Confirmation I will open it in three Parts 1. The Change 2. The Circumstances 3. The Cause of this Change Part 1. The Change There are two States to be considered in this Part. 1. The State of Man before this Change 2. The State to which this Change is made 1. State That of Man before this Change Man before his Conversion walks in a threefold Image 1. The Image of Nature 2. The Image of the Devil 3. The Image of Divine Wrath. 1. Image of Nature St. Paul tell us 1 Cor. 15. 49. As we have born the Image of the Earthy we shall also bear the Image of the Heavenly Man Earth and Heaven are here opposed not as Men and Angels Visible and Invisible things but as the State of things in the Creature and in Christ. So it appears manifestly by the Context of that place that the first Adam the Earthly Man the first Creation Nature in the Visible and Invisible things of it are all the same thing and One Image Into this Image Man is born of his Natural Parents In this he lives Naturally This Image hath three things in it 1. 'T is a Representation 2. 'T is a Meer Representation 3. 'T is a Mixt One 1. The Image of Nature is a Representation The Earthly Man is an Image of God as well as the Heavenly St. Paul teacheth us Rom. 5. 14. in the latter part of it that the first Adam is a figure of him who is to come that is Jesus Christ. Whatever Rich workings and various forms are in him who is the Wisdom of God Whatever Depth of Life Heighth of Activity Store of Virtues are in him who is the Power of God Whatever ravishing Beauties are in him who is the Brightness of the Father's Glory Whatever endless Sweetnesses of Love Loveliness mutual Relations are in him who is the first the Only begotten of the Father All these are figured out and represented to us in the Earthly Image This is the first thing 2. The Image of Nature is a Meer Representation It hath a show of things but not the very things themselves We read Psal. 39. 5. Man at his best Estate is altogether vanity Take the first Man at his Best as he was crown'd with the whole Quire of Angels when they were the first and freshest Rayes of Divinity among the Creatures as he was cloath'd with the heavenly Bodies Sun Moon and Stars while yet they were the near and transparent Images of Angels living in them as he hath spread about his Feet all the Delicacies of Air Earth and Sea when they were Pure and Chrystalline Reflections of the heavenly Bodies The first Man in this State was a meer Phantome a fleeting Fancy a Bubble Vanity quite thorow and so he vanisht in his Fall Gen. 1. 27. God made Man in his own Image Psal. 39. 6. Surely Man walketh in a vain show Those two expressions Image vain Show are both the same in Hebrew TSelem If you translate the same word in Genesis as it is translated in the Psalm you will then read thus God made Man in a vain show of himself Obj. But you may object thus against this If God be Omnipresent and fill All how can any thing be a Representation of him without him He is at the bottom of the Sea in the shades of Death and Hell Psal. 139. 8 9 10. Can any thing be a meer Show when he who is All is every where and fills each Show of things Ans. 'T is true as Euthydemus the Heathen taught of old All things are in each thing Or as St. Paul since him hath Preacht upon clearer grounds God is a Fulness filling all in All Eph. 1. 23. But this also is true that All things are in each thing according to the Manner of that in which they are God is as truly in the Froward as in the Gentle Spirit But we learn the Differences of his Presence from David Psal. 18. 26. With the Pure thou wilt shew thy self Pure with the Froward thou wilt shew thy self Froward God is not only on Mount Sion but on Mount Sinai yet so that on Mount Sinai he is a flame of fire on Mount Sion a calm and clear Light So God is in Himself and in the Creature In Himself he is Himself the Eternal Rock and Substance of things He is in the Creature only as his own Shadow This is the Infiniteness and Unsearchableness of God He comprehends the thinnest Shadows in Himself and makes them there Substantial Again he casts Himself into every Shadow or Show and Himself there becomes but shadowy Thus he is All in All. Thus much for the second thing in the Natural Image 3. The Image of Nature is a Mixt Representation The Making of the World was divided into so many Parts as Days each Day had its Night a Morning and an Evening made the Day This was to signifie that the Fundamental Constitution of this frame of things was laid in a commixture of Light and Darkness These two mutually catch and enfold one another The Light discovers God The Darkness obscures that Discovery so that seeing we do not see The Light pleaseth us the Darkness perplexeth those pleasures so that this Life is as a Shady Valley as a Shadow of Life and Death Heaven and Hell both in one The Light invites and allures us to those Immortal Seats above pointing out a shining Path to them The Darkness affrights us and drives us back casting a mist of Doubt upon those beautiful Beings presenting it self between them and us as a Dreadful Gulf to be pass'd Nature is by this means an Image of the Perfections which are beyond Nature but an Imperfect one God speaks it Isa. 55. 9. As the Heavens are higher than the Earth so are my waies higher than your waies and my thoughts than your thoughts The waies of God are the unchang'd workings of Glory perpetually casting it self into all Changes in the Divine Nature The Thoughts of God are the deepest Roots the most spatious Expansion and Putting forth the fixt and glorious Platforms or Figures of things in the Godhead The Waies and Thoughts of Man are the figurings of things in Nature or according to the Forms of Nature This is a certain Rule The first thing in every kind is the Original and Substance all second things are Images of that The first thoughts and waies are those in God The Waies of Nature the Thoughts in Man are second to those and so Images of them but with as vast a Difference as the Distance is between Heaven and Earth Thus Imperfect and Mixt is Nature yet an Image of Divine Perfections and Purity We have now taken a view of the first Image in which Man walks before his Change Use 1. Excitation The first Use is to awaken in us a Sense of our State as we are Men. This would very advantagiously direct sweeten assist our Conversion Let us then to this end consider these four Questions 1.
persecuteth him that is born after the Spirit In the First of these verses Jerusalem above is said to be the Mother of us all In the Second these All us are expounded to be the Children of Promise In the Third verse the same persons are described by being born after the Spirit This Phrase of being born after the Spirit is fully explained by that of Jesus Christ from whence it seemeth to be taken John 3. That which is born of the Flesh is Flesh That which is born of the Spirit is Spirit To be born after the Spirit and of the Spirit signifie both the same thing Is it not then evident that the Jerusalem above which is free which is the mother of all the Spiritual Seed is the Eternal Spirit after which a Saint is born that is of this Spirit and in the Image of this Spirit where there is Liberty 2 Corin. 4. Now lay the Third Scripture by these two Heb. 12. 22. We are come to Mount Sion the Heavenly Hierusalem the City of the living God to the Millions of Angels the general Assembly to the Church of the First-born written in Heaven to the Spirits of just men made perfect to God to Jesus Christ. Before we Saw Hierusalem above and the Spirit now we see Mount Sion and the Heavenly Hierusalem to be the same Is it not then an infallible demonstration that Sion and the Holy Spirit are One as the Type and the Truth Can any other be the living City of the living God where all the Holy Angels the First-born of the Father the Spirits of all Saints as well on Earth as in Heaven Jesus Christ in his Mediatory Kingdom the Father upon the Throne of Judicature meet and appear together in the full liberty of Eternal Light Love and Joy besides the Unity of the Spirit which is the Sweet and Sacred band between the two Glorious Persons in the Trinity between all pure Spiritual Divine Beings above and below This is the Spring and Immortal Seat of them all 2. We have in this place another Person set forth by this bright and lovely Character the Perfection of Beauty We may discover our own Beloved and Bridegroom the Lord Jesus under this Title if we bring to it the Lights of two other Scriptures shining like this by his Appearance in them In Heb. 1. 3. He is stiled the Brightness of Glory Is not this the same as to say The Perfection of Beauty 2 Corin. 4. 6. God hath shined in our hearts unto the Light of the Knowledge of the Glory of God in the Face or Person of Jesus Christ Can Face answer Face in a Glass more exactly than these Two Scriptures answer one another In both you have God God shining in one you have God shining from the Perfection of Beauty in the other God shining with a Light of Glory in the Face or Person of Christ. God in all the Creatures whether they be Visible or Invisible casts forth Shadows only of Himself Then he appeareth in the Perfection of Beauty when he appeareth in the Person of Christ as Light in the Body of the Sun 3. But why are these two so joyned as if they were the same Thing from Sion the perfection of Beauty I will not examine whether we may not disjoyn them in reading by putting in between them and or in Particles frequently understood from Sion and or in the Perfection of Beauty God shineth This needeth not There is plainly a difference between the English and the Hebrew The Hebrew runneth word for word thus From Sion from the Perfection of Beauty God hath shined So you have the Three Persons of the ever-blessed Trinity clearly distinguished and united in this shining of the God-Head The Father shineth from the Spirit his holy hill of Sion from the Person of Christ the Perfection of Beauty These Two Persons are placed here as One in Another a Globe of Light in a Globe of Light and the Father shining from them both to awaken in us this great and glorious Truth that the Persons of the Sacred Trinity have their Perfection in each other and are ever undivided when they appear nakedly in their proper Forms The whole Trinity is the Crown of Beauty upon every one of them In particular Jesus Christ never appears as the Perfection of Beauty but when he and the Spirit appear both in One 2 Cor. 3. from the 14th to the end you read of a vail upon the Face of Moses the Person of Christ in the Type then of a vail upon the Hearts of the Jews These are both the same vail For the vail is never upon the Person of Christ properly and simply but upon the Eye of our Spirits as the Cloud is never