Lord Jesus before Death and after it is much more large than that which is between a single grain of Wheat cast into the Earth and the standing Corn upon the ground full-ripe with many perfect grains of Wheat in the Ear than that between the single Seed of a Rose and a Rose-Tree full of fresh and flourishing Roses or the Seed of an Apple and a well-grown Apple-Tree laden with ripe Apples What Image could any man frame to himself or what conjecture would he make of a Rose-bush or a Rose by the single Seed if he had never seen the things themselves No more is it possible for us to take any measure of the Body of Christ in Heaven or at all to guess what manner of things it should be by his Body on Earth 1. John 2. 3. we read from the mouth of the Beloved Disciple who lay in the Bosom of Christ knew most of His Divine Secrets and was best acquainted with His Person in Glory that now we are the Sons of God but it doth not appear what we shall be but when he appeareth we shall be like him for we shall see him as He is Now we have the Seed of God in us now we have in us the Seed of a Divine and Glorious Soul of a Divine and Glorious Body But what this Seed which is sown in our Earth will be when it is a Tree in the Heavenly Paradise what this Glorious Soul and body will be when they are come forth grown up and perfected we do not at all know Only this aim we have We are sure that we shall be capable of an immediate Sight and Enjoyment of God without any Vail or Garment without any Representation or Distance as He is in His naked and simple Essence in His own proper and immutable Form This is an infallible Argument that then we shall be in the Form of God For otherwise it would be impossible for us to see it and take it in St. Paul illustrateth this difference between the Body of a Saint in its Life on Earth and in the Resurrection by two Comparisons the Varieties of Flesh and of Bodies All Flesh is not the same Flesh. There is one Flesh of Men another of beasts another of fishes another of birds v. 39. There are Terrestrial Bodies and Caelestial the Glory of the Terrestrial is One the Glory of the Caelestial is another There is one Glory of the Sun another of the Moon another of the Stars one Star differeth from another in Glory so also is the resurrection of the Dead v. 40. 41. 42. It is a very great mistake to think that the Apostle intendeth here to set forth the different Glories of Saints in Heaven He hath a far higher and nobler design This is his sence and the force of his arguing You must not think because we have Bodies on Earth and Bodies in Heaven that upon this Ground these Bodies must be of the same Nature and Kind or at all like one another How vast a variety of Bodies do we behold with our Eyes on this Earth and in this Heaven As great as the number of the Stars in the visible Heaven so great and incomprehensible is the Variety and Several Sorts of Bodies For every one of these differeth from the other Such yea far greater is the Difference between a Body when it is sown in Death and a Body when it is raised up A Body raised though be it still a Body doth more vastly differ from it self here than any two Bodies differ in the frame of Nature or within the Compass of the whole Creation The properties of a Body in Heaven by which it is distinguished from a Body on Earth are four as the Apostle reckoneth them up Power Glory Incorruptibility Spirituality v. 42. 43. The ground of these differences he layeth in that Primary and Radical One It is sown a Natural Body it is raised a Spiritual Body v. 44. The Sun doth not so much differ in matter and make from a Clod of Earth as a glorified Body doth from itself on Earth For both those are Natural here one is Natural the other is Spiritual Nay an Angel doth not so much differ from a Worm in its Essence and Image For an Angel is still a piece of Nature a part of the first Creation all which the Holy Ghost comprehendeth under the term of Natural But a Body risen from the dead is Spiritual of a new Creation for Matter and Form vastly different from vastly above every thing within the compass of this whole world in the visible or invisible part of it To conclude this Proposition observe how St. Paul begins this discourse with a quick touch Thou Fool Thick skales of folly do lie indeed upon the Eyes of our mind if we perceive not all things in this Flesh to be in a disguise of Sin Death Wrath the Devil by his Sorceries That which we call Death is the casting off the disguise In the Spirit we see and are seen with open Face Prop. 2. The Second Proposition which is the Second Story in my building raised upon this Scripture is this we may not compare the Body of Christ in Heaven with the Body of Adam in Paradise This Proposition riseth up plainly out of St. Pauls words v. 46. And so it is written the first man Adam was made a living Soul the last Adam was made a quickning Spirit Three things lie plain in these words compared with the Context 1. The Apostle-speaketh of Adam and Christ with a peculiar and principal respect to the Bodies of either The Subject which he now professedly handleth is the Resurrection of the Body He bringeth this up to its Principle and Pattern the Glorified Body of Christ. In the verse before he established this Assertion as a Pillar on which the whole Frame and Fabrick of Divine Truths here delivered doth lean There is a Natural Body and there is a Spiritual Body He strengtheneth that distinction by this Root and main reason of it in the verse immediately following And so it is written the first man Adam was made a living Soul the last Adam was made a quickning Spirit You seo clearly that this relateth to the Natural and the Spiritual Body 2. Adam is here spoken of in respect to his Paradisical Body Jesus Christ to his Heavenly Body The place from which this is cited is the History of Adams Creation as he was brought into Paradise Gen. 2. 7. As his Body was taken new and pure out of the Virgin-Earth before the fall and the curse The first man was of the Earth Earthy v. 47. such as the first Earth of which he was composed which was then say some far siner than Christal Gold or Pearl yea than the Sun is now Angelical Earth Jesus Christ in that Body which here is meant is The Lord from Heavâ—n 3. As much as a living Soul differeth from the quickning Spirit that is as much as a small Stream of
drawn forth from them What floods of outward miseries have they brought upon them It is this has given such a scope and power to our lusts to our pride ambition covetousness anger wrath bitterness of Spirit and revenge as has been more wounding to Religion then the malice of all the wicked men in the World can possibly be It is this has set us to rake into the Infirmities Weaknesses and Miscarriage of our mistaken Brother And whilst men have been thus employed what heaps of dirt and folly have they poured out of their own Spirits to the greater scandal of themselves and their profession It is this has for several ages delivered up the Christian World to disorder bloud and desolation It is this has rendred a great part of it unhabitable to a man that asserts the just liberty of his mind It is this has made Christians who should be the best of men much worse to each other than wild Bears and Beasts of prey for they devour not one another of the same kind It is this has raised so many suspitions jealousies fears heart-burnings evil surmises mutual provocations to wrath and thoughts of revenge and ruine among our selves that we are almost become an easy prey to our common enemies And if we should escape them are in danger to be consumed one of another We have laid the stress and weight of our Religion upon Notions Opinions outward modes and forms and some of those subservient only to a secular interest and reasons of state and not upon the truth and substance it self which is Jesus Christ and his Spirit For this reason the Righteous God seems to have given up the whole frame of Nature to confusion and destruction and to be drowning the face of the Earth in bloud St. Paul 2 Thesâ— 2. 1. puts these two together The coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to him And we often read in the Scripture of his coming with all his Saints Lines are at their greatest distance in the circumference the nearer they come to their center the nearer still they are to one another As we are drawnforth from all those things which we have set up in the room of Christ and are made to unite in his Person alone so shall we also draw near to and be at peace with one another It is he alone who is our King of Righteousness and Prince of Peace the true Shiloe Vnto him shall the gathering of the People be and unto each other in him Nothing more proves him to be so far off from us as our being so miserably scaâ—tered divided and driven away from one another When he shall again return and appear to us in his own Person when we shall for his sake cast away all our Idols and unanimously running into his Bosom cry out with an universal shout None but Christ he alone is that eternal image it self of all truth and goodness which we have been every where seeking our center and rest for ever When we shall no more place our wisdom righteousness sanctification and redemption our Religion in those forms and Opinions which are but the outsides and dresses of it and must pass away with the fashion of this World Which are but the leaves and husks that shall fall to the ground But in him who is that Truth Life Power and Substance which endures for ever Then shall a peace which is to encrease without end bless the World All our Swords shall then be beaten into Plow shares our spears turned into pruning-hooks and nothing be left to hurt and destroy in Gods holy Mountain A mutual forbearance indulgence allowance and kindness among all honest hearts of different perswasions and practices has not only thy own interest but the concern of all thy Brethren and the welfare of the whole Christian World after the highest manner contained in it For it is the safety stability security strength and subsistence of a good interest and of all good men in the midst of a very unkind angry and wicked World Whose rage doth not terminate in the extirpation of any one particular sect or party of good men but would by degrees and as fast as it can blot out goodness it self St. Paul with admirable reason joins these two together Eph. 4 2 3. Our walking with all lowliness and meekness with long suffering forbearing one another in love And our endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace It is most plain from this Scripture That the unity of the Church of God is not an agreement in inward Opinions and outward forms But an Unity of Spirit an Unity in that Spirit which is the common Soul of the Church the specificating form the constituting and conserving Principle of all true Christianity We are not united to Christ and to one another by the same Opinions and Forms but by one and the same Spirit nor can any Opinions and Forms divide us from Christ and therefore ought not to separate us from each other if they have not in their own nature an enmity to the heavenly image of Christ which is Spirituality Or to the natural image of him which is morality It is again expresly told us in the connexion of this Scipture That the way to preserve this Vnity of the Spirit in the Body of Christ is by walking towards one another with all lowliness and meekness with long-suffering forbearing one another in love And not by a proud haughty impatient peevish and angry imposing of our own Notions and modes of Religion upon them This may indeed be a mistaken piece of humone policy to serve our own Worldly interest upon Christianity but I am very sure there is nothing of the true Spirit of Christ in this temper not of a right endeavouring to keep the Vnity of his Spirit in such a proceeding How clear is it again from this Scripture That the bond of Peace has its strength and root not in an Unity of knowledge and uniformity of worship but in the Unity of a Divine Spirit As the sympathy and Vnion of all the members in the body arise from and is preserved by the Vnity of the Soul Whilst there is as great a difference in the Original make of Souls as of faces in the complexions of minds as of bodies whilst the variety of humane understandings is so great Whilst we are under the power of different tempers educations and interests several measures and degrees of light Whilst there is imperfection in our state negligence in our searchings after truth an envious one alwaies ready to sow Tares It is unreasonable to expect a proportion and analogy of Notions and Opinions among good men Whilst we are thus circumstanced there will be some otherwise minded Nor do I know any remedy in such a case but a mutual forbearance till God cleares up the matter of difference This forbearance cannot be more our Duty then it is our interest and necessity
surrounding us far from our Father's house from the Bosom of our Jesus in the wide solitary naked field of this Fleshly Image We lie upon the Cold Ground of our own Natural Earthly Comfortless Spirits Under our head is the hard Stone of unbelief Distrust Care and Fear Where is now Finishing Love Finishing Love is now nearer to you than you are aware This is the Season for Finishing Love this is the Time in which the Work of Finishing 〈◊〉 is most Beautiful What it now doth will be for Ever for an Eternal Joy and Glory a Work of Eternity It will be now Pure Love Perfect Love It will now work with All Freedom with all Fulness in your Weaknesses Ere you are aware Finishing Love will open itself as the Heaven of Heavens round about you You shall see the Lord Jesus as a Mystical Ladder 〈◊〉 Divine Loves reaching from Heaven to Earth filling with the Fulness 〈◊〉 Divine Loves poured forth in his Glorified Person all the Space betweeâ— Heaven and Earth while One End of this Ladder toucheth the Heart of Goâ— in the Glories of Heaven and Eternity the other End toucheth thine 〈◊〉 thou liest covered with darkness below on the Desolate Earth Divine Love in all Angelical forms stand upon every Round of this Ladder every Degreâ— and State oâ— Things between heaven and Earth in great Troops These â— once descend and ascend bring down the Heart of the Father into thy Bosomâ— and carry up thy Heart into the Bosom of the Father Now thou saiest This Open Field was the House of God of Divine Loâ—â— This Darkness was the Gate of Heaven the Gate of Finishing Love and was not aware By this Gate Divine Love cometh forth from Its Spiritual Pâ—â—lace unto me By this Gate Divine Love bringeth me into its Palace Itâ— enough I have received the Spirit of Promise I am Sealed by it with 〈◊〉 Eternal Image of Divine Loves and Glories with the Heart of my Jesus mâ— God set upon my Heart O my Jesus it is true it is True This was the Sea son of thy Finishing Love and I was not aware Thy Finishing Love maketh Perfect its Strength Light Sweeetness in Weakness Darkness Enmity Thus comfort your selves against the Difficulties of Life in the Freedom the Fulness of the Finishing Love of God treasured up in the Glorified Person of Christ for you 2 Comfort Against the Darkness of Death Gladly therefore will I rejoyce in mine Infirmities For when I am weak the Power of Christ resteth upon me saith St Paul 2 Corin. 12. 10. in the place cited before It is the Power of Finishing Love in Christ which is here intended For that was the Subject of the former part of the verse My Grace is sufficient for Thee Behold Free Grace Pure Love For my Strength is made perfect in Weakness The Strength of Grace of Love is made Perfect in Weakness Behold Finishing Love This maketh the Infirmities not of old Age onely but of our dying hour Pleasant to us that when we are weakest the Power of Divine Love resteth upon us in its Finishing Sweetnesses and Glories When the Lord Jesus hung upon the Cross he cried out My God my God why hast thou forsaken me A Darkness covereth the face of the whole Earth round about Him The next words which we hear from him just as he giveth up the Ghost are these It is Finished A Declaration of Victory A Triumph The Mystery of my Sufferings of Divine Wrath are finished in my Person The Glory of the God Head of Heaven of Eternity All Beauty all Joyes The Mystery of Divine Love are finished and compleated in my Person Both these Mysteries are now finished Both Compleated in One Glory in this One Moment of my Death This is the Pattern of a Saint and of Finishing Love in the Pangs of Death You have a Saint sick on his Death-bed a sense of Sin of Wrath Doubt Despair spreading their black Wings over his Spirit pains faintings deadly pangs seizing upon his Body In a Moment in the midst of these Weaknesses the Lord Jesus in a Chariot of Angels and Invisible Glories with the full Power of all Finishing Loves resteth upon him from without raiseth himself and shineth from within Now in this Moment is the Whole Scenâ— changed The black and baleful Image of Things is changed into a Heaven The fainting dying Person into a Glorified Spirit triumphing in his Chariot of Angels and ascending with the Lord Jesus into the Heighths of Eternity He crieth one moment The Joys of Life the Light of the Sun the Delights of mine Eyes My Dearest Relations and sweetest Friends Life itself forsake me My hope my Faith my Spiritual Comforts my God my God why do ye why doest thou forsake me The Next moment with a Shout of Angels with the Sound of the Silver Trumpets in Heaven he crieth out It is finished The Sufferings of Christ are finished in me Divine Love hath finished upon me all its Mysteries and made the Joys of Eternity full in me A modest Person was sick and in want A Friend sensible of his want and modesty conveyed a Bag of money under his head and pillow while he slept He waketh findeth it smileth and saith This is the Stealth of my Friend Our Jesus frequently casteth a deep Darkness the Shadow of Death over us then when he purposeth under the covert of this Darkness to convey some finished Piece of Glory some Compleat Work of Finishing Love Heaven itself into our Bosom our Persons into a Heaven of Immortalities and Glories unsought unexpected unperceived by us until we are possessed of them until we are in the midst of Them These are the Stealths of our Beloved These are the Stealths of Finishing Love The Power of Christ with all the Fulness of Finishing Loves resting upon a Saint in his Death is excellently described 2 Corin. 5. v. 1 2 3 4. Observe there Four things 1. A Glorious Building 2. The Groans of Burthened Saints 3. The Workmanship of God 4. The Earnest of the Spirit 1. A Glorious Building This is A building of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 out of God The Materials as well as the Builder and the Form are all of a Divine Nature It is a Pallace hewn out of the Rock and standing in the Rock of Eternity Gold precious Stones Pearls the Body of the Sun Angelical Substances are as Dung to the Materials of which this Building consisteth It is Eternal above Time and so without Beginning or End above Succession and change It is in the Heavens in the Highest Heavens the Heavens of Eternity the Heavens of Heavens in the Eternal and Supream Spirit It is situate in the most Divine Heighths in the midst of the most Divine Lights Loves Purities Powers and Pleasures in the midst of the most Divine Lives and Immortalities 2. The Groans of burthened Saints We groan being burthened The Burthen is the Earthy Tabernacle This Life The Weight of vanity and
to dye with you This is the true Church-fellowship a Fellowship in our Souls and in our Bodies by a Spiritual Principle and Life with the Church and Assembly of the first-born with all things in their first born State in one Spiritual and Heavenly Body in Christ. 3. How amiable and lovely doth this make death to the Saints This is the chief end I aim at in my discourse and the point to which I bring it With what a beautiful and smiling Face doth Death now look forth even in the Body of a Saint in which he hath been wont generally to appear so grim to the holiest Persons Thy Body O Believer so far as thou standest in a Spiritual Principle is a Fellow-member with thy Soul in the Body of Christ It is a Jewel the work of a faithful and curious workman the most holy Spirit as Solomon in the Canticles speaketh of the Spouse of Christ. But here the mixture of the fleshly and carnal Principle is as Dust and Dirt which covereth and fullyeth this costly Jewel With what a sweet pure lustre of Immortality and of Heavenly Glory doth it sparkle and shine forth ravishing thine own and all spiritual Eyes and Hearts in the moment of Death when the blessed hand of Death clean wipes off the dust and stain of the carnal Principle and brings it forth entirely into its Spiritual Principle that now it stands singly as a Spiritual Member in the Spiritual Body of Christ The Lord Jesus saith if thine Eye be single thine whole Body shall be light as when a Candle enlightens a Room In this life O Saints we have a double Eye and have a double sight The mixture of the Spiritual and Carnal Principle is the double and divided Eye O welcome Death receive it with open embraces Now is your Eye single Now is the carnal Principle cast out for ever Now you look forth with the open and single Eye of the single Principle of the Eternal Spirit Now is your whole Body nay now is the whole body of things filled to you with a Heavenly light of Immortality Glory This single Eye pours forth from the Unity of the Spirit as from the Fountain of blessed Light thorow your whole Souls and Bodies thorow all things round about them a Light of Glory as when a Candle enlightneth a Room A way of cleansing Pearls when they have any spot or cloud upon them is to thrust them down the throat of a Pigeon into its Crop where the heat of the Pigeon takes off the stain and makes them perfectly white This is the mystery of a Saints Death The Heavenly Dove the Holy Spirit in the same moment takes a Saint entirely in Soul and Body out of this Life out of the Carnal Principle into himself into his Bosom of Love by the Divine heat of that Love takes off every spot or cloud of the flesh by consuming it both in the Soul and in the Body and makes them both purely white and shining Pearls in the Heavenly Body of that one great and only Pearl the Lord Jesus 2. The second relation into which the Body of a Believer is taken at the new birth is that of a Temple to the Holy Ghost There are 4 things proper to a Temple 1. The Figure 2. The Glory 3. The Communion 4. The Defence 1. Every thing in the Tabernacle and so in the Temple to the least things and lowest actions were divine Types of Spiritual Truths and Heavenly Excellencies in the Person of the Lord Jesus So it is said that all things were made and ordered according to the pattern in the Mount which pattern in the Mount was Christ in Glory O Saints This Tabernacle and Temple were Types first of Christ then of you whose Souls and Bodies both are the true and living Temples of God The Body of a Saint is a more excellent Temple in as much as Solomons Temple was a shadow only of this It is a Living Divine and Immortal Temple It is therefore in the whole a far more excellent more rich more glorious and delightful Image of the God-Head in its entire form It is in every part and point of it a most lively a most beautiful a most pleasant figure of some particular Mystery and Glory in the God Head All the parts of your Bodies themselves the lowest and least even to a hair of your Heads every thing that befals you in every part of your Body in the meanest and slightest circumstance is formed exactly by the Divine Wisdom and Power according to the Divine Will to answer the Pattern in the Mount to be the holy figure of an eternal Glory in Christ. We read Psal. 29. 9. Every thing in his Temple speaks Glory Every thing in thy Body O Believer so far as thou art a Believer speaks Glory For this is his Temple O live alwaies in the Spirit that thou maist alwaies be in thy Body as in the Temple that there thou maist see understand and enjoy the Glory in every thing 2. The Temple of God is filled with the Glory of God There is a Prophesy in Malachy concerning the times of the Gospel that he shall come into his Temple You O Saints are the Temple which is here Prophefied of Jesus Christ as God in the Glory of the Father in the Third Person the Holy Ghost comes into you into your Bodies also and fills them with his Glory The same word in Hebrew signifieth a Temple and a Pallace The name of a Temple in Greek signifieth an Habitation or dwelling place It is a note of a learned Divine that the Temple had Tables and a Throne and a State in it which was the Golden Mercy Seat called in the Gospel the Throne of Grace to signifie that the Temple of God was his Pallace as he is the great King The Eternal Spirit is present in the Body of a Believer as in his Pallace He keeps his Court there There is his Throne with all the blessed Angels and all the Heavenly Company waiting round about it It is called his resting-place Arise saith David to God thou and the Ark of thy strength into thy resting-place God shineth forth in his Temple filleth it with his Glory within resting upon it and overshadowing it with his Glory without In the 50 Psal. at the beginning the Psalmist speaking of the Temple saith God shineth from Sion the perfection of Beauty What a perfection of Beauty then what a Divine Pallace how full of Glory within how encompassed with a clear shining Glory round about is that Body of a Saint which is the living eternal Temple of the Holy Ghost In what Majesty doth this Eternal Spirit appear here upon its Throne of Love In the midst of what Divine Pleasures and Delights doth it rest for ever here What a Court does it keep here with all its Train of Angels and heavenly Attendants waiting round about its Throne as in another Heaven O Believers honor your Bodies For
