Angels and men in the beings they have already received through the power of a resurrection wherein their first beings are not annihilated but altered and made other then they were at first as they are rarified exalted and made to receive by way of superinduction a better and more excellent form and glory in harmony with which they are so far from losing what they had that they receive their own again with usury Therefore it is described by the putting off the old and putting on the new without being found naked or destitute of the being and righteousness they had In it old things indeed pass and are done away as they are corruptible and mortal standing single upon the first root but they are brought forth and restored again upon a new account without having totally or finally ceased to be as it fares with the natural body in the lowest and most literal sense it can be taken in it is not so properly new created at the resurrection as raised up and exalted into a better tenure and exercise of the same life and operation then at first it had as is evident in the body of Christ himself giving the demonstration thereof fourty daies together whilst he was upon earth between his Resurrection and Ascention This is the END which comes and takes its place after that to the natural eye of Angels and men all things appeared to have had their finishing by reason of the good estate of being which they judged themselves to be already brought into and in possession of And indeed this was so truly and really a state of good and of perfection in its kind that God himself acknowledged it to be such by a general approbation of all those first works of his hands However as good as it was it was mutable fading wearing off and vanishing away in the principles of its natural body and first visible constitution as it is said Heb. 1. 10. 11 12 Thou Lord in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the earth and the heavens are the works of thine hands They shall perish but thou remainest and they all shall wax old as doth a garment and as a vesture shalt thou fold them up and they shall be changed evidently asserting the change they were subjected unto by God from the beginning not as we may say willingly but in hope or in reference to a better state of being intended of God through this change to be brought upon them by Christ considered in his second appearance sitting on the Throne as is in the same chapter declared ver 8 9. unto the Son he saith Thy throne O God is for ever and ever a scepter of righteousness is the scepter of thy Kingdom thou hast loved righteousness and hated iniquity therefore God even thy God hath anointed thee with the oyl of gladness above thy fellows So that it is not without cause that the Apostle Paul saith 1 Cor. 15. that the natural body is sown in corruption in order to be raised in incorruption Where corruption signifies no more then that mutability or changeableness which the first creation was sowen in in its innocent and good estate of being capable to be made better by being clothed upon with what is more excellent or to decline and sink down into a sinful corruption and in that to become unchangeable in which as in chains of darkness the wicked are detained unto the judgement of the great day no more place or change or repentance being left unto them And in this as in one chief particular the weakness of things in the natural body or first creation doth appear notwithstanding the good and perfection it was set up in which was common and universal to all that was made in the six daies But secondly there was a faultiness and weakness which the Scripture acknowledges incident to this innocent state which properly and only refers to Angels and men as made under the first covenant respecting the operation of their minds and inward powers wherein they were fitted and prepared for meetness of converse with God under that covenant which faultiness is spoken of Heb. 8. 7. 8. in the case of men which compared with Jude ver 6. shews that the Angels also were comprehended under the same This faultiness sprang up partly from the terms of the first covenant requiring the creatures continuance in all things commanded under pain of the curse which terms though good and just to be imposed by God upon them yet were capable of being ill made use of by the creature as it is said 1 Tim. 1. 8. The Law is good if a man use it lawfully importing that what was good in itself and in its first institution might by the unlawful and contrary use made of it become evil to them who so abused it 2 ly This faultiness sprang up also from the creatures weakness as not long able to bear the glory of its first state with sobriety of mind occasioned by the good and perfection already received which it thought could never be valued at too high a rate so that it judged itself enabled thereby to do all that God required and commanded in the wisdom and sufficiency already communicated and imparted to it which weakness and mistake in the creature was not caused by its creation nor came necessarily from it but occasionally and accidentally by the creatures voluntary overvaluing and over-trusting in the strength and power received putting more stress upon it then was meet and putting it to other use then God intended it Whence it is said Rom. 8. 3 4. what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh it pleased God to fulfil by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinfull flesh and for sin condemning sin in the flesh For through this weakness sin made its entrance which weakness and faultiness therefore in all the respects before mentioned was that which God thought requisite to provide against and supply by the ending and finishing hand which he reserved to put unto the work he had made on the seventh day by translating the creature without the intervening of sin into that Rest and incorruptible state which was the true end for which the first creation was brought forth and unto which it was appointed to serve and be subject in the changeable condition it was at first set up in as the means to bring all things into their everlastingly good or bad estate fore-known unto God from all eternity who therefore in his wisdome thought meet that the natural body should be first and then the spiritual and that the natural body should be sowen in weakness corruption or mutability that it might be raised in power and in incorruption and so be made a spiritual body and brought into its true Rest if through the creatures own default it fell not short came to be excluded For though it may be objected that God who did eternall foreknow all events and who
in him which is so far from being lessened or interrupted by death and the laying down of the use of his bodily life for a time that it never comes to its full and mature perfection until then and as a consequence hereof the body be re-assumed incorruptible In this property and operation of humane life man bears the figure and image of the witness of the Holy Ghost Thus we have described what man is in his essential parts and operations in order to fit him for that communion and converse with God designed unto him by the two Covenants unto the first of which he was actually and perfectly qualified as he became a living soul and did bear the image of God in and upon his natural man as the first Adam being of the earth earthy But unto the other man by his creation was no otherwise qualified and prepared then as he was set up in such a being as was capable by a farther workmanship of God to arrive unto and attain the glory and everlasting perfection of the new and second covenant without which all that was done unto him yet by what he had received from God in his creation if left to his own freewill would but redound to his greater misery and more righteous condemnation before the judgement seat of Christ through his own default This finishing and compleating work of God upon man was reserved to be Ministred to him on the seventh day whereby a far higher and more exalted capacity of mind and operation was to be added to him for the enabling him unto an everlasting happy and compleat communion with God This is that which in his first state was wanting and could not be obtained by him but as the free gift of God then propounded to him in the tree of life This second and last state of perfection held forth unto man from the beginning in the tree of life in the midst of the Paradise of God is described by the Apostle Paul 1 Cor. 15. 44 45 46 47 48 49. where he sets it up in contra-distinction to the first and earthly make of man by his creation shewing it to be that life and immortality which is brought to light in Christ as the last Adam the Lord from heaven and quickning spirit calling it the spiritual body as that in which the power of this endless life was comprehended comparatively with the natural body wherein the perfection of Adams mutable and corruptible life consisted saying plainly that there is this spiritual body and heavenly image in the last Adam as well as that natural body and earthly image in the first howbeit that is not first which is spiritual but that which is natural and afterwards that which is spiritual the first being the life of perfection that was found in the earthly Adam the other being that which was brought to light in the heavenly by his resurrection from the dead and therefore as is the earthly such are they that are earthly and as is the heavenly such are they also that are heavenly And in reference unto such as are the right heirs of salvation it is said as they have born the image of the earthly so shall they also bear the image of the heavenly and have their natural or vile bodies changed and fashioned like unto his glorious body by him who through his mighty power is able to subdue all things uno himself And if we desire to be satisfied how this change and translation out of the one perfection and image into the other is to be effected he positively asserts that it is brought upon man as the fruit of Christs resurrection or Ministry of Gods second appearance by and in him which rends the first veil and brings down the first Tabernacle of the natural body into the grave with Christ whence it springs up clothed upon with this house from heaven its spiritual body by means whereof this corruptible puts on incorruption and this mortal puts on immortality and death and the grave are swallowed up in victory This change and translation was as we have said propounded unto Adam as the end of his creation and was figured out to him in the tree of life and by the twofold exercise of life and ability of mind set up in their perfection in in him by creation he was indued with a power improveable in the use of the means God afforded him to be at least in a tendency unto so glorious an end and disposed in such a posture and frame of spirit as God required in him by the first covenant in order to this farther work which on the seventh day God would make known and impart to him What God herein required from man was signified unto him by the tree of knowledge of good and evil and the prohibition accompanying the same which was not to eat of the fruit of that tree In this tree of knowledge of good and evil man had the sight of himself in the exercise of his natural life and operations appertaining unto him as he became a living soul in the well or evi use whereof he might arrive unto the experience of the supream good held forth to him as the end of his creation the endless life that was to follow or else he might come by the forfeiture of the present good he enjoyed to know the evil of a much worse condition then at first he had for the avoiding of which and to continue in a posture meet to receive the other God required him in the state of innocency to abide in a waiting frame of spirit as a sojourner and stranger in the midst of his present enjoyments in the earthly Paradise that so through his patient forbearance from taking up his Rest or terminating his delight in seen things he might preserve in himself an unengaged unprejudiced spirit to what was yet behind of the counsel of God to be communicated to him as to a more excellent attainment and inheritance to be exhibited to him in the light of the approaching day of the Lord the beamings forth whereof as considered in type were already present CHAP. VI. Concerning the fall of man the steps and degrees to it with the bitter fruits and consequents thereof BY what hath been said of mans Creation it is undeniable that God made him perfect though the perfection of his estate was mutable or subject to change and therefore not the Rest from all eternity designed him by God so that man in this first perfect state had that still wanting which was the finishing and compleating work to what he at present enjoyed howbeit that which was wanting unto man did no way cause or necessitate his fall but that as we shall shew proceeded from the suggestion of Sathan and enticing of his own lust which lust when it had conceived brought forth sin and sin when it was perfected brought forth death although man in this estate was well and sufficiently armed and provided against it if he
same Covenant as it is the Law or first Testament though in effect it requires the same thing of man yet it is in reference to the sacrifice of the Redeemer by the vertue of whose blood the Covenant is not only renewed but kept from being broken until through wilful provocation there remain to man no more benefit by that sacrifice for sin Heb. 10. 26. That then which was possible for Adam to have done in the state of innocency was so to have made use of the power given unto him by his free will as to have walked faithfully with God according to the light he had received and therein to have abode in the earthly Paradise of his sinless nature as Christ commanded his Disciples to do in the earthly Jerusalem until the further effusion of the Spirit or pouring out of the Holy-Ghost upon them which further ministry was figured out unto Adam in the tree of life and the true Rest reserved by God yet to be more fully revealed unto him on the seventh day when the marriage union between Christ and him upon the terms of the new and everlasting Covenant was to have been contracted and celebrated whereof the institution of Marriage in the beginning was also unto him an earthly figure So that this we say as the result of all That by the power of pure and incorrupt nature in the first Adam he could never have wrought himself into the state of salvation nor have entred into the true Rest or procured an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled this being reserved to the work and power of faith that was yet to be revealed to him as the means to translate him out of his holy corruptible and mutable state of the first Covenant into the most holy incorruptible and immutable state of the second and everlasting Covenant and this without sin or forfeiture of the good he had in present possession to the advantage of himself and all his posterity But if it be here objected That if the power of nature could not do this it could do nothing and was of little avail to Adam the Answer is It was of great profit and avail to Adam if he had made the right use thereof For first he might by the power thereof have kept out the entrance of sin for the present until by being armed with a higher greater power he might have for ever shut the door upon it and excluded it Secondly he might have preserved in himself an unengaged and unprejudiced spirit against the approaching dawnings and breakings forth of further and higher light and in that ready silent waiting posture have diligently attended upon the means that were to be exhibited to him on the seventh day to lead him into rest which was the further preaching and holding forth of the Word of life by the voice and ministry of Gods second appearance which did bring its own saving power along with it to have begotten that precious faith in Adam that should have interested him in those precious promises whereby he might have been made partaker of the divine nature and have had the power given him to have become the Son of God in the new Covenant through believing and so heir of that salvation which by nature could not be obtained But Adam neglecting the opportunity by God put into his hands and hearkning to the voice of his wife and seducement of the Devil did justly fall under Gods displeasure and was made a sad spectacle thereof in himself and in his posterity who are now by nature children of wrath and disobedience a habitation of Devils a hold of every unclean spirit and Cage of every unclean and hateful bird yet not left in such a desperate state but that by the blood of Christ there is remission of sin to be obtained and a restauration capable to be wrought out CHAP. VII Shewing that God on the seventh day ended the works which he had made and produced the Rest and fixed estate appointed to the first creation which Christ the Mediator as he is the Minister of Gods second appearance is the Author and Accomplisher of THis Sabbathism or Rest of God was a state of glory and exaltation which was remaining unto the first works whereof the principal are men and Angels to be made partakers of and into which they were capable to be led and taken or from which to be denyed and excluded as in righteousness they should be judged by God to have rendred themselves worthy or unworthy by the deeds done by them in the natural body or state of life The extent and latitude whereof as to men is declared by the Apostle Paul 1 Cor. 15. where he comprehends under that term the whole life and operation of the natural man as he is a living soul in comparison with the whole life and operation of the spiritual man or heavenly Adam as he is made a quickning spirit and contains in him this glorious change under the term and expression of the spiritual body or heavenly image to be wrought out in man through the resurrection from the dead in conformity to the perfection or glory of this last Adam This change as well in reference to Angels and men as the rest of the creation which are also to be brought from under the bondage of corruption by the means hereof into the glorious liberty of the sons of God is the effect of the ministry of Christs second appearance which hath been in operation from the beginning dispelling the night which did precede it which is now far spent so as this day of the Lord is at hand ready to be revealed in the compleat victory and conquest it hath obtaind over all the opposition and resistance with which Angels and men have gone forth against it from the time of their first defection from God unto this day That which in this place is proper for us to treat of in reference hereunto is only to shew what change might would have been wrought upon the righteous and holy beings of angels and men by the influence and power of this second appearance of God in the face of the Mediator actually shining forth on the seventh day if the fault had not been in themselves by reason whereof instead of this glorious and blessed change they brought upon themselves a state of sin and death wherein by the power of this all-searching light and presence of Christs second appearance they were detected convinced judged and condemned The effect which is produced by the power of Christs second appearance upon the natural body or first constitution of being in Angels and men is called in Scripture a new creation and doth indeed require the putting forth of an exceeding mighty power Eph. 1. 19. for the effecting thereof even beyond if it were possible that that was declared and exercised in the first creation or the making of all things out of nothing which consists in a change and translation that is given unto