upon the Body of the Sun but upon our Corporeal Eyes For as that doth in the midst of its world so doth the Person of Christ in the midst of all things ever comprehend and contemplate himself and all things in the simple and pure Light of his own naked Beauties But then in the same place we read that the Vail is taken away in Christ and where the Spirit of the Lord is there is Liberty that is freedom from the Vail Christ is seen unvailed in his naked Glories It is added Now the Lord is that Spirit Then mention is made in the last verse of beholding the Glory of the Lord with open Face that is Eye to Eye the naked Eye of our Souls to the naked Eye of his Beauties every Spirit being all Eye The verse is closed thus as by the Spirit of the Lord or more agreeably to the Greek as of the Lord the Spirit I have alledged all this to make it plain to you and to seal it upon your understandings and memories that Jesus Christ is then only seen in his true Person and shape without a vail when he is seen in the Spirit when Christ and the Spirit are seen as two distinct Persons in One. Sion the Type of the Spirit signifieth Vision Hierusalem the Figure of the same Spirit the Heavenly Hierusalem is by interpretation the Heavenly Vision of Heavenly Perfection and Peace The Lord Jesus is the Perfection of Beauty the Heavenly Harmony of all things the Peace of all Hearts and Desires The Person of the Spirit is the Heavenly Vision of this Heavenly Perfection By the way observe that the Holy Ghost speaks in this 50 Psal. of the Day of Judgement the Second and last Coming and Appearance of our Lord and Saviour after which he shall go away and disappear no more See here what manner of Appearance this is in what State in what Form the King of Glory comes to the Marriage of his Bride and to reign upon the Earth He comes in a Spiritual and Divine Form in the Person of the Spirit The Eternal Spirit is an anointing of Beauty upon the whole Person of our Beloved He again is a Sun of Beauty looking forth in the Person of Spirit Nay the
Spiritual Iudgment No man no Church has here any other Spiritual Power and Capacity besides that of Christ and his Spirit in them And how rich full and sufficient soever the several Churches of Christ may at this day esteem themselves to be without him yet sure I am there is nothing more speaks the absence of Christ and his spirit And their poverty emptiness and weakness then that hasty rash sleight partial blind and bold judging and censuring one another which every where abounds in the present Christian Churches Whilst in some of them the greatest acts of spiritual judgment that can be done on Earth as a great man long since complained are made to lackey up and down for Fees and become the most ordinary process that is And in others which pretend to be more refin'd to attend upon outward forms inward Opinions our own parties interests and passions As if instead of judging nothing before the time until the Lord comes The Spirit of man would so determine every thing that no knot should be left for him to unty nothing remain for him to judge But blessed be God the causeless curse shall not come All the judgments which are fondly and proudly made in mans day shall be cancell'd in the day of Christ. Your Brethren as God speaks by the evangelical Prophet to those that tremble at his Word That hated you that cast you out for my name sake said Let the Lord be glorified But he shall appear to your joy and they shall be ashamed Be perswaded then to do as God has done Leave all judgment to the Son to his manner and measure of appearing in thee Wait still for his coming who is to set judgment in the Earth to bring it forth in thy Spirit Be first able to say Thou art full of Power by the Spirit of the Lord and of Judgment before thou takest upon thee to declare unto thy Brethren their transgressions mistakes follies and errours Do not venture to step into the Throne of Iudicature till he whose place it is lead thee up lest thou find thy self ere thou art aware in the Chair of Scorners instead of the Seat of Judgment Judge nothing till Christ comes lest thou shouldest then be judged by him as an evil doer and a busie body 'T is true the Spiritual Man is said to judge all things But that Word that State that Work do all of them import a distinct and critical discerning of things such must thine be of all things before they can be rightly judg'd by thee Thou mayest indeed speak evil of what thou knowest not but thou canst not fairly judge it till thou doest thoroughly understand it As a spiritual man read these following Discourses and as such give thy judgment of them Remember still that every Truth is not spoken at once to every good man nor any Truth opened to him in its full glory at the first sight but as Luther speaks we are enlightened by Beam after Beam It is said of some things our Saviour did and which were done unto him Joh. 12 That his Disciples understood them not at the first but when Christ was glorified when he took away his fleshly presence and came in more spirit then they were acquainted with them What I do says Christ to Peter Joh. 13. 7. thou knowest not now but thou shalt know hereafter And in Joh. 16. 12 13. He tells his Disciples he had yet many things to say unto them but they could not bear them then howbeit when the Spirit of Truth was come he should guide them into all Truth When St. Paul was a little beforehand caught up into the World to come the Text says 2 Cor. 12. 4. that he heard unspeakable words which it is not lawful for a man to utter that could not that might not be spoken Such things as would no dâ— ubt â—ave offended the best men then alive if he had declared them Good Souls have their several Orbs and Sphears of Spiritual Light and Life all below are comprehended by them above and lie in their Bosoms but the lesser Circle can by no means contain the greater A Soul got no further than the first Heavens cannot hear cannot receive the discoveries and enjoyments of one in the third If a Truth be very raised and spiritual it is not the first Beam of Christ himself can shew us that Truth And if I by my glimmering light shall go about to examine and judge things spoken in a clearer day I shall be subject to many mistakes and in great danger of rejecting the Truth because I do not understand it In my Father's house saies Christ are many Mansions 'T is true of his house of grace here below as well as that of glory above Let every Christian then say of his present state and measure This is my present Heaven my present Mansion here my God is pleased to meet me thus he dispenseth himself to me here I will wait until I am called up higher and if another comes and speaks things beyond my present understanding and experience I will judge no man's Light Life and Liberty in the Lord being constant to this that as Christ in the flesh came to his own and his own received him not so also may Christ in the Spirit Instead then of judging and censuring what thou doâ—st not yet understand be faithful to that which thou already knowest answer thy present light with a suitable life so shalt thou grow up not only into all the Discoveries Truth and Mysteries which are in this and all other spiritual â—ooks but into him also in all things who is thy Head Hast thou received any one ray any one glimpse of spiritual Light into thy Soul watch it cherish it walk according to the direction and instinct of it and this Beam shall quickly swiftly grow up into a glorious day in thy spirit For the path of the Just is as the shining Light that shineth more and more unto the perfect day Secondly It is possible thou mayest here meet with some few things very different from some of thy beloved Sentiments for our Author intended in these Discourses to tell thee his own thoughts not to guess at thine My Requests in this case are such as these not to make thy self overwise not to think thou knowest any thing not to abound in thy own sense not to lay too much weight upon thy own Iudgment nor too little upon thy Brother 's not to overvalue thy own Notions and Opinions nor to undervalue his not to forget that modesty and sobriety of mind which every good man ought still to preserve towards himself nor that moderation forbearance indulgence allowance and respect which not only charity but reason and interest oblige thee alwaies to express towards all good men that differ from thee For we all stand in need of and have a right to such a tender behaviour from one another To impress a little such Requests as these upon
practices do exceedingly vary and differ from the different degrees and waies of their light within and their educations and customs without The Apostle tells us Rom. 14. One Christian believeth that he may eat all things Another who is weak eateth herbs Let not him that eateth despise him that eateth not And let not him which eateth not judge him which eateth For God hath received him One man esteemeth one day above another Another esteemeth every day alike Let every man be fully assured in his own mind He that regardeth the day regardeth it unto the Lord And he that regardeth not the day to the Lord he doth not regard it He that eateth eateth to the Lord for he giveth God thanks And he that eateth not to the Lord he eateth not and giveth God thanks Both these are different and contrary in their Notions Opinions and practices And yet in that difference and contrariety do both serve the same Lord and are accepted by him They both in their several opinions Notions and practices have the same apprehensions of the glory of God the same reference and regard to it the same aim and intention of Soul to make themselves a Spiritual sacrifice to him Nor does this hold only in the lesser matters of Religion but in the greater also Besides that Babel and confusion of languages that variety and contrariety of opinions which are in the Christian World about things of a lower consideration What disputes what controversies what contradictions do we see at this day among good men concerning the most substantial and vital truths of the Gospel How even among the best Christians themselves are some of the greatest points of Christianity darkened and perplexed with Clouds of disputes with diversity and uncertainty of opinions with different and contrary explications What Principle of Christianity how clearly and expresly soever it has been revealed to us in the letter of the Scriptures has been universally received and explained alike by all good men Do we not every where see those very Persons who have as we have reason to judge entertained the same Divine Truths in the inward power life and Spirit of them do yet discourse interpret and preach them in Notions Opinions and Forms very different and contrary to one