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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
quà ens est objectum intellectus Being it self in all its fulnesses and forms under the formality of truth that is in its own most proper formal and essential Image which is beauty it self the beauty of truth the truth of beauty in all its riches and varieties is the proper object of the understanding adaequately suited to it its entertainment its food and feast its light and life which actuates it its perfection which determines it and compleats it in its proper form and essence It is an acknowledged Maxim That good is the object of the will All things desire good Good is the object of every appetite natural and sensitive also But these are particular goods proper to those particular Orders of Being the mark to which the rational appetite directs it self the Firmament in the face of which this Dove with its wide-spread-wings flyes is the Heaven of the first and universal Good as it comprehends within its embraces all inferiour goods Thus the Will hath the freedome of all good before it a freedome for all good in its self an essential suitableness inclination and capacity to good absolutely as good The soul of man hath a three-fold liberty the liberty of its Essence Understanding and Will 1. The liberty of its Essence is the fulness of Being All Being in the highest amplest and most substantial Image next to the Original it self the Divine Essence For it is the immediate birth of the Supream Original its darling and best beloved Child although it be the younger Brother to those Sons of God the Angels yet is it as Isaac to Ismael and Jacob to Esau their Lord the Heir of all the Nursling of the Angels while it is in its minority for whom they are made to be ministring Spirits to it So hath the soul of man as an intellectual Spirit all things in its own essence within it self the supream and eternal Being in its fairest and fullest Image beneath it self all inferior Beings fairer and fuller then they are in themselves as the Face in the Glasse excels a Picture or as a Statue exactly framed in Gold or Marble excels the shadow cast from that Statue 2. The Soul or intellectual Spirit hath a liberty of understanding Here it is a clear and spacious light the immediate lustre and out-shining of the Supream Light unconfined like to that as the clearest and compleatest Copy of it next to it self In this Light it freely contemplateth all forms of things above it beneath it of the same order with it all are present before it it comprehends them all within its own circle In the same Image of it self in which it contemplateth it self it freely and unconfinedly rangeth in the midst of them taking in their various beauties distinctly and all their beauties with their most delightful proportions and harmonies united in one at its pleasure freely doth it put on all these beautiful forms the truths and essences of all things being made all things in their truest and conpleatest beauties both distinctly and unitedly So it appears to it self in the sweetness beauty reality truth of each form each figure of the Divine truth and beauty apart So it appears to it self in the unconfined sweetness beauty majesty of the forms the truths of all things united in one This with unexpressible delights it looketh upon as its own proper and compleat Image 5 in this it beholdeth all scenes of things at once within it self it seeth it self in all persons and shapes with the beautiful dresses of Divine truths acting all parts in the most beautiful harmony with the Divine truth it self in its eternal Original In all it enjoyeth within it self the truth of reality of distinction of unity as in the highest Copy and the life-picture of the supream life it self far above all other Copies This Aristotle expresseth to us when he teacheth us this Lesson 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The understanding is made all things This also we learn from him and his Followers That the understanding alone doth touch take in embrace the essences of things while all that presents it self below the understanding to the senses is only a various combination of accidents and shadows So also we learn from Plato's School That 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Understanding is the Son of God the Word of God the first and most substantial expression of the Divine Unity with all its incomprehensible fulness next to the Divine Unity it self This is in that School the only Seat of the Essences and the essential truths of all things Beneath it in the discourses of reason are the forms of these Essences as lively Pictures without in the senses the shadows only Agreeable to this also doth the sense of the sacred Scriptures seem to be which maketh man that similitude and Image in which God with all his holy Angels in all created forms of things unite center and terminate as the end and perfection of all Upon this ground is the second Person of the Trinity the Godhead in its essential Image as the most adaequate Image of it self most answering and most suited to it self and so fittest for the most perfect Union with it self as of the proper and most immediate Image with its own proper Idea 3. The liberty of the Will is equal to and ariseth from this liberty of the Understanding The Understanding as the eye of the Soul first feasteth upon the beauties presented to it in the truths of things and so inviteth the will as the mouth of the Spirit to tast the sweetness and goodness of them The good of all these forms and essential truths is that which St. Peter calls the sincere milk of the living Word It is peculiarly the Divinity that of the Original and Supream Unity which is in them The nature of good is defined by a sutableness or agreeableness This hath its root in an unity All things that agree agree in aliquo tertio The agreement of things is their meeting in an unity The Soul in its essence is the most complete and immediate Image of the Divine Unity in which all varieties of things lie virtually and eminently as in their first spring The understanding and all forms or truths of things in the understanding are the effulgency of this Divine Unity with all its varieties contained in it as they shine forth in the essence of the Soul and so become the reflexions of it self upon it self and as the highest figure of the eternal Son of God the brightness of its own glory to it self Thus the essence of the Soul and the essential Images of all truths of things according to their Divine beauties in the Soul have an essential sutableness and agreeableness to each other from that two-fold unity their unity in their Original their unity in their own proper form as it is the Image of that Original The essential inclination of the Soul to these forms of Being and Images of the Divinity and to the Divinity