8. This was that which Christ told the young man was yet wanting to him that had kept the commandments from his youth and is the strait gate that all must enter at that come into the true Rest This is effected only by believing and partaking with Christ in conformity with him in his death and is a making of us weak with Christ amounting in the end to a perfect disenabling of the mind wherein this spiritual and blessed change is wrought to exercise that arbitrary independent free and proper motion of its own before mentioned in the single light and life of the creature-excellency and perfection communicated and enjoyed by the ministry of Gods first appearance under the first covenant which is apt to puff up and lead the creature to an unwarrantable boasting and glorying in the first light and voice of God Isai 40. 3. the word of the BEGINNING Heb. 6. 1. without staying for the glory of the word that comes in the end and is to follow by the ministry of his second appearance which second voice cries Isa 40. 6 7 8. All flesh is grass and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field The grass withereth the flower fadeth because the spirit of the Lord bloweth upon it surely the people is grass The grass withereth the flower fadeth but the word of our God shall stand for ever Through this puffing up and heightning property that is incident to the natural frame of mind in Angels and men so soon as they come to the use of this shadow of divine soveraignty set up in them by the exercise of their own free-will their lust presently finds something to work upon and is ready to conceive and bring forth sin whereas the contrary poor and needy frame of spirit is set up by God in Christ for the cure and remedy hereunto by reason whereof as we may find John 14. 30. when the Prince of this world came he found nothing in him The effects then of Christs second appearance caused by the dawning light of that day upon the natural beings of Angels are First the hiding and covering of their faces as those with whom God might justly find fault if they should by any thing they had received glory in his sight and Secondly the sense of the weakness and fickleness of their first estate and thereupon a waxing weary of the burthen they were under whilst they were left by God to such an arbitrary independent exercise of mind as they were intrusted with in their operations under the first Covenant and therefore Thirdly it did cause them to sing and shout for joy to see the remedy and cure which was brought hereunto by God through the power of the Cross of Christ when they came to discern that upon this corner stone the foundations of the first creation were fastned and the instability thereof healed and helped This they found to be the Lords doing and it was marvellous in their eyes the sight whereof they obtained on the seventh day the day which the Lord made in which they did rejoyce and were glad Psal 118. 22 23 24. Here was the joy of the good Angels when by the manifestation of the true Rest revealed in the face of the Mediator the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world they came with a holy curiosity to pry into the sufferings of Christ and glory that was to follow who though he were not yet exhibited but in promise seen by them as subsisting in his head the word of life yet by a discerning agreeable to that of faith in man they had a sight of him as the seed of the woman that was to come and knew him to be the Son by whom God made the worlds and who was the brightness of Gods glory and express image of his substance who upheld all things by the word of his power and through the sacrifice of himself was to sit down on the right hand of the majestie on high and thereby obtain a more excellent inheritance then they concerning whom as the first-begotten they had received this charge from God Let all the Angels of God worship him So then through faith in the death and Resurrection of Christ as the Mediator set up from everlasting the Angels by the power of Christs second appearance came to the sight of the heavenly Image and perfection of the last Adam unto which they were in their places to bear a conformity in the true Mount Sion and heavenly Jerusalem where the Elect and holy Angels are to have their residence howbeit in station inferiour to the Church or general assembly of the first-born whose names are written in heaven and who are the Lambs Bride and wife whilst the Angels are but friends of the Bridegroom and admitted into the secrets of the Bride-chamber whose conformity to Christ in this his spiritual body or heavenly Image changes their natural frame of minde into the like spiritual heavenly-mindedness with their head whereby there is consumed taken away wholly removed and abolished the power and exercise of their first arbitrary and self-disposing property of mind which now being quitted through voluntary resignation they have in the room and place thereof by a translation and engrafture into the spiritual life will and mind of their head the life and motion of all their natural powers more excellently then before in a state of life incorruptible and unchangeable being now throughout partaking and co-operating in a joynt way of life with their head who before stood single and alone in their natural motions and operations Through the refusal and want of this change to have been wrought out in them the wicked angels fell and set up for themselves in a fixed enmity and opposition of spirit hereunto And this shall suffice to have been spoken in reference to the change that is wrought out in the good and Elect Angels In the next place we are to consider the change that is hereby wrought upon the natural being of man considered as a living soul which Adam should have experienced without falling this being appointed by God as the only effectual means to bring him into a fixed and durable state which stability is said Rom. 11. 20. to come by faith through the operation whereof man ceases from the power of standing on his own bottom for the ordering and directing of his steps by the motions of his natural mind which he is enabled to by the first Covenant considered either as it was first given at his creation or as since renewed by the blood of Christ and is made the subject in his understanding and will now crucified and resigned wherein God himself joyns in the exercise of this power with him working in him both to will and to do of his own good pleasure in stead of leaving it to the good pleasure of man who nevertheless is a free and willing co-worker with God in this day of Gods power whence it appears that
Adam fell through unbelief and for want of being kept in his innocent state through the power of faith unto salvation without which the Scripture saith it is impossible for any to please God no not for Adam himself in innocency For though whilst he stood he did that which was just and right as the righteous man Ezek. 18. yet in all this he was conversant only about natural good and righteousness the acceptation whereof depends upon its continuance and is such by way of comparison as renders any acceptable to the Magistrate that keep his laws whereas the filial obedience that is performed to God through beleiving answers the very love and complacency of God in a way of intimate friendship as proceeding from the man that is made after Gods own heart and is blessed in himself and in his deed But as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse as it is written cursed is every one that continueth not in all things w ch are written in the book of the law to do them And as thus it was with Adam in his righteous and holy state wherein he was created so is it since with all those sons of Adam that are of the works of the law and are made living souls again in their measure and degree by the renewal of the first covenant upon them in the blood of Christ through which they are brought into that which Jude cals a state of common salvation obtained as through the ransom which Christ was made for all v. 3. and which v. 5. the children of Israel were said to share in when they were brought by God out of Aegypt and were made to live unto God by the first Covenant Ezek. 16. Deut. 32. Isai 63. 10. yet many or most of them God destroyed and was not well pleased with through their unbelief having discovered them to be cursed children in whom was no faith or who under all the light received proved bitter enemies and resisters of the work and voice of the Holy Ghost calling them to believe and receive the change that was to be wrought out in them and so enter into Rest This change is comprehended in the life and perfection of the new creature and glory of the spiritual body or heavenly image of the last Adam For so it is written The first man Adam was made a living soul the last Adam was made a quickning spirit and again it is not circumcision that availeth any thing or uncircumcision but that which is required is to be the new creature having a new name better then that of sons and daughters by the first covenant through which we are made pillars in the house of God never to go out more and are written among the living in Jerusalem whose names shall never be blotted out dwelling on high even upon a munition of rocks where bread even hidden manna is given and the waters of the sure mercies of David that will not fail And if we desire to know what this new creature is it is called faith that works by love which faith translates man out of the natural into the spiritual body and is his new-creature-state wherein the operative powers of his mind are so formed as that he is enabled not only to exercise his natural judgement and will in a crucified and resigned frame in conformity with the dead body of Christ and as quickned together with him through the Resurrection from the dead and made incorruptible but Secondly the believer hereby receives a raisedness of discerning and enlargedness of his natural mind answering that effusion of spirit upon him surpassing all natural knowledge of the uncrucified mind causing him to see as he is seen and to apprehend that for which also he is comprehended in Christ Jesus rendring him a co-partner and co-heir with Christ in the vision of Gods proper and naked similitude as admitted to behold the glory that is within the veil in which capacity the spiritual seed are the bride and wife of the Lamb that are called to sit down on the Throne with him at the right hand of the Majesty on high and who by the means of this their heavenly part do so influence and quicken their natural as that thereby they are enabled to sing both the song of Moses and of the Lamb in perfect harmony together and to do the will of God in earth as it is done in heaven According to their heavenly part or spiritual capacity they sit down at meat with Christ in the Fathers kingdom in the other they are as them that serve in a state equal with the holy Angels This marriage union between Christ and believers is said Rom. 7. to be their marrying unto him that is risen from the dead and this through their becoming dead to their first husband the Law and Ioh. 3. 29 32 33. is said to be the hearing the Bridegrooms voice in what he hath heard and seen from the Father and the receiving that testimony which no man in his natural capacity receiveth through which the Saints do set to their seal that God is true and partake with the Bridegroom throughout in his most intimate communications of glory from the Father as it is written Ioh. 17. 21. That they all may be one in us as thou Father art in me and I in thee Thus we have briefly intimated the change which by way of a new creation is set up in Angels and men through faith in Christ the promised seed as he is the last Adam and was the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world putting on this spiritual body in his own person as the first fruits of life from the dead in conformity whereunto every true believer is in his own order clothed upon with the same heavenly image for as is the heavenly such are they also that are heavenly which though they do not so attain as to be perfect therein whilst in the natural body yet they have the mark in their eye and are pressing forward for the price of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus CHAP. VIII Shewing the conviction and judgement that came upon men and Angels for their sin and disobedience by the shining forth of the All-searching light of Gods second appearance in the WORD before which every creature stands naked and discovered BY what hath been already evidenced in the precedent Chapter it may appear that they certainly do very much derogate from the glory of Christ and proclaim their short-sightedness into his fulness and rich grace that look upon the coming of the Lord Jesus the seed of the promise as an accidental provision only that God had in reserve in case of the entrance and coming in of sin never considering that through faith in him sin from the first might and was to have been kept out and that there was from the beginning no other way nor name nor means where by the creature could obtain a sare sare incorruptible
