Creature as the Creature cometh forth from God into its single and proper state through him 3. Jesus Christ as he is the Mediator between God and the Creature as he is One with God so also is he One with the Creature that he may bring forth the Creature from God bring back and home again the Creature to God to make both one in himself I shall endeavour to make plain this part of Christ's Mediatorship the immediate coming forth of the Creature through Christ by several steps 1. Jesus Christ having descended with his Original and essential Image into an Image of Light all clear and transparent in every point of which his essential Glories shine brightly forth Next to this he comes down into a shadowy Image There all the Glories of the two former Images are altogether obscured and hidden beneath this Vail They appear only by a shadowy Figure of themselves formed upon the darkness of this third Image In this shadow of himself the Lord Jesus retaineth entirely the Unity of his Divine and eternal Person All the three Images the Lights of Glory and their shadow dwell together in the Unity of the same Person So do they mutually enfold one another So do they mutually subsist appear and act in each other according to the proper Form of each Image and state The shadow shines and is a substantial Glory in the Glory of the Images above The Images above with all their substantial Glories are shadows in this shadow As St. John saith The Word was made flesh so is God here become a shadow of himself God is the Person in this shadow This shadow subsists in the Person of God The superior Images spread forth the darkness of this Image from themselves over-spreading themselves with it They themselves with all their Glories are as a Divine Seed in it They are the seminal Virtue the seminal Reason or Form springing up through this darkness and filling it throughout with Divine Figures of themselves As the Plants Flowers and Fruits which God made to spring up out of the ground of the Garden in Eden Thus is this shadowy Image divinely-beautiful and rich all an earthly Paradise bearing the Figure of the heavenly Paradise which it hath for its proper Seed and Root hidden within it Jesus Christ in his essential Image is as the substantial and Divine Body of all Glories In his Mediatory Image as a Garment of Light with which that Body cloaths it self all composed of its own richest Beams In this third Image as a shadow cast from both these 2. Jesus Christ in this shadowy Image is the first and universal Creature a created Spirit the immediate Head and Pattern of the whole Creation in general of all Creatures in particular Men and Angels He is the first Draught or Life-Picture of the whole Creation from whence all the Creatures are taken as so many Copies of this Original The superior Images are the Life it self by which this Original and Life-Picture is drawn Thus is Jesus Christ in a third sense the Image of the invisile God and the first-born of every Creature St. Paul seemeth in that place Coloss. 1. 15. to have intended this as the principal sense For he immediately adds That all things were made by him whether visible or invisible and that he is before all things and in him all things did consist or stand together Then when in the consequence of this he had said that Christ is the Head of the Church the first-born from the dead he gives this as a reason relating to both states of Nature and Grace of the Creation and the new Creature in the Resurrection that he in all things might have the preheminence The word is there 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that he might be the first in all things the first in Order Dignity and Power The first Creature in Nature and in the Creation the Head of Nature and the whole Creation The first new Creature in the Resurrection from the dead when Nature and the whole Creation was fallen under the power of death and the Head of the Resurrection The Jews seem to represent Jesus Christ to us in this station of the Creation as the first and universal Creature by two mysteries of theirs For they teach us That the Soul of the Messias was one of those things which were before the World was They say also That the Light of the first Day was a pure and clear Light in which the whole Creation in its whole compass with all Forms of things contained in it through its whole duration from the beginning to the end with all Revolutions and Changes universal or particular were all clearly seen at once in one View and Prospect as one entire most beautiful Divine Image or Picture They say also That at the Fall of Man this Light was withdrawn and hidden beneath the Throne of God until the days of the Messias The Arians of old acknowledged Jesus Christ in this state as a created Spirit the first and universal Creature above and before all things the Head of Angels and of the whole Creation Thus they acknowledged him to be God by representation deputation denomination and generation as being immediately begotten and brought forth from God as the first created Image of the Uncreated Glory comprehending all other created Images originally in himself They ascended right thus high if they had not rested here but by this shadowy Image had been pointed to the Mediatory Image in Life and by the beams of that guided to the essential Image in the Godhead Our natural senses teach us That there is no shadowy reflected and refracted Light where there is not first a pure Light and Sun-shine that the purest Light of the sweetest Sun-shine hath above it the Original Light the essential Light in the Body of the Sun which is indeed the Body of the Sun the Sun it self in its essential Form and Image But let us pass to our third step 3. The Lord Jesus in this shadowy Image is immediately the efficient the exemplar the final Cause of the whole Creation As Light and all the beams flow from the Sun their formal Cause as immediate Figures and Images of him So doth the whole Creation in general and each Creature in particular flow forth from him by continued emanations He is the ground out of which they rise in which they grow and flourish on which he figures and forms himself according to his various Excellencies as the proper fruit of them all into which they sink down and return with all their Life and Sweetness when they disappear Thus are all things made by him and for him that he may live and shine forth in all In him saith St. John was Light and that Light was the life of man where he speaks of the Creation of things by Jesus Christ. 4. I am now come to my last step Jesus Christ in this shadowy Image is in the whole Creation and in every