Death This World with all its Powers and Principalities the life of this World the Cross itself and Death which had so long captivated the Lord Jesus with all the Powers Beauties Joys and Glories of his Heavenly Image binding them in Chains of Darkness within the Dungeon of this Earthly Image whose light is darkness are now themselves in the Person of our Lord Jesus in his Soul and Body together with his Captivity itself carryed up as he ascends and made Captives to that Heavenly Image which they held Captive Here in this Pallace of the Spirit and of Eternity where Darkness itself shines as the Light they are seen as the Captives of the Lord Jesus bound in Chains of Glory spectacles to all the Holy Angels and Blessed Spirits in which the Beauties of Christs Victory and Triumph as so many ravishing Wonders of an Incomprehensible of a Mysterious Power Wisdom Love Glory Divinity subduing all things entirely to themselves eternally shine This honour have all the Saints in their Deaths by the vertue of their Saviours Death by vertue of their fellowship with him and his fellowship with them mutually in their several Deaths all in each Death dying together Where now is the Melancholy of Death and of the Grave It is swallowed up into the Divine Pomp and Pleasure of a most Glorious Victory and Triumph O Saint What fearest thou in Death Or thou who fearest not to be dead why fearest thou to die If thou rejoicest in the Glory of thy departed Soul why mournest thou over thy Body as left behind in a naked and loathsome Prison The act of dying to both is the gaining of a Glorious Victory over the Life and Death the Powers and Principalities of this whole World The passage itself out of this Life is a Glorious Triumph to thy Soul and Body both which with all the Triumphal Ornaments of the Light of Life and Immortality ride forth in the Chariot of the Heavenly Image and the Eternal Spirit over the Spirit and all the forms of this Creation which lie conquered under your Feet In the very moment of your dying all the Powers and Appearances of Nature which rule in the Kingdoms of Sense and Reason are lost for ever so that their place where once they reigned in your Persons knows them no more You sit down upon the Throne of Christ and the Father together with them All the Births Images and changes of time are swallowed up into the bright the beautiful the most delightful depths of Eternity the unfathomable depths of purest Light Love and Joy immediately as Triumphant Conquerors and Kings you are encompassed with the ravishing applauses and shouts of innumerable Angels of Immortal and Glorious spirits springing up and shining forth in all the places of this World where its Light or Darkness Life or Death seemed before to stand You see all these with a Heavenly Musick and Songs of Triumph setting Garlands and Crowns of Victory on your Heads immediately as you pass out of the Light of this Life you see your selves received your Souls and your Bodies both with the most delicious kisses into the Eternal Embraces of the Father and of Christ in that Unity of the Spirit which is the unfathomable center of all Lights Loves and Joys of all beautiful and blissful Spirits created and uncreated All now for ever are filling full your Joys in themselves and fulfilling their Joys in you 4. Scrip. Heb. 2. 14. That he by dying might destroy him who had the power of Death that is the Devil and set them free who all their life time were subject to bondage by the fear of Death The word Power in this place signifieth properly a Prince with a Principality or Dominion This whole world is the Principality of the Devil For the Devil is called in Scripture the Prince of this world All Flesh every thing of Nature and of this Creation is comprehended under that name as it is distinguished from and opposed to the Spirit and the new Creation in the Spirit the Kingdom of God in the Holy Ghost and is the Principality of the Devil All Darkness every shadow every evil of Sin or Suffering of Corruption and the Curse of Shame Deformity Pain Grief and Wrath as all these are expressed in the Scripture and in common Language with every other kind or degree of Evil by Darkness are the Principality of the Devil For the Devil is called the Prince of Darkness Death is the Devils Principality who in this Scripture is called the Power or Prince of Death All this then hath Jesus Christ by dying destroyed in his own Person this World the Principles and Forms of Nature the Life and Images of Flesh every Darkness inward or outward of mind or sense Death itself For all these lie within the Principality of the Devil and are his Region his Kingdom without the bounds of this Dominion all things are Light Life Love Joy Immortality Spirit and Truth As it is Jesus who dies again in the Death of every Saint as the Death of every Saint is the Death of Christ acted over again in the similitude by the vertue of his Death so doth every Saint as he is one Spirit with Christ after the like manner by dying destroy the Principality the Kingdom of the Devil in his Person also For this is said to be the end of Christ in his Death that he might free all the Saints from the fear of Death O Believers Let your Saviour gain his end upon you and end of most tender Love Be no more in bondage to the fear of Death Let the Lord Jesus see the seed of his Death springing up in your Deaths a Glorious and Divine Seed of Life and Immortality springing up in the place of Death and swallowing it up into Victory Lay aside now for ever those melancholy and delusive Imaginations of Death as a separation of those tenderest Bosom-Friends Soul and Body a separation from your dearest Relations and entertainments the delights of your Eyes an extinguishing of the sweet Light of Life a dismal solitude a perpetual Darkness the Confinement of the Body to the nakedness coldness streightness and horrour of the Grave Dust Stones and Bones covering it and ratling over it Worms feeding upon it the Soul naked and alone taking its flight through a vast distance of empty air and space to another place These are the Forms and Appearances of Death to the Dead only Those who follow Jesus Christ in that living and shining way in which he went thorow Death meet with none of these appalling and affrightful Apparitions Let the Dead bury their Dead saith Jesus Christ to his Disciples but follow thou me Understand this O Believers that all Shadows all Forms of Darkness and of Death are from below Earthly Sensual Devilish from the Earth from the Natural Soul and from the Devil as St. James speaks All this Image and sense of things is that Kingdom of the Devil which together
Glorious Person by the Heavenly and Personal Union in and with the Eternal Word Soul and Body were separated in respect to their Natural Union and Composition All the Relations and Delights of both all the precious Treasures all the clear Images and Lights of Life with the sweet life itself vanished and fled away so far as they were founded upon the Natural Union the band being broken which tyed them all together in one at the dissolution of this Union But all these still dwelt together undivided still possessed and enjoyed one another after the most intimate manner without allay or interruption in the Unexpressible and Glorious Unity of the Eternal Word the Second Person in the Trinity This Unity was a Divine Band an undivided Center a living Spring an unfathomable depth of Loves and Glories where they lay perpetually enfolded in the warm embraces each of other covered with all the sweetest Lights and Beauties even upon the bitter Cross and in the cold Grave never to be divorced from each other Separation itself was here only a various and delightful form of embracing in the Unity of this Eternal Person 4. In the fourth and last place follows the manner of the Triumph This hath three parts 1. The Triumph over Corruption exprest in these words Thou shalt not suffer thy holy One to see Corruption 2. The Triumph of Life Thou wilt shew me the path of Life 3. A Triumph in the Pleasures of Life In thy Presence is fulness of Joy at thy Right Hand Pleasures for evermore 1. The first part in the manner of the Triumph is the Triumph over Corruption Thou wilt not suffer thy Holy One to see Corruption The Triumphant Person here is the holy one of God the holy Son of God the pure Seed Birth and Image of God Jesus Christ in his Divine and Humane Nature as he is in both the Holy One of God the Holy Birth and Son of God Jesus Christ in himself Jesus Christ in David David in Jesus Christ Jesus Christ in the Holy Soul and Holy Body of every Member of Christ as they are the Spiritual Births and Spiritual Temples of the Holy Spirit This is the Person which Triumphs in Death That which he Triumphs over is Corruption There is a complication of four Evils in Corruption 1. Division or Dissolution which is the chief and the Root of the other Evils 2. Darkness increasing 3. Deformity overspreading 4. Decay which is a tendency to a destruction of Being or to a contrariety in Being to all the good of Being Over all these Evils of Corruption Jesus Christ Triumpheth as he dyeth 1. Jesus Christ Triumpheth over Division or Dissolution in Death The Eternal Unity of his Divine Person was at once as a Root and a Band to both his Natures to both parts of his Humane Nature to all the Powers and parts of his Soul and Body to the several Elements in his Body to all Perfections of Glory Grace and Nature in all Powers and Parts of the Humane Soul and Body All were as an Immortal Nosegay or a Mysterious Knot of Divine Flowers ever inseparably united in this Band ever unfadingly flourishing in this Root of the Hypostatical Union or the Divine Unity of the Eternal Person which was indissoluble in Death itself Yea those Separations which are Natural and necessary in Death were themselves Flowers of the Heavenly and Earthly Paradise bound up with this Heavenly Band in this ever-fair ever-fragrant Nosegay 2. Jesus Christ dying Triumpheth over the gloomy horrours of the increasing darkness which ariseth from the hateful Womb of Darkness in the dreaded vaults of Death The Divine Nature which is inseparable from the Humane Nature the Personal Unity which is really and substantially one with the Divine Nature which gives a subsistence in itself to the Humane Nature and makes it in its Personal subsistence one with the Divine this is a brightness of Glory shining in the Grave this is a Golden Candlestick in which all the seven Lamps of God burn continually by day and by night before the Throne of God and make the vaults of Death themselves a Temple of Gold and Christal filled with the sweet Beams of the Heavenly Eternal Sun All things even Death and the darkness of Death are as precious Stones set together in the rich Jewel of this Person or Hypostatical Union where no one Stone contracts the least degree of dimness but all in the midnight of Death itself ever sparkle with the sweetest and clearest water of Eternal Life 3. The deformity of Death as it springs up out of the Corruption in Death is the subject of our dying and dead Saviours Triumph The Heavenly Image of the God-Head which is the supream Beauty the Arche-type and first Pattern of all Beauties upon the Mount of Eternity is the Person of Christ in which the Divine and Humane Nature with all its changes of Life and Death stand and subsist together Can any thing be deformed in Beauty itself Can any thing be Unlovely where the highest and purest Loveliness shines thorow all and over all What must the Harmony what must the amiableness and agreeableness be how exact and ravishing as in Heaven itself there where the Supream Unity the most Sacred Unity of one of the most blessed Persons in the All-glorious Trinity diffuseth itself thorow all the variety of things Divine and Humane of Soul and of Body binding up all by itself immediately into the most perfect and Divine Order and gathering up all into one most perfect and Divine Person in itself How High and Glorious is the Triumph of Divine Beauty over the deformity of Death when thus the Eternal Beauty itself dies dressing itself up in the Forms of Death and giving to Death it s own most lovely Face which enflames the highest Angels and God himself with Eternal and Infinite Loves In the place of Deformity what potent what attractive charms of Loveliness hath this Death to ravish Souls into the bosom of it which are thus to die by a Fellowship with the Lord Jesus as he dies 4 The last Evil in the Corruption of Death is the decay which is a Tendency to a Nothingness a Privation the destruction of the being of things or to a contrariety to all good in Being This is that dark Cave that bottomless Pit out of which like the smoak of Hell like gastly black and flaming apparitions from Hell the deepest and darkest Melancholy the most dismal Horrours and the most horrid Imaginations from the sense and fear of Death issue forth and cover the face of the Soul as pitchy and stormy Clouds cover the Face of Heaven How does the dying Soul dread to be cast forth into the uttermost Darkness to be dispossest of itself together with all thigns To be endlessly sinking in an abyss or bottomless deep of a vast emptiness and a cheerless formless shade to be no more or to be in the midst of all the wounds and torments that
Darkness must be the Ground Division the Work upon it There are then two Powers as two Parts in this Image 1. Power of Darkness 2. Power of Division 1. Power of Darkness This is the Form and Division the Figure of this Black Spirit Darkness is made his Character The Power of Darkness his Princely Title Colos. 1. 13. Who hath delivered us out of the Power of Darkness into the Kingdom of his Dear Son It is read thus in Greek out of the Principality of Darkness into the Kingdom of the Son of his Love The Devil as the Prince of Darkness which implies Division is opposed to Iesus Christ the King of Love which is unity and lives only in Light Again Ephes. 6. 12. We fight against the Rulers of the Darkness of this World You may thus translate it more to the words against the World-comprehending Powers of the Darkness of this State As God is One and Many by a grateful Distinction in the Unity so is the Devil One and Many by a grating Division without Unity many Powers of Darkness in one Power The Devil in this Darkness lies as a Stain upon the Beauties of the whole Creation defacing the Image dimming the Glory of God in them He lies as a Cloud upon all the Contents of the Creature spreading a melancholy Shade over them infusing a Poyson of Fears Falshoods Deceits Mistakes Dangers Death into them He is a Prison and a Chain Shutting up holding down the Spirits of men when they would break forth and raise themselves into that Light of Divinity which faintly glimmers in this Darkness Such is the First Part of the Image the Power of Darkness 2. Power of Division The Name Devil comes from the Greek Word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifies most properly one that casts in Principles or Seeds of Division So he is described by our Saviour in the Parable The Envicus man the Enemy hath sown Tares Our Lord with a Divine depth defines this Spirit in those words A Kingdom divided against it self cannot stand Whatever stands must be founded upon a Unity The Devil is a divided Kingdom a Duality a Ruinous Thing This Power of Division divides itself into a Seven-fold Power which is known by these Names 1. Self-love 2. Lust. 3. Covetousness 4. Pride 5. Envy 6. Passion 7. Enmity or Despair 1. Power Self-love 1 John 4. 8. God is Love Love in the Abstract Love Absolute Unlimited Infinite a Universal Sweetness The Devil is Self-love a particular Being cutting off itself from the rest of things from Him who is the Great I am in whom all things have their Being These are the Circlings of the Serpent by which he folds and wraps up himself in himself This Serpent before he spake to the Woman tempted himself with this glittering language Es. 14. 14. I will be like the most High The first word in this aspiring speech is that which first made him a Devil of an Angel I The establishing of a Proper Interest divided from the general Interest of things in the God-head This Self-love is the Horned head into which he then sprouted forth the Cloven Foot in which he ended when he first with-drew himself from the all-comprehending Unity into a Circle and Center of his own 2. Power Lust. This is a praegnancy to multiply himself to bring forth himself in strange and diverse forms upon strange and diverse Images God is One Gal. 3. 20. God brings forth himself in One Image Jesus Christ is his Only-begotten Son Joh. 1. 14. God brings forth all things by this One Image and in it Coloss. 1. 16. In him were all things Created The Devil is contrary to God in all this He is that Son of God which broken and deform'd by his Fall from the First Unity goes full of monstrous Lust after the Daughters of Men dark divided fleshly Images of the Creature With these he mingles himself so he brings forth himself and them into Gyantly shapes and in a Brood of Gyants Gyants in Hebrew signifie Dead Distracted Prodigious Forms as appearing from the shades below or faln and sunk thither Our Saviour calls this Spirit of Lust Joh. 8. 45. The Father of Lyes because he begets himself upon all things in base spurious and various Shapes Solomon represents the Image of the Devil in Flesh and this World by a Whorish Woman because she lusts after and wanders thorow all the diversity of divided Forms in the Devil 3. Power Covetousness Pro. 30. 16. There are two things that never say enough the Grave and the Barren Womb. This Invisible Power is a Womb of Darkness which takes in all things but brings forth nothing So the Darkness is never enlightned but ever increas'd made deeper and more devouring This Spirit is the Invisible Grave which draws all things into it But then it crumbles them into Dust it divides them from themselves So the Principle of Division is sharpned not satisfied fretted to a greater wideness not fill'd This is the Serpent feeding upon Dust ever encompassing the Earth This is the Bottomless Pit 4. Power Pride The Devil under this property is call'd Is. 14. 12. Lucifer the Son of the Morning He saith v. 13. I will exalt my Throne above the Stars of God His ambition is to shine alone and as he riseth to put out all other Lights by the Malignity of his appearance He goes on v. 13. I will sit upon the Mount of the Congregation in the sides of the North. The appearance of our Lord Jesus in the double flame of Terror and Triumph Consuming and Crowning is from the North Ezek 1. 4. The Mount of the Congregation is Mount Sion where the General Assembly and Church or Congregagation of the First-born are Hebr 12. 22 23. This is the Mount lifted up above every Mountain The Spirit exalted above every Spirit The Devil would seat himself upon this Mount in the place of Jesus Christ to be as he is the Onely One. Yet he would have it with this difference to be the top of the Mount while the great Congregation sit as the Clouds under his Feet to be a consuming Fire to all others a Crowning Glory only to himself God is the Heavenly Hierusalem where all things are Fellow-citizens The Devil is that Babel which saith I sit alone as a Queen Revel 18. She thinks her self never Great till she have swallowed up all her Companions never Great enough till she be Great alone This is the difference between Pride and Plenty 5. Power Envy This Power is a Reflection of Darkness and Division upon it self from the Sense of Beauty and Unity else-where It is Mystically describ'd Revel 20. 1. An Angel came down from Heaven with a Chain in one hand a Key in the other v. 2. He took hold of the Dragon the old Serpent and bound him up in the Bottomless Pit Divine Wisdom is that Chain which reacheth from the Top of Heaven to the Center of the Earth where at
things The Good at which he aims The Evil from which he flies Desires here are the Attractions of the highest Good the most high God backed by the Impressions of the greatest Evils Sin Death Devils As one draws the Other drive The Soul sees God before her opening a World of new Hopes and Delights She sees Lusts and Furies behind her labouring to overtake her and hold her back from those fresh Glories which are now in her eye This makes her Desires as swift feet as strong Wings to her Now the newly-converted Spirit begins to discover her self by continual violent Breathings and cries towards Heaven How long Lord Now she speaks in Davids tune and tone Psal. 84. 2. My soul longeth yea even fainteth for the Courts of the Lord my Heart and my Flesh cry out for the Living God Grones are now the constant beatings of the Heart Longings and Faintings become the Language of all parts inward and outward Longings after Faintings for the Life of God the Living God 3. Passion Rage 2. Corin. 7. 11. The Corinthians had slept secure in a foul Sin They now awakened by St. Paul give those Testimonies of their Change which he reckons up in this place What vehement Desire yea what Zeal yea what Revenge As a Flood foâ—ming and roaring when it is streightned or swelling and over-bearâ—ng all when it is stopt in its Course So are Anger or Rage Desires multiplied and growing Mighty by Resistance There are Thrâ—e that resist the Soul in her Conversion the Flesh the World the Devil The Flesh lusteth against the Spirit Gal. 5. 17. The Inâ—linations of the Flesh cross and quench the Motions of the Spirit The World infuseth a poyson of Desires and Delights into the Heart which kill Heavenly Loves which infect the Heart with hatred and enmity against God and his Glory James 4. 4. The Friendship of the World is enmity with God The Devil is like a Lyon seeking whom he may dâ—vour 1 Pet. 5. 8. He would draw down our Souls into himself out of the Arms of our Saviour The World works upon us thorow the Flesh in our selves For this is the Property and the Birth of the World in us John 8. 23. Ye are of the World Ye that is they that are Fleshly The Devil prevaileth upon us by the World This is the Body with which he cloaths himself when he comes he is Prince of this World This world is his Power As God Christ and a Saint are all united in the Spiritual part of a Christian So the Devil the World the Flesh are all in one in the Natural part These the Soul at her Conversion now understands to be the Enemies of her Hope the Tyrants over â—â—â—joy the Rubs in the way of her Desires She riseth to a brave heat of Rage and height of Revenge against these Thus she vents her Rage thus she takes Revenge By fastning her own Flesh to the Cross 〈◊〉 her Lord She Crucifies Spoils Triumphs over them all Gal. 6. 14. I Glory saith Paul in the Cross of Christ by which the World is crucified to me and I to the World Nothing now is so sweet nothing so Glorious to this Soul as the Crâ—ss of her Jesus By this she revengeth her self upon her Spiritual Enemy as they treated her Lord her Life that is with Scorn and Despight First she puts them to open Shame She uncloaths them of all their fair Appearances In the face of Heaven in the eye of her Sun her God 〈◊〉 displays them naked in their ugly monstrous Shapes in their loathsom and hateful Uncleannesses Then she nails them by a constant force to theâ—r Paâ—ns and Sufferance till they languish to Death I have gone thorow the Second Order of Passions Hope Desire Rage 3. Order of Passions 1. Passion Lovâ— Love is a Câ—njunction with a Complacency in Goodness God Gal. 2. 20. I am saith St. Paul Crucified with Christ and now I live yet not I but Christ livâ—th in me c. The Holy Soul having stâ—ugled thorow the Streights of Grief and Shame thoâ—ow the Croâ—stides of Hope and Fear having wrestled with the Principles of Nature the Principalities and Powers of this world Fleshly Honours and heights now comes to tast the Freedom and Sweetness of life which is Lovâ— now she knows what 't is to Live indeed to live in the Embraces and mutuâ—l Twiniâ—gs of the Lord Jesus Now she hath no Life but his Lâ—ve now her Lâ—vâ— hath no Object but â—is Liâ—e By this time our Convert is grown up out of a 〈◊〉 to a Spouse-like tempâ—r like her in the Canticles She grows Sick of Love Her Love to God consumes her strength wasts her Life dispossesseth her of â—er sâ—lf Nothing can be Strength Life Self to her save her Saviour only She is â—â—â—ong only when he is present She is happy when he is pleased A man in this State breaths nothing but Affection to God He cries continually as David doth Psal. 18. 1. I lâ—ve Thee The word signifies I love thee dearly tenderly inwardly I twist thy love upon my inwardest and tenderest bowels O my Iâ—sus 2. Passion Hatred Psal. 139. 22. I hate them that hate thee with a perfect Hatred Hatred is the Life of Contrariety Casting out from itself yet Comprehending in it self as in a Chain Conquering to it self its Contrary God promiseth Christ thus much Psal. 110. 1 Sit thou at my right hand till I make thine enemies thy Foot-stool We hold our Foot-stool near us but under us We hold it down yet we hold up and raise our selves by it There is a Twofold Hatred 1. Hatred before Love 2. Hatred from Love Hatred before Love is weak and imperfect rellishing much of self-love Darkness and Hell Hatred from Love is Perfect it springs from the Heart of sweetness it subordinates itself to it it ends in it The Life of this Hatred is Love As the soul at her first Conversion is strong in Love so is she sweet in her Hatred She hates perfectly like a God not a Devil every thing which brings not the Loveliness of her Saviour along with it as a Pass-port She turns away her face from it she sets her feet upon it not suffering it to rise up against the Life of the Lord Jesus within her forcing it to serve his Glory So much for the Third Order of Passions Love Hatred So much for the First Circumstance in our Conversion The Universal Motion in our Passions 2. Circumstance A General Alteration in Practice This Alteration is Twofold 1. A Manifest withdrawing from all Companies and Contents that draw the Soul outward or downward 2. An eminent Delight in all Persons and Paâ—hs that draw the Spirit inward or upward David expresseth both these in himself Psal. 16. My delight is in the Excellent of the Earth As for them that go after other Gods I will not make mention of their Name 1. Use For Discovery Religion is no empty Name but a Real