so ignorant of and such enemies to as most prophanely to call it a fiction and make little lesse of it then blasphemy We say that the flesh or natural man in the Saint whether considered in the workings of his morall nature or of his renewed enlightned nature under the first Covenant is crucified and rendred a copartner with Christ in his dead body whereby the powers and faculties of the mind in the natural man are neither annihilated nor deprived of their lawful use as lawful refers to the obedience of faith and the rule of the Gospel but only have death passe upon them or a disability and privation as to all unlawful use of them or possibility of acting in rebellion resistance or contradiction to the Law of the heavenly nature and mind set up by faith In this crucified posture of the flesh and broken-spiritednesse into which the powers and faculties of the natural mind are brought by faith the Prophet Isa 54. 1. calleth out to the Saint to sing as intimating that though the natural man be hereby disenabled to bear or bring forth fruit to its first husband Christ himself as made under the Law and head of natural perfection single yet it ought neverthelesse to break forth into singing in regard that by her being become dead to the Law she is married to another even to him that is raised from the dead to bring forth fruit in newnesse of spirit and life and that this its barrennesse is no just cause of reproach to it seeing it came to be lawfully disengaged from all obligation to its first Husband by the dead body of Christ through which her first Husband is become dead unto her so that she is no adulteresse though she be married to another man Rom. 7. 3 4. And therefore Cry aloud for joy saith the Prophet for more are the children of the desolate then of the married wife or she that keeps to her first Husband under the Law Fear not for thou shalt not be ashamed neither be thou confounded for thou shalt not be put to shame for thou shalt forget the shame of thy youth and shalt not remember the reproach of thy Widowheod any more for thy Maker is thy Husband the Lord of Hosts is his Name and thy Redeemer the holy one of Israel the God of the whole earth shall he be called In these two particulars therefore conformity to the death of Christ is made to consist by the Prophet Isaiah in this Chapter First in Christs own refusal to be any longer a Husband unto the natural man in the Saint through his own voluntary departure and withdrawing of himself out of his own fleshly life to go to his Father and be and remaine for ever in the glory of the Father in order to returne againe to the Saint as he that is risen from the dead to marry and espouse the soul that he hath thus grieved by his withdrawing For saith he The Lord hath called thee as a woman forsaken and grieved in spirit and a wife of youth when thou wast refused by thy God for a small moment have I forsaken thee but with everlasting mercies will I gather thee Secondly the Saints conformity unto the death of Christ consists in the desolate forsaken barren state wherein the flesh and natural man is left by Christ as in a dry and barren wildernesse exposed to all temptations and trials from God Angels and Men within and without ready to sink and faile in spirit every moment partly under the appearance of Gods displeasure whose withdrawing and forsaking the soul understands not any more then Job did who was privy and conscious to the faithfulnesse and integrity of his heart to his first Husband whilest he abode with him and partly from the cold dead disconsolate frame of spirit wherein it now finds it self as it measures it self by the life of sense and not by the life of faith under both which pressures the Word of Christs patience is set before the soul by faith to be kept and observed Who for the joy that was set before him endured the Crosse and despised the shame patiently suffering the bruising of his heele according as he had received commandment from the Father In this posture as a Widow indeed the poor broken-spirited Saint remains mourning and weeping left for a season as an Orphan by Christ brought into that condition which Christ foretold unto his Disciples whom at the present he acknowledged children of the Bridechamber whilest they had no higher knowledge of him then in his fleshly glory and perfection Of whom therefore he said As long as the Bridegroome was with them they could not fast but the dayes would come when the bridegroome should be taken away from them then they should fast intimating thereby the dayes of fasting and mourning and being clad in sackcloth which the true Saints witnesses of Christ were to be exercised with during the time of the trial of their faith upon the Bridegroomes being taken from them and changing that living fruitful frame of spirit which they were fed and nourished up in by him as they were his married wife under the Law into a fasting broken mournful desolate state of Widowhood which they are brought into as they are made one with Christ in his dead crucified body and are planted with him into the similitude of his death Christ then after he hath become a Bridegroome and married Husband unto true beleevers in and by his first appearance shining forth upon them in the life and glory of his natural and fleshly perfection wherein he hath nourished them up and made them fruitful children of that his Bride-chamber is pleased and hath power to take himself away from them and continue no longer with them as a Bridegroome under the first Covenant or in the ministery of his first appearance but wholly dissolve that marriage-band betweene them as refusing any longer to come forth in the exercise of life toward them upon the single root of his natural perfection in order upon the trial of their faith and their dutiful keeping the word of his patience during the time of this his separation from them to return again after a little moment and with everlasting mercies to embrace them and be married unto them in the light and life of his second appearance not only supplying to them again that wherein he was withdrawn from them but adding over and above a fuller and more abundant communication of life and glory which untill this death or withdrawing of his be perfected in them they are not capable subjects perfectly to receive and inherit but according to the steps and degrees of this death doth the approa hand increase of this higher life let it self in upon them and fill them This separation and withdrawing of Christ as a Bridegroome is the more bitter and grievous because this his absence carrieth in it the appearance of his wrath and sore displeasure to the eye of flesh
way of natural good works and well-doing pretending to keep up his natural lust and desire in the life exercise and power thereof as Saul did the best of the goods of the Amalekites and their King for Sacrifice to God And therefore the natural man in the Saint in all the powers and faculties thereof stands it out long against the workings of faith in him and fights hard upon this principle of self-preservation deriding with the brothers of Joseph that dreamer which the New-Covenant-Faith in the life language and obedience thereof appears to be to the judgement of flesh and blood when it perswades us to become weak with Christ to suffer our selves to be disarmed and despoyled of this first power and the free exercise thereof upon its single natural root as keeping up a covetousnesse in us that is Idolatry and the root of all evill and does assure us that Gods strength shall be made perfect in us through this weaknesse so as we may rejoyce and glory in such infirmities through which the strength of Christ shall come to be ever resting on us whereby at last we shall be made to take pleasure in these infirmities reproaches necessities persecutions and distresses for Christs sake which at first are grievous but in conclusion we find by experience that when we in our selves are thus most weak then are we in the Spirit of Christ made most strong In this weaknesse then which is brought upon the naturall man of the Saint in which he is made to bear about in his body the marks of the dying of the Lord Jesus consisting in infirmities reproaches necessities persecutions and distresses inward and outward doth the death of Christ work in the flesh of every Saint untill it be fully crucified brought downe into the grave and formed into one dead body with Christs natural man for ever disenabled and weakened from acting this selfish power or exercising this natural lust or desire though in a way of natural or legal good workings singly considered but to have them brought to their lawful rest in the grave of Christ as a Sabbath-keeping there their reasonable service and sacrifice acceptable unto God by Jesus Christ Whence it comes to passe that we no longer live but Christ lives in us and in and through this weaknesse brought upon us by the Crosse quickens us to a more excellent way of working with God and for God then ever we were acquainted with before to the fulfilling and establishing the righteousnesse required by the Law to the highest so that against these weakened Saints and poor broken-spirited children of God there is no Law but the death of Christ that thus works in them doth condemne sinne in the flesh and never leave till it quite abolish it there and bring in the everlasting righteousnesse of God in the roome of that righteousnesse of man which was but as a morning dew Thus we come to bear about in our body the dying of the Lord Jesus that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal or crucified flesh which work of mortification is unto the old Adam most bitter and grievous it being that which bruises him and puts him to grief beyond all that can be imagined and which therefore he fights against and resists to the last drop of blood till he can no longer stand upon his feet but doth fall down amongst the slaine in the blood of Christ whose rest is blessed thus dying with or in the Lord and his works follow him This is the third particular wherein our conformity to Christs death doth consist The fourth and last does respect the workings of faith as they maintaine the good part of this fight in the Saints and gaine the victory over the world and the fleshly seed and principles in them In the managing of which faith doth at first whilest the spiritual senses are not come into use nor strength undergo many a sore brunt and is hard put to it by the workings of unsubdued flesh and blood in them as in the renewed principles thereof they abide in their vigour and flourishing of youth under the first Covenant having through the power of the Law and life of Christs fleshly perfection brought forth in them overcome the wicked one and by the knowledge of Jesus Christ after the flesh cleane escaped the pollutions of the world respecting the filth of the flesh in the confidence and strength whereof these young ones in the experiences of the Gospel think nothing too hard for them to break through and get the mastery of and therefore despise the workings of faith and seed of the promise as a barren desolate widowhood in comparison of their flourishing youth and would be putting in for the inheritance as obteined by the perfection of the Law and Christs first appearance esteeming that to be the Kingdome that is to abide and continue the holy City whose Tabernacle must never be taken down But against all these fierce encounters from pure flesh and blood in the Saint armed with conquests over the wicked one and many fruitful evidences of Christs presence and communion as a Bridegroome and Husband according to the flesh faith armes the soul putting on it the whole armour of light and evidencing to it things unseene the hidden Manna the new name the Jerusalem that is above that which neither eye hath seene nor eare heard nor hath entred into the natural mans heart and conception with which it puts forward and advances bringing in that which is enduring substance an inheritance undefiled and which fades not away in opposition to a failing decaying corruptible Crowne and Rest which flesh and blood glories in And in this more excellent way of worshipping and serving God it comes forth and gains ground in the heart to the stopping the high careere that flesh and blood was in before to the utter silencing it at last and casting down its lofty imaginations and every high thing that exalts it self against the knowledge of God bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ Through this powerful operation of faith the youth of flesh and blood in the Saint is weakened and grey heirs now begin to appear here and there upon him in this his captivity to the obedience of faith which state is very honourable and is the qualification that renders Saints the true Elders in the Church of God who being old men in Christian experiences ought to be in great esteeme for the use and advantage they are of and the great benefit they may bring to true Church-fellowship and Christian Societie how despicable soever this frame of spirit be in the eyes of the worldly Church and of the youthful visible Churches of Saints flourishing with their fair shewes in the flesh whereby they are puffed up and have life working in them whilest death works in Paul the aged and such Elders in spiritual growth that walk as he walked yea these are full and rich and would
neither shall there be any more paine for the former things are passed away and by the power of him that sits upon the Throne all things are made new This GENERAL ASSEMBLY in the exercise of their Judicial power are to be considered in a twofold capacity First that wherein they are properly spiritual or heavenly men qualified with a discerning peculiar to the spiritual seed through the anointing which is truth and no lie whereby they enter within the veile and are admitted into that light and immortality which their owne natural man sees not nor can see but by the help and teachings of this anointing and that at second hand As thus considered they have committed unto them the power of the KEYS in the full extent and exercise thereof whereby all that they binde in earth shall be bound in heaven and all that they loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven so as all the declarative power of what infallibly is truth and the mind and will of God to be observed in heaven or in earth by all the inhabitants of both shall be in them and all disobedience and opposition thereunto shall be punished by their Church-Censures in a way of Excommunication considered in the Scriptures either as conditional and referring to sianes against the Son of man as in his first appearance or the disobedience against the first Covenant capable of release in this world or Secondly as the final irrevocable sentence called the ANATHEMA MARANATHA respecting the sinne against the holy Ghost Christ in his second appearance or the wilful disobedience against the second Covenant from which censure none shall be able to escape or appeale this JUDGEMENT-SEAT of Christ having for its attendants and Ministers of justice the holy and mighty Angels ready with flames of fire to take vengeance on all that shall not obey the Gospel and to punish them with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his power Secondly the same GENERAL ASSEMBLY do also in another capacity exercise their Judicial power to wit as they are properly natural men qualified with a pure natural discerning wherein they are found acting the powers and faculties of the natural mind in all the righteous and holy operations required by the first Covenant in a newnesse of life received by the resurrection from the dead and as they are made one glorified incorruptible body with Christs natural man In this sense they have the power of the sword committed to them as supreme Ministers of natural right and justice under Christ the KING OF RIGHTEOUSNESSE and in association with the innumerable company of holy Angels Heb. 12. 22. who in the exercise of this part of Judicial power are joynt-Rulers with the Saints that in the first were but servants and attendants as those PRINCIPALITIES AND POWERS in heavenly places unto whom the manifold wisdome of God is made knowne by the Church Ephes 3. 10. By Saints in this capacity Christ will judge the world and rule the Nations as with a rod of yron breaking those in pieces as a potters vessel that are stubborne and rebellious binding their Kings in chaines and their Nobles in fetters of yron as it is written Psal 149. Such honour have all his Saints to wit as met together in this GENERAL ASSEMBLY authorized and enabled to administer as well the distributive as the revenging justice of God so as to be a terrour unto all that presume to offend against the principles of natural good and right held forth in and by the righteousnesse of the first Covenant and a protection and encouragement unto all that do well and shall be found approving themselves in the practice of those pure natural and holy principles Unto this that in 1 Cor. 6. 2. must necessarily referre where Paul saies Do you not know that the Saints shall judge the world taking cognizance of things pertaining to this life and to shew the superiour jurisdiction which the Saints as the Church or in their spiritual capacity have over Angels themselves he saith also v. 3. Know ye not that we shall judge Angels how much more things that appertaining to this life It is in this sense likewise we are to understand what is mentioned Rev. 21. 24. where the Nations that are said to be saved that is to say with the common salvation which by vertue of Christs ransome shall then be effectually applied to all men in general to the freeing the natural man from the bondage of corruption at the restitution of all things then to be made during this THOUSAND YEARS REIGNE shall walk in the light or live under the Protection of this Government which shall flov forth from the new JERUSALEM and true MOUNT SION there described so as not only the Kings of the earth in their owne persons shall bring their glory and honour into it as contented to do homage and to be under the blessings of it but they shall also be willing to be the means of bringing the glory and honour of the very Nations themselves thereinto by their patterne and example v. 26. Thus there is a quicknin and judicial power as we have shewed which the Saints shall put forth through their conformity with Christ in his resurrection by means whereof they shall stand possessed of the power and perfection as well of the true Church and Ministery as of the right Magistracy or worldly Rule and Dominion both which shall then be found in their purity as well of their practice as institution in this triumphing Church of the NEW JERUSALEM and universal worldly Government or Magistratical Dominion in this true COMMON-WEALTH OF ISRAEL for whose sakes all thinigs shall be made new all being theirs as they are Christs and Christ is Gods 1 Cor. 3. 22 23. Nor have the Scriptures left us without witnesse herein but in sundry particulars do lay open and declare the manner how and steps whereby Christ proceeds as well to the bringing in as to the actual setting up of this Kingdome of his during a THOUSAND YEARS to be managed by himself and the quicken'd glorified body or society of his Saints as the Church or general Assembly of the first-borne fitted and adorned by himself to share with him in this his Rule and Government The preparatory dispensation unto this is a dark MIDNIGHT Matth. 25 6. such a time of trouble as never was since there was a Nation in which the powers of the holy people shall be scattered and utterly broken Dar. 12. 1 7. the earthly Jerusalem or worldly Christian Church shall be besieged and taken Zech. 14. 1 2. that great and holy City Rev. 11. 2 8. which for her hypocrisie and spiritual whoredomes apostasie and enmity against the faithful WITNESSES of Christ is compared Rev. 11. to SODOME and EGYPT answering to the state of the same Jerusalem in the letter where our Lord was crucified And therefore in Matth. 24. and other Scriptures where the literal Jerusalem is
