the Act of creating as it is in God its Principle is God as it is in the Creature where it is terminated is the Creature In like manner the Privation of Grace as it hath its beginning in the Author of Grace from an Act of the Divine Wisdom and Will designing or determining the with-holding of it is thus Divinely-beautiful and good The same privation of Grace as it is terminated and seated in a created Spirit is an evil of Sin the highest deformity the first the greatest evil the fountain of all evils most properly in its own nature and in the Eye of God As being the first and foulest privation of the first Good or the heighest Beauty and the Fountain of all following Privations extending their poisonous and baleful shades to the bottomless pit to the nethermost Hell God saith in the Prophet Isaiah of Nebuchadnezzar he is a Rod in my Hand but he thinketh not so Nebuchadnezzar was as in the hand of God but as a Musicians Quill The Acts of Enmity Tyranny and Cruelty exercised by him and upon the people of God were from the Divine Musician the Master of the universal Musick skilful stroaks and tender touches upon his Harps or Lutes which are his Saints making the universal the eternal Harmony compleat in their Persons and in his whole Work But the same Acts as they were from Nebuchadnezzar were a disorder a breach of the Harmony a Contrariety of an enmity which is the highest opposition to it In the same sweet and beautiful sense of Divine Love that loveliest figure of our Lord Jesus saith to his Brethen concerning their savageness selling sacrificing him to their envy and malice directed against the Divine Glory declaring it self in him by heavenly Visions Ye thought evil against me God meant it unto good Gen. 50. 20. Thus he comforted them concerning their greatest sins who were now humbled for them After the same manner to the same end the Truth himself the Lord Jesus by his Spirit striketh upon the heart of the Jews who had crucified him that now themselves might bleed inwardly from the sense of that precious blood of his which they had shed Act. 2. 23. Him being delivered by the determinate counsel and fore-knowledge of God ye have taken and with wicked hands crucified See that Act the most bloody and direful that ever the Sun saw by which the Suns Sun in Flesh and on Earth suffered the most mournful and tragical Ecclipse attributed at once to the determinate Counsel of God and to the wickedness of men Here that was eminently true which was represented by the former Scripture in the figure that which men thought evil against their Jesus their only Joy their God their only Good and Glory the same thing the cursed sale and cruel sacrificing of their God he meant unto good to bring to pass as at this day to save much people alive to bring many Sons to eternal Life and Glory A learned man cites from Aristotle in his Metaphysicks a passage in which he affirms That all the several parts are referred to the good of the order in the whole as the end of all Upon this he discants that this good of order depends upon the vilest as well as the most precious things that it consisteth in the interval and proportion between these That in respect to this order the vilest things are determined and framed with the same most exact skill as the most curious things Thus the sufferings of Joseph the crucifying of Jesus as they lay eternally determinate in the determinate Counsel of God designed and fashioned there unto good the highest Good the supream End the universal Order the Divine Glory which wraps up in it the blessedness of all the Saints so it self was a part of the Order a part of the Glory a Grace a Beauty a Perfection in the universal Order and Divine Glory But as this proceeds from the hearts and hands of Men the Instruments of it who like Nebuchadnezzar thought not so like Josephs Brethren thought it for evil like the Crucifiers of Christ were wicked in it It is a deordination a disorder a real evil the worst of evils not only a falling short of the Glory of God which is the Divine Image and effulgency in the Harmony of things as St. Paul describes Sin nor yet a transgression and breach only of the Law which is the rule and measure of this Order as another Apostle defines sin but an Enemy to it as all sin is in its root and essence according to the Language of St. Paul in another place So the discord in Musick is truly in its own particular nature and apart a discord so a black crooked line a dark shade is in it self truly black crooked dark offensive to the eye contrary to Light Rectitude and Beauty although the discord be a part of the Harmony this line and shade a part of the Beauty in the whole Object But you will perhaps say All these things seem hitherto to confirm the Ranters in their licentious Principles and Practices For why should not Sinners with the freedom of all sinful pleasures rest and rejoyce in the absoluteness of the Divine Conduct the Perfection of the Divine Order and Beauty which giudes them through all which accompanieth them in all as the Motion and Musick of those heavenly Spheres the Divine Wisdom Power and Goodness comprehending all things with their courses as Stars fixed in them what place is there here for shame guilt displeasure or punishments Answ. I am sensible of the weight of this Work in which I have by degrees engaged my self and how unfit my shoulders are for it When that wise Queen of Sheba saw the attendance of Solomons Servants and the order of his House there was no more any spirit left in her What then is the order in the House of God in his Work from the beginning to the end of it What the attendance and ministry of all the parts of this Work as the Servants in this House according to the Divine Order What Cherubim or Seraphim would have any more any Spirit left in it while it contemplates this Order which at the height of its most ravishing Contemplations remains still for the excess of Glory incomprehensible to it This is that Wisdom in a mystery which the most princely Spirits and Understandings of the whole Creations in their natural capacities are unable to take in What then is my spirit what my faculty that I should be capable of taking off the Vail from this Divine Chain of heavenly Pearl so closely and curiously set to behold in my self by any imperfect glimps to present any glance of it in its Divine lustre and order to other eyes and to preserve it from the feet of Swine or mouth of Dogs What am I that I should attempt to take the Cloud off from this heavenly Paradise which is in the midst of us before us round about us in which all things and
