of this Bridegroom and Bride the Creature and it s Ideal Glory its Original Form eternally united in Jesus Christ. Thus I have endeavoured to represent the proportion and harmonious Order of the parts in this heavenly Person of our great and glorious Mediator The supream Unity is the supream Love and Light This descendeth by just degrees through all steps of the Variety unto the lowest figure and obscurest shadow of it self Through the darkness of this shadow it brings forth it self into the remotest distance of Contrariety Through this Contrariety dissolving the shadow and breaking up the darkness it returns by even degrees to its own first heights Now gentle Reader stay a while contemplate with me the divinely admirable Order Harmony Beauty of this part the Contrariety which is the proper Seat of all Disâ—…der Discord and Deformity 1. This is the Wrath of the Lamb the eternal Love and Meekness which maketh it self a Sacrifice to its own Wrath. This is eternal Love in a disguise All pleasantnesses in the Face of the supream Love and Beauty our Jesus our God lie hid beneath this Vail 2. It is in the deepest shade and darkness of the most shadowy Figure of it self that Love springs up into this strange Form In the holy Gospel we read of the Kingdom of Heaven That while the men of the Kingdom slept the Enemy came and sowed tares In the 73. Psalm It is said of this state of wrath at the 20. verse As a dream when one awaketh so O Lord when thou awakest shalt thou despise their Image or shadow Eternal Love seems sweetly to sleep in the earthly Paradise by its descent with all its true and substantial Glories into a shadowy Image In the depth of this sleep this state of wrath springs up as a troublesome dream By the trouble of the dream is Love it self awakned by which awakning the trouble and the dream both vanish and as empty unsubstantial things lose themselves in the sweetness of eternal Light Ficinus esteems him a great Person who saith to himself of all things here It may be that all this is a dream 3. This is a new scene of Variety which the Divine Unity openeth in it self by which it declareth its amplitude and greatness Here are all forms of things again entirely new at the greatest height of Variety in their Contrariety Here also are all Forms of things anew in a new and Divine Figure inasmuch as the Contrariety also beareth the Divine Impression of its own proper Idea in the Divine Mind As the fulness of the Divine Mind with all its Ideas and glorious Forms meet in that Idea above So doth the Divine Image with all its Glories form it self into a new Figure with a Divine Variety in this state of Wrath. 4. See how the Goodness the Justice the Power the Wisdom the Holiness of God are here illustrated and glorified The Divine Goodness and Love by descending through a shadowy darkness into the Contrariety of Divine Wrath gives occasion to the Creature to rise up into its Contrariety of Sin that this may be the mark of the Divine Displeasure This is the Glory of the Divine Goodness and Holiness that sin can take no birth and have no place but in its Wrath when it is vailed beneath this strange Form of Contrariety and Enmity As this Enmity hath no Object but the evil of Sin So sin hath its birth and place to this alone as its proper end that it may be the mark of the Divine Wrath that the Goodness Purity Love of the Divine Nature may be manifested in its high and irreconcilable opposition to the Evil the Filth the enmity of Sin Now these two Contrarieties heighten themselves one by the other till they come to their utmost point Then the Contrariety of the Divine Wrath as an unquenchable flame swalloweth up in it self the enmity of Sin Then doth this Wrath also having lost the force of its opposition by losing its Object lose it self also in the Beauties of the Divine Goodness and in the sweetness of the Divine Love Yea the fire of this Contrariety not only consumeth it self but the darkness also and the shadowy Image where it hath its seat and root By this dissolution the eternal Love re-ascends to its Throne where all this scene of wrath and shadows rise again into a Life of Glory and remain as eternal Beauties and Sweetnesses in the unsearchable rich Variety of the Divine Beauty and Love Here they remain as eternal heightnings of all their Sweetnesses and Glories How unexpressible is the Wisdom and the Love in the contrivance of this Scene by which all these things are brought to pass in it Eternal Love it self our Jesus in its own Divine Person and Form comes forth into the midst of this Contrariety He heightens both to the utmost extremity by making himself the Object of both He comes full of Grace and Truth So he raiseth the evil of Sin which hath its Kingdom in shadows lyes and enmity to the highest rage of opposition against himself Then he takes the guilt of all Sin thus heightned upon himself exposeth himself as a Sacrifice for it to the fiercest flames of the Divine Fury While these flames seed upon his Sacred Person they at once consume all the evil of Sin by consuming the whole shadowy Image in its Divine Root In this blessed Person the fire of Wrath meets with all the Beauties all the Sweetnesses of the Divine Holiness the Divine Love and Goodness In these it meets with
