It were well therefore if all Controversies in Religion were reduced to this main Querie What is that Divine Nature Man is capable to partake of in the prevailing activity whereof he may be enabled to follow God fully resist the devil stedfastly and live in the certain assurance and clear evidence of eternal Life By the divine Nature which a chosen generation are made partakers of 2 Pet. 1.4 we are to understand the humane or creature-creature-nature in Christ's person called divine by a communication of properties In this blessed Mediator between God and man it pleased the Father all fulness or perfection should dwell creaturely and divine Col. 1. 19. In him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily Col. 2. 9. In him also dwels all the fulness of the creature spiritually or in its most heavenly spiritual sublimated capacity and incorruptible form Christ that is perfect man is also perfect God very God of very God the very form or invisible image of God so some render Col. 1. 15. which seperately considered in distinction from all creature-nature in him is meerly and singly the object of God's own uncreated understanding absolutely uncommunicable invisible or undiscernable to any meer creature capacity natural or spiritual for ever The highest Nature or Principle of life in any person does by way of prerogative give the denomination and derive its title to the whole person and all that is in him when compleatly subjected to â—â—s ruling influence Thus all that is in Christ who is a person undisputably Divine is also called divine So where the Principle of new-creature Life or Life of Faith is sown by Christ in any man though it be but as a grain of mustard-seed Luk. 13. 18 19. it will spring up into such a prevailing exercise of its spiritual senses over all fleshly first-creation Life and principles in him that his whole person may thence be called a spiritual man David on this account was called a man after God's owne heart 1 Sam. 13. 14. though he had such a remainder of his fleshly nature yet about him as did lust and strive against the Life and operation of his spiritual form so as that after this choice Character of his person from God's own mouth it carried him by a kind of violence into some particular enormities more gross than many heathens were ever guilty of from their Cradles to their Graves in a longer life upon earth than Davidâ—ived â—ived But the solution to the above mentioned Querie requires at least a glance farther upwards into some brief contemplation of the Trinity from such proper language and expression as they are exhibited to us in by the holy Ghost 1 Iohn 5. 7. and Col. 1. 15. 19. In the former of these Scriptures it is written There are three that bear Record in Heaven the Father the Word and the holy Ghost and these three are one In the latter we find these three expressions concerning Christ Image of the invisible God First-born of every Creature and First-born from the dead From these two Scriptures duly compared and explicated we might doubtless receive very considerable information touching the mystery of God and of the Father and of Christ Col. 2. 2. In the former we find the three that bear Record In the latter the Record that is born by all the three the Witness or Testimony Image Name Glory manifestation or threefold personal appearance they give of themselves in Christ. In the former is exhibited to us God as the head of Christ in his threefold essential property or spring of operation In the latter is represented Christ as the express Character threefold glory or personal appearance of the three that are one brought forth by the operation of the said three essential properties in the Godhead And as the three in the first consideration are one God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ so are the three in the second consideration one Christ Image or personal appearance of God Father Word and Spirit that manifest themselves in Christ are one Christ that is the Father Son and holy Ghost in personal appearance Name or manifestation is also one God in Christ and Christ in God are all one pure uncompounded infinite eternal God blessed for ever God in Christ is not three persons as three distinct individual men are for so there would be three Gods but may more fitly be resembled to our capacity by a threefold personal appearance of one and the same man his personal appearance in the body to his fellow mortals his personal appearance in the spirit to angels when his body is laid down and his personal apperance in both together in the rarefied and incorruptible state of both meeting together in the Resurrection God then as head of Christ is three and yet one in an absolute impersonallity or invisibility God as giving forth a threefold personal appearance of himself in Christ is three persons yet so as that he may also be said to be one person Christ and the Father are one Iohn 17. 22. To say God the Father and Christ is in summe to say all that is to be said of God if the apostolical form of sound words may find place with us 1 Tim. 1. 2. 2 Tim. 1. 2. Tit. 1. 4. 2 Thes. 1. 1 2. and Chap. 2. 16. In the second Epistle of Iohn vers 3 and 9. It is said He that abideth in the doctrine of Christ hath both the Father and the Son And he that hath them hath all even Father Word and holy Ghost revealed in and by the Son No man hath seen God the Father at any time not ever can any otherwise than as declared by the onely begotten son which is in the bosom of the Father Joh. 1. 14. and 18. So Mat. 11. 27. No man knoweth the Father save the Son and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him God and the Mediator are so one that there 's no right receiving or owning them apart He that denieth the Son hath not the Father and he that acknowledgeth the Son hath the Father also 1 Iohn 2. 22 23. Antichrist is a liar he denies the Father and the Son The true believing Christian receives and ownes both and both are one God ha's abundantly warn'd and prohibited all men in the Scriptures that they neither make nor take to themselves any single creature-formes as Images of him by or through which to worship him but onely such as he ha's given of himself in Christ before whom was no God formed or nothing formed of God neither shall there be after him Esay 43. 10. The Scriptures are plentiful in this testimony concerning God under these expressions God and Christ Father and Son God considered absolutely as in himself and God considered as the Mediator God our Saviour 1 Tim. 2. 3. The Head of Christ God the Father is three and one and in God the Son he appeares or shewes himself to be so I am in the Father and the
THE LIFE AND DEATH OF Sir Henry Vane K t. OR A short Narrative of the main Passages of his Earthly Pilgrimage Together with a true Account of his purely Christian Peaceable Spiritual GOSPEL-PRINCIPLES DOCTRINE LIFE and WAY of WORSHIPPING GOD for which he Suffered Contradiction and Reproach from all sorts of Sinners and at last a violent Death Iune 14. Anno 1662. To which is added His last EXHORTATION to his Children the day before his Death Printed in the Year 1662. The LIFE and DEATH of Sir HENRY VANE Knight Christian Readers PRepare your Faith The ensuing Narrative concerns a person who for his unweariedness in doing well and suffering ill together with the ground and spring of his deportment in both doth in very truth exceed the single reception of humane understanding He was partaker of the Divine Nature 2 Pet. 1. 4. 't is past the skill of humane nature to interpret him His attainments were too big for the tongue of Men and Angels Divine Life must have divine words words which the holy Ghost teacheth to give its own Character All other will be swallowed up of matter He had the New Name which no man knowes but he that hath it A Riddle therefore he was to man in his New Birth Nature Life Principles Ways Actions He was full of Faith and of the holy Ghost Who can expound Sampsons typical Riddle unless he plow with his Heifer The things of God knoweth no man but the Spirit of God and he that hath it 1 Cor. 2. Can any give a true account of things he hath neither heard nor seen Can any see or hear Spiritual things without Spiritual Senses or have such Senses without Spiritual Life the New Name He was but affected not to be Mystical He sighed after he longed for the manifestation of the Sons of God He desired godliness might put off its mystical dress lay aside its sackcloth that they that are all glorious within Psal. 45. might be so without too they who are the Sons of God might appear to be so 1 Iohn 3. 2. When the seventh Angel begins to sound Time shall be no longer to wit for godliness to be a mystery The mystery of God shall be finished Revel 10. 7. This Angel is ready to come forth Then Godliness will be manifest and triumphant While that is a Mystery Iniquity is so to during which he that will live godly must suffer Persecution 2 Tim. 3. 12. He that departs from evil maketh himself a prey and there is no Iudgement Isa. 59. 15. Men hear of the Divine Life in a disgustful sound of words that lie cross to their designs and hate it It disparages it discountenances the whole Scene of things seen speaking of them as of things that are not What can they think of this that see no other It judges condemns the World the God the Spirit the Religion of this World It spares not the very goodliness of flesh the wisdom the glory the righteousness of Man It declares all to be vanity that man puts value on yea man himself and that at his best estate altogether vanity a goodly flourishing but a corruptible vanishing thing The day Adam sinned he died Lost the life glory wisdom and righteousness he was created in and so his communion with God in such shadowie manifestations and resemblances of divine glory as were suited to the discerning and made up the happiness of that condition 'T is sad tydings to all those whose Life is but of the first-creation-strein lies in things seen to hear that all they have are or aime at is less than nothing and vanity Isa. 40. 