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
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
inferior Being is seen ascending again according to their several steps inasmuch as it is eminently comprehended in them Thus the Descent and Ascent of things is presented unto us in the first Philosophy by division composition and resolution Being it self in its absolute fulness divides it self into potential parts which are therefore called potential because it self remaineth potentially and undividedly in each of these parts As in abstracted numbers the Unity divideth it self into many Unities then this Unity or first Being by its own unconfined power and virtue joyneth or compoundeth these several Unities or Parts into the common Unity of one particular form as a particular number Again the first Unity or Being according to the Laws and Measures of all Harmony in it self dissolveth the common Unity of this inferior form into its several parts or unities These are gathered up into their superior Unities and so return to their first Original as they return retaining their distinction still but becoming more and more absolute and universal according to the nature of those â—…perior Unities by which they ascend 2. Each Being in its lowest division and narrowest contraction beareth imprinted upon it and inseparable from it the figure of the first and supream Being For this is the first efficient and exemplar the last final cause of all things Having the figure of the first Being it hath in that the figures of all Beings in all their various Unities and Distinctions As every shadow is inseparable from its proper Body so where the figures of things are there are the truths themselves as the Original exemplar formal causes of those figures which flow by perpetual emanations from them as Beams from the Sun 3. The Omnipresence of God filling all in all even in the fullest sense as the Essence of all Essences as the Form of all Forms as the Being of all Beings in every the most contracted most obscure degree of Being as in a clear Chrystal Glass presenteth Himself with open naked face to Himself and so all things in Himself After this manner God whose Knowledge as Himself is one pure perfect eternal Act at once beholdeth all Particulars in their Universals all Universals in their Particulars according to all their several Modes and Distinctions He to whom all things are naked and bare seeth all things in every one and every one in all forms at once The night of materiality and corporeity before him shineth with a determinate Beauty with a bright Transparency as the day of spiritual substances The contracted shades and darknesses of Individuals and Particulars are as the ample and full sight of Universals From this which I have said here will easily slow my third Answer 3. Nothing is mean and vile seen in a right and universal Light Every degree of Being to the least the narrowest and obscurest Point hath Being it self in its amplitude and majesty in it without which it could not be Every thing that is in any kind or degree hath the Throne of Being set up in it with God the supream King and Fountain of Beings sitting upon it and filling it with the train of his Glories Thus look upon each Being and you will see it as a spacious Palace a sacred Temple or a new and distinct Heaven Being it self in its universal Nature from its purest heighth by beautiful harmonious just degrees and steps descendeth into every Being even to the lowest shades All ranks and degrees of Being so become like the mystical steps in that scale of Divine Harmony and Proportions Jacobs Ladder Every form of Being to the lowest step seen and understood according to its order and proportions in its descent upon this Ladder seemeth as an Angel or as a Troop of Angels in one full of all Angelick Musick and Beauty Every thing as it lieth in the whole piece beareth its part in the Universal Consort The Divine Musick of the whole would be changed into Confusion and Discords All the sweet proportions of all the parts would be discorded and become disagreeable if any one the least and least consâ—…red part were taken out of the whole Every part is tyed to the whole and to all the other parts by mutual and essential Relations By virtue of these Relations All the distinct proportions of all the parts and of the whole meet in one on each part filling it with and wrapping it up in the rich Garment of the Universal Harmony curiously wrought with all the distinct and particular Harmonies Every Distinction and so every distinct degree of Being hath its proper Original its exemplar Cause its distinct Idea in the first Distinction the Son of God in the Trinity the Divine Wisdome or Mind the essential Idea or Image of the Godhead The distinct Idea or original Image of each distinct Being is here in the form of God comprehending clearly and compleatly all distinct Ideas all the Original and eternal Truths or Images of things with their highest Distinctions in a perfect Unity in it self Every thing in its proper form is the figure and impression of this Idea The Idea and its impressed form mutually enfold and wrap up each other The lowest and obscurest form of Being reigneth shineth virtually eminently in its highest Truth with the full and distinct Glories of all the Divine Ideas united in its own proper Idea as a Throne in eternity or as in the bosome of its Father and Bridegroom both in one In like manner the Idea with all the Divine forms of things lieth seminally in each particular Being derived from it like a Divine Sun in the center of it forming it and all its motions every moment drawing its own Picture and figuring its own Glories upon them all Every degree of Being as it is a part of the whole is a Divine Variety springing forth from and comprehended in the Unity of the whole The Unity of the whole comprehendeth all parts indivisibly in it self If it were not so how or where should all the parts be compared each with other How should a judgment be made of their suitableness and proportions to each other The Unity of the whole with the full variety of all the parts resteth entirely in each part In what way or by what force otherwise shall each part be figured bounded acted to an agreeableness and correspondency with all the other parts that the universal Musick may be full and entire Reader I only offer it now to thy thoughts to be determined by thy judgment whether all that which we call materiality and corporeity do not by the charms of this Musick awaken into a Divine Company of beautiful Spirits If this be the proper Character of a Spirit an Unity indivisibly comprehending a Variety all Variety according to its rank and degree in it self diffusing it self through the whole Variety and yet resting entire in the bosome of each Variety Doctor More whose Books full of excellent Wit Learning and Piety I alwayes read with much pleasure and profit