another Do we not every where see good men puzling and confounding each other with their own explanations of those very things in the life and power of which they are all agreed Have we not upon this accompt seen some of the best of men such strangers to and so jealous of one another that they have been unable to bear one another Look abroad lay aside all thy prejudice fondness and partiality And then tell me if thou dost not every where meet with the same ingenuity modesty humility and meekness of Soul The same desire and diligence in the search after truth the same goodness holiness of heart and life The same Love to God and his waies the same sincerity and integrity the same purity of intention aim and end in persons that appear to thee and to one another of very different and contrary minds and practices in matters of Religion Their Souls are vitally quickened and informed their conversations beautified and adorned with the same Spiritual truths Which by their explications of them they seem not to understand yea to contradict I have some where read a story of a blind man who could distinguish and judge of all metals or pretious stones by weighing them in his hand I am perswaded if we had learn thus to judge of Spiritual things not by the beauty of some outward form and appearance or an agreeableness to our own Notions and Opinions But by the weight of an inward Principle and the Power of a Divine life We should discover a most harmonious agreement in the Essential and radical Principles of Divine truth and goodness among those who seem most of all to oppose one another in their Notions and Opinions If we did but know how to get into to open and interpret each others Souls How to weigh not only words and phrases but Spirits as God is said to do Prov. 16. 2. We should quickly find that we differ more in words then in thoughts and in the Notions of things then in the things themselves Our Spiritual wisdom holiness strength and happiness do not lye in our Notions and Opinions of Spiritual truth but in the truth itself St. Paul excellently distinguishes and explains this matter 2 Cor. 4. 6 7. Where speaking of the light of the knowledge of the Glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ he tells us we have this treasure in Earthen Vessels that the excellency of the power may be of God and not of us That Spiritual truth which is the shining forth of the glory of God in the Person of Christ the first the supream the universal truth is the heavenly treasure The several Notions and forms in our understandings by which this truth appears to us are but a part of the Earthen Vessel which holds this treasure How weak is it to lay the weight of such a treasure upon such a Vessel subject to so many frailties flaws and cracks How unworthy is it to ascribe the excellency of that power to our selves which belongs wholly to God Sure I am it is not the Vessel that makes us rich but the treasure which is in the Vessel Thus again The same Apostle speaking of the same thing in another expression tells us 1 Cor. 4. 20. The Kingdom of God is not in word but in power This Kingdom consists not in the excellency of our notions and apprehensions of our words and expressions concerning Spiritual things But in the inward Vertue Vigour Life Power and Spirit that is in the Nature of them to change the whole man into one image of glory with themselves Spiritual knowledge is not a notional verbal and talking but a real living and practical thing Divine truth is better understood as it opens and unfolds itself in the holy and heavenly mind and life of a good man then by all the Systems of Divinity and good Books in the World Thy Brother has it may be several Notions and opinions of Spiritual Truth very different from thine But he is really sanctified through the same truth He has purified his Soul in obeying the truth through the Spirit He is become a living Edition of the truth it is written in his heart it shines forth in his life he has so learned the truth that he knows it as it is in Jesus although he cannot yet receive it as it is in thee nor thy notions and representations of it His Soul his life is dyed coloured and figured with it the truth is transforming his whole being into one beautiful and blessed image with framing fashioning his whole man according to itself This must needs be a better proof that he is truly one with thee in the same truth then the highest complement
he can pay to thy own notions and Opinions concerning it can possibly be Holiness is the Character and seal of the Spirit of Truth The result of this consideration is plainly this That we should not lay too great a stress upon our own notions and Opinions nor despise our Brothers That we should make the image of God and not our own likeness the reason rule and measure of our Brotherly Love Observing still in all our Christian converses that excellent League which our Saviour himself has established He that is not against us is with us Whilst we see the same truth vitally influencing and quickening the Souls and spreading itself throughout the lives of good men of different and contrary sentiments let us no longer judge another by his comprimising with our own sense of things but his agreement with us in the substance power efficacy and Spirit of the truth Thus the primitive Christians judged before the iniquity of the times and a worldly interest corrupted the simplicity and quenched the first and purer warmths of Religion No man was then censured for his Opinion that lived well although there were very strange notions then commenced So much and so justly did those better ages of Christianity prefer a God like life to the rightest notions and Opinions Nor did they want the highest Example Authority and Reason in this matter God himself having told them and us He is no respecter of Persons but in every Nation he that feareth him and worketh righteousness is accepted with him Act. 10. 34. And again Rom. 14. 17. The Kingdom of God is not meat and Drink but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost and he that in these things serveth Christ is acceptable to God and approved of men That is shall be justified in the day of all Divine and humane Principles Whatever his outward form or inward Opinion be Whether he eat or eat not Keep a day or keep it not So it be to the Lord to Charity and to Aedification 5. All the truest and best notions and Opinions we can have of Spiritual truth here below are to be done away when we arrive at that state above So the Apostle expresly tells us 1 Cor. 13. 9. 10. We know in part and we Prophesy in part But when that which is perfect is come then that which is in part shall be done away We shall then lose all our present Notions and Opinions of Spiritual things not in a blackness of Darkness and Death violently breaking in upon and overspreading them But in the brightness of an unmixt and eternal light arising upon and comprehending them in iâ—self They shall all be blotted out not as water quenches the fire But after such a manner as the Beams of the Sun do put it out by drawing up the finer and more fiery parts into themselves They shall be put out not as a Candle is by the Extinguisher But as the darknesses and shadows of the night are swallowed up by the light of the morning Or rather as the several colours of light in the first dawning of the day are afterwards drunk up into the pure and perfect light of the encreasing day It is yet but a morning light with the most enlightned Souls here on Earth In the first breaking of the day the Light you know appears to us in a variety of colours one after another Till at last as the day comes on all those colours are changed into an unstained and pure light Such are the discoveries of Spiritual things to our understandings whilst our true day is yet but Springing All our Notions and Opinions of them are as so many colours of light growing clearer and clearer unto a Noon day brightness Now all these colours vanish Now all our mistaken dark mixt short and disproportioned notions and apprehensions break up into a light which has nothing of privation mixture imperfection or shadow in it But till then it is impossible for us to have such Notions Opinions of Spiritual truth as can admit of no change or emprovement We are here in a growing travelling state And whilst we are so motion is better then rest We can now no more stint and fix our sense of things then we can hinder and stop our own growth Or keep day out of the World when the Sun arises It is not here our reproach but our praise to be still changing our minds to be still transformed in the renewing of them that we may prove what the good and acceptable will of God is To change for emprovement to alter our minds for the better is not our inconstancy but our virtue This is only to change as all things do when they encrease nothing speaks us more rooted fixt and established then such a change Thou art not it may be of the same mind at this instant thou wert in a few daies past neither dost thou know what mind thou shalt have to morrow The spirit of man changes Opinion every moment And what one reason brings in this hour a stronger may carry out the next Nor will the good Spirit if thou art indeed acted and informed by it suffer thee to rest in thy present light and much less in thy remaining darkness Thou art not yet so knowing so good as thou shouldst be if thou canst be satisfied with thy self and thy present Notions of things Art thou not waiting for Christ to touch thine Eyes a second time Dost thou not pray for his Spirit to lead thee into all truth Can'st thou be contented to lose thy share in the riches of that glory thou art yet a stranger to Thou thinkest it may be that thou understandest all mysteries and hast all knowledge but still all thou canst attain to here below is but a little part of what is yet to come And will be done away when that which is perfect appears Why then dost thou lay so great a weight upon those Notions and Opinions which thou hadst not the other day which thou mayst lose to morrow and which are finally to be swallowed up Why should an obscure dark intricate curious unnecessary uncertain and fading Notion and Opinion be imploy'd to the prejudice of that Charity that shall never fail All our Notions and Opinions are changeable temporary transient and perishing things They pass away and confute themselves whilst we are contending for them but Love is a lasting permanent and Eternal Duty and perfection This shall remain when all our Notions and Opinions of one sort and another shall for ever cease to be Shall either sink down into their first darkness out of which they sprung Or rise up into and happily lose themselves in their Original Light 6. Let us seriously consider how mischievous the want of that moderation I am pleading for â—has all along been to Christians and to Christianity it self What depths of inward filthinesses have the differences and animosities of good men about Opinions discovered in them and