power the pattern the meritorious the efficient the formal cause of all this in his Humiliation and Exaltation If Jesus Christ be a created form living immortal glorious containing in himself the whole Creation with all its Vicissitudes of Lives and Deaths in one entire Beauty more fresh more fair more full then ever it can be in it self if it be seen at one view at the uttermost heighth of all sweetness softness amiableness lustre that it is capable of although that be true which some say that the World in the whole is the most beautiful of all things or which others say that it is an Angel This created form then hath a Prototype its Original Image its exemplar Cause in eternity in God on which it depends and from which it flows otherwise it is not a created form but uncreated absolute and eternal This Original Image is one with the first the supream Image of eternity and of God For all things are there as in the fullest Variety so in the most entire Unity This then is the Godhead of Christ that essential Image of the Divine Nature in which Jesus Christ with all his created Glories pre-exists in eternity from whence he descends into a created state and hath there an existency antecedent to every other Creature If this Jesus be the first and universal Creature the whole world in one Spirit and Person who takes flesh of the Virgin Mary then doth the whole world live die and rise again in him Now is his Death the Death of the whole world his Resurrection is the universal Resurrection of the whole world in its Divine Head and in its immortal Root Now is Jesus Christ a Sacrifice for our Redemption Sanctification Salvation not by an imaginary notional arbitrary Imputation but a judgment founded upon the Divine Nature of things and a real immediate Union between Christ and the World as a Divine Seed and a Divine Plant which with a Divine eminency is comprehended in that Seed and virtually produced out of it receiving every moment its alterations from it according to the seminal and Divine proportions treasured up in it Thus Christ takes away the Sin of the World thus he makes all things new These are only glances by the way 2. The second Consideration which moved me to touch this string is the perfection and the heightning which it seems to give to the whole mystery of Divine Truth in the Scripture and in the Gospel A sweet and beautiful line would probably arise from this Point to illustrate many and principal Scriptures many and principal Mysteries of the Gospel if it were found consonant to the letter of the Scripture to the Analogy of Faith and so generally received I will now therefore offer in few words a reason or two in this case leaving the judgment of it and the full prosecution to those who have either Humane or Divine Learning in these things above my self 1. The first or rather cluster of Reasons lieth in that Scripture Col. 1. 15 16 17. 1. Christ is here described in the proper Character of his Divine Person as the general ground of his Mediatorship by these words Who is the Image of the invisible God He is the Image of God by way of eminence the first the supream the most perfect Image representing the Essence the Substance the Unity of God to himself within himself essentially substantially in his own proper Unity He is the Image of the invisible God as he is invisible in that Glory of his own eternal form in which he is visible by no Light to no Light to no Eye in no Spirit besides his own He is the only Image of God in every Image the Image of God in its first state upon the Throne in its descent through all states in the Grave unto the nethermost parts of the Earth until it return and re-ascend above all Heavens thither where it was at first 2. Jesus Christ is here described in the two parts of his Mediatorship one relating to the state of Nature the other to the state of Grace At the 25. verse he is stiled the first-born of every Creature at the 18. verse the first-born from the dead These two being contra-distinguished from each other seem to point at and paint forth Jesus Christ in two different forms agreeing both in this that they have their ground in his eternal form and are subordinate to it These two being contra-distinguished and answering each other seem to be interpreted one by the other Jesus is the first-born of the Resurrection in a two-fold sense He is the first of those that rise from beneath the shades of this Creation into the true Heavens the Holy of Holies the unvailed Glory of God He is the fulness of the Resurrection He as a Divine Head comprehendeth clearly compleatly eminently in himself all these who are to rise as Divine Members of himself inseparably joyned in the Unity of the same Divine Spirit They all rise together with him at his Resurrection He is the Fountain of the Resurrection Every one in his own proper person and season riseth up out of him by his Power in the Virtue of his Resurrection After the same manner is Jesus the first-born of every Creature He is the first the fulness the fountain of the Creation He is the first Creature So in the 