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
most beautiful Ideas of his Skill and Wisdome Shall he not here lay on the greatest Riches of his Divine Goodness Shall he not stamp on these the most glorious Seal of his Truth his Faithfulness to the work of his hands Shall he not give the most heightned life and sweetning to this Seal of his Goodness Truth and Skill Doth not he understand that the perfection of the whole work lies that the praise and glory of the Workman depends principally if not entirely upon these Joynts on which the motion of the whole in so high a degree depends I will briefly conclude this part of my Discourse Reader think of God as Sweetness it self all pure unmixt unconfined Think of God as the Spirit of Love Beauty Joy all in one in their most abstracted Essences in their highest Exaltation in their greatest amplitude in their most potent vigour incorruptible eternal Think of God as the purest and richest Spring without beginning or end as the clearest Sea without bottom or bounds of all Perfections in the highest degree of Pleasantness of all Pleasantness in the highest Perfection Think of all things together with thy self in this God the Unchangeable Original of all according to their first and truest forms according to their eternal Truths one Goodness and Sweetness together with this goodness and sweetness it self one Spirit with this Spirit of all Loves Beauties and Joys in Divine figures divinely distinct as the first and fullest Variety in the first and entirest Unity When thou hast thought thus of God now think whether all things within thee do not with the fullest concurrence meet in this one only most passionate desire that this God may alone conduct his whole Work the whole course of all things that he may be present may act may appear alone in every part in every motion of it as filling so many figures and shadows of Himself After all consider whether that ground in which is founded the desire of this as the most perfect good the Object of all desires be not as firm a foundation for the belief of this no less agreeable Truth to the Understanding than it is of good to the Will Can Goodness and Truth be separated when Truth is Goodness in its essential Image in its fullest fairest reflection Shall not the most perfect Workman bring forth the most perfect Work the best from the best Shall not the highest God the most true of Himself thus do who is the supream Good whose Will is Goodness it self where as Ficinus upon Plato speaks the highest Voluntariness and the highest Necessity most beautifully and most pleasantly meet in the most inviolable band of the most true the most perfect Good 2. Head of Arguments I pass now to the second Head of Arguments taken from the Mediation of Christ and opposed to that Liberty of the Will which is placed in a freedome from the predetermination of its Acts in its essential Principles and superior Causes My method of treating of the Mediation of Christ and directing my Discourse upon it to the service of my present design shall be this I will endeavour with all humility and holy reverence by the conduct of that sweet Light which falls from the Face of Christ by the guidance of his Eyes the only Fountain of Grace and Truth to set before us the Lord Jesus in those three principal Parts of his Mediation as he is 1. The ground 2. The way 3. The end of the whole Work of God 1. Jesus Christ is the ground of the whole Work of God This is the first and principal part of Christ's Mediation in which he is the Golden Head of the whole Image of things in Grace and Nature This well understood according to the weak capacity of our Understanding here below seemeth to make all the other parts of the Mediatorship with the whole tract of things plain and pleasant That which in Divinity and Philosophy is understood by the name of a Person is an Intellectual Being compleatly existing Therefore God Angels which are called Gods and Men made in the Image of God which are also dignified with the Name of God in the holy Scripture are only stiled and esteemed Persons The reason of the Name I humbly conceive to be this Every Intellectual Spirit according to the propriety of its Nature and Essence comprehendeth entirely within it self the principle of its own Essence its essential form and operation by comprehending in it self the whole nature of things The Understanding in its perfect Act and Being in its largest compass are said by Philosophers to meet in a mutual proportion and union the one being the proper and adequate Object of the other Therefore the Greeks call every Intellectual Spirit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the whole The prime operation of every Intellectual Spirit is contemplation The first and immediate Object of its contemplation is its own Essence In this Glass of living and immortal Light all other things according to their proper essences in their several and essential forms appear to it most clearly and delightfully as its own Births and Beauties God the first and most perfect the Father and King of all Intellectual Spirits is the truest Person He alone in truth subsisteth in himself existeth without and above all things He truly containeth the whole compass of things in their unchangeable Truths and Substances within himself although he Himself be the most absolute and most abstracted Unity Angels and Men in the perfection of their Natures are no more than shadowy persons They have only shadowy Essences a shadowy comprehension of shadows God then alone most perfectly and substantially enjoyeth Himself in the contemplation of Himself which is the Beatifical Vision of the most beautiful the most blessed Essence of Essences This Act of Contemplation is an Intellectual and Divine Generation in which the Divine Essence with an eternity of most heightned Pleasures eternally bringeth forth it self within it self into an Image of it self According to the Perfection in which God knoweth Himself and enjoyeth Himself so is the Perfection of this Image As those are so is this clear distinct and full The more distinct the beam is from the first Light in its emanation the more strong and full is the reflectiou This Divine Image then is at once most perfectly distinct from its Divine Original most exactly equal to it and most perfectly one with it As then God is so is this essential eternal Image of God a compleat and distinct Person in it self in every point with the highest and most ravishing agreeableness answering the Divine Esseunce in its spring out of which it ariseth If this Image were not a compleat Person Gods knowledge and fruition of Himself would be incompleat without the pleasing and proportionate returns of an equal Loveliness Life and Love If this Image were not most perfectly distinct from the bosome out of which it flourisheth the knowledge and enjoyment of God would be confused more