17. Who can bear it Yet the design is honest and full of kindness 'T is to rid our hearts of things seen which are temporal and make room in them for things not seen eternal 2 Cor. 4. 18. While the Believers Life is hid with Christ in God and he speaks at this rate of all the visible glory and righteousness of man and much more yet against the shameful apostate and unrighteous state of Man what entertainment is he like to find There are two sorts of Princes in this World that are on horseback by turns he is against them both and goes on foot till his great master come upon his white Horse with his heavenly Armies on the like Rev. 19. 11 14. There are inward and outward Princes of this World Princes over themselves and Princes over others The former have their rational Powers restored into Dominion over their sensual whereby they become workers of righteousness in the renewed Spirit of a man Such Princes reigning as Kings 1 Cor. 4. 8. were some of the Priests Scribes Pharisees and professing Iewes who yea knew not and therefore crucified the Lord of glory 1 Cor. 2. 8. because both in his example and doctrine he gave forth the proper character and discovery of a more excellent way The latter sort of this Worlds Princes are such as do sit upon visible Thrones of Judicature furnished with Crowns Scepters and other pompous Badges of Soveraignty and Dominion over others These are often such as have no Dominion over themselves at all the basest of men Nebuchadnezzar himself the golden head of the four worldly Monarchies Dan. 2. 38. was so and accordingly handled followed not the light of his reason and therefore was turned to graze among the very beasts of the field Dan. 4. 32. The true spiritual watchman of God is to warn both these sorts of Princes and all others the righteous and the wicked the one that he turn not from his righteousness or rather that he seek the righteousness of God in the true regeneration which cannot be turned from The other that he turn from his wickedness and work righteousness Ezek. 18. and Chap. 33. Will men bear this Can he that is a man of a marred visage one in whom the glory wisdom and righteousness of man is daily passing away spoil'd and triumphed over by the cross and spirit of Christ give this twofold witness against these two sorts of Princes and their Nations called Revel 13. two Beasts in all their flourish and ornament of things seen and will they not stone him will they not be ready to tear him in pieces Divine Life together with the Wisdom and Words of it seems such foolishness and is so distastful to man that let the person of the true spiritual watchman be cloathed as David with the outward Pompe of Thrones and visible Scepters this shall not secure him from the ill word of the Judges or from appearing so contemptible as to become the song of drunkards Psal. 69. 12. 'T is the divine Life men chiefly hate and strike at all along from Cain downwards but can hit onely the humane the Woman that brings it forth The natural man of the Saint is persecuted into a desolate wilderness condition but his spiritual part the Man-child is caught up to God and secured from the persecuting Dragon Rev. 12. 5
proper Character of distinction from all other Principles 'T will be requisite here to take notice of all the Principles of Life and Operation Man is capable to be found in or does actually live and come forth in the exercise of That Nature that gives the distinguishing Form or Character to any Creature and is the immediate spring of all its operations is the proper Principle of its Life be it divine angelical humane or sensual Nature The Faculties or Principles of operation scituated founded and rooted in each Nature to wit the discerning and desiring powers called in Men and Angels Understanding and Will do receive their respective denominations from the Nature they are seated in and belong unto and so are tearmed divine angelical humane or sensual Principles of operation For instance The Understanding and Will of participated divine Nature in the true heirs of God are divine spiritual heavenly and high The Understanding and Will of meer humane Nature at best are but natural fleshly earthly and comparatively low holy flesh is but flesh Ier. 11. 15. Renewed refined adorned Nature is but Nature a goodly beautiful but a perishable thing as the flower of the field Isa. 40. 6. As the man is so is his strength so are his works The righteous works brought forth but in the ruling activity of renewed humane nature entring into competition with the righteous works duties and ordinances observed and performed in the Life and ruling activity of participated divine Nature become more loathsom to God than all the debauchery and shame of polluted Nature that is but the result of Adams first transgression and not of the reiterated and more fatal Apostacy in our own persons after a revival from our naâ—ive death in trespasses and sins Those that bring the righteousness of man or the righteous works performed in the single power of renewed humane nature into a self-exalting preference to the righteousness of God or the righteous works and duties performed in the ruling power of participated divine Nature taking the humane into a subordinate co-operativeness therewith may find what entertainment they are like to meet with from Christ in the case of the foolish Virgins and of those that cast out Devils or preach down the corruption that the devil brought into our Nature Mat. 25. 12. and Mat. 7. 22 23. Depart from meâ— I know you not ye are workers of iniquity That 's the answer to both plead while they will or say what they can Casting out Devils preaching the corruption of Nature down the righteousness of it up so as to render men wise strong and honorable in Christ 1 Cor. 4. 10. Is this offensive No But the telling them this is the place or state of their Rest concerning which the Master saith Arise depart let us go hence this is not your rest Micah 2. 10. Joh. 14. 31. You are liable here to return with the dog to the vomit draw back to perdition to be afresh invaded and finally triumphed over by sin and Satan as is expressed 2 Pet. 2. 20 22. Heb. 10. 39. and implied Rom. 6. 14. You must therefore quit this first-creation-state and forme of life at best by way of sacrifice Rom. 12. 1 2. or you will never come to the Father whither Christ is gone to prepare Mansions for those that follow him whithersoever he goes No man can be thorowly happy and at rest till this corruptible be dead in and with the Lord by which meanes onely we may come to inherit incorruption Here 's the highest sense of Ante obitum nemo c. No man can be blessed till he die He that is made willing thus with Christ to lose Life shall find it and whosoever will save his Life shall lose it and never attain the Life that is unchangable and eternal Mat. 16. 25. The corruptible frame of man at his best estate was never intended or warranted by God either in the primitive purity or greatest possible renewals thereof to be the place of God's rest or the state that Man should rest in One crucified broken-spirited man that 's made willing to be taken in pieces and be so joyned to the Lord as to become one spirit with him is more valuable to him than all men and angels or whatever glory and excellency is to be found in the whole first-creation Isa. 66. 1 2. The Heaven is my throne the Earth is my foot-stool but where is the place of my rest All these things hath mine hand made in the first creation I look for regenerated transformed new-creation things in order to which the old fabrick or tabernacle must be taken down To this man will I look or have respect even to him that is of a poor and contrite spirit This is the place of my rest so Isa. 57. 15. Man in his first-creation frame or in whatever renewal of it since the Fall is but the house on the sand founded on the mutable wavering Principles of humane Nature Many that pretend to be great master-workmen in Divinity warrant this for the right building on the rock that will stand it out in all stormes the true spiritual building 1 Pet. 2. 5. into which they need never fear Satans return as Mat. 12. 44. or any fresh Invasions and Revolutions of their old sins into the exercise of dominion over them again They cause their hearers and followers to hope that they will confirm this word Eze. 13.6 But the walls of this building are faulty as wel as the foundation They daube up all with the untempered mortar of refin'd humane Nature nothing of the divine Nature wisdom and righteousness of God will be admitted into their building Building therefore and builders will all tumble together when the storm comes and then also will the sandy foundation thereof be discovered vers 13 16. Blind leaders and blind followers will both into the ditch together Mat. 15. 14. Both these buildings Mat. 7. 24 27. had their beauty their glory while both stood To man's eye that with the sandy foundation and untempered walls generally carried it The more visible literal natural godliness in their renewed flesh or humane Nature and Principles look'd fairer to man that judges by outward appearance then the spiritual mystical hidden Life and Godliness in the house upon the rock which has nothing but the broken crucified transformed Principles and more undiscerned cooperations of humane Nature to set off its self by to man's judgement The Children of the first house or kingdom of Christ shall be cast into utter darkness and many heathens publicans sinners and Mary Magdalenes shall be taken over their heads and caused to sit down with Abraham Isaac and Iacob in the spiritual house 1 Pet. 2.5 the building on the rock Mat. 7. 24. the second and more excellent kingdom that cannot be shaken Mat. 8.11 12. Heb. 12.26 28. Esay is reckoned very bold for saying this Rom. 10. 19 21. Isa. 65. 1 2. which Moses said before him