17. verse in the illustration of this state as he is the first of every Creature it is said He is before all things He pre-existed in a created form when there was yet no other Creature formed All things were made in him whether visible or invisible Principalities Powers or Thrones things in Heaven or on Earth and all things stood together in him saith St. Paul verse 17. So the Greek words in both verses are most properly rendred Great men in the mystery of Philosophy and Divinty affirm That which is below to be the same with that which is above Every Flower on Earth is a Star in the Firmament Each Star an Angel in the Heavens above If this be St. Paul's sense which we have represented from these words the Elements with all of them the visible Heavens with all in them the innumerable Company of Angels in their invisible Heavens have all met and subsisted together in one created Form in one Divine Spirit and Person which is our Jesus In this Person they are not Flowers of Beauty not Stars of Light not Angels of Glory but Divine Forms antecedent and transcendent to the brightest Cherubims the highest the most flaming Seraphims Thus they exist in Christ. Thus with the unsearchable Riches of all agreeable Varieties they make up the Body of Christ as he is the created Head of all Thus as he is the first of all Creatures so is he the fulness of the whole Creation He is also the Fountain St. Paul addeth also this All things were made by him verse 16. All Creatures flow from him as second Lights are cast from the first
hid beneath the ruines of the fall Thus Knowledge springing in the Soul seems to be a remembrance the Life of all good an awakening by reason of the primitive Image of pure Nature raising it self by degrees and sparkling through the Rubbish the confusions of the present state Thus also hath the Souâ—…n her self the measure of all Truth and Good in this pure â—…age which hidden in the Center of the Soul containeth all Forms of Truth and Good in it self 2. That Clause in the 20. vers From the Creation of the World relates not to the sight but to the invisibility of God as appears by the place the point the sense For otherwise there were a Tautology in the Creation of the World and the things that are made There is a Scripture like to this Ephes. 3. The mystery of Christ is there mentioned which is the unvailing of God that he may be seen in the Light of his own essential and eternal Glories in his own proper naked and sweet form of Love unmixt unlimited Thus he appears in the Face and Person of Christ who as he is the Godhead in its essential and eternal Image comes in the Spirit of the Gospel full of Grace or Love and Truth the Light the Life of the Godhead in its unvailed Sweetnesses and Glories This mystery is said to be hid in God from the foundation of the World The Creation of the World was a Vail cast upon the Face of God with a figure of the Godhead wrought upon this Vail and God himself seen through it by a dim transparency as the Sun in a morning or Mist is seen by a refracted Light through the thick medium of earthly Vapours But I shall now attempt from the Life in this Scripture to draw the Picture of the Humane Soul in its natural Perfections and paradisical Beauties In order to this I shall present to you three Propositions into which this Text seems naturally to resolve it self 1. 1. Proposition God is present and shines forth in the Soul of Man in the highest and fullest appearance in which any created Understanding is capable of receiving him in which he is capable of being manifested or communicated by any Image beneath or without himself This is the plain sense of those words That which may be known of God is manifested in them Every Being in every kind and degree is a Beam or Emanation and manifestation of the first the supream Being which is God The whole Creation then all the Creatures in it with all their Essences Substances Accidents in all their Orders Places Postures Motions with every Circumstance of Being are as real in their full proportion as much according to the life in the Humane Soul as in themselves They all as so many lines and features drawn from the Face of God form the Essence of the Soul by forming it into a living Image of God God himself as he is the Author of Nature is as a Sun with all the Creatures as a Ring of Beams round about him which at once hide him and discover him So the Sun the Figure with a Vail of Beams hides from every eye the too bright Glories of that naked Body of Light But by the same Beams is himself seen in a most beautiful though shadowy Image Thus this eternal Sun surrounded with this Ring of Beams forms a Pareâ—…s tâ—… similitude of himself by himself in the Soul of Man In the mean time God himself as he is before this similitude of himself shining upon it is also within it the vital Centre in the midst of it the Root the Truth the Life of it Thus are these two Suns two Eyes full set each with other as they look forth through this Image this Vail of Beams The Soul by its senses takes in only the accidental forms of each Creature the shadow of the shadow The Understanding takes hold of takes the essential Form the Substance The whole visible World is the World of sense the Object of sense The Invisible the Angelical World is the Intellectual World the proper Object of the Understanding If that which may be known of God be manifested in the Soul if every distinct degree of Being be a distinct manifestation of God a distinct mode or form of the Divine appearance then doth the Humane Soul contain the whole World visible invisible with it self in its full greatness and glory in all its most exact Distinctions and Varieties It penetrates it it fills it all within and without with its Intellectual Light In its Unity as the Divine Centre it sits and unites all In its Variety as in the full majesty