As Nature is distinguished in Natura Naturans and Naturata that is Nature in the Fountain God the Divine Nature Nature in the stream the Copy to that Original So the Scripture attributeth that to God which he in the natural order of things hath connected and linked as in a Chain for its proper cause Thus God is said to give up men to all disorders in their Will for the darkness in their Minds The phrase hath also this depth of sense in it That God as the first cause is every where in the whole Chain of Causes most intimately present and immediately operative in every effect He is the Spirit the Beauty of the Order in the whole He is the band in every step or joynt of the whole Order tying each Link to the other each Effect to its Cause each Cause to its effect He is the sole force in every Cause the sole Cause of every Effect in particular Thus God gave them up to vile affections who had changed the truth unto a lye All Imagery is the furniture of the Mind All Images are formed there The motions of the Will are raised and governed by the Images in the Understanding as their formal Cause from whose impressions they flow as their final Cause to which they tend in which they end The Understanding is a Power in the Soul of generating Images of good within it self which Images are the only Truth the only Beauty of it The Will is the Spring and Seat of a mutual Love-Union and Love-Communion which the Soul hath with it self in these Images infusing and taking in a mutual Sweetness Complacency and Joy They the Images in the mind are the Objective Cause of all the motions of the Will raising and laying them as the Winds do the Waters So God gave them over to vile Affections This manner of speaking hath a clear signification of that principal mystery in Divinity so sweet so sure so deep All good is from the presence of God the shine the smiles of his unvailed Face the Reflections of him as he appears in his own Likeness in his proper Form This makes all Light Beauty Joy All Evil is from the absence of God from his Back-parts from the Clouds and Disguise upon his Person without the Vail I cannot well proceed any further until I have cleared my way by removing an Objection or two which may be made against the Interpretations which I have made of these Scriptures and the Propositions drawn from them Object 1. The Apostle seemeth to make this the ground of the inexcusableness of men in their sins that they knew God yet sinned in the Face of that Light Upon this ground sin seemeth to arise first in the Will rather then in the Understanding This Objection is confirmed by the Apostles attributing this knowledge of God to man in his faln Estate To the Heathen as he seemeth clearly to do Answ. 1. If man hath this knowledge of God in his faln state yet was that Perfection in which we have described it only in Paradise Answ. 2. The Holy Spirit seemeth expresly to place the Knowledge of God antecedent to the first Sin the not glorifying him as God for this was either the same or Concomitant with or resulting from the vanity of the reasonings in man the want of Understanding the darkning of his Heart Answ. 3. There is indeed a constant Glory from the Face of God shining in man through all changes and states A Light which can never be extinguished by any storms But this Light of Divine Glory shineth in the midst of the Darkness which arose upon it within which it withdrew it self in the first moment of the Fall and hath ever since dwelt This Darkness comprehendeth not the Light receiveth it not rejecteth it as a Reprobate a false Light so casts it down from the Throne in the dominion of the Soul and reigneth it self in the place of it This truth is with Divine Authority affirmed with a Divine clearness and elegancy illustrated in those words As they liked not to retain God in their knowledge God gave them over to a Reprobate mind to do things not convenient What a manifest Connexion of these four things have you in this Scripture 1. A Knowledge of God in the Mind 2. A Rejection or Reprobation of that Knowledge 3. A Reprobation or Corruption of the Mind in the Rejection of this Light of Glory 4. All Evil generally mentioned under the Character of Inconveniency or Uncomeliness in the end of this verse particularly and distinctly recited in three following verses flowing all from this Reprobate or Corrupt Mind But we shall more evidently more delightfully behold this mystery of the Fall this Mixture this War of Darkness with the Divine Light its triumph over it the presence of the Divine Light in the midst of this Darkness maintaining its Glory unshaken unstained in a constant opposition to the darkness in the mind of faln man if we observe and unfold the elegancy of the Holy Ghost in these words Those words They liked not to retain A Reprobate Mind are in Greek the same in their Root and Essence They manifestly allude to each other with a great power and pleasantness of sense The Original word primarily and properly signifieth the trying the truth of any thing as the Gold is tryed by the Touch-stone or by the Fire God in the presence of his Glory resides in every Creature beneath the form of that Creature as a Vail wrought with a Figure of himself Thus he constantly resides in each Creature as the Root and Being of its Being In the pure nature of man he shines through the Vail of the Angelical or Intellectual Image as a transparent Vail of finest Lawn or sweetest Light sprung from his own Face In the Fall God drawing in the Beams of his Glory by the mysterious Operations of the Divine Wisdome in the place of this pure and pleasant Light thick Darkness fills the Angelical Image of God in man The Divine Presence and Glory stands in this Image presenting the Light of its unchangeable Beauties to the eye of the Soul in the midst of this darkness The Understanding now taking in the Divine Glory through this dark medium through the darkness takes in a dark and falfe Image of it It tryeth and toucheth the Glory in this false Image upon it self now darkned and depraved It receives the Image as a true Image but rejects the Glory rejects God as reprobate Gold as a false counterfeit Divinity and Glory God in like manner by the presence of his Glory toucheth and tryeth the Understanding rejecteth that as a Reprobate Mind This Reprobate Mind he leaveth to it self and man to this Reprobate Mind from this source issues forth all the Evils of Sin and of Sufferings Object 2. How in this order of things is man rendred inexcusable which seems to be a principal Care and Work of the Holy Spirit in this Scripture Answ. An excuse is