those were that should be everlastingly saved or everlastingly perish would seem by this way of his ordering of things in the first creation to be very accessory to the sin and fall of Angels and men seeing it was in his power to have made them otherwise not at all subjected to this weakness it is very true God could have made them otherwise but when both in wisdom and justice he thought fit to make them thus who art Thou O man that repliest against God And how unseemly is it for the vessel to say to the potter why hast thou made me thus that is subject to such mutability and weakness as may end in everlasting contempt and misery seeing that God puts no influencing necessity upon thee either by his decree or otherwise but leaves thee to the free motion and choise of thy own mind and will herein and for this very reason made thee a creature indued with free will that no turning of the scale towards thy misery and ruine might proceed from him but from the moving and enticing of thy own hearts lust which state also ministred occasion to thee by the weakness and mutability thereof to have looked after that better state that was provided and was approaching even ready to be revealed whereby all the faultiness of thy first state might have been remedied and such a change attained unto as was more worth then all the hazard and loss that lay in the way of coming to the enjoyment of it amounted to The wisdom and justice then of God is very perspicuous in ordering that state of things which by creation was first brought forth as a preparatory and fore-running dispensation to the glory of the spiritual body that was to follow and succeed And the folly and weakness of Angels and men is very inexcusable that in this estate made so bad use of those gifts and communications of God so freely received from the hand of a bountiful Creator as to make him weary of giving more and repent as it were of what he had given already in that it was so shamefully abused by the receivers thereof as to reproach the maker and provoke him to exclude them for ever from the true Rest Now what this second and more excellent state is into which the creature is to be translated may partly be understood by the opposite weakness and faultiness in the other that hath been already opened forasmuch as it contains in it the full cure and remedy thereunto and in general doth procure a full redemption unto the natural body out of its first bondage of corruption and mutability in all respects which therefore the whole creature waits for Rom. 8. 19. but as for the manner and particulars of that glory wherein they shall be brought forth we are to wait till those times of refreshing that shall come from the presence of the Lord for this restitution of all things do themselves give the explanation thereof in visible characters But that which lies most properly before us in the matter we are now handling is the consideration of what that change is in reference to the inward intellectual and rational powers in Angels and men respectively who having received at the first immortal and invisible substances as hath been shewed are not in the essential parts of their first constitution to be annihilated but the Angels are still spirits and flames of fire and men do still consist of spirit soul and bodie retaining the powers and operations incident and proper thereunto after that they have passed by a considerable and irrevocable change through the resurrection from the dead into everlasting honour or everlasting contempt That the perfection of Angels and men which was communicated to them by creation was mutable and corruptible is generally confessed and experienced likewise is it as little to be doubted but that the instability and change in both by their sin and fall did proceed from that freedom of will proper motion of their own which they were enabled to exercise according to the first constitution and natural frame of their minds and spirits wherein they possessed an arbitrary independent and free exercise thereof without any interruption by God who was pleased to suffer this for his own most wise and holy ends intrusting them with what they had received to use and employ it for the glory and in the service of their Creator and not to serve their own private lusts and interests therewith In this honour and trust received from God it would well have become as well Angels as men to have found themselves not a little burthened under the straits and difficulties attending the right managing such soveraignty and arbitrariness of power which seems so much above the weakness of meer creature-beings that until God take them into such intimacy of union by the second Covenant as not to leave them alone in the exercise of this power they are every moment subject to miscarriage in the use thereof God therefore was willing to take a Rise from hence to discover to the creature the needfulness of its being taken out of this wavering state and translated into the permanent glory that was to follow whereby to secure it in the midst of all its present excellency and perfection from destroying itself by forfeiting and losing all that it had already attained and to set up in the creature a house and an abiding place for himself wherein he may rest for ever Esai 66. 1. when all things that his hands had made and are said by him to have been by virtue of the first creation came short of so glorious an end and use as left to themselves and were by him laid by as unregarded That then which God had in his eye and which his heart and regard was set upon consists in a frame of spirit and mind reserved by him to be brought upon Angels men that stood in direct opposition and cross constitution unto this eminently shining forth in the crucified spirit of Jesus the last Adam which God by the vertue and means of his death and resurrection designed to superinduce upon the natural beings of Angels and men as in the way of a new creation before which the old should vanish wear away This Isa 66. 2. is lively set forth where to those expressions all these things hath mine hand made and all these things have been the Holy Ghost subjoyns but to this will I look even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit and that trembleth at my word The like is to be found Psal 109. 16. where Judas and such enemies unto Christ are prophesied of as persecuted the poor and needy man that they might even slay the broken in heart This poverty neediness and brokenness of spirit is that which Christ cals blessed Mat. 5. 3. saying that theirs is the kingdom of heaven being ever accompanied with a purity and a purifying through faith whereby they come to see God v.
an union between the Word and Christs manhood as we have already shewed in the precedent Chapter that in a threefold respect according to one of w th his manhood is found in the form of God and as the son of man he accounts it not robbery to be acknowledged equal with God the man that is his fellow Thirdly there is a union between the manhood of Christ who in the sense before declared is made Gods equal and fellow and the whole spiritual seed in general and each of them in particular who are as the Bride and wife to this Lamb and so in a sense are his fellows and consorts heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ where the Spirit and the Bride say come living together in this unity as Bride and Bridegroom and so intimated Eph. 5. 32. where the natural marriage is made a type of it and the Apostle saith this is a great mysterie But I speak concerning Christ and the Church And now what is more evident then that the Saints by this union with Christ are not deifyed nor Christed but have the place only of his Bride and spouse as the Queen who is all glorious within and who is one the only of her mother To be therefore a member of this Heavenly City a living stone in this divine building is that which we are to understand by this second sort of calling wherein our Election is made sure to us and a new name given us that none can read but those that have it Secondly through this unity of the faith of the Son of God whereby those that are called are placed in the relation of members to Christ as he is the Head of the Church and the first-born from the dead they are for ever justified receiving this further benefit as they stand related to Christ in this his second Headship beyond those that are singly related to his first and obtain thereby but the common and conditional justification For this everlasting justification extends to sins past present and to come absolutely and at once discharging from all sin that their iniquities may be remembred no more and presents them faultless and without guile before the Throne of God as the objects of his eternal love and favour unto which they are entitled in right of their being made his first-born from the dead whose names are written in heaven adopted into his own line family and descent by this their marriage-union with Christ who according to his heavenly manhood is the immediate off-spring of the WORD and eternal Son of God without Father without mother without descent other then that of the very Son of God into which he is adopted and taken by marriage-union which dignity and grace he freely bestows and conveys in a secondary way upon his whole spiritual seed and in this neer union keeps them from ever departing from him Thirdly these unto whom Christ is thus made their righteousness and justification he is made also their sanctification to the purifying of their hearts through believing and cleansing them from all evil conscience as well that which consists in the filthiness of the flesh as that which lies in the filthiness of spirit renewing them in their minds through the putting on of the new man to the exercising as well their spiritual senses in likeness and conformity to Christs actings and life in that unity wherein he and his Father are one whereby he crucified and kept under his natural man as to the exercising of their natural powers and faculties in likeness and conformity to the actings of Christs natural man making them herein subject to the Father of spirits and to live acceptably and work holiness in his sight as renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created them or according to the pattern of the new man in the holy and righteous actings thereof set up in the person of Christ where Christ is all and in all which good works the Saints are fore-ordained of God to walk in as their true Evangelical and new-covenant obedience Fourthly and lastly those unto whom Christ is thus made sanctification he is made also redemption or glorification to the changing them throughout in spirit soul and body into a likeness with his spirit soul and body as he is declared the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead at such time as our vile bodies shall be made like unto his most glorious bodie by that mighty power of his whereby he is able to subdue all things unto himself which is to be brought to light in his times when he shall be admired in all them that believe and answer the expectation of the creature in delivering it from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the sons of God at their manifestation and the compleating of their adoption by this redemption of their bodies These are the benefits in short and in general that inseparably accompany the guift of Christs person to the soul as he ministers himself in the two Covenants respectively and are the fruits of his presence there Which will serve as a key to open many things in the following discourse when we come to speak of the practical conscientious part that is begotten in and exercised by the subjects of Christ as they live under his Rule and dominion in the world and are therein contesting and warfaring with the adversary the devil and his instruments CHAP. XI Shewing the subordinate use that the elect Angels are of unto Christ in his bearing up the pillars of the creation that else had been dissolved through the fall and the place which they have in the threefold general administration of his mediatoriall kingdom set up in the world THough sin entred upon all men and death by sin through the act of one mans disobedience and judgement came upon all men because in one man all had sinned yet by the obedience of one and his righteousness the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life Rom. 5. and where sin abounded grace did abound much more by reason whereof the whole first creation in all the parts of it is made Christs by the price of his blood which was made Sathans and sins by the fall that as the soul of the Father is Christs so also is the soul of the Son and he only that personally transgresses shall die Ezek. 18. 4. God having been pleased to find a ransom in Christ for atonement and propitiation to the forbearance of sins that are past and to the admitting of man to a new treaty of reconciliation and trial by vertue of the first covenant renewed in and through the blood of Christ whereunto the ministry of the good Angels serves and is made use of by Christ the KING OF RIGHTEOUSNESS who employs these his ministers of justice as the higher powers over the world committed by him to their charge to mannage order and govern in all the affairs thereof under him
applied unto Christ himself to signifie that they are planted with him into the same likeness in Gods twofold name figured out thereby and so have that twofold name and witness wrought out in them which distinguishes them as well from the children of the first Covenant who bear conformity but with one of the Olive branches as singly communicable without the other as also from all that are called Gentiles whose very light is but as darkness to the shining forth of the single witness only in the children of the first Covenant Thus we are to understand by the two OLIVE TREES and the two CANDLESTICKS mentioned Rev. 11. 