of its Divine Essence it spreads it self into all Forms and so many Divine Figures in a most beautiful and Divine Order All Being in its whole compass is Intelligible the adoequate Object of the Understanding The Understanding is all in potentiality in its natural capacity tendency and desire These are the Doctrines of the Schools The Understanding then in Act in the perfection of its primitive state is actually perfectly all It is married by an Angelical marriage as in the Marriage of Spirits into a most intimate Union of Essences into a most essential Unity with the whole Creation as it is one Divine Figure of the Divine Beauty and so through this figure with Jesus Christ with God who lives and appears in it 2. Proposition All these forms of things spring up to the Soul from within it self from its own Fountain from God the Fountain of the Soul in the Centre of it the Fountain of all in the Soul to the Soul That which may be known of God is manifest in them for God hath manifested it to them vers 19. The last Clause well observed in the force of the words and the Connexion will appear to every judicious eye as I humbly conceive to have no common or vulgar sense They seem to contain in them this two-fold mystery 1. God the proper Idea of the Humane Soul that is it s most inward inseparable Principle which hath in it self the Pattern the exemplar form of the Soul sends it forth from it self forms it furnisheth filleth it with all forms of things He also comprehends and conserves it in himself as its own proper place and habitation as a Light sprung from him and abiding in him the Father of Lights He fashioneth it into an Understanding as an Intellectual Angelical Divine Sun This is the greatest Light in the Soul its utmost Centre and outmost Circle encompassing the whole Essence of the Soul the whole nature of things in all their Forms Operations and Motions This shines in the day of the invisible World This as the Region of Angels contains the Essences and Intellectual Forms of all things in it self as so many Angels or Angelical Spirits each of which is a distinct Sun a distinct world of Angels of all Angelical Spirits and Intellectual Forms In the next place God figures this Light which is
Bodies 2. The freedome of Plants 3. The freedome of brnit Creatures 4. The freedome of intellectual Agents 1. The freedome of the Elements and Coelestial Bodies consisteth in that motion and rest which is generally esteemed and stiled simply natural The principle of their motion and rest is nature guiding their motions and rests in the figure of Divine motions and rests their invisible Patterns and Originals either by way of instinct or by the assistance of intelligences as the Peripateticks Schools assert or informed by Intellectual Angelical Divine Souls as the Academy teacheth The sphere of their motion and rest is their own proper place Adaequate to their Dimensions They move and rest naturally within themselves This is their liberty Such also is their liberty in their parts and mixtures which also being by violence carried out of their proper places naturally tend to them by a simple motion in a strait line This is the first Order in the liberty of things a liberty from outward force or constraint with a confinement to a single simple motion and rest at least in their material and corporeal part Thus the Peripateticks make the Spheres of the Elements the first and lowest order of Corporeal substances and compleat being confining them to Forms meerly natural and in a manner allowing them only single and simple local motion After the same manner also they circumscribe the Coelestial Spheres giving them only this two-fold preheminence 1. One of a fifth essence compounded of a distinct matter and form 2. The other of assisting forms or intelligences moving them With these their grounds agreeth the Ptolemaiical System But as before I toucht the ancient Academy sets these spheres of the world in a higher rank attributing to them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 making them rational Beings Angels Gods Copernicus also sets them at liberty altering the whole design of their local motions and inlarging them to a greater variety 2. In the second place is the liberty of Plants which is a vital liberty The principle of their motion and rest is animate a vegetative Soul which hath in it self a variety of formal Acts or Virtues according to which it formeth to it self an Organical body composed of differing parts framed to be proper Instruments for the diversity of these vital Acts. In like manner doth this soul of the plant put forth it self into diversity of motions in its proper body yet are all these motions confined to the body of the plant it self or to a very narrow sphere round about it The plant also it self is fixt by its root in one place and immoveable there The Ratio seminalis the seminal harmony which is the essential form and the proper soul of the plant as it is a vegetative soul gives measure both to the principle of motion in the plant and to the sphere or compass of its motion being thus the ground and bound of this vital liberty This seminal harmony is the contracted and fainter off-spring of the imaginative form as those are freer clearer livelier Births and Images of rational forms which are the living pictures of the intellectual and essential Ideas either In superiour Souls or In superiour parts of the same Soul These intellectual Ideas or essences are also rich and ample streams of light and life flowing from their Divine Unities and springs in the supream eternal Unity the first seat and head of all liberty 3. The liberty of bruit Creatures hath the third place this is the liberty of sense The principle of this liberty is the sensitive soul which hath its chief seat in the imagination Here is the amplitude of its Kingdom and the power