and Hell But this Heathenism and Manicheism are exploded as by the universal consent of all sober Christians so by the voice of reason it self For if there be two first Beings these agree in Being they differ in being two Being it self as it is One making both these one in its self as it is pure is before and above that state in which it is allayed and abased by being mixt and compounded with those differences which make it two This then alone is the first and supream Being the eternal One the only true God 2. If God then be not properly and directly the Author of Sin Sin is no positive Being but a privation only So the Scriptures express it which call it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an irregularity a falling short of the Glory of God a missing of the mark 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Divines generally teach us That the Sin consisteth not in any Act but in the Deordination in the privation a want of the due order appertaining to the Act. Sin then being nothing positive but a meer privation can have no efficient but a deficient Cause only This deficient Cause is that defectibility which is inseparable from every created Nature Darkness is the privation or absence of Light which naturally and necessarily accompanieth obscure and opact Bodies as the Air the Water and the Earth While the Sun shines upon them this deficiency or want of Light discovereth not it self All things are illuminated and the natural obscurity of these Bodies illustrated by the Sun-beams when these beams are withdrawn or intercepted then the defect of Light natural to these substances appeareth and so the darkness is predominant Thus every Creature hath in it self a tendency to annihilation being of it self like the Earth before the beautiful work of the first day which was light void and without form Thus the Soul of Man in its Understanding and in its Will hath naturally of it self a tendency to unreasonableness which is a degree of Annihilation the privation of that two-sold Beauty Truth in the Understanding and goodness in the Will While the Face of God shines upon the face of the Soul by a continued irradiation as in the first moment of the Creation these Intellectual Forms of Divine Beauty Truth and Goodness flourish in the Soul binding up the natural defectibility both of the Understanding and the Will in the golden Chains of an heavenly Light and heavenly Love but in that moment in which God turns away his Face with-draws his beams in the same moment the Soul of Man is left naked its natural defectibility prevails the privation or absence of Truth is now the darkness the deformity of folly and falshood The privation or absence of Goodness is now the evil and the disorder into which as a bottomless pit the Understanding and the Will and the whole Soul with these miserably endlesly sinks This is that horrible pit out of which sin ariseth the defectibility or nothingness of the Creature in it self This is the way by which it ariseth upon the Soul over-spreading it and carrying it back into that pit of horrour the deflectibility or nothingness of the Creature prevailing in the absence of the Divine beams The Royal Prophet divinely sings the penury of the Creature and the Praises of the great Creator in this Mystery Psal. 104. 29. Thou hidest thy Face they are troubled thou takest away their Breath or Spirit they die and return to their dust Thou sendest forth thy spirit they are created and thou renewest the face of the Earth It is a truth asserted by all Philosophers and Divines That the Understanding acteth necessarily being infallibly and irresistably reduced into act by its Object duly presented The Scripture manifestly teacheth us that sin entreth into the Soul by the Understanding Those two places which I have cited above are clear The woman being deceived was first in the Transgression Sin deceived me and so slew me St. Paul speaketh in both these places of the first entrance of sin into the World in the person of the first Woman and in his own person set as a figure of all Mankind as it was collectively and representatively in the first Adam Musaeus joyns these together 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Light going out and Leander perishing Man is deceived and so slain by sin As the Light of Truth goes out in the Understanding the Life of Goodness dies in the Will As the sight and light of the eye from the natural composition of the eye faileth as the irradiations from the Sun which it enjoyeth either mediately or immediately from the body of the Sun it self or from other luminous bodies depending upon the Sun are obscured So is the Souls eye the Understanding obscured according to the proportion in which the Divine illuminations in the way of Grace or Nature cease In these two first steps I have endeavoured to make clear the nature of Sin and the way of its entrance into the World in which we see a most genuine conformity to the dependance of the Will and of the whole Soul in all its changes and motions upon the first Cause as a link in the mystical Chain of the order of Causes The beauty and goodness of the Soul in its Understanding and its Will flow in the golden Pipe of the order of Causes as golden Oyl from the first cause as the Olive-Tree flourishing upon the Mount of Eternity As this golden stream from its Well-head fails beauty and goodness are no more in the Soul The deficiency or privation of these is the evil of Darkness Deformity Sin and Death to this intellectual and immortal Spirit But the knot seems to be tyed stronger by this discourse man sins inevitably by the necessity of his nature The first and free withdrawings of the Divine influence give way for the deflectibility of the Creature to spring up into those defects which are properly and formally the evils of Sin the first and greatest evils the fountains of all evils How then doth shame or guilt lie upon the Creature Why is God yet angry How is he just in punishing Is not the evil of sin from these grounds clearly cast upon God as the Author of it I shall endeavour to answer these Objections and to remove these Difficulties in the three following steps 3. I shall endeavour here to bring in some clear light into the obscure shades of this doubt how shame and guilt lie upon the Soul when it falls inevitably from the necessity of its nature Shame is a fear of Infamy from a sense of Deformity Deformity is the absence of the Divine Form originally present and so proper to the subject The subject of the form or beauty while it is present is also in its absence the subject of the privation and deformity To the deformity is annexed the reproach or disesteem Esteem or disesteem is a right judgment and so a value of each thing according to its proper state