the perfection of every thing The suitableness and convenience makes the Goodness Every thing hath essentially in its nature an inclination to its Good to its Perfection to every thing suitable and agreeable to it Suitableness is from Similitude Similitude is from Unity For it is an agreement in the same form Every thing then hath in its essence an inclination to a suitable Object to its Perfection to its Good as to it self presented distinctly to it self and to the compleating of it self in the embraces of it self Thus it appears that the Soul essentially is its own Will in as much as its essence taken most abstractedly being a substantial Act is in that Act an essential inclination to its own Good and Perfection Thus also it appears that the Understanding of the Soul is the Will of the Soul in as much as in its distinct formality it is an inclination to Truth as to its proper Perfection and Good Again the most proper and most perfective Act of the Will in its most perfect state is Love Love is an Union The Object of the Will is Good in its full Latitude the essential substantial universal Good The Act of the Will in Love is then a mutual intimate Union with the Object by which it adequately comprehends it and is adequately comprehended by it The Will then which is necessarily equal to that which it comprehends can be no other than the essence or substance of the Soul it self of which we have before said that it hath all Essences of things essentially within it self and so the whole compass of Being compleat within it self As it represents it self in this whole compass of Being to it self in a distinct Image and so reflects upon it self it is its own Understanding As it doth by this distinct Image with mutual embraces mutually comprehend and enjoy it self in Love and Joy it is its own Will it s own Love and Joy So we seem to have proved that the Will as it is a distinct faculty is really and formally the same with the essence and substance of the Soul We will endeavour also to prove that the Will comprehends the Understanding in its own proper and distinct formality 1. When the Soul Loves it self and understands it self both these Acts fall under the same definition of comprehending it self in a distinct and compleat Image of it self This Act cannot but be mutual if the Image of the Soul be adequate to the Soul and so are Love and Understanding both in one 2. The Acts and Motions of the Will do imply sense in their essential Formalities Sense in the Intellectual Soul is Understanding 3. The Object attracts and acts the Faculty by impressions of it self The impression of Good upon an Intellectual Subject is an Intellectual tast or relish of the Good The impression of an Intellectual Good which is the proper Object of the VVill is an Intellectual impression 4. The VVill as it is essentially distinguished from the natural Appetite which inanimate things are naturally moved by and from the sensitive Appetite proper to bruit Creatures is defined to be a rational Appetite Thus it comprehends Reason or Understanding in its essential Form So we have attempted to make it plain that Those three the Essence the Understanding the VVill of the Intellectual Soul mutually comprehend one another in their essential Formality and are perfectly adequate one to another so far as the Soul is in a state of Perfection perfectly understanding and loving it self By the way In this Glass you may have a pleasant glimps of the Trinity 1. The Soul in its essence is an Unity comprehending it self and all created forms of things intirely in one substantial and indivisible Act as the Fountain of all This is a shadow of the Father in the Trinity 2. The Understanding of the Soul is the essential and adequate Image of this Unity in which it bringeth forth and contemplates it self within it self This is the Son the Word 3. The VVill is the essential the intellectual and adequate Union of these two with the most full communion and highest complacency by which they propagate and multiply themselves within themselves into an endless Race of innumerable Forms in each of which they are still themselves intire and compleat This is the figure of the Holy Spirit Thus he that knows God knows the Soul as the Picture by the Life and he that knows the Soul knows God as the Life by the Picture Each of these is all to it self within it self God as the Original Life-World the Soul as the shadowy VVorld the World of shadows But to conclude this Argument If the Essence of the Soul the Understanding and the VVill be really one and formally distinct so that every one comprehends all Three in its proper Formality where is that freedome of the VVill by which it may act independent on the Understanding VVe will seal up this Argument with that confirmation of it which seems to have great strength and clearness Powers and faculties are distinguished according to their Objects The Essence of the Soul the Understanding and the VVill differ as Being Truth and Goodness not really but formally only formally comprehending the formality of each other The Reader is desired to take notice That how ever the Author in one of his Copies intended only this short accompt of this Argument taken from the Nature of the Soul yet a larger Discourse upon this Head being found amongst his Papers it is judg'd most fitting in this place to publish it The chief Praise of this Age is that it runs along in a stream directly contrary to the Romish Church having little veneration for an implicite Faith Tradition Antiquity Universality in the persuit of Truth It s labour and glory is with its hands eyes and spirit to penetrate and view the first grounds of Truth I desire it may be as happy in distinguishing between the upper part of the beam of Light where it unites it self to its Sun and Fountain where it is firmest fullest brightest warming enlivening as well as shining and the lower part of the beam which touches the Earth and the Senses where it is weak wavering obscure mixt with and vanishing into the darkest shade I shall therefore endeavour taking my rise somewhat high from the Fountain of things to open the Nature of the Soul with as much clearness and plainness as I am able and the nature of the Subject will bear in these three Propositions 1. Prop. The Intellectual Soul in Man is an Unity altogether indivisible comprehending Variety Diversity Contrariety of Forms Powers and Parts without and above all Division 2. Prop. This indivisible Unity containeth in it self the full Variety of all forms created uncreated after its own manner according to its own proper Character 3. Prop. The most perfect and full Image of God in the midst of the Creation resulting from the Harmonious Union of the Unity and Variety is the Soul's Essence and