secure in the Throne will not fail to domineer over the other trees fig-tree vine olive or whatever else as if it were really the best of them all and no man must say to the contrary Yea to such unimaginable degrees of folly and presumption are the souls of men liable to be baffled by the devil and their own hearts as 't is not altogether improbable men of debauched consciences and bruitish conversations may think the superiority and dominion over men of Principles and Conscience was theirs of old and though now and then interrupted will be returned back into their hinds again as their right Man that is called a little World may receive instruction from what is observable to him in the greater for the giving of him aim how much he is concerned to be yeelding up all inferiour Life and operation in him to the sacrificing knife and transforming activity of the divine Nature or heavenly manhood of Christ in order to be reduced into an absolute harmony with subjection thereunto By this change he receives his own again with usury He loses the good holy but corruptible vanishing Life liberty and righteousness of the Sons of men and findes in the room thereof the more excellent most holy incorruptible marvellous light life wisdom righteousness and glorious liberty of the sons of God He findes himself enabled to do all things for the Truth in the power of God's spirit and disabled to do any thing against it in his own disabled to sin against God and wrong his own soul such weakness is his strength such captivity is his glorious liberty Thus Paul was made weak in Christ when others were strong and reigning as Kings in the single activity of their own renewed spirits which they also had from Christ 1 Cor. 4. 8. 10. But his weakness was better than their strength his seeming folly and despicableness better than all their wisdom and glory That the life righteousness glory and freedom of man at his best are but corruptible things all the World are my experimental witnesses say what they will to the contrary They are therefore to be accounted but as dung and loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ after the spirit for the wisdom righteousness and Life â—id with Christ in God the glory that excels Let us turn over and read the book of the visible creation and see what occurrs there conducible to this purpose The elements are content to loose their own single natures essences properties formes and qualities and run together into a quintessential compound distinct from them all The Earth parts with its vigor for the production of vegetables These again do readily surrender their life without resistance to feed the beasts of the field and thereby find their own life again with usury by way of resurrection in subjection to and association with the sensual life of the Beast The beast again looses its life becomes a sacrifice to man finding its own sensual life again with usury by way of resurrection in conjunction with and subjection to the rational life of man This rational life of man being yet but a corruptible first-creation-thing is by all this significant instruction from the very book of the Creature as also from Christ himself and his great Apostle Mat. 16.25 Rom. 12. 1 2. abundantly informed that it is its true interest to be given up in sacrifice to the divine life and find its own again with usury by way of resurrection in the life hid with Christ in God All the former sacrifices deaths and resurrections of inferiour creature-natures to one another and to man as also the subjection of vegetal and sensual powers in man to rational are but typical significations and teaching resemblances of this last and greatest of all beyond which there is no other Those that will not adventure to offer up this holy and reasonable sacrifice their rational Life Rom. 12. 1. in hope of the better resurrection Heb. 11. 35. but chuse to remain in the single glory and soveraign activity of renewed humane nature the great master of the family himself intimates to them that this is but the state of servants that abide not in the house for ever whereas those that are made willing to resign the life and soveraignty of their own nature and principles and become willingly subject to communicated divine life and God therein are the true sons that abide in the house for ever Iohn 8. 35. But between the natural first-creation Life of man and the spiritual or divine Life by the new-creation the great deceiver as transformed into angel of Light when he sees us gazing after this superiour dispensation is ready to present himself to us as Christ in spirit or the holy Ghost and obtrude upon us angelical Nature of the first-creation-frame onely to keep us yet short of the divine In this posture finding men dissatisfied in their natural and legal attainments he makes the same demands that Christ himself makes requires the intire resignation of their wills and understandings unto him so as not to think their own thoughts speak their own words do their own works or find their own pleasure but wait in a passive silence for his dictates and inspirations and speak onely such oracles as his beguiling serpentine wisdom teacheth The condition they are brought into by this imposture is so much the more dangerous by how much the more secure and confident they are under it as cherished and pleased with some delusive raptures of joy from this flourishing deceiver By this means he labours to gain more and more upon them till they resign themselves totally up to the conducting influence of angelical nature This is that voluntary humility and worshiping of Angels Col. 2. 18. The devil attempted to bring the humane nature of Christ himself to his lure in this main point of all even to worship him or become subject to his influence Mat. 4. Luke 4. This last and great deceit of the adversary together with the false mortification of things seen attending it where he prevails is notably charactered page 340 and so on to the 350th page of The Retired man's Meditations All first-creation Nature sensual humane or angelical comparatively with divine spiritual new-creature Life is but shaddow letter or significant figure and resemblance Any of these therefore terminated or rested in whatever it be from the lowest shrub of sensual to the tallest Cedar in the first-creation angelical nature so as that man resolves to sit down under the ruling influence and protection thereof as the highest principle of Life he will ever be induced to own this will appear in conclusion to be down-right idolatry All obedience also to the Commands of God in the Scriptures performed onely in the ruling activity of any first-creation nature in us humane or angelical is but serving of God in the oldness of the letter of the first-creation not in the newness of the Spirit of the second
into an absolute compliance and unchangable harmony with his will Rom. 12.1,2 Crucifie the flesh with the affections and lusts Put off the old man These and many other Scriptures of like import do all together and each of them apart compendiously imply the whole duty of man even all that God requires of him which is to humble himself under the cross of Christ and walk for ever with the Lord. So Psal. 50. 23. whoso offereth praise glorifieth me So the Septuagint render it in Greek In the Hebrew 'tis whoso sacrificeth confession which the Caldee renders whoso slayeth his evil or fleshly concupiscence that is the fleshly or natural mind The renewed mind of man is out a labile wavering corruptible thing This is not onely to be confessed but the confession or thing it self that is confessed thus to be is to be sacrificed and offered up to God by a living active faith If not it will resist the spirit of God refuse his new-creation work seek to save its own life keep it self whole and unbroken and fo will evidence it self in conclusion to be that carnal mind that 's enmity to God and works eternal death to man Rom. 8. 6. To come roundly and freely off with the sacrifice of self in the full Scripture latitude thereof by a thorow self-resignation is the great duty of man and the onely true and acceptable offering of praise to God Truly and substantially to praise God amounts to no less than this offering Le ts not please and delude our selves with a noise a found of words shadowes for things substance truth 28. Know then O vain man that without works thy faith is dead Jam. 2. 20. What works the works of an active saving faith the fruits that flow from the proper spring and principle of new-creature Life in man One great work of this faith is to lay hold on the unchangeable and everlasting righteousness of God in Christ's person Another great work of it is to crucify the fleshly mind or principles of humane nature however renewed so as for ever to disable them either for working sin or righteousnesse in the single first-creation activity or Life thereof A third work of it is to enable man to worship God in spirit and truth and to perform all righteous works towards God and men in a more excellent and acceptable way and with more steadiness and certainty than ever the renewed natural mind with all its ornament and furniture could perform such things Without such a faith and the workings of it it is impossible to please God Heb. 11. 6. Thus by being disabled to perform one tittle of the Law in the single activity of our corruptible though renewed mind we come so to fulfil the whole Law in the continuing and incorruptible principle of new-creature life that against us there is no Law that has any thing to say Gal. 5. 23. Do we then make void the Law through faith God forbid yea we come by this means onely to establish and fullfil the Law Rom. 3. 31. Mat. 5. 17. They that believe in God must be careful to maintain such good works to wit the works of faith Tit. 3. 8. This is the letting our light so shine before men that they may see our good works and glorifie our father which is in heaven Mat. 5. 