Godhead it self with open Face with all its unclouded Sweetnesses all its unvailed Glories fills all springs shines forth with golden smiles in every part cloaths the whole Image is the Unity of all the Person in all This is the first Unity the Unity of the whole 2. The second is the Divine the Personal Unity in each part Such is the Virtue such is the undivided simplicity of the Spiritual the Divine Unity in this Person that the Unity the Person the Variety of the whole is equally perfectly entire and distinct in each part in every point of the whole Thus as there is one Body and many members so is Christ in this his spiritual and heavenly Body But such is the spirituality the heavenliness of this Divine Body this Divine Person that in every distinct Member the Unity of the Person and of the heavenly Body the Person in its full Amplitude in the greatness of its Majesty the whole Body in all its glorious Variety is most compleatly the same and distinct in every member Thus we read that in the Throne of God and the Vision of his Glory represented by Ezckiel and St. John The Lamb was in the midst of the Throne as the Center dissusing it self through the whole Circle There appeared also in the midst of the Throne four living Creatures which are interpreted by learned Divines to be four principal Ideas the four-fold Spring and Head of all Ideal Lives and Glories into which the supream and universal Idea the Lamb immediately distinguisheth it self like the Fountain of Eden in its four great streams These four living Creatures are so described that every one hath its own distinct Form that yet all are said to have one and the same Form Every one is said to have the form of a man which is the entire and universal Harmony of all forms the form of that man which rides in the Firmament above the heads of them all the Lamb himself This is the second Unity 3. The third is the Unity of all parts with each other and with the whole Every part equally subsisteth and shineth in all the other parts and in the entire Face of the whole as in it self being every where most perfectly distinct and the same So we read concerning those four living Creatures Whithersoever the Spirit of the living Creatures was to go they still went forward and never turned This is the force of the Unity of each part and with the whole Without change at once every part stands distimctly in every form of Beauty Pleasantness Glory In all the richness of their Divine Motions and Activities ever full ever new The beautiful and Divine Face of each part of the whole in each part standeth and looketh at once every way in every part of the whole and in the whole Now have I finished the three-fold Excellency of our Jesus in this Divine Image and Mediatory Glory Before I pass from it let me entreat you to cast your eye for a little space upon two Divine and delightful sights here 1. There is no particular Form so little or so low there is no privation so empty or so dark which hath not its two-fold Idea or Archetype here We read That Death and Hell are open and manifest before the eyes of the Lord. Where are the Forms of things so divided and broken as in the dust of Death What privations so shady and black so empty and desolate so deformed horrid and dreadful as those of Death and Hell Yet are Death and Hell manifest before the eyes of the Lord. Is not this Jesus the Divine Glass and Light in which alone all things appear to himself and to his Father Are not these Archetypes or Ideal Patterns in Christ both the Divine Eyes with which the eternal Spirit looketh upon all things and the Divine Objects which alone he beholdeth with these Eyes the Divine Images in these Eyes Then Death and Hell all particulars all privations are evidently and eminently here in the beautiful Form and Person of our blessed Mediator Here they are in their proper Ideas in their distinct and heavenly Patterns their eternal Truths But here they are no more particulars or privations inasmuch as every part every point of this Divine Image where these Ideas are seated is both the Center diffusing it self through the whole Image and a Circle comprehending the whole with its full Majesty and Glory in its own distinct propriety and form Thus the Psalmist sings divinely of this heavenly Mystery to Jesus Christ. The Darkness hideth not from thee but the Night shineth as the Day the Darkness and the Light both alike This is the first of those heavenly sights to which I invited thee 2. See if our Jesus in this Mediatory Image be not the Jerusalem above ever new altogether heavenly our Mother which bringeth us forth under the Apple-Tree the Tree of Love in the heavenly Paradise which beareth us upon her sides and dandles us upon her knees through our whole course in all our motions and changes of our Birth