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
Essence or inseparable from it hath also all forms of things in the same Capacity or Power and so in its Original Act. Indeed as it subsisteth in the Body this plenitude in the Original Act or power of the Soul is very much vailed by matter or corporeity at least under the fall But I pass from this Argument to another drawn from the Unity of the Soul established in the former Proposition The Soul being in its Essence by Virtue of its essential Unity altogether undivided and so above all place or time which consist of divided parts is thus uncapable of Absence Distance or Division from any thing All things then are ever present with it There is only a two-fold presence imaginable Corporeal and Spiritual 1. The Corporeal or bodily presence is after the manner of Corporeal Substances or Bodies with Division a divided presence This is the presence of two Bodies one containing the other as its proper place or of two Bodies contained in one Body as their common place one common space of Air one Field one Chamber one Bed 2. The spiritual presence is a meeting in one Incorporeal Form or in one Spirit which is an Indivisible Unity This the Schools express by the penetration of Spirits which penetration where there are no extensions or dimensions as in Bodies seemeth to me uncapable of any other sense in the strict examination of it than their subsisting together in the same undivided Unity and their mutual subsistencies in the undivided and essential Unities of each other Harmonious with this are those two well-grounded and unshaken Axioms in Philosophy 1. The Essences of things are Indivisible 2. The understanding alone reacheth to and comprehendeth the Essences and Substances of things whiles sense feeds only upon empty shadows Aiery accidental Forms Proclus thus teacheth us That all things are in the Soul 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 according to the peculiar property and character of the Soul In like manner the Lord Jesus saith to the unbelieving Jews which look for signs of the Divinity for a Pomp and Glory without in their senses The Kingdome of Heaven is within you The Heathen Philosophers stiled the Unities of things Gods This Unity to which all things were present was with them the Character of a God The Scriptures upon the same ground stile all Intellectual Spirits both Angels and Men Gods He calleth saith Christ them Gods to whom the word of God came That living Word which is the Image of the invisible God and so containeth all Forms the whole nature of things in it self cometh by Nature and by Grace although after a divers manner to all Intellectual Spirits That Scripture which our Lord Jesus relates to seemeth peculiarly to regard Humane Souls I have said ye are Gods but ye shall die like men Ye Intellectual Spirits which in your abstracted forms are immortal impassible undivided comprehensive Unities To which all forms of things in their immutable Essences are ever present by my presence with you who am the eternal Word of the Divine Mind the Divine and Universal Image of things Ye being humbled beneath the Angels into a Body of Dust a Corporeal Form in this by your sympathy with this are subject to the Government of the Elements and Coelestial Bodies of the Powers ruling in them as Tutors over you and so to their Laws of Time Place Division and Death until you grow up to the full Age of the Intellectual Life by returning into the Bosome of your first Divine Ideal Unity in me All diversity of Forms are in this manner present with the Intellectual Soul meeting together and being contained in the Unity of its Essence as in an invisible Palace or City like the City of God described by the Psalmist which is compact in it self Object Is God then are all the Angels is this visible World so present with the Soul so contained in its essential Unity as to be one Essence one Spirit with it Answ. I shall give three distinct Answers to the three parts of this Objection In relation 1. To God 2. To Angels 3. To the visible World 1. Answ. This comprehensive Unity which is the proper Character of Intellectual Spirits is called by Philosophers the Apex or supream Point the Head of the Soul hid in a Divine Glory the Divine part of the Soul in which it symbolizeth with is capable of Commerce with the Divinity it self and of enjoying in it self the Divine presence as in its most proper and beloved Temple I shall humbly present to the Readers Candor four Distinctions for the unvailing of this Divine presence in the Soul 1. Distinction God is not present in the Soul as in a place Divisible but as in an undivided Unity for he were otherwise no more a pure an infinite Spirit the first supream simple Spirit of Being Beauty of all Excellency and Virtue a Life of Sweetness a Light of Glory without allay shade or limit He were now Corporeal and finite Of this Local Circumscription which hath no place here is that Rule rightly understood The container is greater than the contained 2. Distinction God by his Omnipresence and undivided Unity is every where in every Creature in every part and point of the Creation with the fulness of his Glories and Godhead after a two-fold manner 1. God is present to himself in every Creature Secundum modum Dei after the manner of a God 2. God is present in each Creature to that Creature Secundum modum Creaturae according to the manner of the Creature 1. God is present to himself in every Creature after the manner of a God Where-ever he is present He is entirely present with all the Joys and Glories of eternity ever undivided His own Heaven to himself in the Depths of Hell beneath as in the Heighth of Heaven above in the dust of the Grave in a wave of the Sea as in the most shining Cherubim or flaming Seraphim God is not thus present to any natural Spirit no not in the purity ofits Creation with his unvailed Beauties shining forth in the brightness of his Glory in the fulness of his Godhead Then should he transfigure that Spirit into the same Image of one Divine Form and Glory with himself Then would there be no difference between Adam in Paradise the Angels in Heaven and Jesus Christ in his Paradise and Heaven above all Heavens the Bosome of the Father No after this manner God dwells in Jesus Christ alone as he is risen from the Dead in the eternal Spirit in the Glory of the Father 2. God is in every Creature present with that Creature according to the manner of that Creature By the divers manners of his Appearance as by the ingraving upon the Seal setting divers impressions upon the Creature and giving divers forms of Being to it like the Seal in the impression upon the Wax He thus becometh the fulness of every Creature filling all in all parts of it and so Omnipresent to it