Coming is not Natural nor the Manifestation Moral both are Supernatural and Spiritual tâ—e Drawing of the Father A Seed hath a Power or Principle which sent it forth abides in it and works thorow it It hath also an Image which grows up out of it Jesus Christ is the Seed in the Soul of Man the Father is the Power the Son is the Image in this Seed When a Corn is cast into the ground a Power goes forth from it into the Earth round about which attracts and draws it which unites and incorporates it with the Seed which sends it forth again in the Form of that Plant first in the Herb then in the Blade last in the Ear. So the Father thorow Jesus Christ diffuseth himself into the whole Soul draws it into Christ who lies there as a Seed makes it One with him who brings it forth again into his own Form and Fruit. St. James saith Jam. 1. 18. Of his own Will beg at be us by the Word of Truth The Word is the Seed of Truth Christ Jesus in us The Will of God is composed of those two forementioned A Supream Fulness a Soveraign Sweetness These powerfully and pleasantly stir up the Godhead to bring forth the creatures and to bring forth it self in the creatures These delightfully and effectually move God to propagate himself endlesly and infinitely These heats of love the delights of fruitfulness are the inward and only Motives which put on our heavenly Father to quicken his Seed in us to make it grow up by degree till it hath perfectly brought forth it self into its own form and fulness Thus St. Paul tells us Gal. 1. 16. It pleased the Father to reveal his Son in him As the Sun draws up the Plants out of their Roots and discovers them to the open Air so the Father reveals and discloseth Jesus Christ in the Soul 4. Cause The Ministry of Man to Man Heb. 1. 14. We read that Angels are made Ministring Spirits for the good of those that are to inherit Salvation So it pleaseth God often to make men as Angels to minister Spiritual things to their Brethren It is one of the Mysteries of Godliness 1 Tim. 3. 16. God manifested in the Flesh justified in the Spirit The great God is pleased by the Fleshly waies of man's doing speaking writing reading living to express and convey himself A Learned man admires it as having a Height of Wonder in it that so low so narrow so dark dead divided things as words and letters should carry into our Souls the highest Images of the divinest Life Truth and Glory This is the Infiniteness of the Godhead which brings forth itself in the greatest Variâ—ty of Shapes yet still keeps the Unity preserves it self entire and full in every one Thus the Divine Nature imprints it self upon the thoughts of Earthly man as scattered Dust and by the Motions of this Dust in words implants it self by one Man upon the Soul of another There is a Three-fold Ministry of Man by which God works in the Conversion of men 1. Elevation of the heart in Prayer to God 2. Exhortation by words to men 3. Example of life before men 1. Elevation of the heart in Prayer to God for men St. Paul describes Prayer Rom. 8. 27. God heareth His Spirit for it makes intercessions in us according to his will Prayer is the Conception of the Soul when it hath taken in from Heaven the Spirit in the Form of some Divine Blessing Then it grows big with this Blessing it travels with it it labours to raise it self into God that by the clearness of his Light by the fulness of his Life it may bring it forth to perfection A Spiritual man is like Abraham who had in himself that Seed in which all the Nations of the Earth were to be blessed He hath conceived with a Seed of Blessedness to all Creatures Therefore as Paul travelled in birth with the Galatians till Christ was formed in them so doth a good man travel in birth by Prayer having many Pangs and Throws in the Spirit till this Blessedness be formed in each Soul St. Paul tells the Corinthians 1 Cor. 3. 22. All things are yours c. A Heavenly Spirit is an Universal Father it lookâ— upon all Creatures as its own Off-spring or Bowels As Job sacrificed constantly for his Children while they were feasting in their course So is this Spirit praying for the Souls of men while they are playing away themselves in Vanity This is the First Ministry 2. Exhortation by words to men David promiseth and prophesieth Psal. 51. 13. I will teach transgressâ—urs thy ways and Sinners shall be converted unto thee Before in the former verse he had prayed Restore thy Ioy and establish thy free Spirit in me Then he adds I will teach transgressours thy ways the ways of thy Love and Wisdom with man Sinners shall be converted unto thee that is by the report of thy sweet Contrivances upon me and Compassions towards me When the Heart feels the Waters of Divine Life and Joy bubling up warm from the bosom of the Godhead then the Tongue becomes the Pen of a ready Writer labouring to imprint the Form of the same Life and Joys upon other hearts also If you will have me weep when you speak weep your self you that speak said a Wise man When a man utters those heavenly Loves Truths Delights of Jesus Christ in which his own Soul lies melting and bathing her self while he reports them Then he often hath his Tongue made the Quill of the Godhead by which he toucheth other Souls and makes the same Musick upon them David call his Tongue his Glory because by it he displayed that Glory of God which was treasured up in his heart to the view of many Hearts St. Paul tells us that God hath chosen the Foolishness of Preaching to make it His Power unto Salvation God sends down the highest Glory into inferiour Forms in which they descend by degrees then in the lowest they become a Seed out of which they grow and rise again by degrees to their first Height So the Divinity puts its self into our Saviour then into our Hearts then into our Tongues so into Words hovering in the Air thus low it is become Now by Words as a Seed it is cast into the Ear of another so it passeth into the Heart where it springeth up into the Fairness of Christ and from that into the Fulness of God 3. Example of Life before Men. St. Paul tells the Saints Philip. 2. 15. They should be blameless and harmless in the midst of a crooked generation in which they shine as Light When one Candle is lighted we light many by that When God hath kindled the Life of his Glory in one man's Heart he often enlightens many by the Flame of that spread thorow his Conversation Philosophers tell us that every thing hath Beams by which it manifests and multiplies itself Sure nothing hath so piercing
Woman to the Man This is plain by comparing those Two Places Psal. 8. 5. Thou hast made him that is man a little lower than the Angels Heb. 2. 5. Unto Angels he hath not put in subjection the World which is to come But unto Jesus Christ That is implyed in the Place The Law is the Law of the Husband Now the Law was administred by Angels the Ministring Spirits which are Principalities and Powers of this Creation as the Vice-Gerents of God Now St. Paul saith that by the Body of Christ that Husband died which held us in Subjection to the Law The whole Frame of Nature was shaken by the Death of Christ and must fall by the Power of it Then St. Paul adds that we were subject to the Law while we were in the Flesh. All these things make it plain that by the Flesh he understands the State of Nature in its highest Principles and utmost Extent Thus much for the First Term Flesh. 2. Letter This is the Image of God in Flesh. Letter and Spirit are opposed by St. Paul as Old and New Rom. 7. 4. And he teacheth us that by the Death of the Flesh in the Body of Christ we are freed from our Service to God in the Oldness of the Letter St. Paul opposeth Spirit and Letter as Inward and Outward He calleth that the Letter which is Outward in the Flesh Rom. 2. 28 29. The Spirit is Jesus Christ as He is the Heavenly Image of God within in the Heart of God 2. Cor. 3. 15. This is that which is Inward under the Vail of Flesh. The Letter is the Image of God in the outward Man as it is drawn forth from and discovered in the Principles of the first Creation which is the Vail 3. The Law This is the State of the Soul while she lives in the Letter and hath Communion with God only by the Letter St. Paul thus describes a Legal State Gal. 4. 3. When we were Children 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Infants we were in Bondage under the Elements of the World While we are under the Law we are Infants we have neither the Ear nor the Heart nor the Mouth of the Spirit and the Spiritual man in our Souls We are Uncapable of Taking in or making out God in his own Divine Image according to Spiritual Principles or the Elements of the New Creation Therefore we are in Bondage to Natural Principles and Reasonings We are bound up within the Compass of this Creation as in a Prison We are unskill'd in unacquainted with any Principles or Appearances of things besides those of this Creation We compare Spiritual Things by these Things of Nature We hear God with the Ear we speak of him with the Tongue of this Creation We receive and cherish such Notions of God as are agreeable with this Frame The Manifestations of God which spring from Spiritual Principles from the Face of God himself are Barbarians to us while we are under the Law To the Law of Nature to the Testimony of Reason to the Elements of this World whatsoever speaketh not according to these whatsoever casteth off or doth not cloth its Speakings with these Forms though it be the Spirit Himself hath no Light in it to our Understandings while we are under the Law These Elements or Forms in which we are tied up while we are under the Law are 1. Weak 2. Dark 3. Beggarly 4. Old 1. Forms are weak Things They have only the Shadows of Good Things to come They have not the Substance They cannot give us the Good Things Themselves Forms set the Picture of our Beloved before our Eyes but they cannot lay the Person Himself in our Arms. They are but a Letter from our Husband They have not the Spirit of our Husband in them 2. Forms in the knowledge of God are Dark Things They can give us no clear or certain Discoveries The greatest Light of Communion or Comfort that can come while we are shut up in Forms is but like a Spark from a Flint at Midnight It hath much Doubt Diffidence and Fear mingled with it 3. Forms are Beggerly Things They cannot lay open before us the Unsearchable Riches of Christ. Jesus Christ is Rich in Glory He can fill all Appearances He can bring forth Innumerable Appearances He hath Glory above all appearances which the Creature is capable of He can bring forth more Glory into thy Heart than can be made out in thy Heart itself by any Appearance The Power of Glory which thy Spirit feels shall be above the Appearance which it sees 1 Corin. 