Woman to the Man This is plain by comparing those Two Places Psal. 8. 5. Thou hast made him that is man a little lower than the Angels Heb. 2. 5. Unto Angels he hath not put in subjection the World which is to come But unto Jesus Christ That is implyed in the Place The Law is the Law of the Husband Now the Law was administred by Angels the Ministring Spirits which are Principalities and Powers of this Creation as the Vice-Gerents of God Now St. Paul saith that by the Body of Christ that Husband died which held us in Subjection to the Law The whole Frame of Nature was shaken by the Death of Christ and must fall by the Power of it Then St. Paul adds that we were subject to the Law while we were in the Flesh. All these things make it plain that by the Flesh he understands the State of Nature in its highest Principles and utmost Extent Thus much for the First Term Flesh. 2. Letter This is the Image of God in Flesh. Letter and Spirit are opposed by St. Paul as Old and New Rom. 7. 4. And he teacheth us that by the Death of the Flesh in the Body of Christ we are freed from our Service to God in the Oldness of the Letter St. Paul opposeth Spirit and Letter as Inward and Outward He calleth that the Letter which is Outward in the Flesh Rom. 2. 28 29. The Spirit is Jesus Christ as He is the Heavenly Image of God within in the Heart of God 2. Cor. 3. 15. This is that which is Inward under the Vail of Flesh. The Letter is the Image of God in the outward Man as it is drawn forth from and discovered in the Principles of the first Creation which is the Vail 3. The Law This is the State of the Soul while she lives in the Letter and hath Communion with God only by the Letter St. Paul thus describes a Legal State Gal. 4. 3. When we were Children 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Infants we were in Bondage under the Elements of the World While we are under the Law we are Infants we have neither the Ear nor the Heart nor the Mouth of the Spirit and the Spiritual man in our Souls We are Uncapable of Taking in or making out God in his own Divine Image according to Spiritual Principles or the Elements of the New Creation Therefore we are in Bondage to Natural Principles and Reasonings We are bound up within the Compass of this Creation as in a Prison We are unskill'd in unacquainted with any Principles or Appearances of things besides those of this Creation We compare Spiritual Things by these Things of Nature We hear God with the Ear we speak of him with the Tongue of this Creation We receive and cherish such Notions of God as are agreeable with this Frame The Manifestations of God which spring from Spiritual Principles from the Face of God himself are Barbarians to us while we are under the Law To the Law of Nature to the Testimony of Reason to the Elements of this World whatsoever speaketh not according to these whatsoever casteth off or doth not cloth its Speakings with these Forms though it be the Spirit Himself hath no Light in it to our Understandings while we are under the Law These Elements or Forms in which we are tied up while we are under the Law are 1. Weak 2. Dark 3. Beggarly 4. Old 1. Forms are weak Things They have only the Shadows of Good Things to come They have not the Substance They cannot give us the Good Things Themselves Forms set the Picture of our Beloved before our Eyes but they cannot lay the Person Himself in our Arms. They are but a Letter from our Husband They have not the Spirit of our Husband in them 2. Forms in the knowledge of God are Dark Things They can give us no clear or certain Discoveries The greatest Light of Communion or Comfort that can come while we are shut up in Forms is but like a Spark from a Flint at Midnight It hath much Doubt Diffidence and Fear mingled with it 3. Forms are Beggerly Things They cannot lay open before us the Unsearchable Riches of Christ. Jesus Christ is Rich in Glory He can fill all Appearances He can bring forth Innumerable Appearances He hath Glory above all appearances which the Creature is capable of He can bring forth more Glory into thy Heart than can be made out in thy Heart itself by any Appearance The Power of Glory which thy Spirit feels shall be above the Appearance which it sees 1 Corin. 14. 14. Ephes. 3. 19. How poor then and Beggarly must that Spirit be in the knowledge of the Glory of God which is shut up in any one Form in any one Sort or Degree of Manifestations While thou canst not part with any Particular Form of Appearance while thy Spirit is not indifferent and universal extending itself to all Forms in the Manifestation of God while thou art not above the Forms of this World Thou wilt be but a Beggar in thy Divine Discoveries or Enjoyments He must be above the Letter in the Spirit above and out of all Created Images in the Light of Life itself that will attain to those Riches of assurance of a full understanding in the Mystery of God and Christ which St. Paul speaks of Coloss. 2. 2. 4. Forms are Old God hath blasted all Forms and Ways of his Appearing by the Principles and Elements of the Creature If they have had any Beauty yet now they are Blear-eyed If they have been Fruitful yet now they are become a Barren Womb which is as the Grave The Cross of Christ and the Glory of his Appearance in the Spirit have taken away the Life and Glory of all Manifestations or Administrations in the Flesh. They are Old Withered Decayed and Dying The more our Saviour shines out in the Glory of his Father the more will they Droop till they drop quite into the Dust 4. Sign Solicitude Rest and want of Rest are the distinguishing Notes of a Legal or Evangelical State His Rest shall be Glorious saith the Prophet of the Lord Jesus in the Times of the Gospel Esa. 11. 10. Come to me saith our Saviour to those under the Law You that labour and are heavy laden and I will give you Rest Mat. 11. 28. A Legal Spirit hath a Four-fold Solicitude 1. Solicitude for Acceptance of the Person 2. Solicitude for Assiance in Perplexities 3. Solicitude for Light in the way 4. Solicitude for Life in the work of Grace 1. Solicitude for Acceptance of the Person While the Soul is under the Law the Seed of God Jesus Christ is not yet come up nor revealed within her She sits therefore trembling in the Dark sometimes Confident that it is a Seed of Love sometimes as Peremptory that it is a Seed of Wrath which lies hid in her So she is perplexed and anxious in herself St. Paul teacheth us Coloss. 2. 2. that
Millions from such as do them no harm and then say With such Sacrifices God is well pleased that God who is Love O take heed of Sin it blows up in a mans Breast the Fire of Hell it strangely corrupts Nature itself consumes all good Nature in Man There is no Notion so common no Principle so plain in the minds of men which it will not darken and deprave It will make you believe that Hellish Passions are Heavenly Motions and that there is Fury and Fire in the Bosom of Sweetness itself of God This is the Second Evil in Sin Filth 3. Sin puts upon a man the Baseness of a Slave Prov. 28. 1. The wicked fleeth when none pursues Sin makes a man the veriest Coward in the World the object of the greatest Pity and Scorn When thou hast committed a sin how art thou asham'd to see the light to look up in the Eyes of God or any man to behold thine own Face in a Glass How dost thou start at every Motion tremble at thine own Shadow fly from the Reflection of thy self in the thoughts of another How dost thou wish to be transported into some Wilderness where thou might'st be a Stranger to all things and especially to thy self Gen. 4. 14. Cain complains I am driven from thy Face and from the Face of the Earth a Fugitive and a vagabond shall I be in the Earth Behold the weight of Shame with which Sin oppresseth a Guilty Soul Who would buy all the pleasures and profits of Sin at such a rate as this To be driven by Shame from the Face of God and every Creature To be hunted by the wretched Sense of Guilt as a Deer with the Arrow sticking in his side To run restless thorow all Companies and Conditions as a Fugitive and Vagabond in them all Gen. 3. 7. It is said of our first Parents when they had eaten the forbidden Fruit their eyes were opened and they saw that they were naked and now they were ashamed Do you ask what is Sin There is an inseparable Peace and Pleasure goes along with every good deed There is an unavoidable sting of Shame and Horrour in the tail of every evil Act. He that doth evil hath his Eyes immediately opened by that which he feels in himself and now he knows what he hath done What is that which when you have done it takes away your sweet Peace and Rest from you which makes you wish for a thick Darkness to fall upon you that may hide you from every eye This is Sin hate it and fly from it This is the Third Evil in Sin 4. Sin wraps up a man in the Shape of a Devil Man being in Honour continues not but becomes like the Beast that perisheth What doth the Body of a Man now differ from that of a Beast more than the Body of one Beast differs from that of another Nay the Bodies of many Brute Creatures excel it in Beauty Strength Vertue Sense What hath thus chang'd Man and put upon his Body the form of a Beast Sin hath done it But if we could see the Soul of man as plainly as we see his Body we should see that far more like to Devils than this is to Beasts The Evil Powers and Spirits might well say of Man when he had sinn'd He is become as one of us What reason hath man to abhor this Poysonous this Potent Evil which transforms him into this monstrous Shape that he appears as a Beast among the Beasts in his Body as a Devil among the Devils in his Soul 5. Sin plants the Seeds of Devils in Man Daniel teacheth us in his Prophesy that the Messiah should come to take away Sin and Iniquity Dan. 9. 24. We read in the Promise Gen. 3. That there should be Enmity between the Seed of the Woman and the Seed of the Serpent The Seed of the Woman is the Messias Then the Seed of the Serpent must be Sin Each Sin is the Seed of a Devil in us which as it grows up becomes a perfect Devil A Lying Spirit entred into Ahab's Prophets and possest them when they became Lyars Happy were we if as often as we feel motions to Lust Covetousness Falshood Ambition in us we would then say Now a Lustful Covetous False Ambitious Devil enters into me if I yield to him he will carry me away into the Waters and Fires of Confusion and Torment he will be still growing into me till I become one Devil with him 2. Property Peace This is the Second Property in the Kingdom of God that is in the Royal State of a Saint on Earth The name of Peace in the three Learned Languages signifieth Three things a Câ—ssation a Combination a Perfection a Cessation from trouble a Combination or league with all things Perfection of excellency and joy to give Rest. There is a Three-fold Peace 1. Natural the Peace of the Elements in the great World and the little World of Man's Body 2. Civil the Peace of men among themselves in their outward Conversation 3. Religious this is the Peace of the Soul in relation to God This Religious Peace is Two-fold 1. Rational that which is built upon the Principle of Reason 2. Spiritual that which is sprung from a Divine Light This is the union of mans Spirit with the Spirit of God which is the Band of peace It is a Spiritual Peace which I now speak of This hath Two Parts 1. Part Silence 2. Part Satisfaction He that is God makes me to lye down in green pastures and leads me by still waters 1. Part Silence Psal. 23. 2. In this Psalm God is brought in as a Shepherd the Soul as a Sheep In this verse Three Things are put together 1. The Prosperity of the Soul 2. The Repose of the Soul 3. The Stilness of all things about the Soul 1. The Prosperity of the Soul is express'd by green pastures The Lord Jesus makes the Soul to feed on the green Pastures of the Fresh and Flourishing discoveries of his Person and Excellencies That this is the Souls Pasture appears by that place of Scripture John 6. 57. As the living Father hath sent me and I live by the Father So he that eateth me shall live by me As the Father is the Pasture-ground of the Son on which he feeds and out of which he is taken into this World to be made a Sacrifice So the Pasture-ground of the Soul is Jesus Christ. 2. The Repose of the Soul is signified He makes me to lye down in green pastures Jesus Christ as a Shepherd makes the Soul to lay herself down to rest with security in the midst of his appearances springing up round about her 3. The Stilness and Silence of all things about the Soul is set down He leads me by still Waters Waters are often used by the Scriptures to represent the nature of Spirits John 7. 38. 39. He that believeth on me as the Scripture saith out of his belly shall flow Rivers of
the Angels and all the Spirits of Just men the General Assembly of all Glorious Spirits meet on Mount Sion which is a Spirit that cannot be toucht with hands The Person of thy Saviour is such a Spiritual Substance He can come into thy Closet thy Bosom thy Heart He can dwell in the same Body in the same Soul with thee in the most Inward Parts in every Part of Both and yet take up no more Room The Word which is Christ is within thee even in thy Heart and in thy Mouth in the most Inward and most Outward Part. All of Man and every Creature is either Heart or Mouth an Indrawing or an Out-driving Power the Inward Principle or the Out-ward Appearance Our Saviour divides the whole Man into Heart and Mouth when He tells us that Nothing which enters into the Mouth defiles a Man but that which comes forth from the Heart Jesus Christ is a Spirit in thy Heart and in thy Mouth He pierceth to the Bottom of the most Secret Principle of Life and Being in thee He is as Inward with That and Thee as That is with Thee He passeth quite through all over the Bredth and Length of that Body that Appearance in which thou walkest He makes it His Clothing as it is Thine This is the First Power of a Spirit 2. Power Receiving A Spirit receives other Things into self as Inwardly as Entirely as It conveys itself into Them We read of the Depths of Satan Rev. 2. 24. of the Deep Things of God 1 Cor. 2. 10. We read of a Pit for the Devil which can be no other than a Spirit of Darkness and Wrath in himself or in God Rev. 20. 3. We read of Chambers for the Saints Es. 26. of a House and Mansions for them above which can be no other than Spirits of Grace and Glory in God A Spirit hath an Opening and a Depth in itself into which it can receive all things without any Breach in it self An Evil Spirit hath its Pit into which it taketh in and swalloweth up whatever it taketh hold of A Good Spirit hath its Chambers and Mansions its Retreats and Abodes in it self for what Guests it pleaseth to admit or draw in Abide in me saith Iesus Christ to his Disciples Iob. 15. 4. As every Thing may be a Temple to a Spirit Your Bodies are the Temples of the Holy Ghost 1 Cor. 6. 19. As a Saint is the Temple of Christ So a Spirit may be a Temple to any Thing So the Lord Iesus is a Temple into which the Saints may at all times enter and have Communion with God Destroy this Temple and in three days I will build it again This he spoke of his Body John 2. 21. The Body of Christ was a Temple shut up with a Vail before it while it was Natural But when it was made Spiritual by the Resurrection it was the most Holy place set open for thee to come into it and never to go out more Heb. 9. 1 3 8. Flesh is a mere Shadow which can only touch upon Things but can take in Nothing A Spirit is the Life and hath a Depth in it for which it is compared to Water This is the Second Power of a Spirit 3. Power Uniting The Spirit is the Band of Unity 'T is true of every Spirit so far as it hath the Nature of a Spirit in it Bodies in Flesh are Divided and Broken things being held together only so far as they are Bound up in One Spirit Bodies in Flesh converse with all things at a Distance in a Divided Manner Our Saviour is said to take away the Wall of Partition in his own Flesh when he crucified the Flesh in himself for Himself and the whole World Eph. 2. 14. A Spirit is Uncapable of Division being One in it self and making all things One with it which it takes in or converses with Spirits are compared to Flames Heb. 1. As Flames they lick up into themselves and Incorporate as it were with themselves whatever they light upon or work upon So the Power which caught up Eliah was represented by a Chariot of Fire It was as a Chariot because it took him into it self It was a Fire because it took him up into the Fellowship of One Life Glory and Spirit with it self This is the First Answer to that Question which asketh What we understand by the Person of Christ when we speak of his comprehending us 2. Answer Christ is the Highest Spirit He is Lord of all We read 2 Cor. 4. the last words thus the Spirit of the Lord. It is in Greek the Spirit the Lord. Jesus Christ is the supreme Spirit that Spirit which is Lord of All. The Majesty of our Saviour's Person consists in this that he is that Spirit which hath the most Absolute Power over all Spirits Persons and Things together with the most comprehensive Greatness A Spirit is like a Prospect the Higher it is the more Commanding and Comprehensive it is 3. Answer Christ is the Brightest Spirit He is the Brightness of the Father's Glory Heb. 1. 3. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Out-shining All the Effusion of Beams from the Godhead is through the Person of Christ. All the Beams meet within the Compass of that Person We before cited a Place of Scripture which calls the Spirit A Band of Unity The Lord Jesus is that Spirit in which all the Goings forth of the God-head are united as a Knot of Beams a Band a Bundle of Divine Irradiations or Manifestations This Blessed Person and Spirit is the Highest the clearest Light which as a Garden-bed discloseth and exposeth all things to view in the most natural naked and distinct manner This is the Word which being spoken all things are exprest Heb. 4. 12 13. The Word of God is lively All things are naked and bare before him with whom we have to do 4. Answer The Person of Christ is the First and Fountain-Spirit The Second Adam is a Quickning Spirit a Life-giving or Life-making Spirit All Spirits Persons and Things that have Life or are from Life they are in this Spirit as Waters in their Fountain They are in Him Primarily and Eminently They are in Him more truly than they are in themselves For they derive that which they are in themselves from Him 5. Answer Christ is the Image of God Col. 1. 15. He is the Image of the Invisible God But you may say that every thing is an Image of God one way or another It is true for St. Paul saith that the Invisible things of God are made manifest by the things that are made Rom. 1. 20. Therefore the meaning of St. Paul in that other place is that He is the Image the Full Image the Proper the Perfect Image of God All the Workings and Manifestations of God are in this Blessed Spirit and that according to their several States with their Proper Distinctions Otherwise the Image were Imperfect All the Discoveries of God are in
this Person as One with it For all make One Image and that a Spiritual Image Thus this Image is as it were a Body to the God-Head All the Vertues Operations and Appearances of God are contained in Jesus Christ as One Body Yet every One hath his own Distinct Place Power Form Activity Enjoyment as Diverse Members The Fulness of the God-Head dwelleth in Him Bodily Colos. 2. 9. 6. Answer Iesus Christ is the Head-Spirit God hath made Him the Head of All Ephes. 1. 22. Our Saviour is the Universal Spirit that takes in all and unites all in Himself It pleaseth the Father that all Fulness should dwell in Him Coloss. 1. 19. He is a Particular Spirit distinct from all For God hath given Him a Name above every Name which is named in this world and that which is to come Ephes. 1. 21. Thus He is the Head Thus our Saviour becomes a Person that both Represents and Presents all in Himself that both Perfects all in Himself and Himself bears the Imperfections Sufferings in and for all I have now answered the First Question what I understand by Jesus Christ not according to the Exactness or Latitude of the Question but so far as tends to my present purpose and the making plain of the Second Question which follows 2. Question How we are said to be Comprehended in Iesus Christ. I shall indeavour to open the Nature of this which is one of the most Principal Spiritual Profitable Comfortable and yet Difficult Points in all our Divinity I shall proceed in the opening of it by a Three-fold Step which shall be a Three-fold Answer to the Question The Lord Jesus comprehends us Spiritually Mystically Eternally 1. Answer The Lord Jesus comprehends us Spiritually Our Blessed Saviour as a Spirit comprehends us in Himself 1 Cor. 15. 45. The last Adam was made a Quickness Spirit Iesus Christ is the Second Adam a Universal Person comprehending the Second Creation in His Spiritual Person in the Spirituality of His Nature He is the Heavenly Adam a Collection of all the Saints as He is a Spirit Jesus Christ comprehends us by the Spirit 1 Cor. 12. 13. By one Spirit we are all Baptized into one Body Christ and we live both in One Spirit so we are Both bound up in One. It is the Unity of the Spirit Ephes. 4. 4. The Spirit is Christs Radically and Primitively by drawings us down and Baptizing us into this Spirit Jesus Christ comprehends us The Lord Jesus comprehends thee as thou art a Spirit He that is joyned to the Lord is One Spirit 1 Corin. 6. 17. Our Saviour and Husband comprehends us Inwardly Powerfully Fully not as Bodies Waters Flames but as Spirits comprehend one another nay as One Spirit as the Highest Spirit comprehends itself Christ comprehends thee as Spirit of His Spirit as a Spirit in His Spirit as One Spirit as the Self-Image of Himself 2. Answer The Lord Jesus comprehends us Mystically The Mysticalness lies in Three Things in the Glory or Diviness of the Union in the Nearness of it in the Distinctness preserved together with the Oneness We are comprehended in Christ Mystically because Incomprehensibly The Love of Christ passeth Knowledge Ephes. 3. 19. That Love which is an Affection only and loves by Impression and unites by Imagination such a Love may be taken in by Knowledge only which is a Notion the taking of a Picture the Catching of a Shadow Such a Love may be known by the Understanding which is a Faculty an Accident But the Love of Christ is above Affections and Impressions It is a Naked Comprehension of Substances and Spirits in a Unity of Substance and Spirit So it passeth knowledge not being to be represented by any Image or Notion not to be conceived by any Faculty but to be Felt and Enjoyed only after an Immediate and unconceivable manner We are comprehended in Christ Mystically because with an Appearance of Contrariety We are One Spirit and One Body in Christ. The Body of Christ in the Unity of it is a Spirit The Spirit of Christ in the Variety of it is a Body We are comprehended in Christ as Members in the Body Each Saint hath his Distinct Person Place Power Appearance I say Distinct both from the Person of Christ as the Head and from all the other Saints as Particular Members Yet again each Member is One Man with Christ possessing the Fulness of God and of the whole Body being in itself conformed to the Image of Christ. 3. Answer The Third and Last Answer to this Question is that we are Comprehended in Christ Eternally 2 Tim. 1. 9. Who hath saved us and called us c. according to his own Purpose and Grace which was given us in Christ before the World began v. 10. But is now made manifest by the Appearance of Iesus Christ. Three Things lie clear in these words 1. First Thy Person was in Christ from Eternity Thou hadst a Capacity and a Subsistence in thy Saviour before the World began For thou wert then in Him as a Subject on which the Father setled his Purpose and confer'd his Grace The words of the Apostle are Grace given us 2. Secondly Thy Person with all manner of Grace and Glory was in Christ before all Times as it is or shall be in any Time For One is the Measure of the Other That Eternal State in Christ is the Pattern of the State of Grace afterwards according to That is This exactly fashioned who hath called and saved us according to c. 3. Thirdly That State of our Persons comprehended in Christ is Unchangeable When Jesus Christ appears to us or in us as we are in Flesh then is that Grace put upon our Persons in Christ made Manifest The Discovery is now of that which in Truth was before The Maniâ—estation is here below but the Substance abides still above The Manifestation in thy Flesh is as the Appearance of Christ upon thy Flesh subject to Change But as is the Person of Christ in the Glory of God so is thy Person of Christ comprehended in Christ Unchangeable Let us now pass from the Second Question to the Third We have seen in some measure what it is to be Comprehended in Christ. Let us now proceed to enquire how we shall know our selves to be Comprehended in Him There is indeed Unspeakable and Unchangeable matter of Joy for those that are so Comprehended but how shall any Particular Soul be assured of this concerning herself 3. Question How shall I know my self to be comprehended in Christ Answer Art thou comprehended in the Wisdom or Image of God Then thou art comprehended in Christ. For he is the Wisdom of God in its Latitude and the Image of God in Large Hast thou any place in the Fulness of God or any part in the Fulness of the Creature Then hast thou a Mansion and Habitation in the Lord Jesus For it hath pleased the Father that all Fulness both of God and