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
Seraphim and Cherubim In its sensitive powers and parts it stretcheth forth it self through those lower Worlds the Coelestial and Elementary In its rational and discoursive faculty it makes a distinct World of its own at once dividing and uniting the invisible and visible Worlds filling up the internal or middle space between them The Soul from its Divine Unity in its most immediate Union with its eternal Idea where all Unities of things in their God-like forms do meet together in one descendeth into its Angelick Image or Intellectual Form Here all things in Angels shapes dwell together as in a Palace of Angels Here the Soul in her own face as in a Glass beholdeth all things in their universal Forms rouling through them all so that in each form she is Omniform comprehending in open view all things in their universal Forms under the Property or Character of that universal Form in which she at present appears From thence she passeth into her rational Form in which she is a contexture of universal and particular Images mutually infolding each other mutually springing up and shining forth in a beautiful Harmony from the Christalline Bosomes of each other So this Spirit slides by degrees into the most divided shapes in sense and on Earth through these into the lowest and obscurest shades beneath the Earth Again by answerable Revolutions and in the same proportions she gathereth her self up again into her first and supream Unity Three things make the Soul in these Circlings a most beautiful and delightful Prospect which three Beauties and Pleasures all flow by á sweetly-natural necessity from her Divine Unity 1. The Changes of the Soul through all these Diversities of forms are all most orderly and harmonious all together make up one most ravishing Harmony of Divine Beauty and Musick For the Unity spreadeth it self through all this diversity of Forms and Changes The Unity preserveth it self entire in the whole composure of these Changes and in each part in each turn of the whole Upon this account hath the Soul been defined to be Harmony and a self-moving Number or a numerous Motion a numerous spring of Motion Harmony consisteth in is measured and expressed by Numbers Inasmuch as Number is Unity diffusing it self Unity going forth from it self in a just order by Multiplication or Division of it self returning again into it self and all this within it self 2. The Soul through the whole Circle of its Descent and Return carrieth along with it all diversity of Forms into every Change For the Unity of the Soul is her self every where inseparable from the Soul and indivisible in it self This is clearly signified in that Maxim concerning the Soul universally taught in the Schools That the Soul is divisible and mutable in her Operation that is in respect to her Change into diversity of forms but through all this mutability of Operations and Changes indivisible and immutable in her Essence Thus is the Essence of the Soul as a Christalline Heaven or as a Palace composed all of purest and firmest Looking-Glass after such a manner that all the parts of the wonderful structure all the persons in all the Apartments all the Changes and Motions are seen at once in every point of the Divine Building All the Glories all the Inhabitants of this Heaven in all shapes in all postures of Light and Life meet the Eye every where not only by a most clear transparency but by the Spring or Fountain of Light and Life which in winding streams floweth through the whole openeth it self with all its various streams and all their curious windings in its Bosome every where 3. The Soul rouleth through all these Changes circling from the highest Lights above to the most shady depths below and through those shades into the brightnesses above within her self Her own Essence is within it self the Spring the Center the Seat the Circle of all those mysterious and harmonious Revolutions For this is the Essence of the Soul An Unity containing in it self all diversity of Forms This is the Soul in its Essence in the perfection of its natural form the Universe within it self like God comprehending conversing with all things within its self alone All this indeed was in a shadowy figure yet such as the Life it self brought forth supported filled illustrated and acted But alas now by the Fall this great and glorious Spirit contracted obscured in death wandreth within it self as a Ghost or shade of it self among the Dead It looketh up it beholdeth it self all things round about it and wondreth at their strange shapes as the shades of the Dead It understandeth knoweth nothing of it self or them not so much as that it is dead It calleth this state of Death Life This the World which is it self become its own Tomb. Perhaps this Picture which I have drawn of the Soul in her proper Essence or Nature in her true and essential form may seem rather a fancy than any thing taken from the Life I shall therefore attempt to touch it over again that I may give more lustre and life to it that I may at once make it more clear and confirm it I shall to this end make use of two Authorities The one Humane the other Divine I shall begin with Humane Authority that I may prepare the way to and close all with the Divine Authority as the seal of Truth The Humane Authority is taken from a Person eminent as a Philosopher and Divine for a profound Knowledge in all manner of Learning for a heighth of Beauty in his Life the suitable Birth and Image of that Divine Light in his Mind for a Death which was an ascent to the eternal Mansions in a flame of Martyrdome and Divine Love agreeable to both the Light of his Knowledge and the Beauty of his Life His Writings are universally esteemed His Testimony universally received and often cited as Authentick by the greatest Persons through many Ages He hath the stamp of Antiquity upon him Boetius that great Roman is the Person of whom I speak The Authority I cite from him is the Meeter in the Book of the Consolation of Philosophy It is a part of this Meeter which describes the nature of the Soul But the whole seems to me so pertinent to the general Subject of my Discourse so excellent in it self drawn forth from the inmost Treasuries of the Platonical Pythagorean Mosaical Christian Philosophy and Divinity that I thought I should oblige the Reader to set it down entire I have therefore first transcribed it in Latin for the sake of the learned Reader and then rendred it into English for the benefit of all that shall take any pleasure in those sacred Mysteries of Truth presented in her richest Robes at the whitest heighth of her never fading Beauty and Majesty The Latin O qui perpetua mundum ratione gubernas Terrarum Caelique sator qui tempus ab aevo Ire jubes stabilisque manens das Cunct a moveri Quem non