Life and Death which milketh forth from her Breasts abundance of Glory upon us See if this be not that City of the living God having the Godhead it self for a Foundation where all things dwell together in their heavenly Patterns and eternal Spirits See if this be not Jerusalaiim two Cities in one compacted together by one eternal Love into one eternal Spirit and Person the created and the Uncreated Image where the First-bron the whole Creation in general all Creatures in particular in their first-born Original Images and Truths dwell together See if this be not that Kingdom of God universal over all the last of all without end eternal which is Righteousness Peace and Joy The Righteousness of all Divine incorruptible Harmony and Beauty the Beauties of Holiness the Beauties of the Divine Nature in its most unstained unmixt highest Purity that Peace and Joy which is the most ravishing Harmony of all things as they spring shine and sing together in the Unity of the Divine Light Life and Love in the ever dear and delightful Person of our blessed Mediator I have proceeded thus far in our Discourse of the Lord Jesus as he is the Mediator of the Creation the way by which God descendeth into the Creature and the Creature cometh forth from God To this end he necessarily toucheth both the extremes is immediately united to both and unites both in himself in a middle state between both I have spoken of the Lord Jesus as he toucheth the extreme above and is God with God the essential Image of God the Original Seat and Image of all Forms of things in their first state We have treated of him in his middle state where he is the Union of God and the Creature of all Forms of things uncreated created joyned together in one Light and Spirit of Glory I now pass to the third Consideration of our Mediator as he toucheth the lower extream of the
Creature as its proper Seed He is the seminal Virtue which puts forth it self through the whole Creation from the beginning to the end in every Essence of each Creature in all the powers of every Essence in all the operations of each Power He is the seminal Reason the seminal Form and Proportion which springs up equally in like degrees in each Creature together with it in all the states and modifications of it forming it and figuring it in all Thus saith St. John when he treats of him under this term 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ratio the Reason of all things and that in order to the Creation that without him or apart from him nothing was made or came to pass that was made or came to pass He lives he dies he flourisheth he falls he triumphs he suffers in all with all In him was Light saith St. John and that light was the life of man The Life of Christ as it was in Christ the Seed of every Creature was the Life of the Humane Form the Light of all Forms as they meet together harmoniously in the Humane Form or as they appear distinctly in their proper places to man to serve and entertain him This was the Light of every Form as it sparkleth forth in all its Qualities and Acts as it appeareth in all states and changes This Light of Life in Christ was the Life and the Light of every Beauty every Sweetness every Form of things in every Creature Together they did spring together they did fade being ever inseparable So was the Creature continually figured and framed in all states by the immediate inseparable presence of the Lord Jesus with it When the Creature falls and dies by sin then also is Jesus Christ slain in it and by it If the Life in Christ be the light of man and so of all things then is the retiring of this Life like the setting of the Sun the darkning of all the over-casting of all with the shadow of Death But then this eternal Love the Lamb our Jesus dies by our death together with us that he may become in death a Sacrifice to expiate the guilt of his blood lying upon us So he becomes also the Seed of immortality and the Resurrection from the Dead that as he riseth we also may rise in him together with him Yet is the difference great between his manner of dying and ours He knows what he doth in both these Deaths We know not at present what he doth nor what we our selves do in either of them He sins not falling short in nothing of the Glory of God which ever fills his Heart his Eye and his Hand through all darknesses and deaths he carries on the Ideal Glories of both the Archetypes his two superior Images and so the universal Design and Beauty of the whole Work in the Creation which is to be a compleat figure of these having its beginning and ending in them By virtue of the Personal Union he at once carrieth down with him the Light of all the Glories the Musick of the universal Harmony in both these superior Images into these Deaths and also comprehendeth these Deaths in the Light of these Glories in the Musick of this Harmony as part of the Glory and the Harmony This he doth as the Head the Seed the First-fruits of the whole Creation Thus he lives and dies in every Creature Thus they that are new born