14. the whole Spiritual Seed considered in their exact conformity to their Head as well in his second as in his first appearance who are the two witnesses that from the very beginning of the world successively in their several generations have been the slain ones of the Lord the slaughtered sheep of Christ for the word of God and testimony of Jesus Yet we are not to rest and content our selves only with this general sense of the place which is true and doth give the proper character of the true Saint possessing and inheriting whole Christ and bearing upon him his whole name or his new name wherein of twain they are made one inseparably communicated as the twofold witness wherein the true heirs of salvation must be found to the glory of God the Father But we may farther take notice of a more restrained and particular consideration of these two witnesses which will be but a small digression from the matter in hand as they are spoken of in that place Rev. 11. where they are also to be looked upon as a particular number of the true Seed living and standing up in the world in that age and season foretold by John and qualified with an extraordinary Spirit of prophesie in reference to the justifying before the eyes of the world the truth of this twofold witness being clothed with power suitable in a way of working wonderful things during the time of such their prophesie whereof Elijah was the type in his days who by praying to God shut up the heavens for three years and an half that it did not rain the like is prophesied to be done by these witnesses ver 6. and brought down fire from heaven to prove that he was a MAN OF GOD and that his God was the true God yet after all this was forced to flie for his life to get from under the cruelty and oppression of his enemies and was at last taken up visibly into heaven in a chariot of fire Elisha beholding and looking upon him In which Spirit of Elijah some of the true Spiritual Seed are reserved by God to be brought forth in the last days and to give a most spiritual and remarkable witness unto the truth of Christs first and second appearance in his Saints before the great and terrible day of the Lord come In which dispensation they shall serve as the immediate forerunners to the brightness of Christs second appearance for the restoring of all things preparatively by this their Ministry of fire as John Baptist served unto the coming of Christ in the flesh by his Ministry of water and in that sense was owned by Christ to be as Elijah already come to wit in the shadow or figure of this Elijah that is to precede his second coming By what then hath been said we may perceive who are meant by the Spiritual Seed and how they are described in the Scripture as the two witnesses of God first in a more general acceptation as in all Ages they are to have their heel bruised and to be slain for the word of God and then in a more particular and restrained sense as some of them are to come forth in the latter days in the Spirit and power of Elijah to prepare for Christs second coming and then to have their dead bodies for three days and an half remain unburied in the great City spiritually called Sodom and Egypt which city as the mother of Harlots hath been extant in its spirit and principles from the beginning as well as the prophane heathenish world with the powers thereof embodied together upon differing grounds and interests by the Spirit of the old Dragon and influenced by him as suitable instruments of War and Engines of battery for the bruising of the heel of the true Spiritual Seed and keeping them under in all generations as spectacles to men and angels who are weak despised thirst hunger are naked and buffeted have no certain dwelling place but labour working with their hands who being reviled bless and being persecuted suffer and being defamed entreat are made as the filth of the world and off-scouring of all things to this very day To this War between the Seed of the woman and the seed of the Serpent all things tended and wrought from the very moment that Christ did accomplish and finish the seventh days work discovering thereby Gods true REST as it was set up in his own Person as the Mediator and Lamb slain from the foundation of the world when he offered up that in sacrifice according to the will of the Father wherein he rejected and cast under his feet the purest choicest excellency and perfection of all natural beings as they stood single in themselves unperfected by the union and subjection they were to be taken into by his second appearance necessarily conducing to the breaking of the serpents head and top glory in his Angelical nature and to the trampling it under the feeet of the Saints In like manner the Devil that old Dragon perceiving that to be done in Christ the Mediator which he could by no means rellish or bear that which was totally cross and destructive to him as fixed in that selfish spirit or single state of natural perfection wherein he lusted to Rule and Reign as god in the world and propounding the greatness of a Kingdom and glory to himself in which to enjoy his own will think his own thoughts do his own works and speak his own words which were not lawfull for him in the Sabbath of the true Rest to the Lord he wilfully and maliciously quitted his head Christ left his own habitation choosing rather to become the Father of lyes then to remain the son and servant of truth and so finished and compleated that root of enmity against Christ and the Spiritual Seed in himself whose off-spring they are that have this root of gall and bitterness springing up in them notwithstanding the life and perfection of their natural beings wherein either they were at first created or unto which in the principles thereof they are again renewed in the blood of Christ by which they strike in with the devils interest in downright opposition to Christ taking part with that King Apollyon Rev. 9. 11. to destroy him what in them lies as himself plainly tels this sort of men Joh. 8. 37. acknowledging
cutting them again off from his living body as unprofitable branches fit to be cast into the fire Joh. 15. 6. These are they considered in the exercise of this kind of life and holy operations that are as the fruitful married wife unto Christ under the first Covenant and over whom the Law hath dominion while they are in this life short of and unacquainted with an implantation into Christs dead body not having the similitude and conformity unto his death so much as in the seed of it brought forth in them The answer which these have of a good conscience towards God under the Law is particularly stated Rom. 7. where they are in Pauls own person represented as having that workmanship set up in their hearts and minds which stands in an exact conformity to the Law or image of Christs natural righteousness and perfection which is holy righteous spiritual and good and so having that heart-work in them whereby they adhere to and approve the Law and the goodness and righteousness thereof in opposition to the contrary body of sin and death which is still in being and exercise in them and with them ready upon all occasions to return with prevalency whilst they are but upon this tenure of the Covenant of works and in the wavering unconstant principles thereof by reason of which they find by experience no good thing dwelling in their flesh that is abiding and of a continuing residence with them but such as comes to them as a stranger or a sojourner for a night or short duration and is ready upon their miscarriage to be gone and leave them again estating them but in such a wavering condition as whilst with their mind they serve the Law of God they are ready with their flesh to serve the law of sin and the good that they would do that they do not and the evil which they would not do that they do By all which uncertainty and slipperiness of this their state Christ would teach them to see the need of following the Lamb whither soever he goes and to experience themselves to be most miserable if they advance no further but abide here thinking themselves rich and encreased with goods and wanting nothing whilst they are ignorant that they are miserable and poor and blind and naked as wanting that top-stone which must compleat the whole building And therefore the right frame of spirit in the faithful subjects of Christ under this dispensation is to find no Rest here but to see that this Earthly Jerusalem is no abiding City and to cry out miserable man that I am who shall deliver me from the body of this death wherein is not only comprehended the corrupted but the corruptible state of mans nature after that he hath been renewed in this life of COMMON SALVATION by vertue of the blood of Christ From this experimental sense God would teach us patiently to lie down under the power of the cross of Christ whose saying then we shall acknowledge to be most faithful and true that if we die with him we shall also live with him and if we suffer with him we shall also reign with him our fellowship with him in his death being the only means by him appointed to translate us out of all death into life eternal and to bring us under that Law of the spirit of life Rom. 8. 2. which hath power absolutely to free us from the law of sin and of death in all the branches of it This is the spirit and conscience and these the principles of the children of the first covenant under the Dominion of the law in which while they continue using of it lawfully they are knit unto Christ by his taking unto him his two staves BEAUTY and BANDS Zach. 11. 7. signifying the fruits of his presence with them and amongst them as he is their husband by this covenant until by slighting his greater glory and selling him for thirty pieces of silver they come to discover themselves to be the flock of slaughter and such as he at last departs from and leaves to draw back unto perdition whilst he carries on the poor of the flock that bear him company in his sufferings unto the saving of their souls keeping them through the power of faith unto his Heavenly Kingdom This generation of men are witnessed unto by the Scriptures under a twofold consideration First as they were under the Law as the Law was the figure and shadaw of the good things to come consisting in meats and drinks and divers washings and fleshly rites ceremonies and divine Ordinances under Moses his ministry imposed until the time of reformation or to the coming of Christ in the flesh who in that sense was the end of the Law and of the observance of it as considered in that fleshly commandment and Mosaical administration that pointed at the very image itself that was to be manifested in the flesh of Christ where the same Law was to begin again and become the holy commandment spoken and delivered unto men by the son himself requiring a conformity in and from all men unto the natural righteousness and perfection of man shining forth in his flesh who was made like unto us in all things sin only excepted In this second sense as the Law is now given by Christ the true MINISTER OF CIRCUMCISION Rom. 15. 8. Issued forth by his first appearance immediately written in the fleshly tables of the heart by his spirit whereby the children of it are taken into marriage-union and made one flesh with himself branches of this vine Joh. 15 are we to understand the subjects of this kingdom of Christ that live under this dispensation in the times of the Gospel since his coming in the flesh and putting down the Temple-worship and Service Acts 7. that was in force before his incarnation introducing in the room thereof a spiritual Temple-worship and Service in the conformity which he takes them into with himself in his flesh and living body making them his own Temple house and habitation the first Tabernacle or worldly Sanctuary built up together with him in his natural righteousness and perfection Such principles and such a birth as this of holy and righteous operations and actings are required in him and of him that is made by Christ under the law or a child of the first covenant which Deut. 32. Jer. 3. 21. compared with Chap. 11. 15. and Isa 5. and Ezek. 16. do in express terms testifie shewing how perfect they are as they come out of his hands to whom he is a Father and Redeemer in this covenant planting them wholly a right seed and that together with the choisest vine causing them to grow together for a while in himself the true vine John 15. and thereby renewing in them and upon them a state of holy flesh natural righteousness and holiness and as thus qualified taking them into his own house as his beloved spouse and married wife who yet after all this
the true object of his Faith he sojourned as in a strange Country and was willing and content to have no inheritance given to him in it no not so much as to set his foot on but dwelt in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob Heirs with him of the same promise For he looked for a city which hath foundations whose builder and maker is God After this manner was Abraham kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation making use of the very glory of the first Covenant and excellency of the earthly Canaan but as an Inn by the way in his passage towards the glory that was to follow the better and heavenly Country which his eye was set upon by vertue whereof he offered up Isaac when he was tried and resigned up thereby all interest in him as he was the fleshly seed or type of Christ according to the flesh in order to receive him again upon a better account as the figure of him that was to rise from the dead and in the glory and power of that life to make good the Promises to him which he waited for Now what saith the Scripture in this case Hearken unto me ye that follow after righteousness ye that seek the Lord look unto the rock whence ye are hewen and to the hole of the pit whence ye are digged look unto Abraham your father and Sarah that bare you for I called him alone and blessed him and multiplied him yea I have given him as a patern unto the whole Spiritual Seed so as they that are of the same faith with him shall be also blessed with him and share with him in his heavenly inheritance To be of the same faith with Abraham is to be called with the like effectual calling as he was according to Gods purpose not of works but of grace and thereby to be begotten again unto a lively hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead unto an inheritance incorruptible that fadeth not away which inheritance the believer is interessed in by being made that one seed with Christ through the new birth as the substance of things hoped for by him and the evidence of things that are wholly unseen to his natural senses and faculties of mind in their best improvements as singly natural So that through this effectual calling this precious faith is wrought in the soul giving Christ an actual inhabitation and abode there as him that is the true one or head of the spiritual seed and anointing the causer and begetter of the soul into actual membership with himself in his heavenly and spiritual humane perfection Which manner of receiving Christ in the heart is a participation with him in his heavenly nature whereby his chosen ones receive power to become the sons and adopted children of God even as many as thus believe on his name For through this union with their head Christ is made unto them wisdom righteousness sanctification and redemption is all in all to them as to whatsoever they stand in need of for salvation In this manner wheresoever Christ is and dwels he distinguishes such persons from all others whatsoever that are not of the same seed but do shew themselves in the end to be reprobates as it is written 2 Cor. 13. 5. examine your selves whether ye be in the faith know ye not your own selves how that Iesus Christ is in you except ye be reprobates Here this kind of being of Christ in the heart is called faith such as distinguishes the persons that have it from reprobates being a differing faith in kind from what those have that have the knowledge and enjoyment of Christ only according to the flesh who upon trial fall away and sink down into hypocrisie and apostasy The exercise of which temporary faith though true believers may have for a while in common with the children of the first covenant whilst they walk like men and are but babes in Christ in respect of the growth of the spiritual seed in them yet they stay not here nor content themselves with the single exercise thereof but are made in time to see and experience that it is by faith of another kind conveying with it Christs heavenly nature by which they must be conducted and enter into the true Rest Albeit after effectual calling that which is the precious saving faith of Gods Elect may lie undistinguished in operation from the first faith which the spiritual seed may continue a long time in the single exercise of in common with the fleshly seed or children of the first covenant as was most evident in Peter who was effectually called when the Father revealed Christ to him and in him as the Son of the living God grounding his heart thereby upon that rock which the gates of hell should never prevail against Yet how low and weak did the operation and power of faith remain in Peter to the suffering of him to fall so shamefully as he did and to the leaving of him several times to the actings of his fleshly will and desire tending to the sparing of the flesh and keeping back the sufferings of the cross It is not therefore barely the having of this faith in the right kind that singly and simply sufficeth to the actual distinguishing of the spiritual seed from the carnal either in inward experience unto themselves or outward witness and testimony unto others But this faith shewing itself as saith Iames ch 2. by its works without which it is as dead in the soul where it is administring little profit to the sense of the man that hath it and hath not its works with it For the bare having it doth not discover his state to be safe nor doth it justifie itself to be of the right kind but as it is operative and shews itself by its works to be the faith that doth justifie true believers Untill which discovery made in the heart and conscience as the body without the soul is dead so the comfortable sense of right believing is wanting which was abundantly shed abroad in the heart and experience of Abraham when God had tried the powerfull working of his faith in the offering up of Isaac upon the Altar wherein he saw a working power of his faith and how faith wrought with his works and by works was made perfect in the experimental sense and discovery thereof unto himself and others And that Scripture was fulfilled that saith Abraham believed God and it was imputed unto him for righteousness and he was called the friend of God For that faith wrought out in Christ his Head whereby he was justified before God now evidenced it-self to the personal Faith of Abraham in this his trial and proof to be the faith the Scripture meant when it so spake and wherein he had stood justified ever since his effectual calling This place of James thus understood is so far from owning a justification by works for which it is usually alledged that it doth most