14. 14. Ephes. 3. 19. How poor then and Beggarly must that Spirit be in the knowledge of the Glory of God which is shut up in any one Form in any one Sort or Degree of Manifestations While thou canst not part with any Particular Form of Appearance while thy Spirit is not indifferent and universal extending itself to all Forms in the Manifestation of God while thou art not above the Forms of this World Thou wilt be but a Beggar in thy Divine Discoveries or Enjoyments He must be above the Letter in the Spirit above and out of all Created Images in the Light of Life itself that will attain to those Riches of assurance of a full understanding in the Mystery of God and Christ which St. Paul speaks of Coloss. 2. 2. 4. Forms are Old God hath blasted all Forms and Ways of his Appearing by the Principles and Elements of the Creature If they have had any Beauty yet now they are Blear-eyed If they have been Fruitful yet now they are become a Barren Womb which is as the Grave The Cross of Christ and the Glory of his Appearance in the Spirit have taken away the Life and Glory of all Manifestations or Administrations in the Flesh. They are Old Withered Decayed and Dying The more our Saviour shines out in the Glory of his Father the more will they Droop till they drop quite into the Dust 4. Sign Solicitude Rest and want of Rest are the distinguishing Notes of a Legal or Evangelical State His Rest shall be Glorious saith the Prophet of the Lord Jesus in the Times of the Gospel Esa. 11. 10. Come to me saith our Saviour to those under the Law You that labour and are heavy laden and I will give you Rest Mat. 11. 28. A Legal Spirit hath a Four-fold Solicitude 1. Solicitude for Acceptance of the Person 2. Solicitude for Assiance in Perplexities 3. Solicitude for Light in the way 4. Solicitude for Life in the work of Grace 1. Solicitude for Acceptance of the Person While the Soul is under the Law the Seed of God Jesus Christ is not yet come up nor revealed within her She sits therefore trembling in the Dark sometimes Confident that it is a Seed of Love sometimes as Peremptory that it is a Seed of Wrath which lies hid in her So she is perplexed and anxious in herself St. Paul teacheth us Coloss. 2. 2. that
Assurance ariseth from the Acknowledgment of God in the Mystery even of the Father and of Christ. The Mystery of the Gospel lies hid under the Law the Heavenly Image is covered and kept out of Sight by the Earthly All this while a Saint is apt to be looking down into himself and to judge of Love or Hatred by those Appearances which he finds of either in himself But still he finds those Appearances Mixt Unconstant Doubtful So he is ever tost from one thing to another with much Unstableness and Unquietness If he look up to God he sees Him in a Cloud thorow the Principles of the Creature in which he judgeth of God after the manner of Man and so one while he believes him to be a Sweet Friend another while an Irreconcileable Enemy But he that is truly Evangelical looks upward still like Stephen He sees with the Eye of his Spirit Heaven that Divine Image and State of things opened to him He seeth the Father and Jesus Christ standing at the Right Hand of the Father and himself in the Arms of Jesus Christ as Lazarus was seen lying in Abraham's Bosom This Discovery of the Mystery of God above gives him a full Assurance concerning the Acceptance of his Person in the Beloved One. 2. Solicitude for Affiance in Perplexities The Temper of a Legal Spirit in this Point is fitly express'd Psal. 116. 10. 11. I was greatly afflicted I said in my hast All men are Lyars While our Comforts depend upon the Forms of our Saviour's Appearing to us either Inwardly or Outwardly we are as cast off and at a Loss upon every Change When a Temptation or unexpected Trouble ariseth we are like a Ship in a Storm that hath lost its Anchor We are carried away with the violence of the Tempest Then wâ— cry All our Signs for Good have deceived us All the Marks of Divine Love which men have given us all the Encouragements and Comforts with which they have carried us on All the Manifestations and Workings which we discovered as Grounds of Assurance in our own Hearts All these have deceived us Good God whom or what shall we trust What shall we do that we may have rest in the Time of Trouble This is the uncertainty of his Comforts who is under the Law who hath not all his Comforts and Confidence wrapt up in One Spirit with Jesus Christ who is the Same without Change in the midst of all Changes Yesterday and to Day It is this alone which can make us sweetly to Rejoyce in our Infirmities and Tribulations 3. Solicitude for Light in the way While the Law is our School-master the Letter is our Way and Guide The Letter hath a Twofold Inconvenience in it First the Way of the Letter is cut out into great Diversity of Paths It is full of Windings and Turnings It hath manifold Rites and Observations in it Secondly the Letter itself is Old and Dim So the Directions which it gives us are very Dark and uncertain to us These Two Inconveniences make us perpetually full of Disputes and Doubts in our selves every step that we take whether we be in a right way or no. We never can be delivered from this Solicitude till we be brought into the High and Plain way of the Spirit in which the wayfaring Man though a Fool cannot erre 4. Solicitude For Life in the Work of Grace Rom. 8. 3. The Law being weak thorow the Flesh Heb. 7. 16. Iesus Christ is made a Priest not after the Law of a Carnal Command but after the Power of an Endless Life The Life of Grace under the Law is very Weak For the way of its Working is by Fleshly Principles It is so conveyed thorow them as if it were wrought out of them altogether In this State the Soul eats the Bread of Life with the Sweat of her Brows She is fain to till an Earth full of Bryars and Thorns She carries on the Working of Grace with much Difficulty for the present and Anxiety for the Future For the Life of Grace is weak and it puts forth itself after the Way of the Life of Reason by Parts Affections Passions Resolution Industry This way of Working by these Powers naturally carrieth along with it much Care and Vexation Whereas under the Gospel the New Earth bringeth forth the Fruit of the Spirit of its own accord according to the several Seasons and Growths of it And this is done while the Husbandman sleepeth while the Spirit lies sweetly at Rest in the Bosom of her Saviour without any Care or Toil. The Life of Grace in the Law is as Water drawn up out of a Deep Well by Buckets-full at a time But in the Gospel it is a Living Fountain springing up Freely Plentifully Uncessantly So much for the Signs of a Servile or Legal State in Religion I will conclude this Head with one Use of Consolation Application Use. Consolation You who feel not your selves carried up into the Glory of God by the Spirit as upon the Wing of an Eagle but are creeping towards Heaven like Worms upon the Ground you have great Priviledges belonging to you and a great Portion of Comfort Your Priviledges in which you that are under the Law may Glory and take Comfort are these You have an Adoption or Son-ship a Protection a Presence of Glory a Peculiar Worship a Pledge and Type you may have a Precious Seed in you 1. Priviledge Adoption or Son-ship Rom. 9. 4. You are the Israelites in the Letter or Flesh to whom pertaineth the Adoption God is your Father in a more especial way than to the Rest of Men in a nearer Relation than that of Creation You are Sons though by the Bond-woman You are begotten again of God into a New Image of Himself though this Image be in the Flesh and of the Flesh as the Mother 2. Priviledge Protection God was with all his Thousands of Angels on Mount Sinai in the midst of the Fire and Thick Darkness This was an Allegory and signified thy Heart with its Fears and Agonies under the Law in the midst of which God and His Angels dwell as a Defence over thee The Law was added because of Transgressions to Protect thee from the Power of the Devil in thy Lusts and Corruptions 3. Priviledge the Presence of Glory This is reckoned up Rom. 9. 4. The Glory The Glory is some Manifestation above the Work of Nature sent forth from God and having God present in it conversing with us by it Such was the Pillar in the Wilderness such the Smoak in the Temple the Appeapearance at the Oracle Thou also who fearest God and workest Righteousness though under the Law yet hast a Glorious Work of God upon thy Heart a Divine Appearance of God in thy Spirit a near Presence of God with it by which thou hast Access to Him and Communion with him We read of those that are near and those that are far off Thou in the State of Nature wast far oâ—f
from God Now being brought under the Law thou art near to Him When thou shalt be brought up into the Light of the Gospel thou wilt see thy self in Him 4. Priviledge Peculiar Worship The Covenants the giving of the Law The Service of God pertained to the Israelites Rom. 9. 3. Thou art an Israelite a Kinsman of Christ and all the Saints nay a Brother according to the Flesh if thou hast the Work of the Law upon thy Heart The Covenant nay both Covenants in the Letter in the Outward Dispensation and Administration belong to thee Thou hast a Right to all the Ordinances and to every Instituted Service of God The Promises in the Proposal of them concern thee in the First Place Go then to the Sacraments Pray Read the Word Hearken to the Promises whatever thy Troubles or Terrours be These are appointed for thee to keep to Comfort to carry thee on till Christ be revealed in thee 5. Priviledge The Pledge and Type of Spiritual and Eternal things Rom. 9. 4. The Promises The Fathers Christ according to the Flesh. When thou feelest the Bondage of the Law to lie heaviest upon thee thou hast this to comfort thy self with All the Saints of old in whose Loyns the Life and Heirs of all Grace and Glory lay lived in this State and were subject to the Law even until death Jesus Christ Himself was born of Legal Parents and made under the Law Besides The Law is a Fleshly Image of all the Joys of the Gospel and the Spirit and Heaven The Law holds them forth all not in the Type or Image only but in the Prophecy of them as being certainly to come Moses and the Prophets go together and Moses himself is One of the Chief of the Prophets As Christ according to the Flesh was an Israelite so the Law is the Beauty and Glory of Christ in the Flesh testifying of itself and its own coming in the Spirit Sit down then under thy Fig-tree under the Shadow of the Law with good Nathaniel till thy Vine be grown up There look on Him who seeth thee Behold that Glory which looks forth in the Law as in a Fleshly Image of itself Feed thy self with the Expectations of his Shining out whom this Image prophesies of to thee When he discovers himself thou shalt know that He was in Covenant and Communion with thee even when thou wert under the Fig-tree 6. Priviledge You may have a Precious Seed in you While you are Legal you are in Bondage to many Fears and Terrours You weep for you say you can discover nothing of Christ in you It is true the Seed is not come up yet but it may be Sown You come not Rejoycing and bearing your Sheafs with you yet you may be those who go forth weeping and carrying your Precious Seed with you When Darkness would drive you to Despair then take to your selves the words of St. Paul Gal. 3. 