I will yet bring seven times more Plagues upon you As the opposition and disorder and sin encreaseth so the Divine Harmony also is heightned in its contrariety to it All this is done that the evil of sin and disorder the beauty and sweetness of the Divine Grace and Order may set out the Contrariety This also is that the distinction between the Ceator and the Creature the heavenly Image the Original and Substance which is all pure Light and Good without any mixture of Darkness or capacity of Evil. And the earthly Image the shadow which is composed of a figure of Light and true Darkness from which sin with all evils spring and take life according to the Language of the Apostle may be more clearly discovered Thus by the breaking in of sin by blame and shame and sufferings which are as so many Glasses to set before sin the deformity and ugliness of its own face the Creature the shadowy Image is humbled is broken to pieces is brought into the dust that it may give all glory and attribute all good to the Creator the Original and eternal Image that it may resign it self to it seek its rest alone in it and that it may finally return into the bosom of the Original Glory which in these wayes by these degrees through the breakings of it springeth up in it breaketh forth through it and bringeth it back again to lie down eternally in that Bosom of purest Love and Light where it was at first from eternity where it hath been eternally hid with Christ in God All this God doth that he may eternally display the unsearchable Riches of that Variety and Fulness which is in himself that he may swallow up the Understanding of every Creature Man or Angel into an admiration and adoration of the incomprehensibleness of his Wayes his Wisdom his Blessedness and Glory who at once bringeth forth these Varieties which like Morning-Stars and Sons of God in the purest unmixt Light and Love dance and sing together in his Bosom into such fighting Contrarieties upon the stage of the earthly and created Image here below making that the seat of deformity shame woe and death while it figureth out the highest Joys and Glories of eternal Life above who again gathers up all these jarring and tumultuous Contrarieties into the first state and supream Unity where the Variety is far more vast and boundless in the whole far more full and distinct in each branch of it where the whole is all an eternal Melody an eternal Beauty an eternal Joy unexpressibly Divine pure and ravishing where each branch in its own distinct Form is a Beauty a Melody a Joy equally pure perfect and ravishing with the whole being crowned with the Unity and Eternity which is the highest Unity This St. Paul representeth to us clearly and fully in the person of each Saint when he saith Heights and Depths things present and things to come this World Life and Death all things are yours and you are Christs and Christ is Gods All things are Divine distinct eternal Glories in the person of a Saint as a Saint is taken up into the Glory of Christ as Christ is in the Glory of God 3. The evil of Sufferings is the proper way in the Universal Order by which the disorderly Spirit with its disorders returneth into order to possess and enjoy in it self the Divine Beauty and Musick of the whole Guilt is the Obligation upon each Spirit from every Act of disorder unto the Divine Justice which is the Law of the Divine Harmony seated originally in the Divine Nature from the opposing it self to the disorderly Spirit and the reducing it by the opposition into order This is done three wayes 1. By Expiation 2. By Compensation 3. By Abolition 1. Expiation or atonement is the bringing in of something Sacred Divine and Perfect The Heathen in their Expiations generally made use of brimstone which seemed to have something Sacred and Divine in it as appears by the Greek name 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifieth both brimstone and something Divine perhaps the reason is its aptness to take fire and its resemblance in its pure and fiery flame to the Coelestial Bodies 2. Compensation is of like to like by an equality this turneth the Discord into a Concord and gathereth it up into the Unity 3. The Abolition is the effacing and blotting out the disorder bringing it forth now into order where the deformity of the discord is swallowed up into an amiable and beautiful Harmony This is the chief part of the expiation or atonement in which the Ancients to this end made use of a living stream or fire as things Sacred and proper for purification But this whole work is comprehended in the mystery of Christ it is begun and finished in his Person alone literally or mystically 1. Expiation Jesus Christ the eternal Spirit of the Divine Order and Harmony springs up in the midst of the disorder and takes it all upon himself by taking Flesh. This is the beginning of the Expiation this is the truly sacred Divine and perfect thing brought in to expiate the confusion and the abomination This is the supream Unity the supream Harmony Love it self the Prince of Peace and Harmony the God of Order discovering himself as a sacred and eternal Root at the bottom of the disorder in whom that also stands after an orderly and harmonious manner while he himself also is springing up through it This is the beginning of the Expiation 2. Compensation This Jesus which is Divine Love it self appearing in the enmity the Divine Harmony it self in the disorder seats himself as the mark of the opposition and contrariety by which the Divine Order in the Spirit of Order which is himself sets it self against the Disorder to subdue and reduce it he receiveth himself into his own bosom and heart all the invenomed arrows and fiery darts which the Justice and Wrath of God that is Love it self casteth forth in its highest opposition and contrariety to the enmity This contrariety of the Divine Love to the enmity which hath violated and slain this Love in breaking the Harmony is maintained by a War of Blood and Fire till it come to its ut most height till the contrariety of Love to the enmity be fully displayed and discharged till the enmity and disorder that work of the Devil be subdued and destroyed together with the dissolution of flesh it self The earthly and shadowy Image the seat and ground of sin and enmity by the death of Jesus Christ who hath taken our Sins and Nature upon himself as the first root and ground of all O sweet and Divine Mystery O musical Discord and harmonious Contrariety O peaceful and pleasant War where the supream Love stands on both sides where as in a mysterious Love-sport or a Divine Love-play it fights with it self suffering for it self dying by it self and so it self sinking by death into its own sweetest bosom and dearest