abundantly confirm and make good the justification which is not of works but of grace according to Gods purpose The very nature and kinde of this faith may suffice to all unbyassed judgements to shew that those that are justified by it are not justified by works since in its principles and seed it is quite differing from that which is by the Law or born after the flesh which is of works so as the one is differenced from the other in the very kind of perfection and life both as to principles and works the seed and the fruit of each yea and this faith of the right kind considered as abiding in Christ not in us is that that properly justifies the believer For if it be by grace it is no more of works otherwise grace is no more grace But if it be of works then it is no more grace otherwise work is no more work And besides the Spiritual Seed are beloved as they are chosen in Christ before the world began and are distinguished as so accepted in him from the fleshly seed before they have done either good or evil This chusing in Christ is not the justification by faith inasmuch as that act of God never passes upon us till we be actually believers For though we have being in our head who is blessed and beloved before the world began Ephes 1. Yet we are not made to be in our own persons of that Spiritual Seed untill we have the righteousness of our head actually imputed to us and so are made to stand without guile or spot before the throne of God whilst as yet we are ungodly and bear about with us a body of sin and death unsubdued and unabolished which nevertheless in the end by faith is overcome and wholly done away The working power then which is put forth by faith in the heart and conscience of him that is the true Believer is to be distinguished from faith in the first act singly considered as the new birth and reception of Christ to inhabite and dwell there as the root and author of all spiritual life and perfection which indeed is rather itself the work or workmanship of Christ as the suitable reception that he makes for his indwelling presence in the heart then any effect of the power of faith working patience and experience there in pursuance of the end for which it is given which is to work the spirit of man either under the first or second dispensation to a compleat and full resignation of its understanding will and desire unto the teachings light and life of this faith evidencing him that is invisible and giving entrance into the glory that is within the veil shewing what is the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the Saints and what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward that believe Which glory is not seen all that while to the natural senses and discerning but the life and workings of faith wherein the spiritual part of the believer does exceedingly rejoyce the fleshly or natural man in the Saint unsubdued cannot bear but hath its reluctancy against lusting to envy ready to oppose resist and contradict the same to the utmost and is all the season of the trial of faith in great heaviness grief and despondency through manifold temptations whilst the believing part is exercising love on him whom the natural senses cannot reach nor come to the sight of In whom though now we see him not yet believing we rejoyce with joy unspeakable and glorious girding up the loyns of our minds in sobriety and hope For the power of faith is such in its operation that it overcomes the world and all the powers of flesh and blood in us at the best which serve but to be made conquest of and triumphed over by faith in order to be nailed to the cross of Christ for the slaying of the enmity which thereby would be springing up to the choaking of the spirtual seed the crucifying afresh the Son of God and trampling under foot the blood of the everlasting Covenant as an unholy thing This power of flesh and blood that ends and expires at last under the conquering and triumphing power of faith causes for a long time a sore and fiery trial in the soul through the sharp contest and dispute that arises between the heavenly powers and spiritual senses on the one hand and the fleshly and natural powers in the same Saint on the other by reason of which the soul is often inclining and falling back into the life of the flesh and workings of the natural will instead of being strengthned in the inward man and fixed there in love and true Rest against all contradicting whatsoever made by flesh and blood whether pure and holy flesh or sinful and corrupt So that oft the party which faith by its power makes for it self in the heart and conscience of the believer is deserted and in a manner given off through the prevalent reasonings and desires of flesh and blood which make resistance in this warfare to their last breath or activity that remains in them And first when faith cals the heart to leave its natural state its kindred and relations in the heathenish world the morality and civility whereof seems to have much to say for it self after the corrupt part in it is cast off the natural powers and faculties of the mind in that state rebel and resist a long season not knowing how to submit though upon hopes of a land of promise specially when they must not know or cannot be made acquainted whither the soul is going and are therefore constantly representing all discouragements imaginable to hinder its obedience to this call of faith till at last they be over-ruled and brought under But secondly when through faiths workings by the power of the Law or Ministry of Christs first appearance the soul is brought out of the corrupt degenerate state of nature hath turned its back upon the land of its nativity and is come to the earthly Canaan to the circumcision of the flesh not in the letter only but in the spirit for the righteousness of works by the first Covenant then hath faith another Call or second voice to the soul causing it to sojourn as a stranger even in the land of promise and to look upon this earthly Jerusalem as no abiding City but that out of which it must also pass into a heavenly Country the Jerusalem that is above forgetting the things that are behind or unto which it hath already attained and pressing forwards to the mark for the price of its high calling to be clothed upon as with its house from heaven Through the call of this last voice of faith all flesh and the glory thereof is blown upon and made as nothing Isa 40. 6. the voice said cry and he said what shall I cry All flesh is grass and the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field perishing and fading in a moment
the grass withereth the flower fadeth away because the spirit of the Lord blows npon it surely the people is grass The grass withereth the flower fadeth but the WORD of our God shall stand for ever ver 7 8. So then at length the believing part in the Saint cometh to see and experiment the emptiness nothingness and fading of the best natural perfection and fleshly purity not only in legal worldly rudiments and principles but even in Evangelicals so far as they consist in the knowledge of Christ himself but according to the flesh Whereupon the believer becomes willing to be crucified to all confidence esteem or desire of Rest and abode in them seeing a patern left by Christ himself herein when he suffered in the flesh that we also might be armed with the same mind and by being crucified in the flesh may come at last to cease from sin attaining a perfect freedom there-from by the resurrection from the dead And now what high thoughts and proud imaginations do rise up in the heart fit to be brought down and subdued by the cross of Christ then which nothing is more grievous to the soul which loves this Absolon it s own uncrucified fleshly mind and the enlightned reasonings thereof in their very rebellion and endeavours to out it of the everlasting kingdom yea it struggles hard and wrestles vehemently to keep its Isaac from being offered up in sacrifice Oh! how with Zipporah doth the flesh cry out against faith as a bloody husband thus to require the full resignation of the judgement will and desire of the pure holy natural man as well as that of the corrupt All this it doth require and no less will serve its turn then the bringing of the exercise of these natnral senses as they are contesting with and resisting the workings of faith into perfect captivity to the obedience of faith and into perfect rest and silence in the grave of Christ where they are to be bound as in chains and fetters utterly disabled for ever acting more in any resisting or contradicting way unto the power and life of faith and so indeed are set free and have their truest liberty given to them to act more fully then ever in harmony with and subserviency unto the workings and life of faith Thus Rom 8. it is said If Christ be in you the body or flesh is dead because of sin but if the spirit of him that raised up Christ from the dead dwell in you he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies or crucified fleshly senses by his spirit that dwelleth in you to the bringing them forth in a better and more excellent way of operation then ever they had before For these fleshly senses as they are planted into the likeness of the death of Christ are made one dead body with him and so are shut up for ever in an everlasting impossibility to act against the truth but only for the truth to act in a way of resisting and contradicting the workings of faith but in subjection and subordination to â—â—em This is that we mean by the obedience of faith and keeping of the word of Christs patience which is required by the law of the new covenant the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus as it frees us from the law of sin and death which is so far from destroying the law that it fulfils it and so far from abolishing the good works required by the law that it disannuls only the unlawful use of them setting them up in their right and lawful exercise not single and alone without the faith that is saving or in resistance and contradiction to that faith nor so mixing them with a faith that fails whereby both faith and a good conscience may come to shipwrack but making them in such manner the fruit and children of the operation of the faith of Gods elect as that against such there is no law This is the gathering together into one dead body with Christ wherein all his elect must be found as fashioned into a similitude with him in his death and that for the filling up of the measure of his sufferings in the whole number of his beloved ones that so at last they may arise likewise with his dead body and be gathered together into one glorified body with him or into a similitude with him in the glory and power of his resurrection when they shall be like him and see him as he is when at this appearing of Christ who is their life they also shall appear with him in glory The hope and expectation hereof grounded upon the promises made to this purpose in Col 3. 4. 1 Joh. 3. 2. Phil. 3. 21. and many other places of Scripture is that that hath born up the spirits of his people and faithful ones in all ages that have been made willing to follow this Lamb whithersoever he goeth from desponding and sinking away under all those insolent affronts and contradictions they have met with in their several generations from their insulting unreasonable adversaries the inhabitants of the earth who flourish prosper in the world while they are chastened every morning disciplined under the cross of Christ miscarrying as to all that 's visible and overcome in those hot contests oppositions and assaults which the seed of the Serpent lusting to envy will not fail to exercise them with who indeed could have no power against them unless it were given them from above as Christ the head of this spiritual seed told Pilate in his own personal case Ioh. 19. 11. and as power was given from above against that great Master Lord so is it also given to them to make war with the Saints and to overcome them Rev. 13. 7. but though at present they be so overset by worldly powers that they cannot work any deliverance in the earth neither do the inhabitants of the world fall before them Isa 26. 18. yet at this second coming of Christ he will call up the dead bodies of these his crucified Saints and faithful witnesses not only into a state of security from the destroyer but into a singing and triumphing condition ver 19. Thy dead men shall live together with my dead body shall they arise awake and sing ye that dwell in dust Both these states of the true Saint are most lively described Isa 54. which we shall endeavour to give some short tasts of for our clearer enlightning in the present truth specially as to what concerns the former branch the Saints conformity with Christ in his death The other consisting in a conformity to him in his Resurrection-state we shall reserve for the latter end and conclusion of this discourse CHAP. XVIII Concerning the Saints conformity with Christ in his death particularly opened and cleared from those mistakes which the enemies to the Crosse of Christ are apt to brand it with BY conformity with Christ in his death which some have been
conformity with Christ in his death to the glory of the resurrection from the dead as the mark of the price of his high calling wherein true perfection and lasting blessednesse consists Where the Image of God in this third and last sense stands but in the least relative kind of union with any heart there the foundation is laid which is mentioned 2 Tim. 2. 19. where it is said The Lord knoweth them that are his bearing with and passing by all their evil carriages towards him in the times of their ignorance and unregenerate state not suffering the Destroyer to enter and utterly to make an end but because of this New Wine that is found in the Cluster God saith Destroy it not for a blessing is in it And though this hidden Being which everlasting righteousnesse hath in the soul to the separating of it unto God from the womb be not that which does actually invest such persons so much as with the Priviledges and Blessings of the first Covenant or give them a personal right to them all which depends upon the marriage-union actually to be contracted betweene Christ and them when they are so joyned as to be made one flesh yet the sanctification that passes upon the soul or separation that is made of it hereby from the womb keeps it from wilful sinning against the grace of the New Covenant and righteousnesse of Faith as appears in Solomon who in the midst of his greatest declinings and falls had this wisdome lying at bottome and keeping him from final Apostasie as the Book of Ecclesiastes at large declares So also in Paul this was evident who confesses in this respect that God shewed mercy to him who was the worst and greatest of sinners because that in all that contradiction and opposition to the light of Faith and of the New Covenant wherein he became a persecutor and a blasphemer he was ignorant and unaware I did it ignorantly sayes he 1 Tim. 1. 13. and elsewhere when called before the Magistrate Acts 26. 9. I verily thought with my self sayes he that I ought to do many things contrary to the Name of Iesus of Nazareth By this seed then of saving Faith whereby he was separated from the womb he was preserved from the great transgression or sinne that is unto death And in this sense we may safely understand that Scripture Luke 10. 5 6. Into what house soever ye enter first say Peace be to this house And if the SONNE OF PEACE be there your Peace shall rest upon it if not it shall turn to you againe So that no Peace or durable Blessednesse hath commission from God to rest upon any heart but where this seed is through which the Saints are separated unto God from the womb The Witnesse then which results and presents it self to our thoughts from this view of things is this that dying to sinne and living to righteousnesse considered only as the effect and birth of common grace or life from Christ under the first and second Ministery singly and apart from the effect and operation of saving Faith which is proper to the third Ministery alone does amount to no higher a work in the conscience then what may and will fail And yet this Mortification and Vivification thus produced in the heart is not only real but all such attainments and receivings as these from Christ with all the benefits inseperably accompanying his indwelling presence in the soul by his first appearance are as they are called Ezek. 16. 14 15. his owne comelinesse which he thinks fit to put upon these children of the first Covenant which they notwithstanding unwarrantably trusting unto and resting in do thereby commit iniquity and that such iniquity as that thereupon all their righteousnesse which they have had and done shall be no more remembered but for the iniquity which they thus commit they must die Ezek. 33. 13. as found opposers and fighters against the brightnesse of Christs second coming under pretence of upholding and adhering unto the life and glory of his first The defect therefore of these mens saintship or sanctification lies not in this that it is false counterfeit hypocritical or head-work only and unanswerable to the Rule or holy commandment given unto them For in all these respects it may be and is oftentimes free and faultlesse in the experience of those that have it who in great sincerity and zeale are servants unto righteousnesse and enemies unto sin in the two first Ministeries and upon the termes Christ therein exhibits himself unto them who yet for all this stumble at the stumbling stone and fall at last irrecoverably by setting up the work of God wrought in their hearts either under the first or second dispensation where it only obtaines the place of a Part or Branch in reference to the whole in a direct opposition to the coming on of the whole in the third and last dispensation as well knowing that when that which is perfect does once come and take place then that which is but in part and in that sense imperfect must be done away which such minds so principled as they are can by no means bear being fixedly and utterly unwilling where saving Faith is not at the bottome to part with and forgo these small Pearls whereby to make purchase of the great Pearle which comprehends all the parts in it self and that after a more excellent manner causing them to be enjoyed in a more excellent way they before and in more abundance So that the very Holinesse in kind is not lost but is perfected and fulfilled as we have at large shewed And therefore the Apostle Paul 1 Cor. 12. treating of Grace and the gifts of the Spirit under both these considerations first as the manifestation thereof is given in common to every man to profit withall dividing unto every man severally as he will or secondly as there is a giving forth of this Spirit in a more excellent way of life and grace then what the best gifts given several and apart do amount unto exhorts unto the acknowledging and retaining of both these in a consistency and loving harmony together as making but one body or compleat fulnesse in Christ which he calls Love Chap. 13. expressely asserting that all gifts of the Spirit how good and reall soever they be yet considered as they are several and in part only will leave the possessors of them little better then sounding brasse or tinkling Cymbals for they will not last or endure to the end The Apostle hereby intimates unto us the evil use that may be made of good and spiritual gifts when either the parts agree not amongst themselves but the eye sayes to the hand I have no need of thee or the head to the feet I have no need of you or when the parts considered as several conspire together against the whole as the Body against the Soul the Forme against the Power of Godlinesse When therfore the gifts of the Spirit are given