into him most beautifully most blessedly live and die together with him 2. I pass now from the first part of the Mediation of Christ that in the first Creation the descent of things the coming forth of the Creatures from God I come to the second Part the Mediation of Christ in the new Creation the Redemption the return of the Creature to God I shall endeavour to set before you this Mediatory Work of our Jesus of our God and Saviour First In the parts of it as they lie in the Person of the Lord Jesus the Head and Pattern of the new Creature Secondly In the progress and propagation of it through the whole Body belonging to this Head 1. The parts of it most commodiously for my purpose are contained in this three-fold Division 1. The Incarnation of Christ and his Life in the Flesh. 2. The Sufferings and Death 3. The Resurrection and Ascension of our Lord Jesus 1. The first part of the Mediation of Christ in the Redemption is his Incarnation and Life in the Flesh. We have seen the eternal Light and Love our Jesus our God gradually descending in a three-fold form 1. We have seen him in his essential Form and Godhead comprehending all Varieties of things in their Original and eternal Glories 2. We have seen him in his Mediatory and spiritual Form the Marriage of God with the Creature in one Spirit and Glory where all the Uncreated Glories and all the Creatures according to their distinct Essences in spiritual and incorruptible forms as two are one 3. We have had a delightful view of the same Jesus in both these Divine Forms set with innumerable and distinct Glories descending into a shadowy Image of himself where he becomes the proper and immediate Head of the first Creation in whom all the Creatures consist and flourish together according to their shadowy Originals in the first-born strength and beauty of this created state 4. Our Lord Jesus with these universal Beauties subsisting together and mutually enfolding each other in the Unity of the same Divine Person goeth down one step lower from the beautiful face of the Earth into the dark places and nethermost parts of it This last step of his descent is at once also the first step of his Ascent and Return Together with man and the whole Creation falling by sin he also falls but altogether without sin He subsists in the whole Creation and in each particular Creature beneath the universal Ruine being the weight of all Here he is the Seed maintaining the Remainders of the Divine Image in nature obscured deformed wounded broken and slain Obscured deformed wounded broken and slain in it together with it He maintaineth the Relicks of the Life of this natural Image in the midst of death This he doth by a new spring of Grace opening it self in fallen Nature by the virtue of his Mediatory and essential form now putting forth themselves through his shadowy form in the Creature thus lapsed Thus is he both in one the old Seed of the first Creation and the new Seed of the new Creature which thus in the heavenly Image of the Mediatory Form of Christ makes its way and breaks forth through the ruines of the earthly Image This is the promised Seed the Seed of the Woman the Seed of the Divine Image both in Nature and in Grace which gives a new Birth to Nature This Seed propagating it self through all Generations in the fulness of time when the season is now for Eternity to shine out through the extended shadow of Time and to
Glory the eternal Spirit St. Austin in his Discourses of the Trinity interprets the mission or sending Christ by the Father to be his coming forth out of the invisible Glory of the Father into a visible state and form The invisible Glory being immutable undivided and unconfined comprehendeth constantly in it self after its own manner that visible Form which it sendeth forth from it self Object How do we say that the Manhood of Christ was a Spirit in its Resurrection when he saith in one place to his Disciples A Spirit hath not flesh and bone as ye see me to have In another place he shewed his hands and his side to the Apostles Joh. 20. 20. Again he calleth to Thomas Bring thy finger hither and see mine hands and bring thine hand and put it into my side and be not unbelieving but believing In a visible form he ascended before the eyes of the Apostles and a Cloud took him up out of their sight Act. 1. 