embraces the fountain of Life the center and circle of all Delights O bitter Peace disordering Melody broken and unpleasant Harmony where Love suffers all evil and is slain on both sides to make perfect the Harmony But oh full Compensation O full and sweet Harmony arising out of the Discords swallowing up the Discords themselves into the most pure the most perfect most pleasant melody whereas Love first suffered and was slain by the disorder and enmity of Sin so now Love again suffereth and is slain for the enmity for sin by the wrath of God against sin that is by the Love in its contrary to the enmity Thus Love it self in the place of us all most lovingly and beauty it self most beautifully is become a Sacrifice for it self to it self 3. Abolition The last step in the way of reducing disorder into order is the Abolition or Renovation this is the finishing of all in the Person of the Lord Jesus The Lord Jesus is the compleat Image of the invisible God Thus he comprehendeth the whole Creation in himself for all the Creatures are so many expressive or manifestative figures of the Divine Glory We read in Scripture That the things which are seen that is all the created Objects of Sense or Reason Humane or Angelical stand up out of the things which are not seen Jesus Christ then being the first highest Image of the invisible God as he is in his own unaccessible Light is the Root out of which and in which the Creation stands the Lord Jesus as this universal Person goes down into the Grave and carries thither into those lowest shades at once with himself all Images of things the Original and the Copy the Substance and the Shadow the Uncreated Glory and the created Figure So Christ dies and the whole Creation dieth with him so he makes an end of Sin and Transgression Here he sings that triumphant Song O Death I am thy death Here all the evil of Sin and Suffering of Disorder and Contrariety which as a grave had swallowed up the whole Creation is swallowed up into Victory in the grave of Christ. In this Divine Death the whole Creation is dissolved and comes to its last end in its last end it meets with its beginning falling quite out of it self falling down out of its own empty obscure shade and nothingness it falls into the bosom of its heavenly and eternal Mother the Original Glory The Original Glory in the Person of Christ hath descended thus low together with its Birth and shadow Here it finisheth its descent in its shadow here diffusing it self and its eternal Light through these shades of death and through the whole Creation in these shades it maketh it self perfectly one by an entire and mutual communion in death with all the Creatures whose life was a continual War with it The Light of the heavenly Image poured forth in these shades of death flowing through the created Image overflowing and taking it into it self is that precious and Divine Blood which by its mysterious washings maketh the crimson and scarlet sins or stains upon this Image whiter than the whitest wooll or snow In this Divine Death the shadowy Image with all its evils of disorder and enmity are now past away for ever in respect to any reality substantiality or subsistence in themselves they remain only as figures in the Divine shade of this death in which shade the heavenly Image bears all in its pure although obscured bosom It is now the Root of eternal Love and eternal Life in Death receiving into it self all the Creatures with all their disorders and enmities They all now do here put off their Realities and become only mysterious shadows through which the supream Beauty and Sweetness springeth and sporteth it self But the Original Glory in the Person of Christ having now finished the mystery of its descent in the Creature and in this final dissolution taken the Creature again into it self as its first and proper Root beginneth now its return and ascent As the Lord Jesus died so he riseth again an universal Person with both Images created and uncreated united in himself The eternal Glory once in the first Creation vailed it self beneath a shadowy Image to die in that Image accordingly he died with it and for it But now he riseth again in the brightness of his heavenly Image he raiseth the whole Creation together with himself as his proper and immediate Birth as its purest and loveliest Bride in the most intimate entire and mutual Union with it self in all its glories thus to live for ever in the richest and closest embraces of each other Here now ye have a three-fold Resurrection in one 1. The Divine Image which is eternal Love and life it self as it had been vailed as it had suffered and died in the Creature riseth sweetly and gloriously from beneath all those shades into its own freshest and fullest Beauties Thus it riseth in the midst of the created Image 2. The created Image was once a fair entire Picture of the eternal Beauty living a Divine Life breathing a Divine Sweetness being a Divine Paradise in it self to it self while it stood as a pure resemblance of its Divine Original But by its fall into the infâ—…rnal Deep of Sin it stained it self it broke it self all to pieces it buried its Life Beauty and Sweetness in a dreadful and hateful death Now having put off that death in the death of Christ it riseth again in the bosom of the Original Glory not only in its fullest Beauty and Sweetness but a Beauty and Sweetness far more excelling It was before its fall a sweet shade an earthly Paradise The shade vanished into darkness the Paradise faded and disappeared But now it riseth as the â—…un-shine of the Godhead as the sweetest Light at once lying in the Bosom of the highest Glory embraced by it and surrounding that Glory with its embraces by a mutual immediate and eternal Union 3. The fall the disorders the wounds and death of this shadowy Image so dreadful and hateful as they stood in time now also have their Resurrection and put on a new appearance in eternity Having now passed through the Death and Sufferings of Christ where they put off all their evil by putting off all their own proper reality they stand in his Resurrection as figures of eternal Glories which are themselves also Glories in the Bosom of their Glorious Original They are seen now as they eternally spring up and flourish in the Garden of the Divine Mind as they bear their part and shine in the universal Beauty of the Divine Image and Work As the eternal Original with its Paradisical shadow lay hid in them like a Flower in its Seed in the Earth as both these Glories now are sprung forth through them and bring forth them again as eternal Lights in the light and circle of their own Beauties So is Christ in the circle of the Throne of God as the