16. We shew hereby that God's spirit which is set up in man by the new creation is better at working righteousnesse than mans spirit that was set up in him by the first-creation Any works we do as born of God in the new-creation are better on all accounts than what we can do as made of God in the first whatever work is good in the honest Heathen or legal Christian shall be owned and out-done by the spiritual believer in his more excellent principles and way The highest Principles of Life in man include ratifie and out-do all that righteousness that is performable in the lower In such Principles was this Sufferer a worker of righteousness such a worshipper of God as the Father seeks and approves of such a true Son of peace such a peacemaker as hath bin described but reckoned a man of contention for that very reason He was content with Paul to be a fool for Christ despised for Christ the poor and needy man with David As a true Embassador of Christ and minister of the everlasting Gospel he warned and besought the sons of men to consider their own true interest in becoming not onely almost but altogether such as he was except his bonds His Life was not like other mens nor his Ministry His wayes were of another fashion as they reason Wisd. 2. 15. therefore have I writ his Life after another fashion that mens Lives use to be written treating mostly of the principles and course of his hidden Life amongst the sons of God that the sons of men may the better know and consider what manner of man it was they have betrayed persecuted and slain For this read on from vers 15 to 23 of Wisd. 2. which I quote not as Scripture but as a notable character of mens rational conviction and acknowledgements together with their false reasonings and most perverse deductions therefrom in the present case We are esteemed of him as counterfeits or hypocrites he absteineth from our wayes as filthyness He maketh his bâ—ast that God is his Father Let us see if his words be true If he be the Son of God he will help him and deliver him from his enemies Let us examine him with despitefulness and torture that we may know his weekness and prove his patience Let us condemn him with a shameful death for by his own saying he shall be respected Such things they did imagine and were deceived for their own wickedness hath blinded them As for the mysteries of God they knew them not nor discerned the reward of blameless soules Thus not owning any need of an Apology for having been so large in the exposition of his divine Life Principles and Doctrine save onely this that I have spoken these things rather as an instruction to the living than an Apology for the dead I return to the more publick and overt acts of his humane pilgrimage and conversation amongst men having mentioned the private passages thereof in the beginning Would you know his Title in reference to his countrey He was A Common-Wealths-Man That 's a dangerous Name to the Peace and Interest of Tyranny I have lately met with two new State Paradoxes in Print which speak ruine to all that own that Title 1. That the Common-Wealth is not safe while Common-Wealths-Men are alive 2. That the Lawes are not safe while they are alive that every day call for the aid of the Law These Assertions carry with them such an appearance of contradiction to say no more that I am not so much an OEdipus as to unriddle them The Character of this deceased Statesman with whose Principles those two sayings carry little
Synagogues Away with him away with such a fellow from the earth say they it is not fit that he should live Act. 22. .22 We find the Iewish religious party that served Paul thus striking hands with a proâ—ane Interest Act. 17. 5 7. Through envy at the spiritual believers Faith and Testimony they call to their assistance certain Iowa fellows of the baser sort set all the City in an uproar assault the house of Jason dragging him and other brethren before the Rulers of the City and crying These that have turned the World upside down are come hither also and do contrary to the Decrees of Caesar saying there is another King one Iesus This is the charge at all adventures they matter not much for proofes while they can find stones as they served Steven Act. 7. The World is turned upside down indeed But understand how O ye bruitish among the People ye fools when will ye be wise The honest Heathen is soberer than you the legal Christian is soberer than he the spiritual man is the soberest of all and he is reckoned the most disordered He speakes forth the words of greatest truth and soberness The case then is this when the World is in a mad bruitish disordered hurly burly they that attempt to bring righteousness a-floate are accused of turning it up side down Setting all to rights is reckoned the greatest Confusion The Rights of the Kingdom are reckoned the Wrongs of the King and many with whom the true native Rights of an earthly Kingdom will down are ready to startle at and resist the rights of Christs Kingdom in the Spirits and Consciences of men Even they will be ready to say of the Assertors of such Rights that they are no longer fit to live in the World that 's man's judgement The World is no longer worthy of them that 's God's Heb. 11. 38. 'T is plain God and men are of exceeding contrary Judgements concerning the true believer 'T is as plain We must all appear at last before the Iudgement seat of Christ for our final sentence 'T is plain also that we ought to obey God rather than Men Act. 5. 29. And not to be the servants of Men in things pertaining to God 1 Cor. 7. 23. From the cross constitution then which this world is generally found in to all Truth but most of all to the Spiritual and Sublimest sort of Truth it may appear what a hard time a Believer is like to have of it if he stand up for the Cause and Interest of God against the Devil who is called the God of this world 2 Cor. 4. 4. Here is the grand competitor of Christ that struggles for the Soveraignty the great red Dragon Rev. 12. 3. This is he that musters up animates and influences the sons of men to fight against God that he may exalt himself in them above all that is called God 2 Thes. 2. 4. Working in the children of disobedience at his pleasure Ephes. 2. 2. Do you see your General O ye sons of men will ye still fight under his Banner Consider the main Impostures of this self-transformer whereby you are beguiled into his Interest First He seduces your Understanding into this most false perswasision That he is the highest rational Being to whom doth of right belong the Legislative Authority and Supream Magistratical Dominion over the whole earth as God of this World under whose influence and dictates all earthly Thrones and Benches of Judicature ought to proceed in judgement Under this pretended and assumed Title of the highest rational Being he expects to be owned and submitted to as requiring no allegiance or obedience from his Subjects upon any other tearms than as he approves himself to their Consciences to mannage his Government exactly according to the Principles of humane Nature and Rules of right Reason Secondly He assumes and challenges to himself the Authority of the highest Spirit of Truth boasting himself as the infallible Teacher and Guide in matters of Faith and divine Worship in all things pertaining to the good and salvation of Souls Having thus assumed to himself these two grand prerogatives of Christ's Crown as the Supream Head not under but above Christ himself yea in direct contradiction to him in all Causes and over all persons as well Ecclesiastical as Civil 't is obvious to imagine what Titles Christ and his followers are like to have from this Dragon and his First They will boldly and openly assert that that which is indeâ—â— the spirit of Christ in him and his is an irrational Fanatick spirit destructive to all natural Order and good Government in humane Society Secondly That it is a deceitful deluding Spirit destructive to all sound Doctrine divine Institutions Church Order and Rule In these four things this grand Antichrist is the liar that denies Iesus to be the Christ. Under which Generals are comprehended multitudes of Particulars in his skilful methods of delusion needless here to be enumerated He that hath once gained these four points in the generallity of men will easily out-vote and cry down Christ and his for Blasphemers and Disturbers of mankind and accordingly handle them He prevailed even with the learned Religious Jewes to serve Christ thus Yea he attempted to seduce Christ himself to his party to own him for God fall down and worship him Christ refuses He therefore steers another course sets the Jewes upon it to call him Blasphemer and say he hath a Devil This is one step towards the accomplishing of his design when he hath once engaged men to say of Christ and his followers that they are Blaspemers and Devils he that thus makes them liars will make them Murtherers too they will soon cry Crucifie them Crucifie them right or wrong Away with them from the earth it is not fit that they should live Christ hath told us these things before hand Joh. 15. and Chap. 16. 1 and 4. that we should not be offended or surprised when they really come upon us If they have done these things to the green tree what will they do to the dry Luke 23. 31. The Servant is not greater than his Lord Joh. 15. 20. If the Master be called Beelzebub how much more shall they call them of his houshold Matth. 10. 25. Satans followers have the start of Christ's for number they out-vote them clear He ha's four hundred lying Prophets against one true 1 Kings 22. 6. and vers 20 23. I suppose you may discern by this time whether this Sufferer or his Enemies were in the fault that he was reckoned a man of Contention But peradventure this may yet grow clearer by considering his Principles He spake much of Principles What meant he Some Fundamental Truths worded and propounded in a Book as Perkins his Six Principles or the like He meant inward ruling Principles or Springs of Life and operation in men By taking a little freedom in handling this Point I shall give you aim at his Principle in its