9. To this I give three Answers Answ. 1. Jesus Christ intended not that these outward appearances of a natural Form to their outward and natural senses should be in themselves alone any demonstration of his Resurrection and Glory Did not he know that all their senses were equally capable of being deluded by a Fantom or an Apparition of the Devil If Satan can change himself into an Angel of Light to the deluding of our most noble and Divine Faculty our Understanding can he not as easily by the same skill and power change himself into any known or agreeable Object to abuse any of our senses might not he either by false Species or Images impressed upon the outward Organs of sense the natural Spirit the Imagination or by thickning and forming a Body of Air counterfeit the softness the warmth the solidity of Christs Flesh and his Wounds to the touch and to the hands of St. Thomas as well as to his sight and to his eyes Histories of those affairs which write them with greatest Authority and best Reputation tell us of dissolute Persons who have seemed to themselves in the warm embraces of a delightful Person on a soft and rich bed who yet in the end have found themselves with a filthy sow in the mire Answ. 2. We read in Daniel that the Bodies of the Saints in the Resurrection shine as the Sun in the Firmament When Jesus Christ was transfigured his Face did shine as the Sun in its strength If then the Body of our Lord Jesus risen from the dead did remain flesh still yet certainly it was rarified and heightned to such a degree of Spirituality and Glory that it could bear no resemblance to the natural Body the Flesh of Christ in its Humiliation upon the Cross stained and broken with Wounds with Blood with Agonies with the forms of Death invading it Can we think a glorified Body could bear any proportion to our natural senses when our own reason according to the Rules of Philosophy teacheth us That a sensible Object if it excel destroys the sense Our experience makes this plain to us in the Sun which shining clearly forth is uncapable of being lookt upon by us chastizing us with a blindness even to inferior Objects if we dare to cast our eyes upon him yet is he in his brightest Glory but a shadowy Figure of the glorified Body of Christ and of his Saints For when Christ shall appear in his glorified Body and the Saints in their glorified Bodies shall appear and shine in their full splendor with him the Sun shall have no glory before this excelling Glory but be turned into Sack-cloath as the Stars lose their light when the Sun riseth upon them Can we think then our eyes our natural senses or those of the Apostles capable of discerning or taking in the Glory of Christs spiritual Body in its proper and true Form when he was risen from the dead Answ. 3. The holy Spirit saith expresly of these appearances of Christ to the natural senses of the Apostles immediately upon that History of St. Thomus Many truly therefore and other signs Jesus wrought before his Disciples Joh. 20. 30. We read also concerning these appearances of Christ to the Apostles that Jesus Christ presented himself to them alive by many signs or wonders for the space of forty days appearing to them and seen by them These then were Signs or Miracles wrought by Christ which had no force in the outward Form any farther than the eternal Spirit with a Divine Power and Glory wrought in them and shined through them Such Signs and Wonders were the Images of things presented of old to the eyes or imaginations of the Prophets which were of no use any farther than the eternal Word the Glory of God opened it self to the Spirits of the Prophets through them at once discovering them in it self and it self in them So now the Lord Jesus by these Signs to the outward senses at once opened fortified heightned enlarged the Understanding and the spiritual senses of the Apostles and presented himself to them with his whole Man-hood Soul and Body risen into the Glory of his Mediatory Form and of his Divine Nature Here he set before them all those fleshly Forms of his Humiliation of his Incarnation Life and Death through which he had passed in their proper Forms of their several seasons not as shadowy Images to shadowy senses but as the essential eternal Truth the Spirit and Life of them as Mysteries and Glories unvailed and sealing themselves upon the spiritual senses of those whose eyes were thus anointed to behold them This was the sight which Christ presented to Thomas when he said to him with words which carried a new Creation along with them be not unbeliving but believing This was the sight which Thomas saw when he cryed My Lord and my God The Ascention of our Lord Jesus is his passage out of his Mediatory Form and Glory carrying that also up together with himself into the Glory of the Father Jesus Christ distinguisheth between his own Glory and the Glory of his Father Luke 9. 26. When the Son of Man cometh in his own Glory and the Glory of his Father and the Glory of his holy Angels The Glory of the holy Angels is that of this Creation which is subjected to them in which they are according to the Language of the Scripture Principalities Powers and Thrones His own Glory the proper Glory of Christ which he calls his own Glory is that of his Mediatory Form The Glory of his Father transcendeth that shining forth in the supream Unity and purest simplicity of the Godhead This three-fold Glory Jesus Christ united in his own Person Through this three-fold Glory he ascended taking up all with him into the highest Glory He cometh again in the Spirit of Glory and of God as the Root of this three-fold Glory putting forth himself gradually in it through the Saints till by springing and forming himself in them he bring them also