Creation but from common Grace supernaturally communicated by virtue of the heavenly Seed all along sown and springing up in the nature of man Now to this conviction as to their proper end are directed The precepts the vehemency of exhortation expostulations comminations and allurements which God maketh use of to man through the whole Scriptures That man may be sensible if he be capable of any sense that he is dead in sin that there is no principle no power of good at all in him which may be a ground to receive this good seed cast from without upon him that it may take root in it and bring forth fruit by it 2. The Law is a ministry of condemnation so St. Paul expresly stiles it This conviction and condemnation both the holy Apostle presenteth clearly to us when he saith That the end of this whole ministry is That every mouth might be stopped and the whole world become guilty before God 3. The last end of the Law is Death Death upon all Mankind upon the whole person of man a spiritual and natural death Death here where man is truly dead while he seem to live Death in the departure out of this life death after this life in Hell in torments This death is without any Ransom or Redemption within the compass or power of the whole Creation These are the proper and next ends of the Law Before I come to the remote and Ultimate ends I shall make my way clearer by answering an Objection which may here set it self in our way Object Is it not the proper and next end of the Law to be a rule of Holiness and a guide to it Answ. Indeed not rarely the form of each thing being its perfection is called the end of it But if we distinguish the formal and the final cause this is not the end but the essential form of the Law The true form and essence of the Law is a proposal of good and evil to man as the object of his choice In the Law we have before us the good of Holiness with its Divine Nature and Beauties with its attendant joys and blessedness The evil of sin with its hateful form and the monstrous disorders in the nature of which an Angel becomes a Devil and which is the proper constitutive form of a Devil together with the consequent horrors and torments extending themselves to the nethermost Hell Thus is the Law as now we speak in its essential form a convenant of works presenting to man holiness and sin with life and death accompanying them that he may make his choice by embracing holiness taking life in it and together with it Or by entertaining sin receiving death into his whole person and all his solaces round about him From this essential form of the Law see how the Law is directed to the fore-mentioned ends Man is composed of the light of God and his own proper darkness These two the Schools call the Act and the potentiality the form and the matter being and not being which constitute every Creature The darkness or nothingness which is the Creatures own is the proper ground of sin which is its own form and is a privation or deficiency a falling to nothing While the Divine Glory shines upon man tempering forming and confining this darkness by its own light to an harmonious Union with it it becomes the Daughter and Image and Spouse of this Light Now sin lies dead in us but the man lives This Divine Life shining in the darkness and through the darkness is to him a Divine shadow of the Divine Light While these two stand undivided and undistinguished to man in the Unity of the Divine Image and in the simplicity of this Divine Unity sin finds no way can take no occasion to bring forth it self into life The Law comes this distinguisheth between the Light of God and the darkness of the Creature in man This is the temptation and the state of tryal Abide saith the Lord to man with thy darkness in the Divine Light as a shadow of the Divine Glory in the simplicity of the Divine Unity so shall this Unity this Glory be a Tree of Life to thee thou shalt eat of it and live for ever Thou thy self shall be as the fruit upon this Tree which shall never fail nor fall But if thou choose to thy self thine own darkness if in this darkness thou distinguish and divide thy self from the Divine Light seeking to captivate this Light in thy darkness and to turn it to a glory to thy self as if thou hadst in thy self and in thine own darkness the root upon which this Divine Light with all its beauty force and sweetness grew This division in thy self will prove to thee the forbidden and that cursed Tree of knowledge of Good and Evil in eating of it thou shalt immediately die God thus in the Law presenteth this trial to man That he may discover man in the earthly Image of the first Creation with all his Strengths and Beauties to be altogether shadowy That he may make way for the dissolution of this shadowy Image in order to the springing up of the heavenly Image as its proper seed through it into its ripe fruit and perfect form God with-holds his Divine presence appearances and influences from man during this trial Now the darkness which alone is mans own discovereth it self in its own proper deformities and confusions it predominateth in man captivateth man entirely to it self becomes his choice and his Lord. Thus now sin springs up thus it takes life to it self bringing forth death together with it which is the perfection of sin and of the Original Darkness dividing it self from the Divine Light heightning it self to an enmity against the Divine Light making it self by this means as a Mark and a Butt of opposition to the Divine Light against which it shooteth all the fiery Arrows of the Divine Displeasure and Wrath. This seemeth to be the proper meaning of St. Paul's words before cited I had not known concupiscence if the Law had not said Thou shalt not covet I was alive once without the Law and sin in me was dead But when the Law came sin lived and I died Sin taking an occasion by the Law deceived me and so slew me That of mans own the darkness was the Womb out of which sin the delusion of sin and death by sin spring forth into life There is one note upon this Scripture which is very necessary for the enlightning of the whole sense Some Copies read in the 9. vers 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sin revived this supposeth a former life of sin this seemeth uncapable of any sense agreeable to the Text the Context the Design of the Apostle in this place But other Copies as that interlineary Greek Testament of Arias Montanus readeth it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sin lived now first took life This reading alone furnisheth us with a sense in which all the expressions of the holy