of its Rule This being immediately subordinate to the rational intellectual power is that Sea whence all the springs and streams of the inferior and outward senses as of the local motions go forth and into which they again flow with all their force and efficacy Here they are united here they have their various mixtures here they have their greatest amplitude and heightning The motions here are no more fixed in one place nor confined to the compass of their own proper Subject but enlarge themselves after their several manner according to the amplitude of the object of sense which is the whole Corporeal world There are indeed divers ranks of sensitive Creatures which have divers degrees of liberty 1. Some are confined to particular Elements 2. Others have the liberty of distinct Elements All that are perfect in the order of sensitive being agree in this that they have the liberty of progressive motion of motion from place to place variously according to the variety of their appetites governed by the ample light of their imaginations This chiefest freedom of sense is placed in the imagination this being the first and highest faculty of the sensitive Soul where it is in its perfection is as ample as the universal object of sense the whole Corporeal world Some Philosophers teach us That the imagination is the immediate former of this universal Image which comprehends all corporeity the visible Heavens and Earth in it self Others that it hath a commanding power upon this universal Image and all the parts of it having the force of all magick in its self to alter the motions of the heavenly bodies and the Constitutions of the Elements This is more universally understood that it not only takes in and enjoys the sensitive forms of all the objects of sense uniting and varying them according to its own pleasure but also that it espouseth in it self the spiritual and corporeal world to each other receiving the impressions the similitudes the illapses of the invisible Glories as the Originals into their sensitive Image and heightning the sensitive Image to a greatness and glory above it self by this communion with its invisible patterns The sensitive appetite hath an inseparable conjunction with and conformity to the imagination They mutually influence excite and govern each other They have both objects of equal extent The good of the sensitive being which is the object of its appetite is not only the preservation of its own being but its pleasure and proper happiness in the fruition of the sensitive forms of things which fruition is compleated in the imagination 4. The liberty of intellectual beings is the utmost point of liberty comprehending in the general nature of it God as the Original and Angels and Men as the immediate immortal clearest compleatest Copies of that Original This is properly the liberty of Spirits of the Father of Spirits and of the Sons of the eternal Spirit The ground of this liberty is the Divine essence and the Divine Image of that essence The sphere or compass of this liberty is being it self in its greatest extent in its first highest and most universal form with all its unbounded self-bounding varieties and in its descent into all forms of things figuring or shadowing it self upon them filling them with it self Thus the Schools teach us That ens
universal Beauty one sparkling Image of the supream universal Good in the whole face of things This is a Musick sounding through all where each various form the obscurest the most minute is a string upon the golden Lute of the whole Image of things Each motion a touch of the chief the invisible Musitian The Spirit of the whole the Spirit of Unity and Harmony each touch a part of the Musick exactly answering in all Musical proportions to every other part and to the whole making perfect the Divine Consort in which all the Angels all the Ideal the first Glories in the Divine Mind bear a part with every Worm and Dust on the Earth every Wave and Drop in the Sea every Dragon and Owl in the Desert every flake of Snow in the Air. How beautiful now is the Work of God in all how worthy of a God! As his Glory is above all Heavens the highest and purest forms of Light so is his Name which is that Glory in the full expression and fair Images of it excellent through all the Earth to the lowest shades Plato saith That there is that which is the least of all things which cometh between the lowest Divisions the least parts of things which uniteth all one to another Ficinus in his Comment teacheth us That this in the sense of Plato is God who by the absoluteness and simplicity of his Unity is at once the Greatest and the Least the Highest and the Lowest the Outmost and the Inmost of all things the Band of all that can no where be excluded If this be true where now through the whole Universe of things is there found a place for that Liberty which breaketh the Band of the Divine Unity and Harmony which discontinueth the Links in this Golden Chain by uncertain arbitrary independant motions and forms arising from those motions What jarring Motion or Division springeth up without its Divine Ground without its orderly Connexion without its Patterns and Spring above to which it answers without its fellow Notes round about it to which it is tuned Where is this motion which thus jarreth with disturbeth and spoileth the universal Musick Certainly it lies without the supream the all-comprehending Unity It excludes from it self that Divine Unity which filleth all which bindeth all up into one Aristotle expresseth the Soul by a word which seems to have a full and deep sense to this present purpose Those that followed him have with great labour and pains digged in it with their sharpest wits as in a Mine from which they expected much fine Gold of Divine Wisdome and Truth It is reported of one That he raised a Spirit to intepret this