23. Before Faith that is the Revelation of Christ in my Flesh I am kept under the Law under Terrours and Rigours Shut up in Darkness and Fear from all Comforts or Confidence unto the Faith that Appearance of Christ which shall be revealed but now is hid as a Seed only in me Though thou canst not yet with good old Simeon sing over Jesus Christ in thine Arms a Song of Peace and Rest to thy Soul yet thou mayst with Mary have him in thy Womb. This Burthen which thou bearest and goest with so heavily may be the Burthen of the Lord the Immortal Word in thee These Pangs which thou feelest may be not to the Death of thy Soul but the Birth of a Son a Saviour whose coming forth shall make thee to forget all thy Sorrows and Rejoyce because a Son is born unto thee by which Birth thou art no more a Servant but a Son I have now done speaking of the Servile and come to the Son-like State in Religion 2. The Son-like State This is known by a Four-fold Property 1. Love 2. Life 3. Spirituality 4. Resignation 1. Property Love I shall shew this in two places of Scripture 1. Scripture Galat. 4. 6. Because ye are Sons he hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts crying Abba Father St. Paul in these words toucheth four Things which will much open this Point and this Particular 1. The Sonship of a Saint 2. The Concealment of this Sonship 3. The Discovery of it 4. The Effect of this Discovery 1. The Sonship of a Saint This is the Union of a Saint in one Spirit with him who is the only begotten Son of the Father Jesus Christ. It is the Fellowship of the Person of a Saint in one Life one Image with the Person of his blessed Saviour The Apostle unites these two our being Sons and our having the Spirit of his Son And that which St. Paul in this place calls The Spirit of His Son he calls the Spirit of Adoption Rom. 8. 15. That Spirit which is the Spirit of all the Sons of God 2. The Concealment of this Sonship The coming of the Spirit into our Souls doth not make us Sons but manifests us to be such We are First Sons and then the Spirit of his Son is sent forth into our Spirits So we read plainly Because ye are Sons he hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your Hearts While we live in sin and slavery we are in truth Sons though we be as Princes in disguise Yet ever God retains in himself the Root and Image of our Persons as of Sons So our State of Sonship is twice hid once in the Secret of divine Glory again under the Shadow of our Flesh. 3. The Discovery of this Sonship This is by the sending of the Spirit into our Hearts This Spirit is manifold Ephes. 4. 3. Keeping the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace Where the Unity is kept by a Bond there a Multiplicity is clearly signified 1 Cor. 12. 13. We are all baptized by one Spirit into one Body Christ and his Saints are there spoken of All these together are one Body of Divinity and Glory Each particular Saint is a Member of this Glory a Son or Child of this Divinity Each one hath the same Spirit which comprehends all the Persons of our Saviour and his Brethren God in his own time sends down this Spirit upon every one of his Sons When it comes it discovereth in itself thy Saviours Person and thine in one Light Life and Form in one Relation to God as being both Sons The Spirit shining forth in thy Spirit shews itself at once One with God and One with Thee So it becomes both the Witness and the Evidence of thy Relation to God as of a Son to a Father Therefore St. Paul teacheth us Rom. 8. 16. The Spirit beareth witness with our Spirits that we are the Sons of God The Spirit is the Brightness of the Godhead which as it descends into our bosoms opens the Godhead to
things which are evil It is his Nature to be so For he is made partaker of the Divine Nature 2 Pet. 1. 4. If you ask how he comes to love imitate grow up into an unseen Glory the Eternal Spirit It is his Life to do so As every Plant hath its proper Life by which it is formed and grows So to this man his God his Jesus is his Life You may wonder that a Son of God should continually flow forth into Spiritual Discourses continually bath himself in high hidden heavenly Joys continually be mastering Lusts and Passions in despight of Temptations without and within him continually maintain a Lowly and Lovely temper in this froward world But all this is no wonder for he is carried on by the Power of an Endless indissoluble invincible life This is the Second Property of a Son-like State 3. Property Spirituality 1 Corin. 3. 1. I could not speak to you as unto Spiritual but as unto Carnal Babes in Christ. Galat. 4. 1. The Heir while he is a Child differs nothing at all from a Servant though he be Lord of all These two places laid together shew that a Babe in Christ and Servant in religion are both the samething as also that a Servant and a Son are distinguished by their Spirituality and Carnality He is a Son that is Spiritual St. Paul giveth Two Descriptions of Spirituality in this Chapter to the Corinthians 1. Description Spirituality feeds itself on Meat not on Milk v. 2. I could not feed you with Meat but with Milk A Spiritual Person feeds and lives on Divine things not only as they are represented in Fleshly Types and Images but as they are presented in their own Shape and Figures Our Saviour complains of Nicodemus John 3. 12. If I have spoken to you of Earthly things and you receive them not how would you understand them if I should speak of Heavenly If now you do not understand me when I speak of Heavenly things in an Earthly manner by resemblances taken from below how would you take in or bear Heavenly things express'd in their own language set before you in their own form and Glories The Heathens have a Fable of Semele a Lady who had the chief God for her Lover She desired that she might see him in the Form and Majesty of a God She had her desire and dyed opprest by the weight of Glory In like manner if you should shew the mysteries of God and the Gospel to low and legal Spirits by their own Light without the Shadowings of Fleshly Similitudes and Parables you would undo their Religion confound their understandings drive them to despair deadness or profaneness This is the First Description of Spirituality 2. Description Spirituality keeps the Unity of things 1 Cor. 3. 7. While there are divisions among you are you not carnal Every thing is Carnal which makes Division that alone is Spiritual which maintains the Unity 1 Gen. 28. Man was made in the Image of God and to have dominion over all the Fowl Fish and Beasts Man was the Harmony and Unity of this lower World He knits up into one Frame of Life and Beauty the divers Natures of all the several Creatures Thus he was the Image of God This First Earthly man was the Type only of the Second the Spiritual man Coloss. 2. 18. Many are blamed not so much for looking into the Nature of Angels as for not looking upon them by a right Light in a right Posture Not holding the Head Not beholding the various glories of Angels in the Divine Unity of Christ's Person A Spiritual man takes not away the Differences of things he allows owns them in their utmost variety latitude and distance But he tunes them and attones them 1 Cor. 12. 23 25. St. Paul makes the Body of man a Figure of this truth There are many Members The greater Comeliness is put upon the more uncomely parts So there is no schism in the Body Thus the Son of God knows that there are divers Parts of things the pleasant and the painful Part the dark and the light Part the comely and the uncomely He knows also that the highest Pleasures are put upon the most painful Part that the eternal lighâ— rests upon the greatest darkness that the most uncomely Things are cloathed with a divine Comeliness as the Death of Christ. So there is no Schism in the Body of things to him He makes or finds a Unity every where St. Paul sets out Spirituality at large 1. Cor. 2. 10 11. No man knows the things of a man save the Spirit of man No man knows the things of God but the Spirit of God The Spirit searcheth out the deep things of God A Saint while he is Carnal knows those things only which lie within the Compass of a humane Spirit and divine things only so far as they are shadowed out in the Spirit of man But he that is Spiritual knows all things the things of God as they shine out in the Spirit of God He sees the great Deep of the Godhead discovered in the Spirit and all things as forms floating upon this Deep as the waters of this Abyss This is an eminent difference between a Carnal and Spiritual Christian. A Carnal Christian sees Heavenly things only as Images stamp'd upon an earthly Substance represented in an earthly Principle A Spiritual Christian sees earthly things as Images in a Heavenly Substance and Principle 1. Cor. 2. 13. Spiritual things are spiritually discerned Comparing spiritual things with spiritual A Servile Saint is in the Fleshly Principle as in his own Place He therefore measures every thing by Fleshly Grounds and Objects He receives each thing as it is proportion'd to fleshly Appearances and Notions or prompted by fleshly Apprehensions and Impressions A Son-like Saint is in the Spirit as in his Element He therefore receives things according to the Suggestions and Infusions of the Spirit he compares them with the Appearances and Workings of the Spirit so he tryes and judges them This is the Third Property of a Son-like Saint Spirituality 4. Property Resignation The Son of God practiseth this Resignation in Three Cases in 1. Wants 2. Woes 3. Works 1. Resignation in Wants Matth. 6. 31 32. Our Saviour takes off his Disciples from a Solicitude concerning Worldly Supplies by putting them in mind of the Relation between their God and them After all these things the Heathen take care Your Heavenly Father knows that you have need of these things A Son-like Christian thus disputes it in himself The little Child plays freely before his Father He takes no thought what he shall eat at Supper what he shall put on to morrow He leaves all that to his Father to provide I also will cast off all care from me upon my Father He knows what is necessary for the maintenance of my Being of the Beauty Comfort of my Being every moment Let those be troubled with these anxieties who know no God or know