bodies shall be found in the streets of the holy City spiritually called Sodome and Egypt kept for three dayes and an half unburied signifying that they must in all things submit to the bruising of their outward man in conformity unto Christ and be slaine as their brethren have beene from the beginning of the world which is to be their lot in the latter end This prophetical and powerful spirit of Eliah shall be poured forth in those dayes upon the witnesses of Christ that keep the WORD OF HIS PATIENCE and endure the fiery triall of those times not thinking it a strange thing that thereby happens unto them and shall fill them with exceeding joy under all the reproaches which they beare for the Name of Christ as the Spirit of glory and of God that is resting upon them and fitting them for such a season that as John Baptist by his Ministery ushered in Christs coming in the flesh or in his first appearance so this same prophetical spirit of Eliah shall be the fore-running dispensation given forth by the witnesses of Christ in those dayes unto Christs second appearance or coming from heaven as hath beene foretold by all the Prophets since the world began for the restitution of all things as the fruit of his personal presence in the world exercising Rule and Dominion there for a thousand years with his Saints and then carrying them up with him to his Father and their Father into the same Kingdome as continued in glory in heaven for evermore What this prophetical spirit of Eliah is that shall be thus poured out upon the Witnesses of Christ in those dayes is to be understood by what it was in Eliah's person who was but the type and therefore certainly had this spirit in a much inferiour degree to what it shall be in them The spirit of glory and power therefore which he had they shall have and much more as indeed is expressed when it is said if any man will hurt them he must in this manner be killed fire proceedeth out of their mouth and devours their enemies These have power by the same way Eliah had which was by the prayer of faith to shut heaven that it raine not in the dayes of their prophecie yea they have power also over waters to turne them into blood and to smite the earth with all plagues as often as they will Yet under all this power and glory they shall remaine exposed in their persons upon the finishing of their TESTIMONY to the rage and power of their enemies who shall then make warre against them overcome them and kill them But notwithstanding on the third day they have power given them to rise from the dead and to ascend up into heaven Rev. 11. 11 12. after a more glorious manner then Eliah did and this in the sight of their very enemies to their terrifying and amazement Thus we see the spirit and power of Eliah what it is that then shall be poured forth and that in a more mystical and spiritual consideration Something we shall also speak to the opening of the state and qualification of the persons that are called the TWO WITNESSES and why they are so called For their state and qualification this is to be known by their names and their apparel They are called the two Olive-trees and the two Candlesticks standing before the God of the whole earth By what hath beene already opened on this subject we are not far to seek what these signifie For the two Olive-trees and two Candlesticks that stand by the Lord of the whole earth must either be Christ in his owne person as he is head to his body the Church and Mediatour betweene God and man shining forth in his first and second appearance as both these perfections of the natural and spiritual man are built up and wrought into a perfect consistency and harmony in him or else these two Olive-trees do signifie the conformity which from him as the head is wrought out in and derived upon his spiritual and heavenly members by his first and second appearance in both those perfections of the first and second Adam as the elder is made to serve the younger and the first is built up into a consistency and harmony with the second by the power of the Crosse making them conformable to him in his death Which conformity is signified by their prophesying in sackcloth testifying the marks which they bear about with them in their mortal bodies of the dying of the Lord Jesus And in this crucified mortal flesh of theirs they are owned by Christ as having the Spirit of God and of glory thus made to rest upon them in a like dispensation unto that of Eliah's prophecy So that when once it shall please God to raise up a seed and generation of Saints in whom these marks of the dying of the Lord Jesus shall be eminent to the slaying and bringing to rest all operating powers and faculties of their natural man as standing in opposition to the Lord of life and glory and subjecting every high imagination in them by the Crosse to the laying of it and all the glory of flesh in a very great measure under the feet of Christ whereby that which lets his glory from appearing unveiled and hath all this time let is taken away then will it be knowne what the TWO WITNESSES are and that they have not hitherto so much as begun their prophecy in the power of Eliah before mentioned so farre are they from being slaine CHAP. XXVI Treating of the time of the manifestation of the sonnes of God their sitting with Christ on his Throne ruling and influencing all things on earth during the space of a thousand years HAving finished what relates to the Saints being made one dead or crucified body with Christ and shewed the opposition which is exercised by the Devil thereunto that which remains to be considered is the gathering also of the Saints together into one glorified body with Christ at his second coming when it shall appear what those shall be that now though they are sons are undistinguished from those that are not who have beene planted into a conformity with Christ in his death and who considered as his dead body having beene exposed to the bruising of their heele by Satan before his being bound up shall be declared the proper subjects and inheritours of this first resurrection in the exercise of the power and glory thereof as KINGS and PRIESTS reigning with Christ a thousand years This time of the manifestation of the sonnes of God is said to be that which is the earnest expectation of the very creature it self Rom. 8. 19. as the season also wherein the whole creation is to be restored to its Primitive purity and to be delivered out of the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the sonnes of God as the benefit which it shall then receive by vertue of the price of Christs blood paid for all for
the want of which it now groaneth and travelleth as in paine as deteined under the bondage it is fallen into by sin and is stretching out its neck as it were with a holy impatiency after these times of refreshing that are to come from the presence of the Lord by the sending of Jesus a second time and revealing him with power from heaven to restore all things and accomplish the full redemption of the body which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy Prophets since the world began Acts 3. 19 20 21. But considering the distinct and large handling of this weighty subject from testimony of Scriptures and otherwise in Volumes lately made extant together with the reserve which Christ thinks fit to keep in his owne hands as well of the time as the exact patterne and material circumstances of this his Reign it shall suffice me to be joyning in testimony unto this great truth according to the general prospect thereof which hath beene given in to my faith in some small glimpses as well from the inward as outward Word of God in a patient and humble expectation of the clearer and more certaine description thereof as the things themselves are drawing on which Christ in his times will fully shew by the brightnesse of his owne coming unto which the children of light and of this day are exhorted to be hastning as that which is hastning upon them that so it may not overtake them as a thief in the night at unawares but the mindfulnesse thereof may keep them in a meet posture with their loines girt and lamps burning as men waiting for the coming of their Lord. Paul in 1 Tim. 6. 15 16. does call these dayes the times of Christ in which he will shew that his judgment and power shall bear sway in distinction from and opposition to the power and judgement of mans day now in exercise and credit throughout the world himself being the blessed and only POTENTATE the KING OF KINGS and LORD OF LORDS that must take place with his everlasting Dominion This Scripture compared with Rom. 8. v. 19 to v. 24. Acts 3. 19 20 21. 1 John 3. 2. Hab. 2. 3 14 20. 2 Thes 2. 8. Phil. 3. 20 21. Dan. 2. 44 45. and Dan. 4. 3. and Chap. 7. 26 27. does evidently declare thus much that the hidden life and immortality wherein the man Christ Jesus does remaine with God as him that is invisible seene only to the eye of faith by the true sons and heirs of salvation shall have a season and time to be manifested and brought to light openly before the eyes of all and this two manner of wayes First in a way which shall be peculiar to the spiritual seed and extend only to them who having died with Christ shall now live with him and having suffered with him shall now reigne with hiw as gathered into one spiritual and heavenly body with himself through his changing their vile body into the likenesse of his most glorious body according to the working of his mighty power whereby he is able to subdue all things unto himself Secondly in a way which shall be common to all natural men yea to the whole creation of God so as every eye shall see him and every tongue shall confesse him and every knee shall how to him either voluntarily or by compulsion as unto the only POTENTATE unto whom they owe their subjection and that in the right of the redemption by him procured for them who became a ransome for all to be testified in due time through which they shall be actually and entirely delivered from the bondage of corruption and restored into their Primitive purity natural life and glory upon the same tearmes of mutability as wherein Adam was at first created yea with this advantage over and above what he had not only a being taught by his experience but assisted with those means which he experienced not in the manner they shall do together with a freedome from any exercise of that old Serpents power or subtilty upon them who during the time of the whole thousand years shall be bound and sealed up in the bottomlesse pit by the power of Christ Rev. 20. 2 3. and so totally disabled to deceive or beguile the Nations any more all that while as he beguiled Eve that Christ may rule in righteousnesse amongst them without disturbance nothing being left to hurt or destroy them in all his holy mountaine or Dominion if they destroy not themselves for they shall be left unto the full and entire scope of their own free will self-managing and disposal that they may be as good as they themselves shall desire to be and have the means at hand to keep them so if themselves be not in the fault That which Christ will do at his second coming is intimated by those greater works he speaks of John 5. v. 20 to v. 30. at the sight whereof every one should marvel In which Scripture we find a twofold power that shall then be exercised by Christ First a quickning power for Christ shall then quicken whom he will calling whom he pleases out of their very graves whether spiritual or literal and they shall hear his voice and come forth the grave at his call shall yeeld up her dead not being able to resist the power of this quickning spirit of his who then as by the voice of the Arch-Angel the trump of God 1 Thes 4. 16 shall visibly declare the exceeding greatnesse of his power over death and the grave it self in the sight of the whole world to the admiration of all and to the stopping the mouths of the greatest enemies and gain-sayers that would be apt to contradict and oppose the glory of his Kingdome Secondly a Judicial power For Christ shall then receive authority from the Father to execute judgement also and that as the Sonne of man according as it is also expressed Acts 17. 31. He hath appointed a day in the which he will judge the world in righteousnesse by that man whom he hath ordained whereof he hath given assurance unto all men in that he hath raised him from the dead Thus then as the Father hath life in himself that is to say the proper life of God absolute supreme irresistible and Almighty the SONNE OF MAN shall then also come forth in the exercise of the same life in unity with the Father it being given to him in like manner to have life in himself and to effect and execute all that which he desires and thinks fit in both these respects in the exercise of the same absolute and Almighty power of God himself By reason whereof it shall come to passe that all men shall honour the Sonne even as they honour the Father and whosoever honoureth not the Son shall be proceeded against in judgement and in the execution of Gods wrath as if he had not honoured the Father For unto the Sonne of man in this day of his