word to him It is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which seemeth most properly and clearly to express that Divine Unity of the Soul replenished with all Variety Forms in the most beautiful Order as we have described the nature of it It is that which hath its perfection its end and so its beginning and so its whole way in it self This Perfection of the Intellectual Soul is the comprehension of all Truth in its Understanding the fruition of all good in the Will The universal Truth and Good are then the beginning of the Soul its Original all forms of things in the Beauties of their clearest and fullest Truth which is the eternal Light of their Ideal Glories smiling in the face of them all forms of things in the sweetness delightfulness joy in the unexpressibleness of Good the true Good all Good which is the eternal Life The eternal Love of those Original Beauties in their sacred Spring rising up fresh in the bosome of each Form this is the end this is the perfection of the Soul Thus all things were made for Christ in him by him who is the universal Truth and Good How St. Paul explains it All things are yours and you are Christs All forms of things meet and unite in the Humane Soul as their Perfection their Beginning their End Jesus Christ as he is the first the fairest the fullest Image of all Forms in one in their most exact Order and Harmony is the Father the Brother the Bridegroom of the Soul her beginning her exemplar Form or Perfection her End That Definition of the Soul the Act of an Organical Body contains the same Doctrine of the Soul in it An Organical Body is a Corporeal or visible Image composed of various members various parts and forms to be instruments and expressions of the various Beauties Powers and Virtues of the Soul by which they propagate themselves in an inferior Birth and figure themselves in a new but narrower Orb in a new but obscurer light of sense Thus the whole visible World is one Organical Body of which all particular Bodies are so many Organical parts Beauty is described to be the predominancy of the form over the matter A substantial or essential Act is all form a pure form separated from every thing of Corporeal matter The Soul then as it is an Act is all Beauty Beauty abstracted from matter a pure Light of Beauty the Essence the substance of Beauty and so of Harmony of Order It is a Maxim in Nature That the last the lowest the least in a superior Order or rank of things every way excels the first the highest the greatest in a lower rank and order According to this Rule every Soul in the excellency beauty virtue compass of its Being transcends this whole Corporeal World in the widest Circuit of its Form and largest extent of its Duration Thus the Intellectual Soul is the Act of this Universe of Sense the whole Corporeal World The Intellectual Soul is all this World with all Forms of things contained in it with all their courses and changes according to their Connexion and Order from the beginning to the end in one essential substantial undivided Act One pure Act of transparent Beauty and Order which is the Souls Unity and Essence By this the whole Coelestial and Elementary World in the emanation and springing up of all forms of things in all their motions and orders are uncessantly acted In this they subsist as shadows which have no ground of substance in themselves In this they actually are that which they are As Mathematical figures in the mind the Soul it self alone filling those figures being all the Essence Substance Power Virtue and Form in them Like shadows they vanish as they go forth from this Bosome where alone their Essences which are so many distinct substantial Acts and Unities shine and move together in a most beautiful Harmony as fixed incorporeal Stars in their proper Heaven Thus is each man a compleat world in himself Thus doth each Soul cloath it self with an Aethereal Aerial Robe on which it puts on this earthy Garment Like the Tabernacle of white Linnen wrought with all fine and rich Colours with the figures of Cherubims which had three Coverings one over another upon it of Goats-hair of Ram-skins died red of Badgers-skins
the substance of the Soul into the inward the common sense the phansy or imagination Now it is as a full Moon in the night of this visible and Corporeal World It is replenished with all the shady Forms of this night which shine in the face of it as in a Glass where they all meet and make one pleasant Night-piece Last of all The eternal Spirit the inward former and workman of the Soul contracts it and divides it into the outward senses into innumerable particular Forms These are as so many living Stars or Star-like eyes sparkling and dancing round about the Queen of this Night the Moon the common sense or imagination Through these Stars and this Moon in the Night-piece of these shady and Corporeal Forms is seen as in a Perspective as at a great distance the Intellectual and the Ideal Land of Angelical of Divine Glory which seem to cast forth these less and contracted Lights as faint-glimpses of themselves or like small sparks the seeds of the great flames As the Soul accompanied with her Original Pattern and Principle by its force thus descends so doth it by the same force in like manner ascend All the particular Forms of the outward senses the Beauties of the Eye the Musick of the Ear all Perfumes and delightful Odours the various Delicacies of the Tast the softnesses firmnesses the agreeable rests motions aequalities inaequalities in the Touch. All meet more pure and heightned in the common sense in the inward senses as in that Moon which is described to be an heavenly Earth or an earthly Heaven From thence they raise themselves resining themselves as they rise to the Intellectual Region As some believe the Sun to be the Habitation of the Blessed and to have the Blessed