Apostle scattered throughout this place fall into a most beautiful Harmony St. Paul here setteth himself in the place of all Mankind in Paradise He describeth to us as in a figure the nativity of sin its esssential form or life if we may have leave so to speak of a privation the occasion and manner of its first appearance and taking life I have now finished my Discourse upon the ends of the Law which are of the first sort proper and immediate which are called by Logicians the ends of the work I pass now to the remote and Ultimate ends which are stiled the ends of the Workman I shall make my transition by this consideration A Poetical History or work framed by an excellent Spirit for a pattern of Wisdom and Worth and Happiness hath this as a chief rule for the contrivance of it upon which all its Graces and Beauties depend That persons and things be carried to the utmost extremity into a state where they seem altogether uncapable of any return to Beauty or Bliss That then by just degrees of harmonious proportions they be raised again to a state of highest loy and Glory You have examples of this in the Divine pieces of those Divine Spirits as they are esteemed and stiled Homer Virgil Tassâ—… our English Spencer with some few others like to these The Works of these persons are called Poems So is the Work of God in Creation and contrivance from the beginning to the end named 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God's Poem It is an elegant and judicious Observation of a learned and holy Divine That the Works of Poets in the excellencies of their imaginations and contrivances were imitations drawn from those Original Poems the Divine works and contrivances of the eternal Spirit We may by the fairest Lights of Reason and Religion thus judge That excellent Poets in the heighths of their fancies and spirits were touched and warmed with a Divine Ray through which the supream Wisdom formed upon them and so upon their work some weak impression and obscure Image of it self Thus it seemeth to be altogether Divine That that work shineth in our eyes with the greatest Beauties infuseth into our Spirits the sweetest delights transporteth us most out of our selves unto the kindest and most ravishing touches and senses of the Divinity which diffusing it self through the amplest Variety and so to the remotest Distances and most opposed Contrarieties bindeth up all with an harmonious Order into an exact Unity which conveyeth things down by a gradual descent to the lowest Depths and deepest Darknesses then bringeth them up again to the highest point of all most flourishing Felicities opening the beginning in the end espousing the end to the beginning This is that which Aristotle in his Discourse of Poetry commendeth to us as the most artful and surprising untying of the knot 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or by a discovery This is that which Jesus Christ pointeth at in himself who is the Wisdom of God The manifold Wisdom of God in whom all the Treasures of Wisdom and Knowledge lie hid in whom all the Divine contrivances are formed and perfected What will you say when you shall see the Son of Man return there where he was at first In this God himself seemeth to place the highest Beauties the sweetest Graces the richest Glories of his whole contrivance and work in bringing things down by the Ministry of the Law to the last point to the lowest state to the most lost condition to the nethermost part of the Earth to the nethermost Hell And in ways unexpected by uncomprehensible to Men Angels to raise things again by the Gospel to that first supreamGlory which was their Original Patern in eternity The Law was brought in that sin might abound That where sin had abounded grace might superabound So the Wisdom of the Heathen and of the Scripture both instructeth us That God entertaineth himself universally and divinely with this great and pleasant Work of making high things low great things little of making little things great and low things high He sendeth the rich empty away and filleth the hungry with good things He grindeth man through pain to dâ—…st and then he saith return again ye Sons of Men. But I have made a long transition I come now from these proper ends of the Law which were the deepest descents which comprehended the reign of sin by the Law unto Death an Universal Death the most killing death a spiritual never-dying death of immortal Spirits as well the natural death of Bodies separate from their Spirits to the Ultimate ends of the Law in which some glimmering lights begin to dawn of the most desired and delightful day shining from this black and hellish night All these Ultimate ends of the Law are generally comprehended in Christ the Ultimate end of the Law The end of the Artificer and of the Agent of the eternal Spirit in the Law is Christ. So saith the Spirit in the Scriptures The end of the Law is Christ Rom. 10. 4. He may well be the end of the Law who is the end of all things for whom all things are made The Law was given by Moses but Grace and Truth were by Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ came full of Grace and Truth saith St. John in the same Chapter Joh. 1. 14 17. Grace is the Divine Love opposed to the ministry of wrath by the Law Truth is the naked Face and Beauty of the Godhead the Light the brightness of the Glory of God in the Face of Jesus Christ as he is opposed to the Vails and shadows of the Law Thus Christ that is God in the nakedness and simplicity of the Divine Essence as he is Love as he is Light the Light of Immortality and Glory in which there is no darkness is the end of all the darknings dividings and destructions of all the shadows and severities of the Law But this general end is to be subdivided into its several steps or degrees 1. The end of the Law is to be a prison for faln man till Christ comes This is the language of St. Paul Gal. 3. 28. But before the Faith came we were kept in custody under the Law being shut up unto the Faith to be revealed Faith is the evidence of things not seen and the substance of things hoped for The Divine Faith is a Divine evidence of Divine things divinely invisible from an excess of Divine Light and Glory too great for every natural eye or understanding The Divine Faith is the Divine substance of Divine things the objects of a Divine hope Christ is said by St. Paul to be the hope of Glory and the end of the Faith of all the Saints He also is the Light and the Life This then is the Faith and the Revelation of the Faith of the Gospel in the Saints Christ the Light of the Glory of God eternal Life the quickning Spirit the fountain of Life the heavenly eternal truth and substance of all Good