Heart Commune with your Hearts What is the Heart The Heart is the Inward Principle the Life-Principle 1. The Heart is the Inward Principle So you read of the Heart of the Sea Exod. 15. 8. and the Heart of the Earth Mat. 12. 40. Mark 7. 18. Whatsoever thing cometh from without defileth not the Man v. 19. Because it entreth not into thy Heart but into thy Belly and passeth into the Draughts v. 21. From within from the Heart of men proceed Evil thoughts Adulteries c. The Meats which we take in from without reach the Body in all the parts of it and they reach the Soul as it lives in the Body working upon it and making changes in it Both these then are the Belly the Outward Man which is maintained from an Outward Principle and passeth away into the Dust and Darkness But the Heart is more Inward and Immutable It is that which abides in the Invisible part of things and is that Hidden Spring the Principle both of Soul and Body This Heart in the Natural Man is the Spirit of Man in the Spirit of the Devil or in the Spirit of Divine Wrath or rather in both So from the Heart come evil thoughts So St. Iohn saith 1 Iohn 3. 20. If our Hearts condemâ— us God is greater than our Hearts and knoweth all things But if our Hearts condemn us not then have we confidence before God Every man hath in him a Principle more Inward than the Spirit of the Devil which is the Spirit of God as it comes forth into his Spirit and gives his Spirit a Created Invisible Immortal Being in itself among Angels This is that Heart of man with which he is to commune this is the Seat of Justification Or Condemnation The Spirit of Man as it lives above in the Spirit of God according to his Wrath or his Love Or the Spirit of God as it becomes the Principle of Nature a Principle in the Spirit of Man If this Heart condemn us that is the Spirit of God as it is the Principle of our Spirits God is greater than our Hearts that is the Spirit of God as it is in itself above our Spirits hath a greater Fulness of Majesty and Light in itself where it is as the Light in the Sun when as in our Spirits it is but as the Light in the Star If therefore it testifie Wrath to us in this relation in which it is but as a Glance it shall more fully testify wrath against us in that State in which it is the Full Glory As it is a Principle in our Spirits it opens itself truly but imperfectly in a right Sense but in a part only of its own Sense But as it is in itself it knows all things it opens itself to the utmost of its own sense and eternal purpose A man should neither comfort nor condemn himself from the language of his own Spirit as it lives in the Outward Soul or Body and speaks of its own This Spirit should be silent and still But we are to commune with the Divine Principle in us with our Spirits as they dwell within in the Spirit of God For so the Spirit of God and our Spirits are twisted in One make One Heart testify One thing and that truly whether it be for Life or for Death from Wrath or from Love For the Spirit of God and of Man in this Principle are an Image of the Spirit of God as it is absolute and supream in the God-Head But there is a Heart within this Heart This Heart is a Principle of Life or Death Love or Wrath. There is within this a Heart which is the Life-Princiciple and the Love-Principle 2. The Heart is the Life-Principle Prov. 4. 23. Keep thy Heart with all Diligence for out of it are the Issues of Life What is this Heart which we are to keep when we are to deny our selves We are to keep it not with Caution to preserve our selves from it but with Confidence to preserve our selves by it This place of Scripture is like that before it Prov. 4. 13. Where Solomon speaking of Wisdom or Instruction saith Keep her for she is thy Life Jesus Christ as he is in the Spirit is our Life-Principle Colos. 3. 4. When Christ who is our Life shall appear He is the Treasure of our Hearts and our truest Heart For from Him as He is in the Spirituality of his own Person are the Issues the Out-goings of our Life Mat. 6. 21. Where your Treasure is there will your Hearts be also Our Treasure and our Hearts are both with Jesus Christ in Heaven Colos. 3. 1. The Heart is the Treasury of all good things A good man out of the good Treasury of his Heart bringeth forth good things Mat. 12. 35. Jesus Christ is this Heart which hath the Treasure in it For in him are all the Treasures of Wisdom and Knowledge hid Colos. 2. 3. Jesus Christ is the Heart as he is the Head of Man 1 Corin. 11. 3. The Head of every Man is Christ The Head of Christ is God The Lord Jesus as he is the Heavenly Man is the most proper Head and Heart of man the First Principle before all others the most inward Principle lying within and beneath all other Principles the Life-Principle Thus we see what the Heart is 1. Jesus Christ as He puts forth Himself in the Natural Spirit of Man to be the Principle of Nature either in a Power of Wrath or Love 2. Jesus Christ as He is in his own Heavenly Spirit and Person comprehending the Life Perfection and Blessedness of Man in Himself as in a Divine Root or Treasury 2. The Bed This is the Second thing of which we are to seek the meaning We read of a Bed of Tribulation Revel 2. 22. This Bed is a Spirit of Darkness Weakness Woe and Torment We read of a Bed in Tribulation which God prepares for those whom he loves Psal. 41. 3. Thou wilt make all his Bed in his Sickness or Thou wilt turn it the Inside of Peace Love and Glory for the Outside of Pain and Trouble or thou wilt change it from a Bed of Languishings into a Bed of Rest or a Bed of Love We read of Beds of Joy and Glory Psal. 149. 5. Let the Saints be joyful in Glory let them Sing aloud on their Beds In the Canticles there is mention made of the Bed of Christ and His Spouse Can. 1. 16. Our bed is Green There is also Solomons Bed who was a Type of the Heavenly Bridegroom Cant. 3. 7. Behold his Bed which is Solomons threesâ—â—re valiant men are about it of the valiant men of Israel This Bed is the Spirit of the Lord Jesus which shines forth and buds with Sweetness and Beauty which goes forth in the midst of the Angels cloathing itself with those Mighty and Glorious Spirits This Spirit draws the Soul forth from the Tumults of the Flesh takes her off from her own Strength and casts
Here you have a Paradise in or above the Third Heavens We read that the most Holy place was not yet opened while the First Tabernacle stood Heb. 9. 8. The way into the most Holy place was not yet made manifest while the First Tabernacle was standing So the Heavenly Paradise was not discovered while the Earthly Paradise flourished in the Creature but there was a vail between them Jesus Christ lay hid in the Image of the Earthly man Thus the Treasure was hid in the Field before the Fall of Man But by the Fall the Field itself was lost The Natural Image of God withdrew and disappeared in all the Glory of it when man sinned So far as it remained it remains captived imprisoned by the Devil under Darkness Lusts monstrous Images Rom. 1. 23. Sinful men are said to change the Glory of the incorruptible God in the Natural Image into the Image of a Corruptible Man of four-footed Beasts c. The Fall of Man brought in this Corruptible Image in which Man and all the Creatures now are which detains the Image of God as a Prisoner in itself Thus now the Treasure is doubly hid in the Field and in the Bryars which over-grow and hide the Field itself 4. Discovery Which when a man finds saith Christ. When Jesus Christ was to come in the Flesh he sent John Baptist to prepare his way This Preparation was to be made by a restoring of the Divine Image in Nature which is the First Restitution of all things that was to be made by Eliah and this Eliah was John the Baptist. He was also to point out Jesus Christ to shew how he was figured out in that First Image and now ready to break forth thorow this Image So when the Season comes in the Soul Jesus Christ the Eternal Image puts up the Natural Image of God in the Soul and puts forth himself thorow it as the Seed of Corn first comes up in the tender Blade like a low Herb an ordinary Grass before it comes forth into the shape of Corn. So the Redemption and the Discovery begins in the Soul which makes way for the Joy of the Kingdom of God 5. The Purchase He hides it and goes with joy and sells all that he hath and buys this Field Here the Purchase of the Field for the Treasures sake is exprest About this the Soul goes with Joy But what means this Second Concealment This Hiding of the Treasure again after that it is once found This Hiding of it is the laying it up in a Mans Heart The hiding of it in a Mans inward Spirit and the hiding of a mans self in it according to his Inward Spirit A man now draws this Treasure of Glory out of that Fleshly Darkness under which it lay into his inward Principle and withdraws his inward Principle out of the Flesh and the Lusts of it into this Treasure Then a Man for the love of this Treasure and in the Strength of it sells all that he hath casts away his Corruptions the Creatures his own Being as they are his own as he hath them in himself that he may have his own Being and all the Creatures in the Natural Image of God and that Image in Jesus Christ And this the Soul doth with Joy For this is that Enlargement that Liberty which is the Kingdom of God and the Joy thereof in the Soul Now the First Image of God is brought out of its Prison now Jesus Christ is brought out of his hidden streightned State to Freedom in the Soul Now those Discoveries of God which lay shut up in Jesus Christ as in a Seed thrust forth themselves into Liberty in the Spirit of Man The Spirit of a man is brought forth from the darkness narrowness of Lusts and the Flesh into the Liberty of these divine Appearances into the Spirit of the Lord Jesus where the Spirit of man is in a Depth Height Breadth Length without any Limit or Confinement This Liberty is the Divine Joy of the Spirit I will conclude this Particular with that place of Scripture Psal. 96. 