externae pepulerunt singere Causae Materiae fluitantis opus verum insita summi Forma boni livore carens Tu cunct a superno Ducis ab exemplo pulchrum pulcherrimus ipse Mundum mente gerens similique in imagine formans Perfect asque jubens perfectum absolvere partes Tu numeris Elementa ligas ut frigora flammis Arida conveniant liquidis ne purior ignis Evolet aut mersas deducant pondera terras Tu triplicis mediam naturae cuncta moventem Connectens animam per Consona membra resoluis Quae cum sect a duos motum glomeravit in orbeis In semet reditura meat mentemque profundam Circuit simili convertit imagine Caelum Tu causis animas paribus vitasque minores Provehis levibus sublimeis curribus aptans In Caelum terramque seris quas lege benigna Ad te conversas reduci facis igne reverti Da pater Augustam menti conscendere sedem Da fontem lustrare boni Da luce reperta In te conspicuos animi Desigere visus Deiice terrenae nebulas pondera molis Atque tuo splendore mica tu namque serenum Tu requies tranquilla piis te cernere finis Principium Vector Dux semita terminus idem The English O thou who by the golden linked Chain Of reason's Musick with an even strain Conductest all from thy bright Throne on high Father of shady Earth and shining Skie By undiscovered Tracts Time's stream and spring Thou from Eternity's vast Sea doest bring Motion and change ever unknown to thee From thee deriv'd and by thee guided be This work of floating matter which we see By inbred form of good from envy free By sweetest force of Native Loves rich seeds Without external cause from thee proceeds In Loves eternal Garden as its flowers Flourish in their first forms and fullest powers All Beauties These are the life the living Law From which thou dost all forms of Being draw As light to dazled eyes all things below From these pure Suns in fading circles flow A World all fair from thee supreamly fair Shines in thy mind above controul or care In an harmonious Image thou the same By perfect parts dost to perfection frame By potent Charms of sacred numbers bound The waving Elements keep their set round Fire Aire Earth Water in mysterious Dances Move to thy Musick through all times and chances Mixt into various figures with sweet grace In each form undivided they embrace Earth sinks not nor doth fire to Heav'n fly Frosts Flames Droughts Floods meet in an Unity The three-fold Natures golden Knot mid-band The Soul thou tyest in one by Love's bright hand Then it by thee unloosned spread doth lie In Limbs well suited to a sympathy Of motion and distinct melody Diffus'd through things below or those on high This is the Spring and Circle ampler far And purer than the Christal Heavens are The universal Beauties charming face Where sweetly spring and dance each lovely grace Within it self divided this great Soul Into a double Globe it self doth roul One hidden from us by excess of light One with shades sweetly temper'd to our sight As thorough these it moves it still returns Into it self still with Love's fire it burns By force of this it still doth circle round Th' eternal minds great deep Heav'n thus doth found And in like figure of those unseen Lights Doth turn about these Glories in our sights Brought forth from causes like Souls and less lives Thy will aloft in airy Chariots drives And sows in Heaven in Earth which by Love's Law Turn'd back to thee thou to thy self dost draw By the innate returning flame Grant Father to our minds thy glorious Mount To climb to view of good the sacred Fount In thine own Light which doth within us shine To fix the clear eyes of our Souls on thine Cast down the mists and weight of earthly mold The joyous splendors of thy face unfold Thou art to holy minds the golden Calm The sweet repose the grief appeasing Balm To see Thee our Beginning is our End Guide Chariot Way our Home to which we tend I mean to take no notice of any thing in this Poem besides that alone which immediately concerns the Soul In that part I shall after the manner of a brief Commentary present the Reader with some few Notes upon the several Passages for the illustration and confirmation of my fore-going Discourse upon the Nature of the Humane or Intellectual Soul 1. Passage The three-fold Natures golden knot Mid-band The Soul Thou tiest in one Triplicis Naturae mediam Connectens Animam  1. Note The three Natures here are manifestly The Invisible Incorporeal Nature Immortal Spirits The Visible Corporeal Nature Bodies Mortal or Immortal The Soul the middle between both these 2. Note The Soul is a middle-nature between both these not by Abnegation or Separation but by Participation and Connection So that word imports Connectens the Golden Knot lying all in one The Soul is a middle-nature three wayes 1. The Soul extendeth her self through both Natures to their utmost Heighths above and Depths beneath by her Idea which is her Golden Head by her Angel which is her Arms and Breast of her Silver her immediate Image and Birth as she springs forth from her Idea her incorruptible Essence above all motion the first seat of her Life Understanding Virtue Power as they flow from her Ideal Spring Thus Plotinus believed the Soul her self in her Essence in her Intellectual Form at its first abstracted heighth and purity to be her own good Angel But the Soul dissuseth her self also by her Coelestial Garment or Body through the wide-spread Heavens These are her Belly and Thighs of Brass the Springs of Generation the first seat of Motion Division and successive Forms By her Elemental Body she swims in this uncertain Sea of Generation and Corruption The Elements in their Orbs compose her Legs and Feet of Iron Here is the lowest Region of Division Motion and Change Here is the scene of Corruption here is the Soul most obscured In the lowest parts of this Earth is she resolved into a shade 2. The Soul is a Nature distinct from the other two Angelical Spirits are Omniforme or Universal Bodies are extended into divisible parts The Intellectual is composed of both universal and particular Forms all which it contains in an indivisible Unity The Soul circles through all forms of things universal and particular as they subsist apart or united appearing mutually infolding each other within the undivided Unity of its own Essence whilst in the Unity and Majesty of its undivided Essence it rouls through all forms and parts of it self as the Sun through the whole compass of the Heavens In this is a more glorious Sun and Heaven that it is in each point of it self at once as a distinct Sun in its full glory and every Sun a spacious transparent Glass in which the whole Heaven of its Essence with all its
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
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 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.