break it up into its own clear Light springs forth from the Womb of the Virgin Mary into Flesh and Blood in the dejected form of fallen man Made in all things like unto us sin only excepted The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us or tabernacled in the midst of us John 1. The Word was made flesh See there the Incarnation of the Son of God He tabernacled in the midst of us behold his Life in the Flesh. Two Natures meet in one the Word and Flesh God and Man The manner is exprest the Word is made or become Flesh not by transmutation The Word ceaseth not to be the Word The Godhead in its essential Image retaineth all its Glories its immutability and eternity in Flesh neither is the Word made Flesh by any kind of composition The Divine Nature in flesh retaineth its simplicity its purity its absolute all-comprehending incomprehensible Unity The Word is made flesh by assumption taking the Humane Nature into the Unity of the same Divine Person with it self God in his essential Image in the entireness absoluteness and Unity of his own undivided unconfined Person with the fulness of his eternal Glory descendeth into Flesh. The eternal Spirit which is Jesus himself in his Divine Form and Power comes down upon over-spreads the Virgin Mary with his Ideal force He also becomes the seminal Virtue in her So he springs up out of her Womb into a distinct individual man a frail fallen man though without spot in the Person of God Thus is he Father and Son to himself Father and Husband and Son to his Mother Yea he is also his own Mother in his Mother of his own flesh taking flesh from her inasmuch as he alone fills all in all and is the Truth of all The Word was made Flesh. God in his essential Image and Glory is the entire and compleat Person in the Humane Nature This is the Unity in it this subsists in it this appears in every part and state of it this acts and suffers all in it this is named by every name of it these are all proper to the Person Thus all the Glories of the essential of the Mediatory of the shadowy Image of Christ in their most universal Latitude as according to their several Orders they comprehend all Forms of things in themselves being united in the simplicity of this Divine Person do all meet in this Flesh fill it shine through it become one with it pass through all states and changes live and die with it and in it In like manner this Flesh subsists in the Unity of this Divine Person in the midst of all its Divine Forms and Glories In the fellowship of these surrounded with these it acts and suffers all things it appears in every part and state under every name it bears the name of these passing through all the changes of Mortality in their Divine and immortal unchangeableness We saw his Glory saith St. John speaking of Christ in the Flesh the Glory as of the only begotten Son of God Joh. 1. Thus is Jesus the same yesterday to day and for ever amidst all the changes of Flesh and Time unchangeable in the Unity of this Divine Person The Word made Flesh is the whole Tree of Being Uncreated and Created the Root the Body with all the branches putting forth themselves into one little top-branch now withering that through its death they may renew all unto a fresh and flourishing spring The Lord Jesus now being an universal Person as the essential Image of God as the spiritual and Mediatory Image as the shadowy Image the Head the Original frame of the whole Creation in its utmost Latitude as the Seed of the whole Creation spread through all the parts of it running along through all Generations bringing it forth and sustaining it in it self by taking Flesh and the Nature of fallen man upon himself sets himself in the place of us all in our lowest estate He takes our Sins and Sorrows all the Diseases of our Bodies and Minds upon himself that he may take them away from us Taking together with our Flesh our Guilt Shame Weaknesses Demerits Enemies and Enmities Death the Divine Wrath into the Unity of the Divine Person He makes an end of the Transgression with its trains of evils consuming all swallowing up all in the most beautiful and blissful flame of those Divine Purities Powers Righteousness Rest Glories Pleasantnesses Immortality which receive them into themselves in the Unity of this blessed and eternal Person The holy Ghost clearly and fully expresseth this Mediatory Work of our Redemption by Christ in this ground and superstructure Heb. 1. 3. Who being the brightness or effulgency out-shining of the Glory of God the express Image of his Person or Substance bearing up all things by the word of his Power having purged away our Sins by himself Jesus in his essential Image is the Glory of God as the Woman is said to be the glory of the Man In his Mediatory Form he is the Brightness Effulgency or out-shining of this Glory The shadowy Image in which Christ is the immediate Head of the first Creation is properly according to the Greek word the Character of his Divine Nature and Person For a Character is properly the engraving or impression of a Figure upon some forreign matter as a Figure cut upon a Seal or from a Seal imprinted upon Wax or Letters stampt in Ink upon Paper Such a Character is the Image of God in the Creature The word in this Text bearing signifieth properly a twofold sense bringing forth and bearing up as 〈◊〉 Seed its Plant So Jesus Christ is in the whole Creation and in every Creature all along bearing all things by the Word or flux of his Power that is by his seminal Virtue flowing forth and springing up in all Upon this ground in this universal Person Jesus Christ taking our flesh upon him in our lost estate into the Unity of his Person doth by himself that is by the Divinity of his Person purge away all our Sins and in them all our Evils Thus in the Incarnation in the Word made Flesh the Sun of Righteousness begins to turn towards us The Day-spring from on high visiteth us in the midst of the shades of Night and Death Righteousness begins to look down from Heaven and to spring up out of the Earth as this blessed Person in his Divine Union at once shineth forth from above and springeth up in our flesh here below He dwelt among us The words in Greek are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he tabernacled in the midst of us See here the Life of Christ in Flesh. His Flesh was the Tabernacle in which he journeyed through the Wilderness of this World the Antetype to the Tabernacle in which God sojourned with the Children of Israel resting in the midst of them marching before them through the Desart into the Land of Promise This word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is constantly used for