Wherever there is any Subject to be wrought upon or to receive the work God works all in that Subject Wherever there is any Effect to be wrought God works all in that Effect Not an Angel or Bird flies or falls not a Thought a Hair a Dust moves but as he moves in it and moves it 3. The Pattern of these Workings God worketh all Things according to Counsel Counsel and Wisdom are both the same Thing This is the Glory of God and the Happiness of the Creature that nothing â—omes to pass which is not the Work of God and nothing is wrought by God which is not a Work of Wisdom Philosophers and the Scriptures agree in setting forth the excellent Nature of Wisdom by a Two-fold Description of it 1. Description Wisdom is Knowledge with a Head Knowledge is the Image of Things The Golden Head of this Image is the Heavenly Image of God in the Person of our Lord Jesus Colos. 2. 18. 19. St. Paul calls the Study of the Nature of Angels not Wisdom but Folly and Vanity a vain Puffing up of the Fleshly Mind why Is not this a High and Excellent Knowledge Yes But now it was vanity not Wisdom a vain Swelling not a Substantial Fulness and Greatness of Spirit in those of whom the Apostle speaks Because they held not the Head God then who works all things in Counsel and true Wisdom holds the Head in all His Workings that is whatever he brings forth He brings it forth in the Divine Appearance of his Son he brings forth the Divine Appearance of his Son upon it as the Head Wisdom saith of God and herself Prov. 1. 27 29 30. When he prepared the Heavens I was there when He appointed the Foundations of the Earth Then I was by Him as his Delight This may be as truly spoken of every Passage of thy Life of the least Accident that concerns thy Person For the same God in the same Wisdom hath wrought these that prepared the Heavens and laid the Foundation of the Earth Thou mayst with as great Assurance hear in every Thing of Grief or Joy which thou meetest with in Flesh or Spirit the Glorious Person of thy Beloved Saviour speaking to thee after this manner God hath prepared this for thee and I am here This hath the Father appointed for thee and now am I with thee to be thy Delight brought up and growing up before thee together with this and every other Appearance You look upon things vainly with a Fleshly mind after a heedless manner if you see not the Brightness and Delight of the God-Head in the Person of Christ as a Crown of Rejoycing upon every Providence You deface the work of God you look not upon it as he hath wrought it Holding the Head if you see not the Face of Christ in every Act or Accident as in a Glass God in this Sense hath made Christ his Only Begotten Son in that he brings forth nothing but Discoveries of Jesus Christ. For he is the Head of all Things and this is the Wisdom of God the Holding of this Head in all This is the First Description of Wisdom 2. Description Wisdom is the Fulness of Things Jesus Christ is the Wisdom of God and the Fulness of all Things Colos. 1. 19. Wisdom is that Contrivance that Harmony of Things that casts the whole Fulness of Things into each Thing As Members in the Body amongst whom the Joy of all pertains to every one and the Grief of each One to all So are all the Parts of that work which is wrought in Wisdom Wisdom is a Spirit that conveys the Life Power and Sense of all into each Particular that all may rejoyce and mourn together every where As in a good Picture all the Proportions of the whole Face meet and concenter as it were in each Line Point or Touch giving you from thence a Cast of the Beauty of the whole So hath God prepared and appointed all his Works in Wisdom like an Excellent Picture that the Fulness of the Whole and the Beauty of all Parts may shew forth themselves from every Part. Is there any thing so dark so low as that the Wisdom of God reacheth not to it and shines not in it If the Wisdom of God be there then is there the Center the Concurrency the Union of all Things of all Glory If the Wisdom of God shine there then is there a Spiritual Light opening all Divine Beauties making that Thing the Gate of the Creation of Paradise Heaven and the Divine Nature This is that Traffique of Wisdom which makes the Merchandise of it better than that of Silver Gold or Pearl 4. The Original of that Pattern God works all things according to the Counsel of his will The Will of God is the Principle and Original of his Wisdom The Will of God is the highest Rule Rest and Rejoycing of all manner of Goodness The Phaenix is said to spring out of a Nest of all manner of Spices laid together and fired by the Sun the Will of God is such a Flaming Nest of all Beauties and Sweetnesses at their Height Out of this will the Wisdom of God springs forth into every Act of Providence being Beautiful and Precious in it The Will of God is the highest Reason of all things What if God willing to shew the Riches of his Grace What if God willing to shew the Power of his Wrath The Will in a Spirit is as the Sea to a River All its workings flow out of it and into it It is its Spring and Fulness Shall not thy Will rest and rejoyce in that which is the Will of God that is the Highest Reason the fullest Rest and Blessedness of the Divine Nature The Will of God out of which God himself drinks all his Delights in which he bathes himself this Will is the Eternal Fountain The Wisdom of God is a Large and Broad River poured forth from this Fountain Every Creature each Passage of things in the Creature is the Water of this River Shall it not be Sweet to thee Canst thou not drink of this Water of the River of God sent forth from his own Fountain with Delight 2. Scripture Deut. 32. 4. Moses sings of God He is the Rock His work is perfect All his ways are Iudgment The Work of God is Perfect in the whole For all the ways of God in his work in Particular are in Judgment that is in exact Wisdom This place affords us Three comfortable Observations concerning the ways and works of God 1. Observation Nothing comes to pass but that which is best 2. Observation Nothing falls out but in the best Time 3. Nothing is brought about but in the best manner The former place of Scripture taught us that all things are the Work of God This teacheth us that his work is Perfect and all the ways of it Exact according to the best Judgment of things and the rightest rules of Wisdom which are the
Mourning at the highest then say my Soul there is yet a Sight of God higher than this into which if thou couldst raise thy self thou shouldst find all their Love and Delight It is a Rule among Divines that there is no Supream Evil. Evil hath its Root in the Subordinate Manifestations of God in his Clothings and Disguises Travel on to the Naked Person to the open Face of God and thou Travellest beyond all the Fountains and Heads of Grief or Evil. 2. Rule Understand well that the Object of all Sorrow is the State of Things in flesh not in the Spirit The Law is the Ministry of Death and Condemnation 2 Cor. 3. 7. Sin comes in by Occasion of the Law Rom. 7. 8. The Law is the Occasion of Sin and the ministry of Death by reason of the Flesh Rom. 8. 3. What the Law could not do that is to make us Holy or Happy thorow the weakness of the Flesh. The weakness of the Flesh is the Ground on which all wickedness and woe is wrought The Flesh is the Shadow the Vail Hebr. 10. 20. Whatever evil is the Object of thy Grief so grieve as knowing it to be in the Shadowy part in the Out-side of Things only 'T is but a Leprosie in the Skin Job calls the Fleshly State of Things in themselves and not in the Spirit but Skin Job 19. 26. So doth the Devil in the Proverb Skin for Skin The Inside the Substance the Spiritual and Life-part of those Things over which thou so sadly breakest thy heart is Peace The Altar for Sacrifices was without the vail all thy Evils are without the vail let thy griefs then abid without the vail like the Servants of Abraham at the Foot of the Mount But let thy Spirit enter within the vail and let Isaac only go thither with thee the Child of Mirth and Laughter The Sea and Storms are without the Vail only in the Shadow The Anchor and the Rock Rest is within the Vail in the Spirit and Truth of Things 3. Rule Grieve so as having thy Head still above the Clouds of Grief in a clear Light of Peace and Joy Thy Head is Christ thy Head is thy Heavenly Principle thy Life hid with Christ in God Colos. 3. 3. This is your Head hiding itself in a Divine Light and Glory above all Storms and Changes Divide your self then in your Sorrows Let your grief be upon your Inferiour parts but let your Head be in Joys And as your Inferiour Parts are subordinate to your Head So let the Joys of that be as the head of your Griefs They that are washt need to have their Feet only washt said our Saviour Let your Feet only be washt with Tears And then remember that the Anointing of Glory and the Oyl of gladness is upon your Heads So mourn as that you may be like the Description of Christ Revel 1. 14. 15. that your Face may shine like the Sun in its Strength while your Feet are in the Furnace Feel your God stroaking your Head with his right hand while his left hand is striking your Feet with an Iron Rod of Affliction See how Job in a Tempest of Miseries yet Glories in his Head lift up above the Storm Job 16. 18 19. O Earth cover not thou my Blood and let my Cry have no place Also now behold My Witnes is in Heaven and my Record is on High When thy Tears and Blood run down upon the ground when thy Cries fill the Earth then raise thy self like Job and say even now behold My Head is in Heaven now I have a Life in my Heavenly Principle which is an Eternal Record of my Glory and Blessedness This testifies of a Beauty and Joy to me in these very Sorrows 4. Rule Let the Heavenly Principle as it lives in the Earthly be the Spring of your Sorrows Let not thy Griefs be an Oppression to the Spiritual Man in thee but an Oblation from it Thy Griefs will be an oppression to it if they proceed not from itself Originally For then its Joys in the Flesh are taken away from it by another by the Fleshly Principle Thy Griefs are an Oblation by the Spirit when they flow Primarily from the Spirit For then itself layeth down its Joys as Christ speaketh of his Life The Blood which our Saviour shed is called in Scripture the Blood of God Though the Blood ran thorow the Humane Nature Yet the Person or Principle that bled in that Nature was God Our Divinity ordinarily teacheth us this that Christ was Man that he might Suffer God that he might Merit His Blood had been of no value with God if it had not been the Blood of God In like manner your Tears cannot be Heavenly and Divine if they be not the Tears of the Heavenly and Divine Principle in you Though the Earthly Principle be as the Earth in which these bitter Waters bubble up and run along yet the Heavenly Principle must be the Spring in this Earth out of which they arise Otherwise they will be of no use to you nor value with God 5. Rule Let the Mourning of your Earthly Principle be a Subordination and Submission to your Heavenly Principle This makes your Sorrow a Sacrifice when without this your Mourning is but Murmuring Heb. 10. 5 6 7. Jesus Christ is brought in speaking to God his Father Sacrifice and Burnt-Offering thou wouldst not but a Body hast thou prepared mâ— Then said I lo I come to do thy Will O God Thus the Heavenly Principle speaks the same Language in every St. Thou wilt have no more Sacrifices of Beasts The Time is past in which thou hast taken pleasure to have the Inferiour Earthly Principle to be Sacrificed to and by the Superiour Heavenly Principle while thine Image was present only in the Type and Shadow But now thou hast prepared a Body for me thou hast brought me into the Earthly Principle that I should make a Burnt-Offering of my self to thee as of my own Body They were to bring no Strange Fire to the Sacrifice but to wait till Fire from Heaven fall down upon it and consume it In like manner is the Earthly man to lay itself on the Altar by the Power of the Heavenly Man and to wait till that bring forth a Flame of Sorrow upon it The Earthly man should say alwaies to the Heavenly I mourn that I may do thy Will and not mine own Est quaedam flere Libido There may be a Lust in weeping and so there is when the Outward Man fulfils his own will in weeping and not the Will of the Inward Man which is one with the Will of Christ and God 6. Rule Let the Earthly Principle as it is in itself be only a Slave to you in your Griefs If the Flesh have a Power of its own to make you Grieve to qualifie or measure your Griefs it will bring the Curse of the Serpent upon you it will make you to go upon your Belly
to sink altogether into your sensual and Corruptible Part. It will make you feed upon Dust seek a merit in and a Nourishment from your Sorrows When the Flesh hath Liberty to interpose it self in our mourning it makes our mourning Brutish or Devilish It makes our mourning Brutish by deriving it from outward and Temporal Things by terminating it on these So our Lamentations are as the howl of Dogs and cry of Bears It makes our mourning Devilish by mingling it with discontent and despair So the Roarings of our Spirits are like the yellings of Devils to Christ Art thou come to Torment us The Flesh is to be kept as a Hewer of Wood Drawer of Water We are to make use of the ways and weaknesses of it to help to break our Hearts and bring forth Tears at the direction of the Spirit in us The work of our Grief upon our Natural Part as it is in itself must be to keep it under to beat it as a Slave to destroy it as an Enemy This is the Ass which is not for Sacrifice but to have its neck broke except it be redeemed by its Subordination to the Spiritual Part. I have done speaking of the manner of Spiritual Mourning I come now to the Third Particular in the opening of the Nature of this Grief which is the Measure The Measure of Spiritual Grief hath Three Limits 1. Limit The casting out of Filth 2. Limit The casting down of Flesh. 3. Limit The clearing up of the Face of God towards us 1. Limit The casting out of Filth St. Paul 1 Corin. 5. 3. in the case of the incestuous Person blames the Church that they had not mourned that he who had done this Thing might be cast out from among them The Case is the same in our own Persons We are to mourn that every Evil Thing may be cast out of us We are to keep our Hearts in a melting temper till our Lusts be quite melted down till the Gold and the Dross be separated one from another We are to weep till we have washed our selves clean in our Tears Obj. But you may here ask What Power is there in our Tears or Sorrows to cleanse us from our Filth shall we say with the Papist that our mourning merits Grace if not of Desert yet for desire out of Congruity Or shall we say with the Arminian that our griefs are a moral way of working upon our will to mortifie that and make it weary of the Pleasures of Sin for the Pennance of Sorrow Ans. I answer to this that there is neither any merit in the Tears of any Creature to move God For if thou be Righteous it is to thy self And the Heavens with all their Hosts are Folly and Filth before Him Neither is there any Efficacy in the woes of man to purge the will of man For who can bring a clean Thing out of an unclean Can any one redeem his Brother from Death Can one Passion or affection in Man by a Death in Sorrow redeem his Brother another Passion or affection from the Death of Sin They must let this alone for ever But the Spiritual Griefs of a Saint are the Buddings of Aaron's Rod of the the Cross of the Lord Jesus in him And from hence they have their value with God and their Vertue on us 1. First my Sorrows have a value with God as they are the Sufferings of my Saviour in me St. Paul saith of himself 1 Colos. 24. I rejoyce in my Sufferings while I fill up that which is behind of the Afflictions of Christ in my Flesh for his Bodies sake All the Sufferings of Believers are the Sufferings of Christ propagating themselves thorow his mystical Members We are one Spirit with our Lord Jesus in our Tribulations as well as in our Consolations Our Groans as much as our Gloryings are the Breathings of that Spirit As the Soul is all in all the Parts of the Body making every Member a part of the Humane Nature putting upon it the Beauty of that Nature So is Jesus Christ in every Thing of the actings or Sufferings of Christ any where giving a Divine Beauty and worth to it by vertue of the Union 2 Corin. 4. 10. Always bearing about in my Body the Dying of the Lord Jesus that the Life of the Lord Jesus may be made manifest in my Body This St. Paul saith of himself The Tears from our eyes are the Blood from the Heart of the Lord Jesus Though not as our Tears yet as his Blood they have Power with God to bring forth his life in us Jesus Christ dies over again in thy griefs that so he may act his Resurrection over again in thy Graces The Father makes a Promise to the Lord Jesus Es. 53. 10. When he shall make his Soul an offering for Sin he shall he see his Seed This is an Everlasting Covenant between the Father and the Son that when he hath descended to the lowermost parts of the Earth he should then begin to ascend When the Image of the Invisible God hath put itself off into the Strange Forms of Darkness and Death then is it to spring up again out of these and again to behold itself in its own proper shape and power which is its Seed Thy Saviour and Husband makes his Soul an Offering for Sin in all the Sufferings of thy Soul Therefore mayest thou now challenge it of the Father in the name of Jesus Christ that he may see in thee his Seed which is the Power of an endless Life Thou mayest say behold O my God! by him whose the Signet and the Staff is the Glory and Power of thy God-Head by him am I in these Pangs and Sorrows Let then a Man-child be born in my Heart which may be called after his name that I may rejoyce in it and remember my Sorrow no more Thy Benjamin is come before thee into the Land of Aegypt as thy servant in my servitude Thy Darling hath brought himself into my guilt and griefs he stands before thee in them The Lamb of God a slain in my sufferings O then let it be a Passover that the evil Angel of Lust and Misery may pass from the house of my Spirit when he sees the blood of this Lamb in my Tears sprinkled upon the Posts of the Door 2. Secondly Our Sorrows have a vertue on us as they are the Sufferings of Iesus Christ in us Galat. 6. 14. God forbid saith Paul that I should glory in any thing save in the Cross of our Lord Iesus by which the world is crucified to me and I to the World As the Person of Christ is the Seed of God which springs up into many Sons to God so is the Cross of the Lord Jesus a Seed that remains not alone but brings forth much Fruit. It grows up into a multitude of Crosses a Cross in each good Heart a Cross in every Creature of this world This Cross of Christ is the wisdom and
Power of God making themselves first the Tree of the Curse on which all the Principles and Spirits of this world must hang Then the Tree of Life bringing forth the Fruits of Paradise and the Third Heaven Every care or cross in a Saint is this Cross of his Saviour sprouting in his Person The Lord Jesus lies hid in each Tear in each sigh of a Holy Spirit He is there as the Seed falling into the Earth and Dying By this Death he delivers himself from Death in thy Heart and breaks out on every side into Discoveries of his Grace and Glory Say of thy Trouble why art thou cast down O my Soul This is that Death of my Saviour in me by which he destroys the power of Death in my Spirit Sin and the Devil This is the way in which thou shalt praise him and see him swallowing up the Principle of Darkness in Darkness that he may bring forth himself in the Light of his Countenance to be the Light of thy Countenance I have been the larger in this Objection that so I may be the more clearly understood both in this and in the following Particulars Whatever mention is made of any Beauty or Grace in a Saint is not to be imputed to the Saint but to the Grace and Face of Jesus Christ in him so is the Excellency or Efficacy of our mourning the Discovery of our dying Saviour in it No Persons no Sorrows are Spiritual if they be not one Spirit with Jesus Christ. But thus much for the First limit in the measure of our Sorrows the casting out of Filth 2. Limit The casting down of the Flesh 1 Cor. 9. 27. I saith the Apostle keep under my body and bring it into Subjection The words are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I beat it black and blew and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I make it to serve The end and so the bound of Humiliation is First to bring down the Principle of the Natural Man into a Principle of Darkness that it may no more put forth itself in its own Light and Life Secondly it is to subdue that Principle to the Heavenly Principle that it may be quite slain in itself and revived in the Spiritual Man a Spiritual Principle Rom. 7. 24. St. Paul calls the Natural Man this body of Death or the body of this Death It is a body of Death in a Two-fold sense First Thy Outward Man is the shadow of Death cast upon thy Spirit It is the Valley of the Shadow of Death thorow which thou walkest here below Thou art in the Body sunk down to the borders of Death being already come within the shadow of it The whole face of things upon thy Person and round about thee is a dead Image and the Image of Death For he who hath the Power of Death hath entred into it with his Principality and taken away the true Life of it setting it up now as an Appearance in and of himself Secondly Thy Outward Man is a Body of Death because it is appointed to Death The Body by one Death hath brought it self out of the Divine Life into the Power of Darkness into a Hellish Root Now by another Death it must be broken off from this Root and brought back again into an Eternal Stock Our mourning then must last while we are in the Body of this Death till this be no more this Body but perish in Death The Devil cast us out of our Innocency and from the face of God he set up himself by setting up the Natural Man in it self We were turn'd out of Paradise when we came into this Body which is now the Beast's skin Again By the Ruine of the Natural Man we must raise the Building of God and cast down the Devil By putting off the Beast's skin by the dissolution of the Tabernacle of Beasts skins in Death we return into Paradise We are therefore to go mourning to our Graves 3. Limit The clearing of the face of God towards us Matth. 9. 15. Our Saviour tells the Jews That his Disciples could not fast while the Bridegroom was with them But the Bridegroom should be taken away And then they should fast in those days The Face of God in Jesus Christ is the Soul's Bridegroom Who that is the Bride of this Bridegroom can take joy in any thing when this Face is withdrawn and hid from him Shall not our Souls fast from the Freedom and Fulness of Natural Delights when our Spirits are made to fast from the Beauties and Delicacies of Jesus Christ This is the season of Mournning It is now beautiful to see a holy Soul Widow-like with a Vail upon the face of all her Glory and Content when her God is gone a great Journey from her What can she do but mourn when he is absent who was the Light of her Eyes the Anointing of her Face and Head What can set an end to her mournings till he return and wipe away all Tears from her Eyes by setting himself in the Eye of her Spirit Psal. 30. 7. Thou didst hide thy face and I was troubled saith David Will it not be Winter when your Sun is gone Can you expect a Spring till he turns toward your Earth again Is it not the Presence of the Lord Jesus that makes all things fresh and full of Beauty round about thee When he is withdrawn who was the Image of God in them do not all things droop and languish in thine Eyes Canst thou then chuse but languish with them If the Lord Jesus be the Root of thy Spirit and his Spirit the Sap of thy Comforts thou wilt grieve in his absence without arguments to persuade thee to it as naturally as Flowers nipt with Frosts hang the head Nay no arguments will be able to raise thee to any degree of chearfulness except he come and make himself the argument When thy Corruptions like Fogs from the Earth have gathered into Clouds which hide the Heaven of thy Lords Face from thee weep then till these Clouds be again dissolv'd by the Showers of thy Tears and so thy Jesus again discover himself over thee as a clear sky I have done with the Third particular in the Nature of Spiritual mourning which was the measure of it 4. The Mystery The Mystery of every thing is in God Ephes. 3. 9. the Mystery hid in God who created all Things by Jesus Christ. This is the Mystery of Things their ground their beginning and end in the Person of God and Christ. Neither can we be Spiritual in any thing any further than we see the Mystery of it and stand in the Mystery The Mystery of a holy Grief is Threefold 1. Mystery Conformity to Iesus Christ. 2. Mystery Complyance with the Will of God 3. Mystery The Compleating of our Persons 1. Mystery Conformity to Jesus Christ. We read Ephes. 1. 4 5. that we were chosen in Christ before the Foundation of the world We were predestinated to the Adoption of Children by