Deut. 32. 19 21. and Christ after him Mat. 9. 12 13. Cleansedness from the pollutions of the World corruption of Nature revival from their death in trespasses and sins hinders not but Satan may re-enter old sins recover dominion and so the members of that building on the sand that kingdom or heaven that may be shaken Heb. 12. 26 27. may come to be trees twice dead fit only to be plucked up by the roots cast into the fire and burned Iude 12. and Heb. 6. 8. 2 Pet. 2. 20 22. Mat. 7. 22 27. and Chap. 12. 43 45. Ezek. 16. 38. And as it is not the present freedom from natural pollution so neither is it the ornament of excellent gifts supernatural or infused humane learning much less natural parts and acquired humane learning the tongue of men and angels all dexterity of expressing â—heir conceptions either intuitively or by a sound of words incident to those two choicest ranks of treasures in their first-creation-capacity that can secure them from being but as sounding brass or tinckling cymbals 1 Cor. 12. 31. and 13. 1. Ezek. 16. 1 15. A great noise they may make a great repute they may have as the onely compleat interpreters of the Oracles of God yet all amounts but to an indistinct uncertain sound No man can tell thereby how to prepare himself to the battel 1 Cor. 14.7 8. and Ezek. 33. what weapons or what armour to provide They give no right character of those spiritual weapons mighty through God for the pulling down of strong holds in our selves and others 2. Cor. 10.4 or of that whole armour of God Ephes. 6. 11. wherein alone the true believer is able to wrestle it out not onely against flesh and blood but against Principalities Powers Rulers of the darkness of this world and spiritual wickedness in high places vers 12. The onely new-creature spirit in man that is greater than he that is in the world 1 Iohn 4. 4. is set at naught by those that warrant the first building secure is contradicted blasphemed called the devil The wisdom of God is by them tearmed the wisdom of the Serpent Did not matters go thus between Christ and the Master-builders in Religion amongst the Iews They reject the chief corner stone Psal. 118. 22. Mat. 21. 42. and how is their house like to stand it may indeed be emptied of filth swept cleansed garnished with excellent gifts and ornaments Mat. 12. 44. 2 Pet. 2. 20. 1 Cor. 12. 31. Ezek. 16. 9 13. Yet in all this flourish there may be a deep unsuspected ignorance or inadvertency of the more excellent way the way of love or state of divine Life wherein the stones of their building members of their Churches are capable to be brought forth by being broken and formed up anew into an unchangable harmony and indissoluble union of spirit with the Lord 1. Cor. 6. 17. If this be gain-said the onely spirit and spiritual harness that accommodates men for a successful contest with the devil and all the powers of darkness is wholly laid aside How then shall we fight the battels of the Lord when that very faith is decried as a diabolical fiction that is the onely principle of Life in men whereby to undertake resist conquer triumph over the devil and swallow up death it self into victory Let us no longer be flattered by our crafty over-reaching adversary into a security and satisfaction in such armour and weapons as he knowes he can strip us of at pleasure and re-enter The renewed spirit of man however accomplished and adorned with spiritual gifts the wisdom the righteousness of man are not the spirit the weapons the armour of God nor can secure any man from the most fatal and irrecoverable apostacy Many stars of the first magnitude as to all this glory and ornament have often been known to fall from this kind of Heaven or Kingdom of man's righteousness Besides all the sad instances in former ages for this have not the late years of Englands deliverance brought upon this stage of ours and exhibited to our view multitudes of teachers and professors who have notably shined forth in this glory wisdom and righteousness through the knowledge of Christ after the flesh accompanied with excellent gifts and yet through a spirit of enmity and contradiction a root of bitterness springing up in them Heb. 12. 15. against the more excellent way the Life of Faith the Cross of Christ the true Circumcision which worship God in the spirit Phil. 3. 3. have most evidently apostatized from and lost even that they had yea and have been the meanes of betraying the whole Nation afresh and rolling all back again into more insufferable bondage than ever We may say and hear this with weeping And moreover do we not yet daily experience an instability in such principles ornaments weapons armour Are not multitudes of professors at this pass still yea and nay off and on with God and so with sin and satan to And will it alwayes be so well Will these wavering Principles this unstable kind of life and righteousness if not quitted for a better be ever able to secure us from a final parting with God and entire closing with the devil as one spirit with him The unstable nature of man's first-creation at best must either ascend into a fixed union with Christ in spirit and so contract an everlasting disability to any thing which is evil 2 Cor. 13. 8. or else it will descend into a fixed union with the devil and thereby contract an everlasting inability to any thing that is good The first created freedom of man's will to good and evil the liberty of the sons of men however renewed again by Christ will be finally swallowed up either into a diabolical freedom to evil onely and not at all to good or into a divine freedom to good onely and not at all to evil which is the glorious liberty of the sons of God wherewith Christ makes those that receive him free indeed John 1. 12. and Chap 8. 36. Let us then put off the armour of man even of the renewed old man as David did Sauls and put on the whole armour of God the new man which after God is created in wisdom righteousness and true or everlasting holiness Ephes. 4. 24. Then the spiritual Goliah will certainly fall before us 'T is the divine new-creature-Life onely with spiritual weapons can over set all his power of darkness and detect all the crafty stratagems and methods of delusion to the last period of his mystery of iniquity Professors in the first-building flourishing in the wisdom glory and righteousness of the Law or of the ruling activity of renewed humane Nature and rectified rational Powers though received from Christ himself as no mean fruit or benefit of his death if they oppose contradict and blaspheme the true fighting conquering and reigning principle of divine Nature in the second they do thereby become worse than those foolish and contemptible
toyes The Devil then that 's called the God of this world together with his fallen angels knows exactly what this world amounts to knows all inferiour nature humane amongst the rest through and through He can tell where to have man and fit him at every turn He thorowly knows all the things he is to tempt him with and he thorowly him that he sets himself to tempt and so is compleatly accomodated for his seducing work in all points And this will be his course till he be sealed up in the bottomless pit which will be Synchronal with Christ's coming forth to reign Rev. 20. But if once man become a new creature by receiving either the single or double portion of the spirit he passes out of the devils hands This manchild is quite out of his reach Revel 12. The spiritual believer that is partaker of the divine nature in the â—ence above expressed is partaker of the wisdom holiness and righteousness of God Then he is wiser than the Devil if the wisdom of God be superiour to the wisdom of that Serpent This is a thing one did once spitefully tax this Sufferer with as boasting that he was wiser than the Devil because on some occasion that was offered he replied He was glad he lived in a spirit the Devil was so little acquainted with Sure he that lives in the spirit of God lives in a spirit that is superiour to the devil and that he is little acquainted with The lowest degree of wisdom light life and glory in the new creation is above the highest excellencies and glory of any nature or creature in the old He that has but the single portion of the spirit and that but in seed will be too hard for that roaring and devouring Lion will resist him effectually and finally in the stedfast faith of God's elect 1 Pet. 5. 8 9. Even babes and suckling in the Life of grace shall be able to still that enemy and avenger with all his shews and flourishes in Natures â— excellencies first-creation power or things Psal. 8. 2. 16. 