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
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
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
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
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
present moment to the embraces of the Will which was condemned in the general Rules as a most dangerous evil a most certain ruine Two circumstances upon the place and in the moment of action are cast into the ballance upon the place or in the moment of an action or temptation which weigheth it down with a great force 1. One is the difficulty and pain in resisting the alluring evil 2. The other is a flattering hope of enjoying the false sweetness of the present Action and being delivered from the unhappy consequences threatned while they are looked up either as uncertain or contingent or capable of being diverted by the Divine Goodness or by a succeeding repentance and change especially for this one adventure We may seal up this Answer with the impression of this golden Truth mentioned formerly Good under the form of good is the Object of the Will This alone attracteth the Will this alone moveth it The connexion then is inviolable and immediate between the Ultimate proposals of the Understanding presenting any Object to the Will under the formality or appearance of good and the motions of the Will towards that Object to receive it with mutual embraces 6. Reason What do most persons upon this Subject say Can I not walk sit or stand when I will at my pleasure Can I not choose or refuse Can I not Will as I will Is not my Will then free Answ. This Argument indeed is formed Crassâ Minervâ from a very gross conceit from the want of distinguishing between a spontaneity in the Acts themselves and an vndeterminedness in the essential Principles from which the Acts flow The question is not concerning the power or pleasure of the Will in Actibus imperatis in governing the Loco-motive faculty and the Instruments of motion the members of our Body Neither is it about the Elicit Acts of the Will it s own immediate motions of loving or hating whether these be in the power and pleasure of the Will That which is the subject of the Controversie is the root of this power and pleasure in the Will which it putteth forth in its immediate or more remoâ—…e Acts the Essence the essential form and principles of the Will it self However the Will in its essential form and principle be determined by superior and universal Causes which as essential Principles and as nature it self are complicated in the essence and nature of the Will yet doth the Will move in all its Acts with no less power and agreeableness Yea rather the sweet and harmonious concurrence of the superior and universal Cause in the Essence and Operations of the Will by the combinations of all Coelestial Angelical Divine Virtues make the motions of the Will more potent and more pleasant In truth the Will of man in a temptation may be like a Ship in a storm The Ultimate dictates of the Understanding the appearances of good and evil in the moment of Action cloathed with all its circumstances may suddenly and violently vary They may be like contrary Winds and Waves carrying the Ship in several moments unto contrary motions As the last gust of Wind and the last motion of the Waves so the last dictates the last appearances of good carry the Will away whether it be upon a Rock or in a safe course to its Haven Yet still this is true which Aristotle saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Election or choice is a desirous Understanding or an Intellectual Desire or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A desire from deliberation 7. Reason I have met with this Argument for the freedom of the Will from a learned pen. The chief ground on which the predetermination of the Will is built hath been this Principle That sin is a privation and no positive Being Thus God is believed to be cleared from the evil of Sin in the Acts and Motions of the Will while evil being a deficiency is capable of no efficient Cause An instance is brought to overthrow this Principle from a Spirit hating God Here this Act of the Will the hatred as it is formally drawn forth by and terminated in this Object the Person and Nature of God is formally in its positive Being a sin Answ. 1. If sin in any Subject or Act be a positive thing I know not how by any skill or understanding Humane or Angelical God can be acquitted from being the Author of sin For this is without controversie the sense of all Divines of all sorts except the Manichees and those who with them establish two co-ordinate Godheads of Good and Evil that he who is the only true God is the first the universal Being the Fountain of all Being the Being of every Being 2. Here seemeth to be a plain mistake for want of distinguishing this individual Act of hating God as it is considered in genere moris and ingenereentis In its moral and in its natural capacity 1. While we look upon this Act of hatred in a complex proposition as it is determined upon this Object the Divine Essence we consider it not naturally but morally we rightly pronounce it to be morally evil But this moral evil ariseth from a moral circumstance which is the undue determination of the Act upon an undue Object The evil here lies in the irregularity and obliquity of this Act morally considered in the determination to its Object This irregularity and obliquity is a privation of the due rectitude in which principally consisteth a right determination of the Act upon a right Object Thus is the evil of sin no more any thing positive here but altogether privative 2. If you consider this Act ingenereentis in its natural capacity you abstract it from all its moral circumstances you take a naked view of it as it is a natural motion in the will of aversion or opposition Thus it is clearly good It hath a natural or physical goodness as it answereth the proper and immediate Principles of the Form or Essence from which it flows and those formal essential Principles by which it is constituted It hath also a metaphysical goodness as every thing that is is good in its conformity to the Divine Will which as the Seal setteth the impression of being upon every thing that hath Being 3. There is also in this case before us a deception of our Intellectual sense by a mist cast before our eyes in which appearances are taken for realities I humbly conceive that there is no greater contradiction to all Principles of Truth and Knowledge than this assertion That any Spirit hateth God as God as he appeareth in his own proper Form God is that which all things desire God alone is Good saith Jesus Christ. If God alone be good he is the first the supream the universal Good The general Good of the whole the proper good of each particular All Good in one the only Good in all the only Suitableness the only Agreeableness to every Spirit Person and Nature the Truth
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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