of its unseen Element Thou sayst it is now dying now dead when it is emptying itself into the Ocean of Beauties retreating into the pure and incorruptible Element of Beauty the Blessed Person of Christ. Cleave to it in this view of it cast thy self with it into these secret and sacred depths of Life and Loveliness so shalt thou never lose it or thy self save by being both together swallowed up into the perfection of Beauty the Eternal Treasury of all Beauties Jesus Christ. I have now finished the Two first Reasons of the Fairness of Christ above all things the Original the Perfection of Beauty in his Person Before I pass to the other Two Reasons let us look down a little upon our selves and make some application of these Beauties which we have seen in the Person of our Lord to our own Persons to enlighten the Darknesses and redress the deformities there Use. 1. A Caution Let us take heed that we make no inference take no encouragement from the Loveliness of Christ to make our selves unlovely in his Eye to defile his Spouse in our selves to stain his Glory by Sensuality Lust or any presumptuous Sin Our Saviour now dying saith to his Father of his Disciples I sanctify my self that they also may be sanctified John 17. Jesus Christ put off in Death every thing of Earth and Flesh. He lifteth himself up by his Cross into Glory that he may present himself again to the Eye of our Spirits in the Spiritual and Heavenly Brightness of the Divine Form and Glory that he may baptize us into the same Sea of his Blood and into the same white Cloud of his own Spiritual Beauties that we also by him may die to the Flesh and live with him in the Spirit Hath Jesus Christ to this end made himself higher than the Heavens Heb. that our Hearts and Liveâ— should be low and vile as the Earth Is he ascended above all the Angels all the Principalities and Powers of Light that we should become like Beasts and yield up our Bodies and Spirits Instruments to the Principalities and Powers of the Darkness of this World and of Hell Is there any hope of renewing such a Person by words who thus turneth the rightest and pleasantest words of the Lord Jesus and his Beauties unto nourishment to vain and filthy Lusts to Corruption Is any more to be done but to leave him to that Dreadful and Delightful Maran Atha which is by interpretation The Lord cometh to the Person of Christ himself in his own immediate Appearances when those glorious and unexpressible Beauties of the Spirit and God-Head in which he shall appear shall be Flames of Fire burning upon and consuming every Earthly Fleshly Principle or Spirit in every Form Use. 2. A Conviction of the Evil of Sin which blindeth us to the sight of this Beautiful and Blessed Person of our Lord Jesus How should we all curse to the Pit of Hell from whence it arose that Charm or Enchantment if any had such force to change the Sun into Sack-cloath or hinder it from shining any more upon the Earth How much worse than a Grave would it make the whole world when we should have eyes open and no Light Far greater is that mischief which the Devil worketh by Sin By the charm of this world which he raiseth as an Apparition and Lying Image from Hell together with the Lusts which he awakeneth by it he taketh away from us the glorious Light of Christs Person ten thousand times brighter sweeter and of more consequence to us than the Sun in Heaven 2 Corin. 4. 4. By this means all our faculties are as so many Eyes continually awakened continually benighted with the blackness of Darkness deluded with empty Shadows and disappointed of the beloved Substance So are our Spirits wandring in an everlasting Darkness tormented night and day with the fire of their own restless eager and unsatisfied desires while Jesus Christ their only Light and Food is hid from them under the Cloud of their Corruptions Take heed especially of three Sins 3 of Covetousness Uncleanness Enmity 1. Take heed of Covetousness Mat. 6. 22. Our Saviour warneth his Disciples to take heed what they made their Treasure because where the Treasure sure is there the Heart will be v. 21. The beloved Object irresistibly draweth the Heart to itself and transformeth it into itself as Seed doth the ground in which it is sown The Eye saith Christ is the Light of the Body If thine Eye be single thy whole Body shall be full of Light But if thine Eye be evil thy whole Body shall be full of Darkness and if the Light which is in thee be darkness how great is that Darkness The whole Soul and every Spirit is an Eye The understanding is an Eye of Light the Will is an Eye of Love The same word for the substance of it in the Hebrew signifies an Eye and a Fountain The Object is the Light of this Eye which sheds abroad in it the Beams of its Light Sweetness and Influence These are the waters springing up in this Fountain The single Eye in the Language of the Scripture is the good the liberal large open Eye The Eye is single from its Object when it hath fixed unchangeably in it that single Object which is truly and eternally One when it looketh upon all things only as they are comprehended in this Unity This is such a singleness such a simplicity that the Eye and the Object are both One the Supream and Eternal Unity is both the Eye and the Object in this Spirit and so the Fountain which goeth forth from its own Eden maketh the Soul a Paradise and watereth the whole Body The Evil Eye is a contracted divided narrow covetous envious malicious Eye Beware O man that the things of this world that this world be not in thine Eye As Jesus Christ is the Image of the Invisible God so is this World the Image of its God the Devil the Prince of Darkness by which he becomes visible to thee enamouâ—eth thy Soul setteth himself in thine Eye and thine Heart with all his Hells and Fires hid within this Cloud And now a blackness of Darkness big with a dreadful Tempest of Wrath dwelleth within thee and covereth all things round about thee But if Jesus Christ be the Object of thy Love he will be as a Divine Sun in the Center and midst of thy Spirit powring forth a great plenty of rich and glorious Beams thorow all parts every point of thy Soul thy Body every thing round about thee Now all things shall be to thee one entire and beautiful Body of Divine Light Indeed the world compared with the great and glorious world of Light and Beauty in the Person of Christ is as a Mote in the Sun But if this Mote be in thine Eye it will deprive thee of the sight of this Sun 2. Take heed of Uncleanness St. Jude v. 23. teacheth us to hate the Garment spotted
Life from the Ocean which hath its Fountain in itself which is therefore unconfined and infinite as much as a little Shadow from the Eternal Incomprehensible Truth and Substance such is the dissimilitude and disproportion between the beautiful Body of Adam in Paradise and the Blessed Body of our dear Lord in Heaven As the Earth in Essence and Appearance in Greatness and Glory in vertue and Comprehension differeth from Heaven not only this Heaven which we see not the Heaven of Angels above our sight but that Heaven out of which our Jesus cometh as Lord of all an Heaven higher than all created Heavens such is the difference between the New-created Body of Adam our first Father which shone about his spotless Soul as the Light about the Sun and the glorified Body of Jesus our first and last Lord and Love O all ye that hear and believe admire with me the insiniteness of the wisdom and love of our God who hath made the loss of Paradise by Sin so great a gain to us instead of that giving us our Jesus But we shall come yet more clearly to the mark at which we aim if we examine these words more exactly To that end I shall propound three Questions 1. Question What the general Nature of a Body is Answ. A Body is the compleat Image Instrument and Fulness of that Soul or Spirit to which it doth belong Col. 2. 17. A Body and a Shadow are set opposite one to another Which are a Shadow of things to come but the Body is of Christ or is Christs is the Body of Christ. A Body and a Shadow agree in being an Image But the Shadow is a confused useless emply Image the Body express Instrumental Substantial and full In the same Chapter a little before v. 9. we read of the Lord Iesus in him dwelleth all the Fulness of the GodHead bodily God is the Person in Christ the glorified Body of our blessed Saviour is the express Image of the God-Head God is seen there as a Man is at home in his house nakedly clearly familiarly constantly entirely in all Forms and Postures This glorious Body is the Universal and Immediate Instrument of the God-Head the Sphear of its Activity God judgeth all acteth all exerciseth all the operations of the Divine Nature and life here as the Sun runeth his race from the beginning to the end of it in his proper Orb and Heaven God dwelleth with all his fulness in this Body He delighteth to pour out into the Body of our Beloved and his Beloved all the precious Treasures of his God-Head Here he delighteth to possess and enjoy them in a Bodily Form in the Form of a Spiritual Heavenly and Divine Body As at the Incarnation the word was made Flesh. A Body of Flesh Iohn 1. 14. by emptying itself to nothing so now is the Eternal Word again in the Resurrection made a Spiritual Body by returning and rising up into all its Fulnesses in the same Body in which he had emptied himself The Lord Jesus speaketh of himself in Glory when he saith In my Fathers house are many Mansions John 14. 2. The Body of our Bridegroom is a Spiritual Palace in which all the excellencies and Off-springs all the operations and works of the Divine Nature have their several distinct Mansions and apartments We read of a Tree in the branches of which all the Birds of Heaven have their Nests The Spiritual Body of Christ is the Tree of Life and of Love which hath Branches enough and large enough for all the Birds of the highest Heaven the seven Spirits of God with all their Train all the variety of the God-Head to make their several Nests in them I may add also for all the Beasts of the Field all inferiour Forms of Things to lodge under its Shadow You who love the Lord Jesus and his Appearances doth not this move you doth not this make your hearts to spring and dance in your breasts to hear that your Saviour is cloathed with this Heavenly Body so full of Glory and of God Can we forbear now from saying to our own hearts and one to another these five short words 1. If we have formerly known any thing besides our Jesus let us now know it no more If we have hitherto known Christ after the Flesh let us know him so no more This is the only object worth all our knowledge and study Jesus in his Spiritual Body purer and brighter than the Body of Heaven in Paradise far beyond that in the height variety and compass of its Glories 2. How black doth every Sin appear in this Light of our Lords glorified Body When a Soldier was about to kill Cresus his dumb Son cryed out thou killest the King So cry to every Lust in thine heart thou crucifiest my Jesus in his Spiritual Body the Body of all Divine Beauties shining like a Divine Sun upon thee comprehending thee as the highest â—eaven In every Creature in which thou seest not the blessed Light of this Body in which thou doest not kiss it with the pure mouth of the Spirit in thee thou doest crucisy it 3. Is not this Bosom this Heavenly Body of our Beloved a Field of Lillies indeed the Field of all Spiritual Beauties and Divine Graces Shall we not like pleasant Roes be ever feeding here As Booz said to Ruth let us never go into any other Field to gather or to feed Is not this the Paradise itself in the third Heavens where all the Fulnesses of the God-Head are in a Body a Divine Body 4. How pure and Spiritual are we to be in Body and Spirit if we are to be Brides to this Lamb of God whose Body outshineth all the Angels and is raised to a degree of Spirituality far above them 5. Is this that Body of which the poorest believing Soul may say by the Law of its Spiritual Marriage my Jesus hath not power over his own Body but I have power over it to command its presence with me to delight my self in it as my Garden of Eden of pleasure to bring forth Fruit by it Is this that glorious Body of Christ to which these vile Bodies yours and mine are to be made like by that Power by which he is able to subdue all things to himself to the similitude of this Body of Divine Glories Is this the Body into which we are taken up and which we are at home with when in death we are withdrawn from these Bodies of our Pilgrimage here Qu. 2. What the force of this phrase is A Living Soul The first Adam was made a Living Soul Was he not made a Body as well as a Soul The Body seemeth to be so far from being concerned here that it is excluded Ans. This Word Soul hath Three Acceptions in the New Testament and so that which answereth it in the Old 1. It is taken for the Person composed of Soul and Body So Gen. 46. 26. All the Souls which came with
one Spirit In the verse before he had said What know ye not that he who is joyned to an Harlot is one Body For two saith he shall be one Flesh. v. 16. Here the discourse is clearly of the Body As the earthly Marriage maketh two Bodies one Flesh the Heavenly Marriage maketh them one Spirit The union between our glorified Lord and our Bodies in the Resurrection is as immediate and entire as between our Saviour and our Souls so that these also are Spirits and one Spirit with him Is not his Body then first a Spirit Doth not the Union between the Divine Nature and his Blessed Body make that a Spirit and one Spirit with itself The glorified Body and Soul of a Saint are one Spirit They are one Spirit with the glorified Body and Soul of their Jesus with the three Persons in the Trinity with all Beautiful and blessed Spirits All are one Spirit Yet are they all distinct Spirits If the distinction were taken away the Harmony the Beauty the Musick the Marriage-joy and Marriage-love in Heaven were all lost Obj. But you will say how can this be Are not Body and Spirit contrary How then can a Body be a Spirit Ans. Flesh and Spirit are every where in Scripture opposed one to the other but not so a Body and a Spirit Those very Terms on which the Contrariety is set so frequently by the Holy Ghost between Flesh and Spirit shew that the Heavenly Body the true Body the Body of Life and Glory is a Spirit I shall instance only in a Twofold Opposition one where the Flesh and the Spirit are set as Life and Death the other where they are set as the Truth or Beauty itself and the Vail upon it 1. The First is Rom. 8. 6. To be carnally minded is Death but to be Spiritually-minded is Life and Peace In each of these Words Life Peace all Joys of Life and Immortality are expressed by the language of the Spirit Both together are Joys heaped upon Joys Blessedness upon Blessedness to express the Infiniteness in which they rise up ever New though there can be never any thing more Or the Circle of Eternity where all Fulnesses of Life and Joy run one into another multiplying themselves upon themselves endlesly Life is the Flourishing State of Things a Perpetual Spring The Happiness of Princes the Blessedness of the Divine Nature is sum'd up in Life Live O King The Lord liveth Peace is the whole Gift and Legacy of Christ to His Saints My Peace I leave with you My Peace I give unto you It is All the Good that goeth along with His Presence and Appearance in His Immortal state Hee stood in the midst of them saying Peace be with you when He appeared to them after His Resurrection Peace is the Plenary Rest of all Parts and Faculties of the whole Person in a perfect Union with and full Fruition of their proper Objects in Perfection The Greek Word for Peace signifieth the Band of all Perfections the Circle of Eternity All things within and without linked together in the Golden Chain of a Blessed and Divine Harmony making an Ornament of Beauty for the Soul to put on making a Musâ—ck to charm the Soul into the Divine Sleep of the sweetest and deepest Complacency The Hebrew Tongue expresseth Both Perfection and Peace by one Word This is the Name of him who was the Eminent Figure of Christ in Glory Solomon This is the Name of Jesus Himself as He sitteth upon the Throne of the Divine Nature in the Kingdom of the Spirit Isa. 9. 6. The Prince of Peace Some translate it very properly The Prince The Peace or Perfection Shalom But to apply this to our purpose The Image of things as they stand in the Spirit is in it self the Appearance of things in this Image is to those who see it Life and Peace that is Eternity of Blessedness Heaven it self But the Image and Appearance of things in Flesh is not onely Dying or Dead It is Death itself The Life of Nature and of Flesh is a Shadow onely of Life and the Death of the True Life which is in the Spirit This universal Image of things which we call the World comprehending the whole Creation in all its Beauty is no more than the Grave in which the Spiritual Image lyeth sleeping the sleep of death 2. The second Opposition between Flesh and Spirit is that of the Truth and the Vail upon the Truth Job 4. 24. Our Saviour saith The Father seeketh such Worshippers as worship Him in Spirit and Truth Spirit and Truth are here joyned in the same sense as Spirit and Life go together Job 6. v. 63. The words that I speak they are Spirit and they are Life The Spirit is the Truth and the Life The Flesh is a Dead Counterfeit as a Picture is the Counterfeit of a Man being neither the Life nor the Truth 1 Joh. 6. 6. The Spirit beareth witness For the Spirit is the Truth The Spirit is the last and onely Witness For the Spirit is the Truth itself the Universal and Eternal Truth There are two Maxims in Philosophy that All Truths and the Essences of things are Eternal The Truth then and Essence of a Saint's Body and of Christ's the true and essential Body is a Spirit in the Eternal Spirit It is not Living but Life it self The Body of Flesh is a Vail upon this True Body which is an Immortal Spirit So it is expresly named Heb. 10. v. 20. where Christ is said to have entred and made a living way for us into the most Holy Place by the rending of the Vail that is His Flesh. The true Body is a Spirit and Spring of Immortality in the most Holy Place the Eternal Spirit When it cometh forth from thence into the open streets and fields of this Creation it casteth over itself the Vail of this Fleshly Body In Death it rendeth and casteth off this Vail of Flesh so it returneth pure and naked in the Resurrection into the most Holy Place into the Eternal Spirit again where it ever stood after an unchangeable manner in its simple and unvailed Beauties So is that Mystery of the Gospel accomplished in the blessed Body of our Saviour No one goeth up into Heaven but he who come down out of Heaven the Son of Man who is in Heaven Qu. But you will ask me now What becometh of this Body of Flesh in the Râ—surrection Ans. What becometh of the Seed of a Plant in the Spring and the Summer The Plant first contracteth its Parts and Powers its Beauties and Sweetâ—â—sses under a Vail while it maketh itself a Seed Then again it breaketh this Seed casteth off the Vail discovereth by degrees its entire Form with all its Flowers and Fruits As before the Plant was hid and imprisoned in every poâ—nt of the Seed so is the Seed now Flourishing and rejoycing with all its several vertues and pleasant Forms in every part of the Plant. We read
Job 1. 14. The Word was made Flesh. The true and Spiritual Body which is an Immortal Plant in the Heavenly Paradise according to the Almighty Power and Mysterâ—ous Will of the Eternal Word in which it standeth and Flourisheth maketh itself into a Body of Flesh. Again by the same Power in the sweet and glorious Mystery of the same Will it maketh this Flesh a Spirit If you ask now where it is it is Singing and Triumphing throughout all the Divâ—ne Powers throughout all the â—nnumerably various Forms of Eternal Life Beauty and Joy in the Heavenâ—y Body â—or that which was Flesh is now Spirit As the Tabernacle was removed into the Temple when the Temple was built up and set there as a part of the Sacred Mysteries in that Holy Place so the Spiritual Body when it is raised taketh up into itself and comprehendeth in itself the Vailing Form of Flesh as a Beautiful Form in that Divine Mystery which it finisheth in itself Qu. But you will say now perhaps How is this done by what Power and in what manner is the Body of our Lord in the Resurrection made a Quickning Spirit Ans. I answer that it is done by vertue of the Personal Union between the Divine and Humane Nature in Christ. The Person is the Word the Eternal Spirit This Word the Soul the Body of our beloved Jesus are all one Person so all one Eternal Spirit the Fountain of Life As the Soul is said to be all in the whole Body and All in every part of it so is the Person in Christ the Immmâ—rtal Word All in the whole Humane Nature and All in every part of it either Soul or Body The Union between the Divine Nature in our Bridegroom and his glorified Body is equally immediate and entire as between that and his Triumphant Soul The Humane Nature subsisteth and standeth in the Divine as a Tree in its Root But this Union in the days of his Flesh is as that between the Tree and its Root in Winter The Resurrection is our Saviours Spring-time and Summer Every living Root in Spring ceaseth not to send forth its Sap into the Tree until it have brought forth the Tree into that Form and laden it with those Fruits which are proper to the Root In the Resurrection the Divine Nature riseth up with all its Sweetness and Fatness all its Vertues and Powers into the Humane Nature till it have spread and fashioned it entirely into its own Form till it have laden it all over with the precious Fruits of its own excellencies Joys and Glories In every power part and point of Soul and Body though never so mean so small the Fountain of the God-Head openeth itself the Fulness of the God-Head poureth forth itself that as the Waters cover the Sea so every distinct Part or Point appeareth as a distinct Sea of the Divine Life Joys Loves and Glories without bottom or bound This O shadowy Man O faln lost Man is thy Jesus thy Life thy Saviour Look to this Jesus with an Eye of Faith with an Eye of Love live by Him live in Him live to Him Triumph thou because of this Jesus Look to Him as 1. Thy Principle 2. Thy Pattern 3. Thy Price 4. Thy Portion 1. Look to this Jesus who is All-Beautiful with the Beauty of the GodHead itself as thy Principle I am the vine ye are the branches He that abideth in me and I in him bringeth forth much fruit Without me ye can do nothing saith Jesus Christ Job 15. 5. The Tree first comprehendeth the Branch in itself then sendeth it forth supplying it continually with its own Life and Sap. By the vertue of this Life Sap the Branch taketh hold of the Tree sucketh in continually fresh and vital nourishment by which it flourisheth and bringeth forth much fruit What shall I say for thee who yet partakest not of the sweetness and fatness of this Spiritual Tree of Life and love Thou canst bring forth no Fruit thou canst do nothing towards thine own fruitfulness Without this Jesus thou canst do nothing O that thou didst understand thine own Emptiness and the Fulness of Sap in this Vine How truly All things Angels Men All the Creatures can do nothing are nothing without this Jesus that Spirit which is the onely Truth the onely Lfe in and thorow All I will pray over thee with inward bleedings of Divine Love from my heart O that Jesus thy Root who comprehendeth even thee also in the Fulness of His Heavenly sap and vertue would bring thee forth by a new birth as a Heavenly branch in Himself O that He would continually milk forth from His Breast the streams of His Life into thee Thus He abideth in thee Now do thou now wilt thou by Him abiding in thee abide in Him Shoot forth thy self into Him as roots do their Sprigs and Branches into the Earth beneath by the actings of thy Faith upon him Draw his Spirit and Grace into thy self Be green be fair and flourishing in the Eye of Heaven Bring forth much Fruit for thy self thy Saviour thy Heavenly Father all Angels and blessed Spirits to feed upon in Eternity 2. Look to this Jesus as thy Pattern What thou hast seen done in his Soul and Body by the Union between these and the God-Head the same Glory shall be brought forth in thy Soul and Body also by the Union between him and thee if thou in thy Soul and Body adhere and stick to his glorified Soul and Body as they are full of the Eternal Word dwelling in them and resting upon them The Angels reproved the Disciples when Christ was taken up into Glory because they looked to a visible Heaven to see their glorified Lord still with Eyes of Flesh Why stand you here gazing up into Heaven This same Jesus who is taken up from you into Heaven shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into Heaven I say to you in another sense stand and look upon your Jesus as he ascends This is your Pattern As you have seen him in his Humane Nature go up out of all Fleshly and Visible Images into an Invisible Glory as you have seen him taken out of the sight of every created Eye in the white Cloud of the most excellent Majesty of the Father which is the Heaven of Heavens so shall the same Jesus in like manner come again in your Souls and Bodies descending into them upon those Spiritual Heavens and changing them by degrees from Glory to Glory till they also put off every thing of Flesh and disappearing to every natural Eye be made perfectiâ—n the same Spirit to be for ever together with him there where he is and like him 3. Look to Jesus as thy Price The Lord taketh notice of the low thoughts and disesteem which the Jews had of him by that which they gave for him thirty pieces of Silver This saith he by the Prophet is the Price at which they valued me