'T is observable from the sentence passed upon the Serpent that the devil and his angels are yet alive He with Adam and Eve are summoned to appear before Christs Tribunal to answer what each of them had done in that business of the fall His sentence runs thus Because thou hast done this thou art cursed above all cattel and above every beast of the field upon thy belly shalt thou go and dust shalt thou eate all the dayes of thy Life Angels and men the highest ranks of Creatures in the first world are comparatively with the new-creature state of men and angels in the second world reckoned but as cattel the choicer sort of the beasts of the field Satan with his retinue of fallen angels does yet live His diet is dust As God of this world he has all sorts of beings and excellencies of the first creation before him This is the dust he feeds on and feeds others with This diet he offered to Christ himself when he was hungry His trade of seducing mankind managable by these things he has been at well towards six thousand years 'T is a Rabbinical observation that these six thousand years of the worlds labour under this seducing work of the devil as plunged in that wicked one were resembled by the six dayes works in the creation of it a thousand years being with the Lord as one day The seaventh thousand the Iewish doctors held to be typified by the Sabbath day in which the world should rest from this bondage under the God of this world They observed also that the Sabbath is not described as the other six dayes by an evening and morning as having no darkness at all in it that so it might more fitly represent to us the perpetual joyes and light of the New-Ierusalem or World to come During the six thousand years of the Worlds miserable thral dom and labour under the Satanical yoke righteous men are perpetually oppressed from Abel downwards and there is no judgement for them to be had in this world But in the seventh thousand year the seventh day of the world they will be in their proper Sabbatical state and nothing shall hurt in all the holy Mountain or kingdom of Christ. The light glory and wisdom of the first creation when men or angels are deteined and held by them from entring into the more excellent glory of the second are but as chains of darkness upon them When Satans time is come to be sealed up in the bottomless pit at Christs coming forth to reign this yet does not absolutely and finally strip him of his first-creation flourish but onely suspends his exercise of it as to his former deceiving of the nations thereby till the thousand years be fulfilled and then he comes forth again for a little season to deceive the nations and engage his whole party of angels and men in order to the giving his final utmost assault to the New-Ierusalem camp of Christ and all his Saints the beloved City So far he will â—e permitted to proceed herein as to besiege it with a kind of seeming hopefulness to outvie it in a flourish of spirituality and in the state of the resurrection in order yet to carry the Kingdom and dominion from Christ and all his saints Then fire comes down from God out of Heaven upon him and his on the New-Ierusalem's ascending into their utmost glory of the resurrection and full vision of God for evermore and then nothing but torment wil be their portion for ever and ever when perfectly stripped of all first-creation glory enjoyments and fixed in the second death however he cozen men with conceits even to this day that those torments shall have a period and all shall be saved In Rev. 20. we have an account of these particulars 17. What are the Old and New Testament as written Books representing the mind of God in a sound or sight of words but Letter Shadow or significant Figure of natural and spiritual-creature perfection in Christ and men in men as natural and spiritual properly distinguish old and new creation Life in them Men of a first-Covenant old Testament old Adam natural or legal spirit are all one thing So are men of a new Covenant new Testament second Adam new Creature or truly evangelical Spirit the same In the former is the Life of the Law or the ruling activity of rectified humane first-creation Principles In the latter the Life of the Gospel or the ruling activity of the new-creature Spirit and principles One is the Legal professor the other the Spiritual believer One is under the Law of Nature or the first Covenant the other under Grace the Law of Faith spiritual Life or the new and everlasting Covenant 18. The Law of Nature and of the first Covenant are the same thing in man but as to the perfection of them in or upon man this difference is observable Man
in his first creation as he came out of the hands of God had the Law of Nature or the ruling powers of natural Life in full perfection inherent and operative in his own person The same Law of natural or first created Life and perfection is renewed by Christ in men as to kind so as also to be inherent and operative in them in some degree but the deficiencies of inward personal sanctity and of inward and outward operations are made out by the compleat righteousness of the Law as wrought by another person for them and imputed to them for their justification before God upon the tearms of the first Covenant qualifying them for communion with God therein In this sence Paul was according to the Law blameless to wit under this comliness of God put upon him In the other sence as to inherent personal perfection 't is said 1 Iohn 1. 8. If we say we have no sin we deceive our selves and the truth is not in us 19. As to the whole bulk of the written Oracles of God there is frequently given the proper character both of the Law and Gospel Principle or state of Life in the old Testament as well as new but of the latter more eminently and plentifully in the new 20. There were true spirituall Saints both before and under the outward dispensation of the Law Enoch Noah Sem Heber Abraham David and many others and there are sowre narrow Pharisaical legal-spirited Christians under the outward dispensation of the Gospel at this day 21. Even the first Covenant or Legal state of first-creation Life and Principles renewed in men comes to them in the way of Gospel or through the glad tydings of the mighty Redeemer who was promised to Adams under the name of the womans seed that should bruise or break the Serpâ—â—â—s head Gen. 3. 15. This he did by dying through death destroyed him that had the power of death that is the devil Heb. 2. 14. Thus Christ died for all 2 Cor. 5. 14 15. to recover all again out of that dead sleep in trespasses and sins into which they were cast by Adams first transgression and to set them upon their first-creation â—eâ—t again in order to a new trial of their personal demeanour in that great point Adam first miscarried in as to the loosing the Life quiting the righteousness wisdom and lesser glory of their first-creation for that which excelleth in the second the tree of Knowledge that puffeth up for the tree of Life that edifieth Thus was Christ a propitiation not for the sins of his elect onely that of the whole world 1 Ioh. 2. 2. Here 's all the general Redemption the Scripture holds forth 22. If these things be so what signify all the voluminous Controversies of the Pelagian and Antipelagian Arminian and Antiarminian Supralapsarian and Sublapsarian about Free-will general Redempton and the Like What Free-will is it the one pleads for the other denies Only such as Adam was created with the wavering Liberty of the sons of men the object whereof is natural good and evil As for spiritual new-creation things they were in themselves in their own naked essence clear out of sight to Adams discerning at best which was but natural They were onely representable and understandable to him in a riddle through some first-creation shadow the Tree of Life Neither of the above mentioned parties in all their warm digladiations and pickeerings once dream of a distinct superiour state of Life and Liberty that should swallow up all that of the first creation into victory bring it forth again with uâ—ury and great gain by way of resurrection in the glorious Life and Liberty of the sons of God the spiritual eternal Life and Freedom to good onely and not at all to evil But whoever returns not into the exercise of his retified first-creation Principles and Liberty as a general fruit of Christ's death 't is his own voluntary default He sins against God and wrongs his own soul he hates Christ and loves death Prov. 8. 36. He refuâ—es the righteousness and glory of his own humane nature and chuses to be a beast 23. But what lies in man to do towards the superiour and more excellent dispensation and way by which he should be led forward into the glorious Liberty of the â—â—â—s of God and eternal Life 'T is answered He hath power in the right use of his natural freedom not to resist it but upon experience of the insufficiency of the selfish spirit and wavering Principles of his first creation to submit all the Life and glory thereof to the fiâ—e-baptism in order to the being brought forth in a more excellent state that is unchangable 'T is not in man to do any thing towards his new creation as neither did he contribute any thing towards his first make But God makes such proposal and offer of this new-creation work to all mankind as not one man fâ—iles of being made a new creature but it will be most righteously interpreted by God to have befallen him through his own voluntary default in neglecting refusing and resisting that offer Where comes in the difference then A remnant according to the election of grace obtain it the rest are voluntarily blinded and fall short Rom. 11. 5. 7. That saying of Austin is not amiss God will not save any man whether he will or no but he will make that man willing to be saved that he resolves to save He may do what he will with his own Mans first-creation Liberty misused in this great point brings forth this sad truth Thy destruction is of thy self O man And Gods reserving singly to himself the forming up of the new creature and the prerogativeâ— Liberty of effectually and irresistibly disposing of this great favour where when and to whom he pleases brings forth that excellent truth That our salvation is onely and meerly of God as Sir Francis Bacon observes in his Confession of Faith Who then maketh men to differ one from another the new creature from the old Man makes himself to differ from the new creature or spiritual man by his voluntary rejecting and despising this more excellent Life but God alone makes him that is a new creature to differ from the old And this indeed is the proper meaning of difference in such cases To differ is to excel Phil. 1. 10. That ye may approve things that excel or differ So 1 Cor. 15. 41. One star differs from or excels another star in glory Thou wilt say if the case â—e thus Why doth God yet find fault For who hath resisted his will Those that he hath elected and is resolved to save he will effectually and irresistibly make willing to be sayed and they will certainly be saved and no others Nay but O man who art thou that replict against Goâ— Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it why hast thou 〈…〉 He may make vessels of honour or dishonour as he pleases amongst Iewes or