Fields Paradise in it So here in this Intellectual Sun all shady forms break up out of the mists of matter and corporeity into clear Suns into Angelical Essences and Spirits From hence the Soul as a bright Skie set with innumerable Suns of sweetest Light and most temperate pleasant vital warmth or as an Heaven replenished with Angels entertaining each other in a Divine Consort with Dances and Songs returns into its first Nest and its final Rest the Bosome of its Idea the Bosome of Christ in God In this Bosome of a truth hath it ever abode hath it circled round descending and ascending without going forth from it Thus hath God manifested himself in all possible Forms to the Soul according to the first part of the Apostles sense 2. God as the Souls proper Idea or exemplar Form every where present with it in every Form sets himself as a seal upon each form and upon the Soúl in that form So he is to the Soul the Impression the Evidence of the truth of each appearance by himself and of himself in each appearance Thus it is said of the Lord Jesus as he is the eternal word the Idea of all Ideas the proper Idea of man In him was life and that life was the light of men Joh. 1. The first life as it is in its Ideal Spring in the Person of the Lord Jesus the first the essential Image of God and so the Fountain of all Images shines forth into a Light of which is framed the Substance and Essence of the Soul Then it figureth this Light with its own Glories in their Divine Harmony and Order This Light these Figures are in themselves empty without force or efficacy All fullness dwells in Christ the Ideal Life in him forms and fills them This is the face of Beauty that looks forth through these Lattices This is the never-fading Flower in the heavenly Paradise which springs and puts forth it self through these Windows This rides forth upon every form into the bosome of the Soul and gives it self reception in the Soul As this first life in Christ is the Divine Seal upon every Form upon the Soul through every Form so is it the Divine ground in the Soul which receives and sustains this Seal which dissuseth in its Divine force and impression through the Soul by virtue of its Ideal Unity and Omnipresence The Original and Exemplar Life in Christ is the light of man objectively and formally It is the light in the Object which sheds it self on the Humane Spirit It is the light in man the form of his form the eye in his eye the power in his powers which taketh it in All sense is founded in a suitableness between the Object and the Faculty all suitableness in an Unity 3. Proposition God cloaths every created form in the eye of the Soul with an Intellectual or Angelical Image of himself By the things that are made are seen being understood the invisible things of God his eternal Power and Godhead saith our Evangelical Philosopher that word understood is carefully chosen and emphatically brought in The word is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 derived from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the peculiar and proper word by which the most Divine among the Philosophers in St. Pauls time expressed the Angels or Angelical Minds These Spirits were the chief Springs Powers Glories of the whole World in the number of the Creatures They were the Gods of this Creation and had the name of Gods given to them in the Holy Scriptures The Presence the Power the Authority the Glory of the Godhead next to Jesus Christ resided in them Jesus Christ the Lord and King of all reigned acted and appeared in these Angels of Might and Glory as the highest Representation of himself in his Divine Form and Majesty All this was not for their own sakes but for man as they were Guardians and Tutors to this Heir the Lord of all Each Angel was a diverse Figure of a distinct Variety in the eternal Glory in that diversity the full Glory in its Universal Image rested upon every Angel as a ministring Spirit to minister to man the full Glory He was the Heir of God the perfect Harmony the Unity in the which the whole Variety was most perfectly one married together with the Unity into the most perfect Beauty and Melody of the Universal Image of the whole Creation most exactly with the most charming agreeableness answering the Beauty the Melody of the Divine Nature as the Face in the Glass the living Face the liveliest Eccho the living Voice Each Creature hath as it s Ideal Glory in the Divine World so its Angel in the World of Angels In the pure state of things every inferior Creature had its Angel visibly sensibly present with it It s Angel formed it a Figure of it self in the diversity of its own proper Essence It s Angel cloathed it with an Intellectual Angelical Image of the Supream the Universal the Divine Beauty It s Angel dwelt constantly within this Image and shined through it After the same manner the Ideal Life and Glory in Christ made the Angel its Tabernacle in the Heavens and through the Angel each Creature below on Earth Every