Righteousness unto Eternal Life thorow Jesus Christ our Lord. There are three Ways in which the Righteousness of God serveth his Love 1. Righteousness is the Royal-Garment and the Wedding-Garment for Love itself and its Bride on the Coronation and the Wedding day which are both one the day of the Spirit the day of Grace the day of Eternity The Bridegroom himself is said to be fairer than the Sons of Men in my Text Psal. 45. 2. He is cloathed with the Righteousness of God which is the Comeliness the Beauty of Holiness or the Holy the Pure the unstained unmixt Beauty of the Divine Nature Two things make Beauty Features Colours The Features in the Face of the God-Head are the variety of all Excellencies in a Harmony The Colours are the Glory shining in all these This is the Righteousness of God Jesus Christ hath both these He is the express Image of the Person of God There are the Divine Features He is the brightness of the Glory of God There are the Divine Colours and Lustre Both these make up the Garment of Righteousness which is the Divine Loveliness of Love himself In this he appeareth fairer than the Sons of Men on his Marriage-Day in the day of the Gospel For Behold He cometh forth in the Righteousness of God This also is the Garment with which Love cloatheth and adorneth his Spouse the Believing Soul to make her fairer than all the Daughters of Men than all the Daughters of Hierusalem than all Angelical Beauties The Queen is said to be brought to the King all Glorious within in Garments of beaten Gold in Garments of Needle-work Psal. 4. 5. The Glory quite thorow the beaten Gold the Needle-work is all comprehended in the Righteousness of God He was made Sin for us that we might be made the Righteousness of God in him 2 Cor 5. 21. This is the Garment with which Divine Love adorneth his Queen to make her fit for his Throne and his Embraces This Garment of Divine Righteousness hath a mysterious vertue in it It is at once a Bath of Divine Blood which taketh off all the blackest deepest stains of deformity from the most loathed Souls It is a Tincture of Divine Beauty which giveth in a moment Youth Immortality a loveliness quite thorow its whole Essence a Substantial Essential loveliness a loveliness resembling and answering that of love himself of God This is the beaten Gold all Glory within A learned Interpreter teacheth us that the Needle-work in the Garment signifieth properly Oes wrought in Gold like so many Suns all over the Garment How rich how Beautiful is that Garment of Righteousness with which the Lord Jesus decketh the Soul of every Saint in which it fully pleaseth the Eye of God and dazleth the Eyes of Angels It is set all over with Golden Oes of an Eternal Glory with Invisible and Eternal Suns the unvailed Face the entire Person of the Lord Jesus set in every part and shining from every point of it This is the first Service of the Divine Righteousness to the Divine Love to make itself and its Bride the Beloved Soul Infinitely Unchangeably Lovely and Pleasant one to another This is the Righteousness of our fustification 2. Eternal love soweth the Righteousness of God as a Divine a Spiritual Seed in our Hearts This Seed changeth the ground into its own Nature It draweth the vertue and strength of it to itself It groweth up in it together with it to a Tree which is an entire Paradise in itself The body of this Tree is the Lord Jesus in the Power Glory Fulness of his Spirit The Branches are all the Spirits of God of Angels and Saints spread thorow all times and things All moral Excellencies all the Beauties and Perfections of the Divine Image in the first and universal frame of Nature are the leaves of this Tree which here never fade All Divine Righteousness all Evangelical Perfections and Spiritual Graces are the Fruit which is fitted for every Season and ever ripe in its Season On this Fruit love itself which is God the Son of love Jesus Christ all the Angels of love the Soul herself feed are refreshed and raised to a Divine Joy This is the Righteousness of our Sanctification 3. The Righteousness of God is the Scepter in the Hand of Love by which it ruleth all things As Moses commanded all the Elements the Air the Water the Earth by stretching forth the Rod in his hand so the Love of God swayeth all things every where by the Scepter of his Righteousness The Harmomony and Motions of the Divine Righteousness from the hand of Divine Love are felt and obeyed by all things to the utmost end of the Creation Righteousness is the Musick of Divine Love by which all things are charmed Use. See the distinction between the liberty of Spiritual Love and the licentiousness of Fleshly Lusts. 1. Divine Love is free but Divinely fair and pure St. James calleth the Gospel which is the Ministery of Love from Heaven the perfect Law of Liberty and in another place the Royal Law Love is free but it is perfect Love is a Liberty but it is a Law to itself in its Liberty Love is a King but it reigneth in Righteousness It is itself both King and Law to itself Love saith St. Paul is the fulfilling of the whole Law Jesus Christ said to John the Baptist It behoveth me to fulfil all Righteousness This is the Language of Heavenly Love in every Holy Heart It behoveth me to fulfil all Righteousness Love is an obligation of Righteousness to itself Righteousness is the decency the comliness of Love Love is the Divine Unity and Righteousness the Heavenly Harmony in which this Unity of Love diffuseth itself thorow all things True liberty is only found in Harmony All Bondage ariseth from Discord which hath its Root in Contrariety and Enmity Righteousness is the Harmony and Beauty of Love It is the liberty of the Sun to shine of a Tree to flourish with Leaves Flowers and Fruits Righteousness is the liberty the Sun-shine the Beauty and fruitfulness of Divine Love As the Sun by its light so the love of God by its Spiritual Beauty which is Holiness attracteth Spirits to it maketh them in love with it maketh them lovely by Assimilation making them like itself filleth them with all delights maketh them fruitful with all Beautiful and Divine Births of Grace and Glory Love and Righteousness are as the Father and the Son in the Blessed Trinity Love bringeth forth Righteousness as its proper brightness its lovely light its essential Image the express Image of its Substance and all its Sweetnesses or vertues As the Father is at liberty only in the Son his own Image as the Son is no where at liberty but in the Bosom of the Father his own Principle and Original so is love no where truly free but where it springeth up and flourisheth in the Fruits of Righteousness Righteousness is then
Unity which is the Divine Nâ—â—ure and which is Divine Love by three Principles of our common Orthodâ—â— Divinity rightly founded upon the Scriptures 1. Prin. God beholdeth All things in himself He goeth not forth out of himself to converse with any Thing He receiveth not any Impression from thing without himself Rom. 11. v. 35. 36. Who hath been his Counsellour or who haâ—â— given to the Lord first that he should repay him God is Simple ever Perfect uncompounded He seeth all things in the Glass of his own Essence He Himself All to himself his own Center and Circumference 2. Princ. Every thing which God seeth in himself he seeth at himself All Forms of things as they appear in God appear cloathed with the Form of God James 1. 5. every good and perfect Gift cometh from above from the Father of Lights with whom there is no variableness nor shadow of Turning All appearances of things in the Fahter of Lights the Sun of Eternity are Lights good and Perfect Lights not Beams but so many entire Suns Springs and Seas of Light the Light of Life and Love in the Bosom of that Sun the Father of them All. For there is no Variableness in God although there be Variety God is the Same in every season and Appearance without any Shadow of Turning 3. Princ. God as he seeth all things in himself in one Divine Form with himself comprehendeth them unchangeably in the closest and sweetest Embraces converseth with them Eternally in the highest degree of all mutual Suitableness Sweetness Satisfaction and Delight Pythagoras said Friendship the best Kind of Love on Earth was One Soul in several Bodies as in so many Images and Reflections of itself Such is God such is Love One Incomprehensible Spirit multiplying itself into Innumerable Representations and Reflections of itself that it may contemplate itself possess itself delight it Self Infinitely for the Divine Form compleat in every One endlessly for the Variety ever New This is the sacred Unsearchable Unity of the Divine Majesty Thus this Unity is the most Sacred and Supreme Love Quest. Now you may perhaps say within your selves some one of you This Love of which you speak is the Love of God within himself the Love of God to himself What is all this Love to me Answ. My answers to this Question shall be so many Applications of this Truth Use. 1. All this Love is nothing to thee who separatest thy self from the Divine Unity by sin Your Sins separate between me and you saith the Lord by the mouth of his holy Prophet You have accounted your selves unworthy of Spiritual Loves in that you have divided your selves from the Unity the Heavenly Body and Spirit of the Lord Jesus You stand in the strength of your own Spirits and walk after your own Imaginations Principles and â—mages which you have found out and chosen to your selves to stand in the Power and walk in the Light of them Matth. 23. 37. Jesus Christ mournâ—th over Jerusalem in these words O Jerusalem Jerusalem who stonest the Proâ—hets and killest those that are sent unto thee how often would I have gathered â—hee as a Hen gathereth her chickens under her Wings But ye would not Thereâ—ore now shall thy house be left unto thee desolate I say unto you Ye shall see me no more until ye shall say Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord Wretched Soul who art still in thy Sins hear thy Saviour after this manâ—er mourning over thee with tears of blood falling from those Wounds which Love in him Sin and Unbelief in thee have made with Words of Pity and tender Compassions falling from his Lips O wretched wretched Soul which by sin woundest that Unity of Divine Love which first sent thee forth from its Blessed Womb which by Unbelief continually killest in thy Self that Unity of the Eternal Spirit which springeth up in thee which sendeth forth sweet glances maketh strong Impressions of itself upon thee to draw thee into its Blessed Bosom O sinful O Unbelieving soul how often within thee without thee in thoughts of thine Heart in touches upon thy affections in the ministery of my Word in the works of my Providence have I spread over thee the Shadowing wings of the Divine Unity the wings of Divine Love of the Heavenly dove my Spirit How often would I have gathered thee under these wings to have lien safe from every Bird of Prey every Evil and Unclean Spirit to have lien warm under that Divine Heart which would have cherished the Divine Life in thee with all the Graces and Joys of it But thou wouldest not Therefore is thy Spirit and Person left to thee desolate without Spiritual Life Spiritual Comfort Spiritual Company which all as Plants of Immortality grow and flourish together in the Unity of the Eternal Spirit as in their Root But poor forlorn Soul when thou shalt see thy Saviour come again in his Spirit into thy Spirit then shalt thou fall down at his feet fly into his Arms and say Blessed is my Jesus coming in the Heavenly Evidence of the Divine Unity which is the Supream Love that subdueth all things to itself Now I believe This Unity this Love is the Ground and Root of Faith Use. 2. All this Love is nothing to thee who livest in the enmity of the Serpent Thou hast no lot nor portion in that Divine Unity which is the Fountain of Love who livest in Wrath Malice and a bitter Zeal The Spouse of Christ the Soul on which he hath set his Love is a Dove hath Hony and Milk under her Tongue Divine Love Heavenly Peace and Joy are a Fountain of Milk and Hony in her Heart Gentle Language Words of Meekness Healing Peace-making works are streams of Milk and Hony under her Tongue flowing from the Fountain of Divine Love in her heart We read in the Book of Job that the Wicked Man shall never see the Land of Brooks of Fountains and of Rivers of Waters but the Serpent shall bite him These expressions seem to allude to the Land of Canaan and the fiery Serpents in the Wilderness which things themselves were Types of the Paradise of Love in the Divine Unity and the Enmity of the old Serpent in the Wilderness of Sin As thou likest not to retain Love in thine Heart language and life but art a fiery biting Serpent by deadly hate bitter Speeches works of wrath and malice formed in Hell so thou shalt never see the pleasant Land flowing with Brooks with Fountains and Rivers of Love The crooked Serpent shall wrap thee up in his cursed folds to draw thee into his hideous Den there bite and devour thee Use. 3. Believe So shall all this Love be thine in thee and to thee I shall make good this to thee by 3 Arguments which are so many Motives to perswade thee to believe to stand fast in the Faith to grow in Faith 1. Argum. Believe and by believing thou shalt be transplanted
Entire Eternal the first and highest Unity in which all Unions lie together undivided compleat making up one Sweetness which hath the names and rellishes of all sweetnesses which giveth name and rellish to every sweetness which is above all names and rellishes unexpressible incomprehensible This is the Love-spring in the Trinity of Divine Love This is the Father in the Trinity of the Divine Nature Use. 1. Give all Glory to Free-Grace Ascribe all Riches to it Set your Love upon it This is the Fountain of Divine Love in the Bosom of the Father This is the Fountain of Israel This is the Fountain of the God Head This is your own your only Fountain O Saints All your streams of Life Grace Comfort Glory arise out of this Love-spring in Eternity which is the heart of the Father This is the Fountain this is the Father of Jesus Christ your Fountain and Father in him He that hath drunk the Waters of Life and Love from this Well will never thirst more after any other Waters or drink of any other Spring We read in Numbers of a Well in the Wilderness which the Princes digged with their Staves and sung to it Spring O Well O wandring Souls behold your Well which is before you in every Wilderness The Prince of Life your Jesus hath dig'd and opened it for you from the depths of the God-Head with the Staff the Scepter of his Spirit Look to no other Fountain But sing continually to this Spring O Well Spring O thou heart of the Father Spring in mine heart Spring with streams of Divine Truth Spring with streams of Divine Strength Spring with streams of Divine Joy Send forth thy streams over all my Soul and Body Make all my powers and parts to sing like the Garden of Eden O thou Fountain of Gardens My Prince hath dig'd and opened thee in my heart O thou heart of the Father with the Staff of his Spirit Open mine Eyes O Blessed Spirit that by thee I may see this Fountain which by thee is opened in me It was at the Fountain that Jacob and his beloved Rachel first met The Daughters of Laban came thither to water their Flocks But the Well had a great stone upon it which they could not move Jacob rolled away the Stone and watered their Flocks for them From thence they brought Jacob to their Fathers House knew him for their neer Kinsman and were marryed to him It is at this Fountain of Free-Grace that the Lord Jesus and the elect Soul first meet Sin Death and Wrath make the Stone which cover this Spring The Lord Jesus rolleth away this Stone that thou and all thy Fathers Flocks with thee all the Principles and Powers of Life in thee may drink of this Well Here the Lord Jesus looketh upon thee and loveth thee Here he maketh himself known to thee to be thy Brother and taketh thee to be his Bride From this Well he goeth home with thee unto thy Fathers House into thine heart into thy natural Spirit and thine Earthly Image in these to marry thee to himself to make the fruitful to Eternal Glory to enclose this door of thy natural Spirit with Boards of Cedar a Divine Beauty Sweetness and Incorruptibility to build upon the wall of thine Earthly Image a Palace of Silver into which he will invite his Father the Holy Angels all glorified Spirits to feast and inhabit with himself and thee There was often contention for Wells between the Servants of Abimelech and the Servants of Isaac These digged them and the others stopped them up Contend O Believers for this your Well of Free-Grace Suffer no Aegyptians or Philistines to stop it up by casting in the Earth or Stones and Rubbish of Free-Will of any Wisdom Work or Worth in the Creature As Earth cast into a Spring defileth it so by every thing of the Creature mingled with the Waters of this Fountain they lose their clearness their sweetness their vertue Keep this Spring of the Fathers heart of Free-Grace pure So shalt thou see a clear shining deep of Divine Sweetnesses without any Bottom the Glorious Deep of Eternity itself In the clearness of this Spring shalt thou see thine own Face From the freshness of this Spring thou shalt drink in perpetually new Floods of all living Sweetnesses With the pure Waters of this Spring thou shalt preserve thine heart ever new ever soft ever flourishing with all Joys ever fruitful in all Graces O Saints Keep this Love-Spring the Fountain of Free-Grace open keep it pure in your Spirits Use. 2. Learn this Divine skill O Christians which comprehendeth all the rich mysteries of the Gospel in it Rise up new every moment with all things round about you out of this Fountain of Love in Eternity the Bosom of the Father Return again every moment with all your troop into this Fountain of Love the Bosom of the Father Lay your selves down for ever here Here alone is Jesus Christ in his naked Beauties nakedly embraced Seek see and enjoy all your pleasant Relations all pleasant Unions in this Unity of Divine Love the heart of the Father as in their proper Fountain Here is the Truth here is the Life of them all in their Original Here they are unchangeable Here they are as Sun-beams before they come forth descend divide grow shadowy and fading As we keep Flowers fresh by setting their stalks in Water So say of all your Relations in their shadows on Earth of all your sweet things with their Sweetnesses Who is their Father Answer thy self The Fountain of Love Then keep them with their stalks in this Fountain So shall they be ever fresh ever sweet to thee 2. Person The Love-Birth God is Love The three Persons in the Trinity are Love in a three-fold Form and Property or in a threefold Distinct and opposite Relation to itself within itself for the enjoyment of itself in the secret of Eternity abstracted from all Creatures infinitely before them and above them I have spoken of the first Person in this Trinity of Divine Love the Father the Fountain of Love in Eternity I come now to speak of the second Person The God-Head in the second Person is Divine Love in its Eternal Birth and Image The Fountain of Divine Love which is the Father bringeth forth from itself within itself an Eternal Birth the compleat Image of itself the Supreme Loveliness and Beauty This is our Jesus in the Bosom of the Father I shall endeavour to draw the Curtain from before this Blessed and Glorious Birth of Divine Love the Beloved the only one of all Holy and Heavenly Spirits I shall endeavour to set this most desired and most pleasant Person our Lord Jesus before the Eyes of your mind by five Characters or Marks The second Person in the Trinity is 1. The Birth or Image of Divine Love 2. The First 3. The Fairest 4. The Freshest 5. The Fullest Birth and Image of Divine Love 1. Character The Lord Jesus is