harmony I shall exhibite to you in a paper of Verses composed by a learned Gentleman and sent him Iulâ— 3. 1652. VANE young in years but in sage counsel old Then whom a better Senatour ner'e held The helme of Rome when Gowns not Arms repell'd The fierce Epeiroâ— and the African bold Whether to settle 〈…〉 to unfold The drift of hollow states hard to be spell'd Then to advise how war may best upheld Move by her two main Nerves Iron and Gold In all her Equipage besides to know Both spiritual power and civil what each meanes What sâ—vers each them hast learn't which few have done The bounds of either Sword to thee we owe Therefore on thy firm hand Religion leanes In peace and reckons thee her eldest Son In the former part of these verses notice is taken of a kind of angelical intuitiveness and sagacity he was furnished with for spying out and unridling the subdolous intentions of hollow-hearted States however disguised with colourable pretexts of Friendship This rendred him a choice Senator an honourable Counsellour for publick safety The Widow of Tekoah said to David My Lord is wise according to the wisdom of an Angel of God to know all things that are in the earth 2 Sam. 14. 20. Will you say this was a flattering hyperbole What think you of that in Amos Surely the Lord will do nothing but he revealeth his secrets unto his servants the Prophets Amos 3. 7. The king of Syria took counsel saying In such and such a place shall be my Camp against Israel Elisha sends to the King of Israel saying Beware thou pass not such a place and the King of Israel sent to the place the Seer of God warned him of and saved himself there not once nor twice 2 Kin. 6. 8 10. On this the King of Syria suspects that some about him discover his projects to the King of Israel No my Lord O King saies one Elisha the Prophet that is in Israel tells the King of Israel the words thou speakest in thy bed-chamber vers 11 12. Hereupon the King sends a great Army of Syrians to apprehend the Prophet They come to Dothan where he is But by the assistance of an angelical host in the Mount he baffles out all their Forces as before their Counsels and secures Israel from their Incursions for the bands of Syria came no more into the Land of Israel vers 13 23. So Ezekiel when in Caldea was present in spirit at the City Council of five and twenty at Ierusalem took exact notice of their Deportment Debates and Resolves in direct contradiction to God's messages by the Prophets himself Ieremy and others and what befel them thereupon He saw Pelatiah the Chair-man or some chief member of the Council fall down dead Ezek. 11. 1 13. A Statesman of such a spirit that can at whatever distance know the Debates and Resolves of the enemy as if he sate in Council with them might advise and contrive things with best advantage to his Countrey without such a company of chargeable wast-pipes of Spials at home or Correspondents abroad as is usual But was this deceased Statesman a Prophet All Futurities are treasured up in God but does every one that sees God see these The Schoolmen acknowledge that all the most contingent and voluntary actings of the Creatures with all future events whatsoever have bin eternally present to God's intuition whose understanding is infinite Psal. 147. 5. They hold him also to be Speculum voluntarium a voluntary Mirror so as not all that see him see future events or the present actings of their fellow creatures at a distance but onely such angels and men unto whom he is pleased to make a particular discovery thereof for the managing of his designes in the World Let this be granted yet whoever is partaker of the divine nature or spirit of Christ though but in the single portion thereof lives undeniably in a spirit and discerning superior to what is to be found in any first-creation nature whatsoever humane or angelical He that lives in this spirit knows not onely this or that man by personal converse but humane nature mankind what it amounts to how â—'â—will act where it will be next He comprehends it knowes the most curious and otherwise imperceptible motions of every wheele in it Many believed in Christ but he knew what kind of Faith they had a temporary one that onely that cast out the devil and made them men again wash'd their humane nature not baptized them into the divine He would not therefore trust them for he knew all men he knew what was in man Iohn 2. 23 25. He knew they had but the faith that might draw back to perdition which soon after appeared for when he came closse to them in the testimony of spiritual or eternal Life which is the free gift of the Father issuing out of his discriminating love these disciples went back and walked no more with him Iob. 6. 65 66. The true Divine is a man of another a more excellent spirit than other men with Caleb Daniel and Christ himself He sees the whole frame course and way of man in Sanctuary Light weighs him in the ballance of the Sanctuary knows what he will do and what will become of him notwithstanding any present flourishes He knows he has but a slippery standing will be brought into desolation in a moment and utterly consumed with terrors Psal. 73. 17 19. The person here treated of was with Noah a preacher of righteousness with Abraham one that did command his Children and houshold after him that they should keep the way of the Lord. His Life and Doctrine seemed to carry much of demonstration in them that he was one of the peculiar Favourites of Heaven had that double portion which prepares and qualifies men to sit down in due season with Christ upon the Throne in a superiority to the elect Angels the singular prerogative and reward of Christ's Servants the Prophets beyond what falls to their share who yet are his true Saints and everlastingly saved People that fear his name Rev. 11. 18. This Prophet or Seer of God in the midst of the greatest successes in the late war when the Churches Parliament and Army reckoned their work done thought their mountain so strong that they should never be moved said the bitterness of death and persecution is over and that nothing remained but with those self-confident Corinthians to be reigning as Kings 1 Cor. 4. 8. he discovered himself to be of another Spirit with Paul He could not reign with them When they thus mused and spake We shall sit as a Queen we shall know no more sorrow he would be continually foretelling the overflowing of the finet mystical Babylon by the most grosly idolatious Babylon and the slaying of the true Witnesses of Christ between them both as the consequent of such inundation Has not he had his share in the accomplishment of his own prediction Have not
Christ and God The holy angels will not fail to exercise their Magistracy in an exact subserviency unto and consonancy with Christ. When the Monarchy of this world lodged for a season in the hands of men is degenerated from the golden head of it in Nebuchadnezzar to the iron leggs and feet of it part of iron part of clay so as that it is become extreamly universally remedilessly oppressive to righteous men then is the season for those angelical powers that put seven years interruption even to the golden head to come forth in a general dispensation of justice to pluck up by the roots every thing that offends Christ and his followers all the world over These Principalities and Powers these invisible Thrones and Courts of Judicature have from the beginning and all along this worlds duration been in the exercise of a super intending Magistracy over the highest powers amongst men In pursuance of the decrees of these watchers Dan. 4. 17. These observers of the wayes of men as Hesiod calls them in subserviency to Christ have particular Angels been sent forth and commissioned to punish the proud insulting Monarchs and bruitish People of this world and to minister for the heirs of salvation Heb. 1. 14. The Sodomites when they assaulted Lot were smitten with blindness by two Angels that Christ sent that way while he tarried with Abraham Gen. 18. 22. and Chap. 19. 11. So were the Syrian Army before Dotham served by the like angelical powers at Elisha's prayer 2 King 6. 18. By these were the two Captains and their fifties slain at Eliah's prayer 2 King 1. 9 12. Seventy thousand Iews were slain by the Angel that David saw by Arannah's threshing-floor 2 Sam. 24. 15 17. An Angel meets with Balaâ—m to stop him in his covetous and ambitious design for the effective cursing or contriving mischief to those whom God had blessed He caused the very dumb Asse by speaking with man's voice to reprove the madness of the Prophet 2 Pet. 2. 16. An Angel in one night executes one hundred eighty five thousand Assyrians before Ierusalem 2 King 19. 35. An host of Angels appears at Mahanaim to Iacob to relieve him against Esau Gen. 32. 1 2. King Herod in all his flourish of outward pomp making an eloquent Oration to them of Tyre and Sidon and owning that flattering shout and acclamation of the People it is the voice of a God and not of a Man was immediately smitten by an Angel because he gave not God the glory and was eaten of worms Act. 12. 20 23. Many things of like nature have been oft performed by Angelical powers in a way of discountenance to corrupt worldly Magistrates for the protection of good men heirs of salvation They are the highest meer creature Powers unto whom Christ has put this first world in subjection as is implied Heb. 2. 5. where t is said That he hath not put the world to come in subjection to them There that lower sort of glorified men above charactered that have but the single portion of the spirit are equal to them and those that have the double portion will judge them 1 Cor. 6. 3. or be scituated in a superiority of life and discerning to those Principallities and Powers in heavenly places Ephes. 3. 