power and glory shining forth in the beauty of his new name that is above every name either in this world or in that which is to come every knee is appointed to bow of things in heaven and things in earth and things under the earth and the duty of every tongue shall be to confesse that Iesus is the Lord to the glory of God the Father Hence then it is evident that as God or the WORD in Christs first appearance was pleased to be manifested in flesh wherein to condescend and make himself of no reputation by taking upon him the forme of a servant and being made in the likenesse or habit of a man and in this fashion as a man subjecting himself to the doing and suffering all that which was required to be done and suffered on the behalf of sinful mankind and for the bringing many sonnes unto glory so also is he that thus did and suffered all things as a man in the dayes of his flesh for our redemption at this time to see his seed and reap the fruit of the travel of his soul which then he made a sacrifice for sin being now a second time to appeare without any reference to sinne as then he did but instead thereof to declare himself the Sonne of God with power by the resurrection from the dead So as in and by this second appearance the man Christ Iesus in the fashion and forme of his exalted and glorified manhood consisting of spirit soul and body in substantial or personal union with the WORD is to shew and manifest himself in the glory of the Father in the joynt and united exercise of the same divine life and power with him and therein to give a plaine demonstration that he is the Sonne of God as by his being made flesh and becoming obedient to the death of the Crosse he did undeniably demonstrate that he was really and properly the Sonne of Man made of the seed of David according to the flesh living the life and dying the death of a perfect natural man Thus the Sonne of man shall come with power and great glory sitting with the Father upon the same Throne therein shewing himself the only POTENTATE the KING OF KINGS and LORD OF LORDS dwelling in immortality and that light which no man can approach hath seene or can see Christ then considered as thus dwelling in immortality and that light which is invisible and inaccessible in reference to all those that are meer natural men shall at this time declare himself to be the life and quickning of his own dead body and the object of their converse who having been made one dead body with him as planted in the similitude of his death shall now be called and gathered together unto him in one incorruptible immortal glorified state of spirit soul and body be planted into the likenesse of his Resurrection to the attaining of their compleat adoption and the redemption of the body at this manifestation of the sonnes of God and heirs of salvation which is spoken of Colos 3. 4. where 't is said that when Christ who is our life shall appear we shall also appear with him in glory and 1 Iohn 3. 2. we are now sonnes but it doth not yet appear what we shall be but we know when he shall appear we shall be like him for we shall see him as he is or as he dwells in immortality and in that light from whence he excludes every natural eye reserving it as the peculiar enjoyment and inheritance of his friends whom he loves that are Heirs of God and Co-heirs with Christ in the things prepared only for them which neither eye hath seene nor eare heard nor have entred into the heart of the natural man to consider This likenesse which the true Saints shall be brought forth into with Christ the beginning and first-begotten from the dead is described in general by the promise Christ makes to them on that behalf And Iesus said unto them Verily I say unto you that ye which have followed me in regeneration when the Sonne of man shall sit in the Throne of his glory ye also shall sit upon twelve Thrones judging the twelve Tribes of Israel Matth. 19. 28. So Rev. 3. 21. To him that overcometh sayes he I will grant to sit with me on my Throne even as I also overcame and am set down with my Father on his throne which imports First that as by the Fathers quickning of Christ raising him up and fitting him in spiririt soul and body to exercise in unity with him the same divine life and power to the making his manhood Second with him on the Throne so Christ in like manner will quicken and raise up all the members of his dead body or slaine faithful Witnesses that have beene made conformable unto him in his death and fit them in their spirit soul and body to exercise in unity and association with his heavenly manhood the life and power which he is enabled to exercise as he is the exalted Sonne of man to the rendring them a fit Bride Queene and Second with him in his Throne where they shall neverthelesse sit as upon Thrones of their owne as his Equals and co-heirs yet in subordination unto him judging the twelve Tribes of Israel in a light and glory superiour to the earthly Jerusalem or worldly Church yea to the good Angels themselves who shall be found but standing about the Throne whilst the Saints shall be sitting downe with Christ upon it Secondly as the Father gives authority to Christ in the capacity of the Sonne of man to execute judgement as the only l'OTENTATE KING OF KINGS and LORD OF LORDS under him so Christ also shall give and derive to his body the general assembly of the first-borne whose names are written in heaven authority to be the only Potentates Lords of Lords and Kings of Kings under him whose Decrees and Ordinances shall be binding unto all in heaven or in earth or under the earth next and immediately under Christ their head and this as well in reference to the regulating and well-ordering the service and worship of God in the societies of Saints and all his true worshippers as in reference to the governing and well-ordering the natural and outward converse of men in their humane societies during the reigne of Christ upon earth the thousand years Both these powers and jurisdictions shall be residing in the general assembly of the first-borne whose names are written in heaven who shall then be declared the Bride the Lambs wife the New Ierusalem coming downe from God out of heaven described Rev. 21. 2. as she that is prepared as a Bride adorned for her husband being that Tabernacle of God with men wherein he will dwell with them and they shall be his people and he himself will be with them and be their God wiping away all teares from their eyes so as there shall be amongst them no more death nor sorrow nor crying
now are shall passe away with a great noise and the Elements shall melt with fervent heat the Earth also and the Works that are therein shall be burnt up to make way for and give place unto the NEW HEAVENS and NEW EARTH wherein dwelleth righteousnesse which we look for according to his promise 2 Pet. 3. 10 13. Nor are we to think that the Saints departed who are now exercising the life that is equal to Angels are at all debased or lessened in their heavenly or Angelical enjoyment as brought forth gathered together into one spiritual and glorified body with Christ at his coming For hereby they are enabled to exercise over and besides the first that life which Christ led here upon earth after his resurrection which excludes them not from being with the Lord in the aire 1 Thes 4. 17. or in the exercise of their Angelical life in which they are for ever with him for as much as they do assume the exercise of this bodily life againe in its incorruptible forme upon such termes that it is no hinderance to or in the least inconsistent with the free and absolute exercise of the former Angelical life but serves rather as the meanes for them to be in the body as well as out of the body at their owne pleasure and as they shall find it most suitable to Gods designes for the maintaining and keeping up the Rule and Dominion of Christ in the world during the thousand years in the hands of this GENERAL ASSEMBLY of the first-borne who as the Jerusalem coming downe from God out of Heaven are to be the Tabernacle of God with men to administer the accomplishment of Gods promise as to the making good the reward which godlinesse is to receive even in this life and the promise unto Abraham and his seed of making them heir of the world through faith Rom. 4. 13. by vertue of the quickning power of Christ which he shall put forth at this time of the Restitution of all things The forementioned exercise of this bodily life to be assumed by Saints departed at the Resurrection is intimated to us by what is recorded Matth. 27. 52 53. And the graves were opened and many bodies of the Saints that slept arose and came out of the graves after his resurrection and went into the holy City and appeared unto many Signifying by way of figure and prediction the common practice hereof at Christs coming to quicken his Mystical dead body and bring them out of their graves as it is written Esay 26. 19. Thy dead men shall live together with my dead body shall they arise awake and sing ye that dwell in dust for thy dew is as the dew of herbs and the earth shall cast out the dead The third and last sort of humane life which the body or Church of Christ shall by their Head be brought into the exercise of is that of his exalted state as He ascended to his God and their God to his Father and their Father going before to prepare a place for them as being unwilling that his Saints should rest so much as in the second degree of life shining forth in his person by the Resurrection without expecting a higher which he gave notice of to Mary when he said Touch me not for I am not yet ascended to my Father John 20. 17. in whose house there are many Mansions John 14. 2. which at the end of the thousand years he hath in store to lead them into as their final and utmost degree of glory and perfection in heaven in the immediate and beatifical vision of God when the world shall be no more mentioned Rev. 20. 11 and as the last retreat to the full Rest God hath prepared for his Saints when upon the expiration of the thousand years Satan being let loose out of his prison shall have mustered up his last reserve of force against them from all the four quarters of the earth even Gog and Magog who for number are as the sand of the Sea who come up on the breadth of the earth and compasse the camp of the Saints about and the beloved City the NEW IERUSALEM which thereupon ascends up into heaven their enemies beholding them into this utmost degree of the Resurrection and their exaltation as made with Christs manhood to ascend to their God and his God to their Father and his Father in the exercise of the life of the first-borne of every creature and first-begotten from the dead to the obteining a name above every name which sets them with Christ far above all principality and power might and dominion the name or nature of any other particular being whatsoever And all this they attaine unto by their being made one with Christ Davids OFF-SPRING as this OFF-SPRING or BRANCH is made one with his owne ROOT who is the beginning and first-begotten from the dead having in all things the preheminence as being from above and over all made higher then the Heavens better then the Angels as having by inheritance obtained a more excellent name then they so that Angels and authorities are made subject to him and therefore in a state exalted above all natural men for they are lower then the Angels In this capacity Christ in his own person received the pouring out of the Spirit without measure and in this capacity his body the Church shall as at the second hand in this day of their ascension and final exaltation receive the effusion of this same Spirit without measure upon them unto which they have spiritual sences in some degree fitted and suited whilst they are here in the body through the newnesse of life and motion set up in them by faith or the new Creation which are yet farther heightned and enlarged after the laying down of the body by the two first degrees of glory and power into which they are brought by the resurrection from the dead but shall then be ripened to their most absolute capacity compleat exercise and perfect use upon this their ascension and highest advance at the expiration of the THOUSAND YEARS Into this state of glory Christ as we have said did arrive in his own person upon his ascension having received of the Father the promise of the holy Ghost or the actual possession of this inheritance of God at Gods right hand where his man-hood doth so become the INGRAFFED WORD of God that as man he is taken into the enjoyment of Gods naked glory and very similitude and forme beholding him face to face and conversing with him as friend speaks with friend mouth to mouth sharing and partaking throughout with the WORD of life the ROOT of David in all those first creature-operations that are set up by the immediate Workman-ship of the Trinity when they personally appeare in the WORD in respect whereof this creature-state in Christ is said to be without Father without Mother without descent Heb. 7. having neither beginning of dayes nor end of life
preserving of them during the thousand years in this their spotlesse sinlesse nature not suffering the Devil to annoy them or deceive the Nations till the thousand years be fulfilled executing upon the rebellious and disobedient his fiery vengeance and indignation to the cutting them off from the Land of the living as Ananias and Sapphira were dealt with making good that Word of the Lord Act 3. 23. And it shall come to passe that every soul which will not hear that Prophet in these his dayes he shall be destroyed from among the people For all those that shall then discover that they love not the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity shall be Anathema Maranatha or accursed by this coming and from this presence of the Lord. And therefore we are to know that the natural generation of men which shall be in those dayes how pure and spotlesse soever their fleshly nature be yet being but mutable will have either a good or an evil change passe upon them The good we have already spoken to and of the evil we shall say but little here since we have so at large treated of it also as it is the serpentine seed growing up in and under that which is good to the fixing and hardning of men at last in an implacable rage and enmity against Christ in his heavenly and second appearance For this hardning when it is perfected proves an unchangable enmity and brings on the spiritual or SECOND DEATH wrought out in the natural mind which is not subject to the Law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus nor ever can be no place being now left for repentance These vessels of wrath will then be raised to everlasting contempt and will have the perfect exercise of their natural sences in spirit soul and body fitted and prepared for the taking in of the full vials thereof that shall be poured out upon them for ever from the presence of the Lord Yea for this purpose they are also heightned to a partaking with the wicked Angels in the raisednesse of their Angelical beings so as to become of equal capacity with the evil Angels through the power of the resurrection from the dead that raises them up into everlasting contempt and gives them their portion with the Devil and his Angels unto whom they serve as a Temple and habitation in like manner as the Saints in their glorified body are the Tabernacle of God And in this Idols Temple the Devil shall be so able to transforme himself into an Angel of light by the experience he will have gained during the thousand years and so to transform his Ministers also as the Ministers of righteousnesse and Apostles of Christ that he shall have the confidence at the end of the thousand years when he shall again be let loose to embody his party of wicked Angels and men from all quarters and come up in this seeming glorious posture to vie it out at last with the New Jerusalem the City of the living God in this its earthly state gathering Gog and Magog to battel the number of whom is as the sand of the Sea who hoping to carry all before them shall come up on the breadth of the earth and compasse the camp of the Saints about the Beloved City desiring and endeavouring to swallow up that Assembly of true Saints on earth who have not had as yet their finall change brought upon them but are waiting for it universally to be accomplished at the end of the thousand years At which period of time the Devil being let loose and putting forth his last and utmost power doth play his game by transforming his party into the likenesse of the glorified body of Christ and his Saints gathering into one counterfeit spiritual body all his children and servants whose coming then shall be with such power and signes and lying wonders as were never put forth by him before Then Christ in a moment shall finally perfect his glorious change upon all the Elect and carry them all up with him to the mansions provided for them in his Fathers house from whence he sends down fire to devour all their adversaries and the whole visible frame of the creation casting the Devil into the Lake of fire where the BEAST and FALSE PROPHET are and shall be tormented for ever day and night by vertue of the just judgement of God which then shall be revealed against the wicked when the last JUDGEMENT shall be set and there shall appeare a great white Throne and one sitting upon it from whose face the heaven and the earth shall flee away so that there shall be no more place found for them even for that heaven and earth wherein there had beene made a full restitution of all things in those times of refreshing from the presence of the Lord during the reigne of the thousand years Then the great and last universal day of judgement shall be brought forth when the dead small and great shall be made to stand up before God and then the books will be opened and another book will be opened which is the book of life and the dead shall be judged out of those things that are written in the books And the sea shall give up the dead that are in it and death and hell shall deliver up the dead that are in them and they shall be judged every man according to their works To be more particular in describing the state of things as to the change which does respect the whole creature during this thousand years will be needlesse considering that the general expressions are so clear and full that it shall be a glorious pure incorrupt state unto the whole creation which shall then keep a holy Sabbath and Rest unto the Lord a seventh part of the time of the worlds continuance in which there shall be no sowing of the field nor pruning of the vineyard nor exacting any labour from the creature but what in voluntary service it shall performe by way of homage and worship unto Christ for the use of his Saints during the thousand years who are yet in their corruptible natural body expecting their great change Even so come Lord Jesus Come quickly FINIS