Jesus by the Immediate Embraces of Divine Love incloseth comprehendeth thy Person entirely with the Sweetness Beauty Immortality of his own Glorified Person The Soul in the Bosom of Christ lieth as a Pleasant Island in a Sea of Love The Sea bringeth to an Island Pleasure by its prospect and by sayling upon it Safety by inclosing it Riches by Traffick unto all parts Thus thou O Saint art seated in the midst of a vast Ocean of heavenly Love This Ocâ—an of Love is thy Prospect on every side Which way soever thou lockest thou seest Waves of Love rolling and tumbling one upon the neck of another sometimes rising up as high as heaven sometimes again falling as low as Heâ—l All Storms are The Workings of this Lovely Sea of Love and Delightful Entertainments to Thee thou lanchest forth and sailest round about thy Island which is thy self upon this Sea of Love These are thy Pleasures How safe art thou How great and impregnable is thy Strength Nothing can come to thee but by a Sea of Love Divine Almighty Eternal Love Thou art inaccessible but this way by the Sea of Love No vessels can pass upon this Sea nothing can pass thorow it but Divine Forms of Love heavenly Angels and Ministers of Love Whatever other Form of things attempteth This Blessed Ocean of the Father's Love poureth forth in Jesus Christ is swallowed up by it and never seen more Thou hast Traâ—â—ick and Commerce by this Sea of Love with all things holy heavenly Beautiful and Bâ—essed every where with all Lands of Life and Joy Thou sendest forth thy Spirit thoughts and Affections into all Parts Thou bringest home all the Precious and Pleasant things of Heaven and Earth of Time and Eternity of God and the Creature Thou hast a Love-Union and by this Love-Union a Communion of Love with all the Treasures of the Godhead in the Sun and in the Moon in the Heavens above and the Deep which lieth below This is the Purity the Sweetness of the Father's Love in Christ the nearness of the Love-Union 2. The Sweetness of the Love of God in Christ sheweth itself in the Firmness of the Union What the Spouse of Christ saith of her self in the Canticles that is the Language of this Love to the Soul in Jesus Christ I took hold of him I will not let him go The Love of the Father hath taken hold of Thee will never let Thee go St. Paul Rom. 8. v. 35. maketh a Challenge What shall separate us from the Love of Christ Affliction Danger Sword the Love-Union between God and the Soul in Jesus Christ is so close so fast that the Point of the sharpest Sword cannot pierce between them the subtilest Flame cannot divide between them If it wound or burn one it must wound and burn the other also There is no Vein of Blood in the Body of Man which hath not running along beneath it an Artery a Vein of Spirits to preserve the Warmth Motion and Life of the Blood There is no Vein of Divine Providence in the whole Life of a Saint there is no Vein of Life or Death in the whole Person of a Saint which hath not a Vein of Divine Love running along inseparably with it to sweeten it to give a Spiritual a heavenly Tincture of Life Joy and Glory to it To me to live is Christ to dye is Gain saith St. Paul Philip 1. v. 21. There is nothing so Dividing as Death The Life of a Man is the Union between Soul and Body Death dissolveth this Union The Life of a Saint is the Love Union between his God and Spirit in Christ who is the Glorious head and the Golden knot of this Union Death maketh this Love-Union faster and sweeter more close more clear more compleat Dâ—ath is a Gain here The Death of a Saint is like the Tabernacle in the Wilderness Without was a course Tent of Badgers Skin exposed to the Injuries of all Weathers This was seen by the Common Eye But this was not the Tabernacle This was onely the Tent the Covering upon the Tabernacle The Tabernacle within as it appeared to the Priest's Eye which entred into it was Silk Silver Gold and Precious Stone Fine Linnen Scarlet Crimson Sky-Colour Cherubims richly wrought Be not deceived That is not the Death of a Saint That is not a Saint in Death which appeareth outwardly to the Eye of Sense so affrightful so mournful so dark so deformed so Dividing from all the Joyes of Life No. This is the Covering onely upon Death to hide the sacred Mystery from common Eyes That which is within which presenteth itself all along to the Eye of a Saint that entreth into this Death is indeed a Tabernacle of Immortal of Divine Love with all rich and pleasant Appearances wonderfully heightened The Love-Union between God and the Soul in Christ opening itself taking the Soul entirely into itself as into the true Heavens where all things which are seen are the highest Forms of Beauty in the highest Lights of Divine Glory all things that are heard tasted or felt the highest Joyes of the Divine Life with the most heightned Sweetnesses of Divine Love 3 The Sweetness of Divine Love is manifested in its Efficacy in its Sweetning Operations as it is poured forth in the Lord Jesus St. Paul saith Philip 3. l. We have our Conversation in Heaven from whence we look for the Lord Jesus who shall change these Vile Bodies these Bodies of our humiliation and make them like his own Glorious Body according to that Power by which he is able to subdue all things to himself As the Flowers put forth unfold all their Beauâ—ies send forth their several Sweetnesses to the Sun so do all the Excellencies Joyes and Glories of the Godhead display themselves to the Divine Love God in the Presence of his Love is the highest the Truest Hâ—â—ven This is the Heaven which containeth and hideth Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ cometh forth from this Heaven as a Bridegroom from his Chamber he cometh forth in this Heaven with this Heaven round about him he maketh this Heaven every where as he cometh forth as the Sun maketh a Glorious Sky He boweth this Heaven and cometh down upon It into the broken heart To this broken heart he changeth the vilest the Bitterest Image of things the Body of its humiliation the Body of this Darkness and Death in which it dwelleth here into the Likeness of his own most Glorious Body the Body of the highest Heaven in its Brightness the Pure and clear Body of Divine Love This Love of the Father is that Power by which our Jesus subdueth all things to himself that is to the Brightness and Sweetness of the Glory of this Love to the Express to the Naked Image of this Love in its own Divine Substance in 〈◊〉 own most Lovely Person This is the transfiguring Efficacy of the Love of the God-Head poured forth in the Glorious Person of Christ and making for him
a Body of Divine Loves above all Heavens Rom. 8. 28 29. St. Paul triumpheth after this manner I am perswaded thâ—â— neither Death nor Life neither Angels Principalities Powers nor things present noâ— things to come nor heighth nor Depth nor any other Creature shall be able to separate us from the Love of God which is in Jesus Christ our Lord. The Love of God in Jesus Christ lineth covereth all things transubstantiateth all things into the same Divine Love St. Paul mentioneth the nearest things to us the most intimate the most Potent the most Penetrating the most Universal the most comprehending the most Transforming Death Life Angels things Present to come Depth Heighâ—h What cometh nearer what toucheth every Point of our whole Substance and Being than Death Life Angels What more intimate to our hearts and Spirits If none of these can come between the Love of God in Jesus Christ and our Persons then all these by the Touch of this Love must be Tinctured and changed into new Forms into Essences of Love As Sugar is dissolved in a Glass of Wine so Death Life Angels things Presâ—nt things to come heighths Depths every other Creature in this Golden Cup of Divine Love the Glorified Person of Christ is dissolved into Love becometh a Rich Love-Cordial to a fainting Spirit making it to dance and sing for Joy when it was intended a deadly Poyson to it The holy Apostle had said upon this Ground a little before In all these things Sword Famine Persecution wee are more than Conquerours It is plain how we are Conquerours Captivity is carried Cuptive Those Forms and Powers of Darkness of Death which thought to captivate us are themselves Captives to Eternal Life and Love in the Lord Jesus As Saul among the Prophets so the Bitterest the Blackest things which assault the Spirit of a Saint encompassed with this Love of the Father poured forth in Christ uncloath themselves and put on Amiable Shapes of Love sing songs of Love breath forth from every part of them the most Delightful Sweetness of Divine Love Thus this Love maketh us Conquerours But what meaneth this to be more than Conquerours Is there a Joy or Glory above this of a Conquerour Grace coming into Glory Love Reigning after Suffering Is there any thing sweeter any thing greater than this Victory of Love Yes St. Paul saith when he was caught up into the Third heavens into the Paradise there he heard Words which it is impossible to utter This is The Paradise in the Third Heavens the Love of God in the Glorified Person of Christ. This Love transformeth every thing every Creature to this heavenly Paradise Those blessed Souls which by believing enter into this Paradise hear Words of Love Words of Joy Words of Pleasure of Glory from this Love which it is impossible to utter which are too sweet too high too ravishing to be exprest A holy Soul in This Paradise of Love feeleth a Joy far beyond that of Marriage of Conquest of Reigning of Children of any thing named in this World or in that which is to come Thus the Sweetness of Divine Love expresseth itself in its Sweet Efficacy Thus the Purity of Divine Love in Christ is manifest in its Sweetness 2. The Love of God in Christ is most Pure because it hath the greatest Virtue Our Divines express hell after this manner All Diseases Pains Griefs here are Evils by a Tincture onely of Divine Wrath a little Drop of Divine Wrath mingling itself with them Hâ—ll is Pure Wrath. Hell is the Abstract of Wrath the Evil of all Diseases Pains and Griefs abstracted from them and heightned to the utmost So Jesus Christ bare all our Infirmities and took our Griefs though he was never sick On the Contrary all the Good all the Joyes in the Creature are a Weak Tincture of Divine Love The Shadow of St. Peter as hâ— passed along healed the sick All the Sweetness and Pleasure in things here is the Shadow onely of Divine Love falling upon them All the Joy in any heart here is the Shadow onely of Divine Love cast over it The Love of God is poured forth Purely in the Person of Christ. There Love is a Substance no Accident There Love is Infinite being allayed or limited by no mixture Our Saviour in Glory is Divine Love in the Abstract It is a Weak Glance of Divine Love like the Sunshine here below cast upon the Water or a Looking-Glass which maketh the Beauty the Sweetness of all Colours Figures Motions in the Creature It is a remote Touch of Divine Love like the Ends of the Sun-beams reflected in a Burning-Glass which maketh the Pleasantness and Pleasant Properties of all Plants the Lustre Gracefulness Virtue of all Precious Stones and Pearls the Joy of all Relations The Beauty the Sweetness of all Colours Features Motions the Pleasantness the Pleasant Properties of all Plants the Lustre Gracefulness Virtue Life of all Precious Stones Pearls heavenly Bodies heavenly Spirits the Joyes of all Relations are contained Eminently with an Infinite Enlargement an Infinite heightning in this Divine Face This Tree Pearl this Union the Unity the Purity of Eternal Love in our Glorified Jesus O Sinner come cast thy self freely into the Bosom of thy Saviour Here thou fallest immediately into a Sea of Pure Love Open thy Mouth wide enlarge all thy Faculties to drink in the Sweetness of Pure Love pouring itself by Floods and Seas into thee Feel the Transcendent virtue of Pure Love transforming thee thy heart thy Person into a rich clear and heavenly Pearl in this Sea O Saints swim continually in this Sea of Pure Love the Bosom of your Glorified Saviour Feel the Transcendent Virtue of Pure Love dissolving you also into a Sea of pure Love a Sea of Glass and Fire a Sea of Pure Chrystal Divine Beauty without any Spot of Flesh or Earth Darkness or Death a Sea of Pure Chrystal shining and burning with a Pure Flame of heavenly Joyes without any Smoak of Lusts or Passions Obj. how is the Love of God Pure in Christ Is there not in the Lord Jesus a mixture of Love and Wrath He saith of himself in one place All Judgment is given to the Son of Man He adjudgeth to Hell and to Torments as well as to Heaven and to Joys Matt. 25. Jesus Christ is represented as a King upon the Throne in Glory in the Judgment of the last day v 31. He maketh Separation between the Sheep and Goats v. 32. He setteth the Sheep at his Right hand in the Place of Power Honour and Love He setteth the Goats at his Left hand on his Wrath-side v. 33. He passeth the Sentence of Love upon One inviting them as Blessed Ones to the Kingdom of Love prepared for them of the Father in Eternity v. 34. He passeth a Sentence of Wrath upon the other sending them away with a Curse into the Hell fire with the Devils v. 40. How is the Love of God poured forth Purely without
Corruption These burthened Spirits groan for the Dissolution of this Tabernacle But how Not that we would be uncloathed but cloathed upon with our house from Heaven not to be found naked but to have Mortality swallowed up of Life St. Paul expresseth the meaning of the Unutterable Groans with which the Spirit of Supplications maketh Intercession in the Saints They would not be uncloathed of the Spiritual Image which they put on at the New Birth They would not be uncloathed of the Natural Image which they put on at their First Birth They would never no not for a moment be found naked of any thing of that Life Light or Sweetness Heavenly or Earthly which belong to either of these No they groan to have these cloathed upon with that their Buiâ—ding from above to have not onely their Immortal and Inward but their Outward and Mortal Part itself swallowed up into Life Life itself in its Purity in its Perâ—ection in its Spring which is Eternity 3. The Workmanship of God in a Saint is wonderful and indeed Divine in this Now he that hath made us for this or he that hath wrought us unto this is God St Paul assureth every Saint that his Groans are heard and answered from the Workmanship and the Workman We read in the Canticles that the Thighs of the Princess and Bride are as Jewels the Work of the hands of a Curious and Faithful Workman So the Word in Hebrew signifieth The Spiritual and Natural Life the Whole Frame and Composure of a Saint Inward and Outward all are Mysterious Jewels wrought by the Divine hands of God himself as a most Curious and Faithful Workman as a most Skilful and Firm Piece of Work They are by an Unexpressible Wisdom and Love framed unto this that the Substance of these Jewels should never fail the Vertue never decay the Lustre never fade no not in Death itself but then most of all grow bigger and brighter more Pure more Perfect more Powerful by being drunk up into Eternity as the Waters of a fine Spring are drawn and drunk up by the Sun 4. The Earnest of the Spirit Who hath also given us the Earnest of the Spirit The Eternal Spirit in the Immortal Soul and Mortal Body of a Saint The Eternal Spirit in which a Saint possesseth Soul Body things of Faith of Reason of Sense This Spirit is to a Saint an Earnest both a foretast and a seal of this truth that both the Soul and the Body of a Saint in Death are like the Spice in the Golden Censor or upon the Golden Altar in the Temple which is the Glorified Bosom of Christ. Both lose nothing of themselves but change into a more Spiritual and Divine Form in which they ascend and carry up all their Preciousness all their Pleasantness with them like the Pillar of Smoak from the Altar perfumed with all the Spices of the Apothecary in which those Spices themselves with all their Sweetness and Vertue go up refining and enlarging themelves till they rest and spread themselves in the Bosom of Heaven How Curious and Sure a Workman is Jesus Christ is the Love of the Father in the Death of a Saint O the Freedom O the Fulness O the Skill O the Faithfulness of Finishing Love in the Death of a Saint O Believers Preventing Love hath brought you out of Aegypt out of the Servitude to your Lusts and the God the Spirit of this World Assisting Love hath carried you along thorough this Weary Wilderness your Conformity and Fellowship with the Lord Jesus in his Sufferings Be of good Courage Your Cloaths shall not wax old Nothing of you shall fall in this Wilderness You shall certainly come into the Good Land the Land of Promise the Land of Rest the Land flowing with Milk and Honey with Life and Peace Immortality and Immortal Pleasures Finishing Love in the Glorious and Immortal Person of your Beloved like the Ark before the Israelites shall lead you thorow this Jordan thorow Death on the Dry Firm and Pleasant Land of Life itself Not so much as any single Drops of any Dark Waters shall sprinkle themselves upon any Parts of your Garment The clear Streams of this Beloved River shall stand on heaps on each side of you as Christal or Diamond Rocks as Lights Prospects and Guards of Angels while you pass When You are weakest under the Pangs of Death the Finishing Love of Christ in Power your Glorified Jesus in the Power of his Finishing Love shall rest upon you shall spring up in you at once to comprehend you and enlarge you to Cloath you upon and to transform you within Nothing of the Graces and Joys of your Inward Man Nothing of the Beauties and Delights of your Outward Man shall be divorced from you or darkened in you Like a Heaven of Stars they may pass under many Clouds But under all Clouds they shall go on shining still and increasing their Lustre When they seem to be extinguished in Death they shall be only drunk up into that Pure Light of Life which is Invisible to all Mortal Eyes by its Fineness and Fulness of Glory They shall disappear onely by the Degree of heightning He who hath wrought us unto this is God The Sweet Colours of a fair Summer-Morning in the Sky are so made that they fade not but go on changing to fair and fresher Colours still until they all vanish into Pure Light For These Colours are all the Light of the Approaching Sun figuring itself in divers degrees into Different Forms of Beauty till at last It Break up into the Full Glory of unmixt Light by the immediate Presence of the Sun appearing with the unclouded Brightness of his heavenly Body In like manner all the Excellencies Entertainments and Joys of a Saint in his Immortal and Mortal Part The Immortal and Mortal Parts themselves of a Saint thorowout are so framed by the Father of Lights and Loves that they can never fade nor pass away but in the moment of Death itself are cloathed upon from above with a Brighter a Diviner Form and are swallowed up into the Abysses the Incomprehensiblenesses of Eternity For God is Love A Saint is a Birth of Love A Seed of Divine Love springing up in his Outward and Inward Man Forming itself into a Body and Spirit into all the Powers Pleasures Objects Relations of Both. Divine Love is the Substance and the Sap The Matter and the Form in all A Saint in his Essence and Operations all Entirely is a Plant of Divine Love Death is the Ripening of the whole Plant all over into the Perfect Fruit of Pure Love of Finishing Love In this Form It can be seen felt tasted no more but by the Pure Eyes Embraces and Mouth of Divine Love God hath also given us the Earnest of his Spirit for this Tell me now you who have received the Spirit What do you see what do you feel when you are blessed from on high with any fresh Anointing
truly and properly itself is intirely for ever gathered up into the unity of the Eternal Spirit the heavenly Body and Bosom of our Lord Jesus In the Epistle to the Hebrews ch 9. 23. The Blood of Lambs and Goats were said to cleanse the figures of heavenly things in the Tabernacle but the Blood of Christ the heavenly things themselves The Soul and Body of a Believer are the heavenly things themselves For these are that true Temple of the Holy Ghost of which the first Tabernacle and Temple were figures As the death of a Saint is a conformity to Christ and a fellowship to Christ on his death so doth the Blood of Christ that is the divine virtue and the life of the God-Head in the death of Christ cleanse these heavenly things the Soul and Body of a Saint at his death from all their dust rubbish and filth from all mixture with the fleshly Principle and Image Thus now the Body of a Saint as well as his Soul is made compleatly a pure and heavenly Temple of the Holy Ghost It subsists alone in an immediate entire and mutual union with this blessed Spirit It lyeth wholly in it as in the Fountain of life immortality love peace and joy It is filled with it as the Temple with the smoak of the sweet incense and with the Glory of God How unhappy are you How bitter is death how full of deformity how dreadful how dark how dismal to you who leave this life before the Fountain of Eternal Life hath opened itself in you Death to you is a devouring fire from below which burns upon your Spirit and flesh consuming the order the beauty the sweetness of both and changing them into a ruinous heap of utter darkness desolation and confusion But blessed are you thrice blessed are you whose Souls and Bodies are both married by one Spirit unto Jesus Christ before Death comes to separate them one from another whose Souls and Bodies are become Temples of the Holy Ghost and are inhabited by the Holy Ghost before Death comes to demolish the fleshly frame and building Death to you is a lovely form it which your Jesus himself comes into your whole Person both Soul and Body as into his Garden or Vine-yard to drive out the wilâ— Beasts all the powers of darkness to pluck up by the roots and to caâ— out the Weeds every thing of this worlds of a fleshly Spirit and Image that the Divine Shades the Spiritual Plants the fruitful Vine of his own Life and Love and of his own heavenly Image may alone flourish here and himself alone may delight himself in the midst of these as in a Garden shut up Jesus Christ comes by Death to your Bodies and Spirits aâ— to a Beloved fountain to cast out of it every thing of filth of earth and flesh which polluteth it that he may see his own face clearly all over it that he alone may drink of it that he may lye in the midst of these waters for ever bathing in them that you in both may be a fountain sealed up to himself Death is to you who believe a rich Marriage-bed of Gold and Purple into which your naked Souls and Bodies quite stripped in the twinkling of an eye of all their râ—ggs are taken to lye in the naked bosom and imbraces of your beloved Bridegroom the Lord Jesus Thus much for the twofold Body 2 Dist. The 2. Distinction next to this of the twofold Body in a Saint is that of the twofold dust in Death In the last chapter of Ecclesiastes v. 7. we read That in Death the dust shall return to the earth as it was and the Spirit to God who gave it Gen. ch 3. 17. God passeth this Sentence of Death upon Adam after the Fall Thou shalt return to the Ground For out of it thou wert taken Dust thou art and to Dust thou shalt return There was a Dust before the Fall out of which the Body of Man was made Gen. 2. 7. God formed man of the dust of the ground First observe here by the way that the ground from which the dust was taken of which the Body of Man was formed was the ground of Paradise For so we read immediately after at the 9th v. That out of the ground God had made to grow every Plant that was pleasant to the eye and good for food with the Tree of Life in the midst of them The Jewish Doctors teach us that the dust of which the Body of Man was made was a fine and precious powder in which all the excellencies of the whole Creation were exactly tempered and mingled together in one Body The Scripture seemeth to give us a foundation for this belief When Moses saith That God made out of the ground to grow every Plant pleasant to the Eye good for food and the Tree of Life in the midst of them he seemeth to signifie that this was a divine ground in which God from the beginning had sown the divine seeds of all the beauties pleasantnesses sweetnesses and of all the beautiful and pleasant Lives of Paradise itself and of the whole Creation as it was in a Paradisical state The dust then of this ground which composeth the Body of Man was the manifold beauty sweetness virtue and life of Paradise of the whole Paradisical state of things gathered together contracting themselves into one and shading themselves like the beauties sweetnesses and virtues of a flower in its precious seed But that which is chiefly to be considered here is the state of all things before the Fall Sin was not yet entred which brought in Death The Unity of the Creature among themselves between God and the Creatures was yet entire The divine life and Image flourished thorow the whole Creation All the Creatures stood upon their divine root and were filled with a divine Sap like flowers upon their stalks and trees at the height of the Spring St. John gives us a sweet and beautiful Image of the whole Creation in its first state before it lost its life sweetness and unity by Sin Joh. 1. 3 4. All things were made by him that is Jesus Christ and without him nothing was made that was made In him was life and that life was the light of Men. There are two things observable in this Scripture 1. That which we read without him was nothing made 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifieth properly nothing was made apart or separate from him The Holy Spirit seemeth here to point out the primitive union of the whole Creation and all the distinct parts of it with the Lord Jesus the living Root the glorious Head of all and in all 2. Where we read Without him nothing was made that was made this latter clause that was made addeth nothing to the sense and looketh like a vain repetition Some therefore place it at the beginning of the following verse and read it thus that which was made in him was life This describeth to us the