10. These ministring Spirits we see have often come forth to preserve the bodily Life of Saints from the rapacious talons of corrupted worldly Magistracy at some certain critical seasons and junctures of time that the main designes of Christ in the world required it But this has been but checker work a white and a black The same persons that have been relieved at one time have been left exposed at another to the rage and violence of their fellow mortals Eliah had Angels at hand to destroy the Captaines and their Companies that came to apprehend him another while upon Iezabels menaces he flies and hides for his life And many thousands of Saints have been abused and lost their lives under the tyrannical powers of this world which Satan is called the God of But when the time draws near for him to be bound and sealed up in the bottomless pit the good angels will come forth in a more general visible and universal discovery and exercise of their magistratical power in assotiacion with the risen Witnesses and at their prayer of Faith will do execution speedily and irresistibly on any that shall affront their persons or testimony Rev. 11. as is above signified This they will do in the preparatory work to Christs personal coming forth to reign And when he comes himself these are that flaming fire in or by which he will take vengeance on them that know not God and obey not his everlasting Gospel and so will it be all along the thousand years Reign The like ministry shall then be exercised by the new Ierusalem Saints to the righteous inhabitants of the earth admonishing them of the requisiteness of their pass by the cross of Christ and fire-baptism of his heavenly spirit out of the glory of their earthly and natural state into the glory of the resurrection to that which Christ when new risen exercised towards the two disciples in the way to Emmaus Luk. 24. 13,31 He appeared and conversed with them and then disappeared so shall the Saints in the thousand years reign acting and being as in or out of the Body at their pleasure appearing preaching to mortal men then vanishing out of their sight The devil his angels will be all fast sealed up and bound that they can't seduce or hinder men from obeying this everlasting gospel-ministrey of the New-Ierusalem Saints Then will be experienced what humane nature at its best amounts unto as to eternal life after the fairest play that can be given it no tempter no adversary being left upon the Stage to seduce or desturb it and all the warnings of its miscarriage in former instances set before it Yet if many of them shall not refuse to obey the New-Ierusalem Gospel-ministry what need can there be of the flaming angelical ministry in subserviency thereunto to do execution upon the resisters thereof Those that obey it will soon grow to a fitnesse to be translated in a moment out of their mortal state into the New-Ierusalem society as Enoch and Eliah and ner'e see death at all This is the mystery Paul tells us of 1 Cor. 15. 51 and that Enoch the seventh from Adam was both a type of in his own translation and foretold the season of to wit when the Lord cometh with thousands of his Saints to execute judgement on wicked men Jude 14 15. which say the Iewes will be the seventh thousand year of the world The first coming forth of this angelical magistracy into a publick discernableness to secure the Saints in the undisturbed exercise of their Religion and Worship preparatory to the coming forth of Christ himself may seem together with the risen witnesses to be represented by the
The World was no longer worthy of him He is therefore gone from the earth But his Person and righteous Testimony shall be â—ad in everlasting remembrance Psal. 112. 6. His eye was fixed upon a better Countrey the Saints everlasting Rest. There the wicked cease from troubling and the weary are at rest Those that have been made Prisoners and out-casts in this world as the off-scouring of all things shall rest together there They shall no more hear the voice of the oppressor Job 3. 17 18. The present enjoyments and blessedness of this deceased Saint do set him clear out of the reach of his enemies malice or my pen. He steaddily sees and unchangeably enjoyes what Paul before quite rid of his mortal body had but the transient view of in a short rapture when caught up to the third heaven 1 Cor. 12. or into that vision of God in Christ that is exhibited to the double-portioned Saint that sits on the Throne with Christ. 'T is the favourable presence of God in Christ onely that makes heaven to angels or men God's threefold various presence with his Church in and through Christ makes the three heavens That presence that is afforded in the adaequate intelligible form to the highest life and discerning of the double-portioned Saint the Bride the Lambs Wife makes the third heaven That which is given forth in the adaequate intelligible form to the elect Angels and Spirits of just men made perfect as the sutable immediate object of their discerning makes the second heaven That presence of God together with the fruits of it that in Christ is afforded to Saints on earth makes the first They have their conversation in this first heaven Phil. 3.20 or lowest kind of presence and converse of Christ in spirit They do live in the exercise of that spiritual seed and those principles which when fully awakened in the resurrection will render them fit inhabitants of the second and third heavens Paul in the short glance he had of that most excellent glory of God in Christ that is intelligible or discernable to the most exalted sort of Saints tells us he heard unspeakable words or saw unspeakable things which it is not lawful or possible for a man to utter Here then I must take off my hand and leave you to make the best you can of it in silence and wonder Thus have I cast in my small mite towards the vindication of the Person Doctrine and Way of this choice anointed one of the Lord and faithful assertor of his Countries Liberties unto Death from the groundless aspersions causeless hatred misprisions and injuries that have fallen to his share in this world There are two sorts of enemies who in the rage and vain imaginations of their hearts have reproached blasphemed assaulted affronted resisted and persecuted Christ in him They are both deciphered Psal. 2. 1. under the titles of Heathen and People I have a word of two to divide between them and speak to each of them apart My first word is to a People of God who in whatever variety of form perswasion or way have all of them with one consent separated from Rome as justly loathing and nauseating her most gross visible Idolatries and abominations They have also separated from the dry impertinent formality of a meer outward profession of Protestantisme under a superstitious Episcopacy These they have separated from on the left hand it was their duty so to do But they have also separated from or rather cast out the spiritual Believer and true heir of the everlasting Kingdom on the right hand This is their great sin that has brought a prophane heathenish superstitious idolatrous Interest over their heads again and run all a-ground They have demonstrated themselves to be of that spirit that Paul reproved in some of the Corinthian Church that would be reigning as Kings in the but renewed principles of humane nature and righteousness of man 1 Cor. 4. 8. When therefore this true heir sounded his trumpet in his RETIRED MEDITATIONS and proclaimed another sort of Saints men of another spirit other principles and a more excellent way of life to be the onely true heirs of the Kingdom and possessed of the true reigning Principle they could not bear it They have chosen rather to give the Scepter back again into any hand then the true heir of the heavenly Kingdom should wield it I mean not a Person onely but a People a People prepared for the Lord. Whoever you be that have thus demeaned your selves and sinned away twenty years Mercies and Deliverancies whatever your Judgment Form or Way be as to this or that particular Doctrine or Ordinance if you yet lodge but in the renewed old Adam state of life or first-creation spirit and principles as you have seen them above-charactered to you it is I direct this word You that are in some good measure and degree inwardly cleansed from the pollutions of this world the corruption of nature give me leave to tell you you may be thus wash'd and baptized by the word of truth into a practical experimental knowledge of Christ after the flesh and conformity with him as he was â—ound in the flesh born of a woman made under the Law for your sanctification Let me tell you further you may be made comely through his comeliness or righteousness of that sort put upon you or imputed to you for your justification You may over and above all this be adorned with many jewels and bracelets excellent gifts and the tongue of men and angels and yet fall short of the glory and righteousness of God in the new and everlasting Covenant and so may prove to be at last but sounding brass or tinkling cymbals Ez. 16. 11 12. 1 Cor. 12. 31. 13. 1. All your sanctified justified beautified and adorned state in which you flourished was but the rectified adorned first-covenant natural man and you took all to be spiritual new-covenant Life and ornament This is one of the saddest mistakes mortal men are subject to and is like to cost them dearest Their disappointment is fatal and irrecoverable Their work is exceeding dangerous in kicking against the pricks persecuting of Christ in the true spiritual believer But their case is noâ—remediless as they may see in Paul till they knowingly and malitiously say Come this is the heir let 's kill him and the inheritance shall be ours There are those from amongst these Legal spirited professors both Pastors and People that have had their share in betraying this just man in blaspheming his Principles and Doctrine in casting reproaches upon him while living and pleasing themselves to think that they are now well rid of him his Doctrine and Way by his Death Deceive not your selves His testimony has received a more signal ratification by his Death then in all his Life He warn'd you of many things In reference to one of his warning-pieces as to the making clean riddance of Antichrist from amongst us I shall ask