Bosom of the Divine Being but the Spring of these Ideas in them forming them figuring themselves upon them acting them diffusing themselves thorow them in all their growths and fruits The Metaphysical Truth of things comprehendeth all kinds and degrees of Being Divine Natural Moral Mathematical all kinds of Truth Divine Natural Moral Logical Every thing as it is is metaphysically true The metaphysical Truth of things is defined to be the conformity of each thing to its first Truth to its Idea in the Divine Mind So far every Logical Truth the truth of every Proposition Affirmative or Negative is true as it answers its Idea in the Divine Understanding which is our Jesus the essential Image and so the essential Wisdom the essential Truth the essential Liberty of the Godhead the Mediator of all Births all Images of all truth and liberty thorow the whole nature of things But let us now proceed The Lord Jesus being a Mediator uniting two extremes toucheth both standeth in a middle state between both filling up the middle space and so maketh both One. We have already seen the Lord Jesus in the heighths of the Godhead in the excesses of Glory Let us now take a view of him in his middle-state between both 2. I shall indeavour to prepare the Way of the Lord Jesus as he comes forth in the Mediatory Glory of this Middle-state by two general discoveries of his Person and Beauty here 1. Our Jesus in this middle-state is the Divine Union of Unity and Diversity of the Unity of the Divine Nature of the Diversity of all Created Natures in One Divine eternal Person and Spirit One of the two Extremes is the supream Unity comprehending all Distinctions in it self preserving it self absolutely entire eternally undivided in all The other extreme is the Diversity of the Creatures where the Unity is broken into all manner of Distinction being every where imperfect and at its highest point but the shadow of it self The middle between these Two is the Union of these extremes where all the most differing distant divided Diversities the most diverse forms of things dwell together in one Divine Image in one Divine Spirit and Person where the supream and most absolute Unity spreads it self thorow all the Diversities unites them all in one undivided Glory shines entirely in the whole and in each part 2. Our Jesus in this middle-state as our God appears in an all-ravishing all-admirable all-adorable Beauty in a Beauty distinct from that of the Divine Essence in its simplicity distinct from that of the Divine Image in the Creation joyning both in a new Beauty presenting all the various Beauties of both in a new Variety How pure how pleasant are the Glories of the Godhead in its own essential Image How pure how pleasant is the Image of God in the whole Creation with all the differing Forms and Motions in their whole course and compass from the Head to the Feet from the first rise to the last end and rest of all seen in one view at once How unexpressibly how divinely transporting sweetest excesses and raptures of most glorious joys is the Harmony between these Two when they are seen together in one Divine piece in one Divine Person in one undivided View and Spirit This Person this Prospect is our Jesus in his middle-state This is his Mediatory Kingdom This indeed in a Divine most desirable and most blissful sense is the Personal Reign of the Lord Jesus Here doth he in the Divine fairness and fulness of his blessed Person sit upon a Throne of Grace and Glory thorow the whole Variety of all Uncreated and Created Forms of things in the whole and in each part as in the whole Here is he the Marriage and the Marriage-day of God and the Creature of Eternity and Time with all its divided Forms successive Motions disagreeing changes of Lights and Darknesses Lives and Deaths Here is he the Marriage of each thing with its Idea in his most spacious and most glorious Bosom where all the Fountains of Being and Beauty of Life and Love open themselves Here all things the highest Lights of Glory and the lowest shades the most contracted and obscurest Form with its Idea infinite in Majesty and Glory lie together mutually infolded in the inseparable and joyous imbraces of each other shining thorow shining in each other mutually set as Seals upon the Bosoms and Hearts of each other This is Jesus the same yesterday to day and for ever standing in the middle-space between Eternity and Time joyning in one Eternity with all its Glories and Time with all its diverse Births and Successions This is the first Procession of the whole Creation and of every Creature in the Person of Christ before any Creature comes forth into its own proper and single created state Thus is Jesus Christ in a second sense the Image of the invisible God and the first-born of every Creature Thus all things are made by him and he is before all as he is the Divine Draught and Plat-form of the whole Creation with the whole Contrivance and Conduct of it from the beginning to the end as God first bringeth it forth from his own Mind into a most beautiful and exact model where he hath it ever before him in its Union with the general and distinct Ideas of it in his own Mind that he may compare them and with a pleasure worthy of God himself behold them in their mutual most exact and Divine Correspondency Here Jesus Christ manifestly hath in all things even in every created form of things as it is the emanation of some Divine Beam the preheminence He is first in every Form He is there indeed with the excess of a Divine Glory Here all fulness dwells with a perfect and full complacency in our Jesus All Uncreated Glories all created Forms as the Births and Images of those Glories dwell together here with incredible Joy as the fulness of each other as the Divine Mother and her lovely Child exactly like its Mother mutually clasping each other with tenderest and immortal embraces Having thus prepared my way I will pass to the more particular Explications of this Mediatory Glory 1. God as he is in the simplicity of his Divine Essence in his first and supream Glory is the Head of our Lord Jesus in this middlestation The Head of the Woman is the Man the Head of the Man is Christ the Head of Christ is God according to the Doctrine of St. Paul Philosophers and Divines frequently express the weak the shady the passive the material part of things by the Female the Woman the virtue the brightness the active the formal part by the Male the Man If we may so far have respect to an Allegorical or an Anagogical sense in this Scripture We may interpret the Apostles words after this manner The visible and corporeal frame of things hath for its head the Angelical Nature and World which containeth all vital and substantial Acts