all things new in the newness of its own Heavenly and Immortal Beauties The second Scripture is 2 Corin. 5. 6 8. Therefore we are alwaies confident knowing that whilst we are at home in the Body we are absent from the Lord. We are confident I say being willing rather to be absent from the Body and present with the Lord. Of what Body speaketh the Apostle here What Body is this which thus divideth between the Spiritual Bride and her Heavenly Bridegroom that a Saint cannot be present with both at once If he be at home in this Body he must be absent from Christ and a banished Person from his Bosom If he will be present with Christ and enjoy him he must cast off this Body and be absent from it Is this the true and proper Body of a Saint How can that be The true Body of a Saint is as much himself as his Soul is himself He can be no more absent from his own Body than he can be absent from his Soul or from himself We read in the same Chapter 1 Corin. 6. Towards the latter end that the Body of a Saint is the Member of Christ and the Temple of the Holy Ghost When St. Paul speaketh of a Body from which we must be absent that we may be present with the Lord Jesus sure he cannot mean this Body which is a Member of Christ which is united to Christ and implanted into him Can I be absent from Christ by being present with that Body which is a Member of him a Member in him Can I be absent from this Body which is a Member of Christ while I am present with Christ O Believers be not weary of living in the Body only know your true selves and your own Bodies while you live in these you live in Heaven and are ever with the Lord Jesus For your-Bodies are his Members and so the fulness of him who filleth all in all O Believers fear not to die you part not with any thing that is truly your selves truly your own You part not with your Bodies nor with any thing in which they have any true propriety or which hath any dear Relation to them For your Bodies are the Members of Christ Baptized into one Body with him by that one and the same Spirit which gathereth up all things together unto him and into one in him Thy Body O Believer is the Temple of the Holy Ghost When the Spirit of God and of Glory rests upon this Temple he never removeth off from it any more When he enters into this Temple of his he never goeth forth nor leaves it empty This is his true Temple upon the true Mount Sion the Soul and Body of a Saint which he hath chosen for a resting place for ever O Saints have patience and peace in life For by being at home in your Bodies you are in the Temple of the Holy Ghost which he fills with his Glory where every thing utters Glory O Saints have pleasure in Death For Death cannot divide your Bodies from you nor the Holy Ghost from your Bodies which are his Temple Can you ever be absent from Christ while you are present in your own proper Bodies which are the Temples of the Spirit of Christ Can you by being present with the Lord Jesus be absent from these Bodies of yours which are the Temple of the Holy Spirit which is the highest band of Unity the dwelling place of that Spirit which is one with the Lord Jesus No certainly this can never be Thy Body O Saint is ever in life and in death filled and overshadowed by the Holy Ghost When it seems to fall into the Dust and Darkness of Death according to the Carnal sense then doth thy Heavenly Dove give to it according to the Spiritual sense its own silver Wings and golden Feathers What then is this Body of which St. Paul speaks to the Corinthians which gives him a triumphant confidence in the face of Death while it is his greatest desire to be absent from this Body that he may be present with Christ Is it not that Body of Death against which he cryeth out Rom. 8. l. O wretched Man that I am who shall deliver me from this Body of Death This he calls also a little before in the same Chapter that flesh of his that self in which there dwels no good This is the Fleshly Principle and Sense the Spirit and Image of this world which is sprung up out of the Fall which lies as a disguise and a cloud upon the true Person the Soul and Body of a Saint What is not this the Body which is the partition-wall between these two Spiritual Lovers Christ and a Saint while he lives here which being cast off in Death they find themselves in the pure beautiful and naked Arms of each other What is Death now to a Saint Is it not the power of the Divine life and love in a Saint breaking forth and as it breaks forth tearing off and burning up this disguise of Flesh Is it not the power of a Divine Light and Glory breaking forth and as it breaks forth scattering and blotting out the cloud of this Body of Death for ever How beautifully does the Body of a Believer shine forth now in Death as a naked Member of our glorified Jesus cleansed from all its dust and defilement when it is taken up entirely out of the fleshly Principle and Sense How beautiful and glorious a Temple on every side of it doth the Body of a Believer now appear in Death when it cometh entirely out of its Cloud by being entirely taken out of the Spirit and Image of this world The true Body of a Saint lieth while this life lasteth as in a Dungeon or Grave It stands here like the glorious Tabernacle composed of the most precious materials Silks Silver Gold the choicest Woods wrought with all the richest colours and the most curious Figures in Needle-work and Carvings of a Divine Workmanship which stood in a vast and howling Wilderness covered with a Tent of Badgers Skins O! how pure how precious how beautiful how divine a thing is the Body of a Saint in Death when it casts off this Body of Death the corrupt the carnal Image and Principle entirely and is seen now no more for ever in any appearance besides that alone of a naked Member in the most lovely shining Body of the Lord Jesus With what sweetness and beauty doth it break forth now as a most amiable and admirable Tabernacle of the Eternal Spirit when by death it casts off the Tent of Badgers Skins with all the darkning and deforming impressions of Dust and heat and at once passeth out of the Wilderness of this worldly Spirit and form of things unto the good Land of rest and promise by passing in a dry and flowry path thorow the River Jordan that sweet and blessed bound of Death between the dreadful desart and heavenly Canaan Give me leave here to
which the Fathers Person shines forth in his Person as in a new Heaven with new and increasiâ—â— Beauties O you that are Followers of Christ what a mystery of Spiritual Joy and Heavenly Glory is there in the life of a Saint if this be to be a Saint to walk on Earth as Christ walked that is in a Spiritual Principle in the midst of the Natural Principle and Fleshly Image of things governing comprehending seeing handling rellishing all in the Divine Light Beauty and Sweetness of the Eternal Spirit When the blackest Cloud of melancholy rests upon thy Spirit when the sharpest Sword of Grief pierceth thy Heart retire into thy Spiritual Principle there thou shalt be as on Mount Tabor the Mount of Transfiguration where the Face of thy God shall be as a pleasant Sun of Joy and Glory shining forth in its strength within thee and the whole Image of things in thee and round about thee as a Garment of Light all weaved and wrought with the freshest and purest Beams of this Sun in all living and immortal Figures of the highest Joys and Glories 5. Propos. The Curse with the stings and sense of it upon the Natural and Temporary Principle as also the conflict between the Natural and Temporary the Supernatural and Eternal Principle in the Lord Jesus thorow his whole Person as it lived in a Humane Soul and Body were highest at his Death The Lord Jesus saith the Prince of this World cometh This is your hour and the power or principality of Darkness The Devil came now to make his two last and most furious assaults upon the Lord Jesus in the Garden and upon the Cross. He therefore comes with all the powers of Darkness and Legions of Devils with all the blackest and most dreadful Furniture and force of Wrath from Hell below from Earth and Heaven above as the Prince of this World and the Prince of Darkness The Battel was so sore against the Lord Jesus that he himself who was the Wisdom and Power of God was amazed He who was the eternal delights of his Father day by day cries out My Soul is very sorrowful even unto Death The word in Greek is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifieth an excess of sorrow and a surrounding sorrow All things round about the Lord Jesus were hung with a blackness of Darkness and amazing horrours that he himself who bears up the weight of all things could hardly sustain the weight of his own fears and sorrows or sustain himself in Life under them He falls beneath them to the ground His whole Person is so prest and opprest with them that through the agony of his Spirits the boiling blood is strained forth through all the parts of his Body He cries to his Father thrice Angels are sent from Heaven to strengthen him and comfort him But after this the conflict upon the Cross was yet sharper Now the Prince of Darkness grows desperate knowing that this is his last effort and that now at once he fights for his Kingdom Liberty and Life that his whole Kingdom of Darkness and his Person too depend upon this one Fight The Earth-quake the rending of the Rocks the total Eclipse of the Sun and the Universal Darkness upon the face of the whole Earth were Types of what Christ the Prince of Glory and the Devil the Prince of Darkness suffered in this last Conflict the like to which never was before nor shall ever be The whole frame of things shook and trembled under the Feet of the Lord Jesus and round about him The Rocks all the supports of his Soul all the Foundations and Pillars of his strength and life were rent in pieces and dissolved The face of the Creature the face of Heaven the face of his Father were all covered with a thick a threatning and an amazing Darkness as in a dreadful Tempest above the course and force of nature The Lord of Life in whom all things subsist is now sinking and ready to give up all for lost How deeply was his Heart pierced how cruelly wounded how were every glympse of Light every drop of Comfort intercepted and with-held when he cried out My God my God why hast thou forsaken me What potent inchantment from Hell was this what power of Darkness what infusion of Wrath what separation ten thousand times more bitter than Death which so wrought that he who is God himself seems divided from himself and totally deserted by all the power and sweet lights of the God-Head Thus you see in this 5th Proposition the trouble of Christ at its height In the two following Propositions you shall see that notwithstanding this dreadful storm in the evening and latest hour of his life this beautiful Sun in his dying moment as in the close itself of the day casts up its cloud comes forth Triumphantly and no night follows Before we pass to the other Propositions let us make a few short observations upon these 1. See how dreadful and hateful an evil Sin is by the effects of it in the Person of God himself our Lord Jesus Let not that be a light thing to us which lay with so great weight upon him neither let us be secure in our Lusts Vanities Covetousness Sloath playing with these which were so many Serpents in the Bosom of Christ and shot deadly stings into his Heart Can we stand under those things which had almost sunk the Son of God into despair and Eternal Darkness It is true God brings good out of the evil of Sin order out of its disorder and reconciles all into a beautiful Harmony of Divine Love and Joy But how by how dear a price by how precious an atonement by how costly how cruel how bloody a Sacrifice by how violent a conflict between all the powers of light and darkness at once by how dreadful a dissolution of the whole frame of things with the blackest Tempest of Divine Wrath from above by what horrours of Death in its ugliest shape with its most venemous stings and all this in the Person of God himself our Jesus 2. Be good Soldiers of the Lord Jesus Endure hardships Endure the fight of Sufferings Think not strange to have the Clouds blackest and the Storm greatest with Thunders and Lightnings round about you in your latest hour in old age and death Thus you bear the Cross of Christ. Thus you fight under the Banner of Love A Husband in Bloods art thou to me saith the Wife of Moses to him concerning the Circumcision Jesus Christ hath been a Husband in Blood to thee O suffering Saint Now art thou also indeed a Sister and a Spouse to him in Blood This Life is the Season of suffering Christ suffered here Can you not suffer with Christ one hour the short Season of this fleeting Life Think how glorious in the Eyes of all the Holy Angels and of the Blessed Saints of Christ and the Father you shall come into Heaven How dear to the Bosom and Embraces
at an end as the life of Christ ended O you who are followers of Christ and predestinated to be conformed to him in your Lives and in your Deaths meet Death with Joy with the shout of those who cry out for victory Now is your Warfare accomplished now is your Captivity in the Fleshly Spirit and Image at an end You shall dwell now no more in Meshek at a distance from the Divine Glory nor sojourn in the Tents of Kedar in the Land of Darkness The Vail of the Flesh is now rent from the top to the bottom thorow your whole Soul and Body In both as you seem to fleshly senses to enter into the shade of Death you in that moment enter into the Kingdom of Light the Glorious Pallace of your Father the Divine Beauties and Joys of the Heavenly Image You have now fought the good Fight and finished it Henceforth from this moment it is that the Crown of Righteousness the Crown of Life and Immortality hath been laid up for you to be set upon your Heads and worn by you which God shall now give you from his own presence from his own hand in this day of Glory which now breaketh and riseth upon you 3. Scrip. Colos. 2. 15. The Apostle speaking of Christ saith thus and having spoiled Principalities and Powers he made a show of them openly and triumphed over them in it that is his Cross which was mentioned in the latter end of the foregoing verse There are three parts in this Scripture which is a glorious description of the Victory of our Lord Jesus 1. The Subject of his Victory 2. The Victory itself 3. The Seat of his Victory 1. The Subject of Christs Victory are Principalities and Powers The first word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifieth Principles The second word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifieth Dominions Principalities and a power of ruling By these names the Angels are expressed as they are the Invisible Springs out of which all visible things continually flow as they are the Supream Glories Virtues Powers among things created to which this present world is subjected by which it is enlivened enlightned formed acted and ruled Thus the Victory of Christ extendeth itself over the whole Creation the whole frame of Nature in its Heavenly Angelical and unseen part in that which is Earthly and visible in the Fountain-Glories and flowing Streams in the Princes on high and their Principalities beneath 2. The Victory itself is exprest in three steps 1. The Spoil 2. The Show 3. The Triumph 1. The Spoil He spoiled Principalities and Powers The word signifieth to uncloath The Lord Jesus as a conquering Prince uncloathed the Invisible Princes of this World of all Power Principality and Appearance by which means the whole Creation and the frame of Nature which stood by these Powers in these Appearances according to their first and natural State were dissolved fell into the depths of Darkness and confusion disappearing for ever 2. The Show Our Victorious Saviour brought forth all the Principles Powers and Appearances of Nature into the open light of the Eternal Spirit There he led them as Captives through the Streets of the Heavenly Jerusalem showing them as the subjects and marks of his Victory to all the Innumerable and Glorious Inhabitants of that Blessed City of the great King 3. The Triumph He Triumphed over them All natural Powers Glories Lives and Images lay beneath the Feet of the Lord Jesus as his Footstool while he sat down upon a Throne of Glory cloathed all over with Garments of Glory and wearing a Crown of Glory upon his Head These are the three Parts of Christs Victory 3. The Seat of Christs Victory was his Cross. He Triumphed on it Heaâ— this all ye that are one Seed one Spirit with the Lord Jesus that are made conformable to his Death in your Lives and Deaths Hear this let it be written upon your Hearts in Characters of Glory with a living Beam from that bright Sun the Face of our Lord Jesus as he shines in the Eternal Glory of his most Blessed Victory and Triumph It was upon his Cross it was upon his Cross that the Lord Jesus spoiled made a Show of Triumphed over the Principalities and Powers of this World Our Blessed Saviour in dying by dying in that very moment by that very act dissolves and defaceth at once the whole frame of Nature and of the first Creation He taketh away from it all Power of being subsisting acting or appearing He blotteth out every natural Image and form of Light or Darkness Life or Death Beauty or Deformity Shame or Glory Grief or Joy for ever You have this excellently painted out in a clear Prophesy Psalm 73. 20. As a Dream when one awaketh O Lord when thou awakest thou shalt despise their Image The word Image signifieth a Shadow The Eternal Word the Heavenly Image our Lord Jesus was in this Creation as under the Vail of Darkness and Night as in a sleep He bringeth forth and beareth up all the Powers and Forms of Nature as a Dâ—eam in this sleep and as shadowy Images in this Dream By dying he awakes out of this sleep he sets an end to this Dream The whole frame of Nature with all Forms and Images of things within the vast compass of it either Visible or Invisible break up fly away and vanish as a Dream as the shadowy Images in a Dream when a Man awaketh But neither are they quite lost They only change their Principle and Appearance In the same dying moment doth the Lord Jesus who is that Eternal and Essential Image in whom they all subsist appear and pass thorow their several changes carry them with himself into the Divine Light and Life of the Eternal Spirit There are they seen again as the Fruits of his Conquest spoiled of all their own Life Light and Form having put on a new Life Light and Form according to the Will of the Conqueror to show forth his Power and Glory to make them pleasant and Eternal Spectacles of his Divine Triumph to all the Inhabitants of Heaven and Eternity Now before he is taken down from the Cross even upon the Cross itself the Lord Jesus as he gives up his Spirit with his last breath Triumphs in his Soul and Body too whose proper Seat the Cross was In both cloathed with Triumphal Robes of an immortal Beauty and Blessedness he rides forth in the Glorious Chariot of the Heavenly Image and of the Eternal Spirit All the Powers and Forms of Nature of Life and Death the Cross itself and the Crucifiers as Captive follow his Chariot bound in the Golden Chains of Divine Light and Love making up the delight and Glory of his Triumph This also doth the Psalmist clearly Prophesy of Psal. 68. 18. Thou hast ascended up on high thou hast led Captivity Captive The descent of our Lord Jesus was finished with his Life He begins his ascent upon his Cross the first moment of his
these surrounding this Divine Light at the same time surrounded by it give a solemn sweetning and heightning to all like the Base string to the Musick of a Lute making Death it self another Heaven distinct from the Heaven after Death and contending with it for delightfulness Thus God the Father maketh Christ to see the Path of Light in Death 3. The third part in the manner of the Triumph the Pleasure In thy presence are all pleasantnesses and at thy right hand Pleasures for evermore Three pleasâ—n things are here presented in one 1. The Seat of Pleasure 2. The Perfection 3. The Perpetuity of Pleasures 1. The Seat of Pleasure is the Presence and right hand of God The Presence in Hebrew is the Face of God The Son of God The Eternal Word The Essential Form of God and the Brightness of his Glory is the Face of God Behold thou art fair my beloved yea thou art Pleasant our Bed is green saith the spouse in the Canâ—cles to Jesus Christ. He is that Eternal Form and naked face of the Godhead where all the Pleasantnesses of the purest Beauties Loves and Joys first spring flourish and seat themselves His Cheeks therefore in the same Book are said to be the Garden-beds of the most fragrant Spices and persumed Flowers where the highest Beauties and the highest sweetnesses are born and married one to another and bring forth an endless race of Loves and Delights This Face of God in which all Loveliness and Loves thus shine and flame together is also set with so many eyes which continually behold and rejoyce in their own Beauties and Pleasantnesses This Face this Form of God is the Person which subsists in the Human Nature of Christ both Soul Body which in itself gives a subsistance to the whole Humanity of Christ living and dying Thus is it in the Grave and in the dead Body of Christ the seat of all Pleasantnesses the Throne of divine Beauty of Love in Death It is also as a thousand never sleeping never sâ—umbring eyes in this blessed Body with which it uninterruptedly contemplates in it self this Eternal face and Form of God this seat of Pleasantnesses which is its own Person it s own self in its personal Unity and subsistence The right hand of God is the Godhead in the strength at the heighth of Love Power Majesty and Glory as it is above all heavens Here are Pleasures in their proper fear in their greatest force and fulness as they transcend the joys themselves of all created Heavens At this right hand of God is Jesus in the Grave By this right hand of God which hath all pleasures ever attending it was he pleasantly led thorough the Shadow of Death In the Bed of Death this right hand of the most High embraced him that he might sweetly rest there in the midst of all the Pleasures of this Right Hand of his 2. The Perfection of Pleasures is exprest by these two names of Pleasantnesses and Pleasures Pleasantnesses are the Objects of delight or Pleasures in the object Pleasures are the Delights themselves in the fruition and enjoyment of those objects or Pleasures in their Subject The Subject and the Object uniting and mingling and transforming themselves variously by their various mixtures in their union into one mutual life and Form of Beauty and Love make Pleasure and delight You have here all Pleasantnesses in the Face of God and so all Pleasures at the Right Hand of God The Lord Jesus dying and in death beholds the Face of God In this Face he at once beholds all pleasant forms and Forms of Pleasantness the pleasantness of all Forms among Men Angels in their first highest Patterns to which the most Glorious spectacles and spirits of Men or Angels are obscure Shadows and faint imitations In this face he beholdeth pleasant Forms incomprehensible for variety and Glory which never cast any the least shadow of themselves nor were capable of being in the least degree imitated in the highest of created excellencies Death itself is a divine Marriage-bed in which Jesus Châ—ist receives all these pleasant Forms into his Bosom as Lights of Glory shining thick thorow the Cristal Temple of his pure and sacred Body in this Night of his Divine Death He beâ—reth in his dead Body the impressions and Figures of them all with the Heavenly substances themselves in these Impressions and Figures like a seal of Gold fixed on Virgin-wax his dying and dead Body is transformed into one Life and Form with those Original Forms of Pleasantnesses being embraced by them as by a Divine flame which makes it one pure flame of Pleasantness and Pleasure with itself 3. The Perpetuity of the Pleasure At thy right hand are Pleasures for evermore Two things are here signified 1. The continuation of Pleasures in the Person of Christ without any interruption 2. The endlesness of those Pleasures Jesus Christ saith to his Father in one Place thou leadest me by thy right hand The Lord Jesus was ever led by the right hand of the Father out of Heaven into the Virgins Womb out of the Womb into the gloomy Light of this World thorow this World thorow Death and the Grave into Heaven again Thus was this blessed Person ever at the right hand of his Father that is at the right haâ—d aâ—d Fountain of Power Majesty Love Life and Pleasures in the Womb on the earth on the Cross in the Grave So was the Path of this righteous oâ—e a shining Light of divine Pleasures uniâ—terrupted thorow all these thick shades of the blackâ—â—â— darkness There is one thing more in the duration of Christs Pleasures signified in the last Verse of this Psalm above all this The Lord saith to his Father all Pleasaâ—â—â—â—sses are in thy Face Behold here in one undivided point the full circle of Eternity and that an Eternity of Pleasures The Face of God with all Pleasantâ—esses in it Eternity implyes three things 1. the Fulness of all Beiâ—g 2. the utmost heighth of being 3. the undividedness In this Time falls below Eternity that it is a contracted successive Shadow The Face of God which is his Essential Image and substantial Form the God Head itself in the second Person in the Trinity which is our Lord Jesus is this Eternity This is that Person which was Man was Flesh hung on the Cross and lay dead in the Grave No more could the Lord Jesus be separated from the Face of his Father in any part of his Soul or Body in any season either of Life or of Death than a person can be separated from itself or the Lord Jesus be divided from the Second Person in the Trinity Thorow every state thorow the most cloudy days and the most tempestuous Nights the Face of God the Son of Eternity went along with the 〈◊〉 Jesus shining upon every Cloud aâ—d Storm shining thorough all gâ—â—ding all with the Joys and Glories of Heaven itself In this Face as in the