12. Let the Field be joyful and all that is therein then shall all the Trees of the Wood Rejoyce This Psalm is a Prophesy of the State and times of the Gospel as appears by the First Verse which calls this Psalm a New Song This is the Name by which the Gospel is frequently expressed in Scripture The Sense then of this Psalm is chiefly Spiritual In the Verse before this Twelfth Verse we read thus v. 11. Let the Heavens rejoyce and let the Earth be glad let the Sea râ—ar with the fulness thereof The Natural Image of God as it is above the Creature and the Head of the Creature is the Heavens The Earth the Light-part the Sea the Dark part which both make One Creature as Earth and Sea make One Globe Then follows v. 12. Let the Field rejoyce The Field is the Image of God as it grows up out of the Creature and is the Life of that While a man is in a Sinful State the Field languisheth the Vertues and Excellencies of God are withdrawn and hid in it But when a man is New-born then this Field rejoyceth and breaks forth into Singing The Discoveries of God grow up high full and thick as Trees of the Wood and Sing together in the Soul which is now at Liberty and in Joy in the midst of thâ—m as in her Paradise restored Application Use. 1. Information That which hath been spoken on this Particular instructs us in Three Things of very great Concernment 1. Instr. What Man is 2. Instr. What a Sinner 3. Instr. What a Saint 1. Instr. What Man is That which makes a Man is the Natural Image of God First is that which is Natural then that which is Spiritual 1 Corin. 15. 46. Three Things go to make up the Being of a Man To be a Man is 1. To be the Image of another 2. To be the Image of God 3. To be the Image only and no more 1. To be a Man is to be the Image of another Gen. 1. 26. God made Man in an Image in a Likeness He that is a Man is to have no Principle Form Activity Appearance of his own But in all he is to answer the Principle Forms Actings Appearances of another in that manner of which Solomon speaks Prov. 27. 19. As in the Water Face answers Face so is the Heart of Man Man in this Creation is the Face in the Water which answers to another Face above the Water All Creatures are Representations Man the chief Creature is the chief Representation The Philosopher called Man 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Creature made for Imitation to hold forth something before and above himself St. Paul calls the First Adam a Figure or Type Rom. 5. 14. St. Paul in one place tells the Corinthians that he transferred things to himself and to Apollos as in a Type or Figure for their sakes Man is to
Sing This is Spiritual Musick the working of Spiritual Joy to Shout and to Sing We read of a Two-fold Song which Spiritual Persons sing Revel 15. 3. They Sing the Song of Moses and of the Lamb. The Song of Moses is the Law the Song of the Lamb the Gospel When the Children of Israel had passed thorow the Red Sea and saw their Enemies lie dead on the Shore then they Sung the Song of Moses who drew them out of those Waters according to the Signification of his Name When the Soul hath escaped out of the Sea of Blood mingled with Fire which is the Dissolution of her Natural Principles in Troubles and Terrours by the Baptism of the Spirit when shee sees her Spiritual Enemies slain on the Dry Land of Christ Spiritual Appearance then she Sings the Song of the Lamb who was dead but is alive and lives for ever the Song of Peace Singing naturally with the outward voice is the highest and fullest Activity of the Natural Spirits So Singing Spiritually and with the Inward Man is the highest Activity of the Spirit in our Spiritual Part. This Spiritual Musick or Singing which is the working of the Wine of Spiritual Joy in the Soul consists of Three Things 1. The Heightning of the Soul towards God 2. The Tuning of the Soul to God 3. The Exercise or Entertainment of the Soul upon God and with God 1. The Heightning of the Soul towards God This is one Piece of that Activity of Spiritual Ioy which is the true Musick of the Soul In that place cited before Psal. 65. 13. Singing and Shouting are put together 1 Thessal 4. 16. The Lord Jesus is said to descend from Heaven with a Shout This Shout is the Awakening and the Elevation of the Soul or Body towards the highest State of things by the Powerful breakings forth of the Glory of God upon them Psalm Psal. 57. 7. David had said I will Sing and give Praise Then he calls upon himself v. 8. Awake up my Glory awake my Psaltery and Harp I my self will awake right early Some say Davids Glory was his Tongue but then sure it was such a Tongue of Fire as sat upon the Heads of the Apostles a Tongue of Spiritual Manifestations and Heavenly Glory like a Flame enlightning and heating both at once Man is the Glory of God saith St. Paul 1 Corin. 11. 7. The Spiritual Man is the true and Spiritual Glory of God The Natural Man is but a Shadowy Glory David calls upon his Glory to awake as distinct from himself and then he saith I shall awake like that of St. Paul Galat. 2. 20. I live not but Christ in me there is the Glory awakening itself and the Life that I live is by the Faith of the Son of God there is himself awakened in that Glory Then the Soul sings when the Life of Jesus Christ which is her Glory awakens itself in her and awakens her together with itself into the Light of God to a Contemplation of and fixing upon his Beauties Now the Soul is above her ordinary Pitch as Waking is above Sleeping Now she sits above herself upon the top of her Spiritual Principles as a Bird upon the Top-branch of a Tree Singing in the Sun-shine the highest Light of Divine Discoveries This is the First thing in this Activity or Spiritual Musick 2. The Timing of the Soul to God In that fore-mentioned Psal. 57. 7. David speaks of awakening three distinct Lives His Glory His Psaltery and Harp Himself The Glory is Jesus Christ in the Soul Self is the Soul The Psaltery and Harp those Heavenly Principles and Powers which as Ministring Spirits go forth from Jesus Christ into the Soul suiting fitting and tuning the Soul to her Saviour Revel 15. 2. St. Iohn saw the Saints that had gotten the victory over the Beast stand upon a Sea of Glass mingled with Fire and the Harps of God in their hands Then in the next verse they Sing The Sea is this Creation especially the Invisible the Angelical Part of it In this State it is a dark troubled foaming Sea But in the Kingdom of Christ it shall be a Sea of Glass a Chrystalline Sea clear calm fresh taking in and holding forth the Lord Jesus the Image and Face of God as a Glass as a pleasant Stream The Fire with which it shall be mingled shall be the Spirit of God and of Glory resting upon the Creature The Saints standing upon this Sea shall have the Harps of God in their hands Angels are the Trumpets of God This State of the Saints which is here described is their Angelical State when they shall be like the Angels These Harps of God then are Angelical Tempers and Principles which Jesus Christ brings forth and puts into the Soul as Harps into their Hands by which they are tuned and fitted made ready for Him to sing to Him Thus the Soul is tuned to God being put into a Spiritual and Heavenly Temper like an Angel beholding the Face of God and in a readiness to Sing forth to Sing aloud his Glory Coloss. 3. 16. St. Paul speaks of Spiritual Songs which they were to Sing with Grace in their Hearts This is that which David calls his Harp This is the Harp of God in the hands of the Saints the Grace of God in their Hearts This is the Tuning of the Soul to Christ the Receiving of Grace for Grace from Christ the winding up of Grace in the Heart to a pitch of Conformity and Communion with Jesus Christ like the Tuning of two voices or Instruments one to another that so Christ and the Soul may make Musick each to other and have their Joy fulfilled in one another So much for the Second Thing 3. The Exercise and Entertainment of the Soul upon God and with God This is the Third thing in the Souls Singing for Ioy. David saith in one place I will Sing of thy Righteousness and in another I will Sing of thy Power The Spiritual Joy and Musick of a Saint is to fly abroad among the Excellencies of the Divine Nature to enlarge and act his Spirit to the Height upon the Beauties and Brightnesses in the Face of God the Uprightness Truth Perfection in the Heart of God the Freedom Fulness Fruitfulness Infiniteness in the Spirit and Life of God David hath often expressions to this purpose I will Sing to thee I will Sing to the Lord. So St. Paul speaks Making melody to God The Holy Soul Sings of God to God Spiritual Joy is the Free letting forth of the Spirit with God concerning God It is often the Work and Delight of a Holy Soul to open her mouth wide to take in to the utmost the contemplation of God the communications of his Greatness Fulness Sweetness Glory and then when she is fullest to pour forth herself again into the Ear and Bosom of her God You may see this in the Psalmist Psalm 45. 1. My Heart is enditing a good matter I
or the Creatures with that which is Gods He will tear more of it away and leave thee still more Broken and Naked Let thy Heart go out of all Things into God make Him thy Delight Alone and He will give thee All thy Desires These are are the Motives to persuade you to the First Rule to make God in the Singleness of his own Person your Joy Obj. But now some one may say Shall we so give our selves to look up to God in Contemplation as never to look down upon our own Conversation Shall we consider God only and take no Care of our Selves Shall we satisfy our Selves to think that God is most Holy and most Excellent though we in the mean time be never so Sinful and Vile Is not this like Him who gazed upon the Stars and fell into the Ditch Ans. While we thus Object we err not knowing the Power of God nor the Way of the Spirit of Man And this is my Two-fold Answer the First from the Power of God the Second from the Spirit of Man 1. Ans. From the Power of God The Light of God is the Light of Life as Jesus Christ calls it It is no Dead Light it works Transplanting the Soul into the same Principle Transforming the Soul into the same Image with itself As the Beams of the Sun have a Heat and Influence going along with their Light so have the Appearances of God to the Soul a Fire in them which baptizeth it The Discoveries of God carry the Spirit of God along with them by which those Excellencies of God are and Act wheresoever they Appear according to the Manner and Measure of their Appearance 2 Cor. 3. 18. Beholding the Glory of the Lord we are changed into the Likeness of the same Image even as by the Working of the same Spirit To know thee is Eternal Life saith Iesus Christ to his Father John 17. 3. Spiritual Changes are made in Spiritual Contemplations The Knowledge of God is the Life of God in the Soul which first brings forth itself in the Flower and then in the Fruit. It was said under the Law No man can see God and live that is in or to himself But the Gospel saith No man can see me and lie dead in Sin or Flesh 1 John 2. 4. He that saith I know Him and keepeth not his Commandments is a Liar Look unto me and be ye saved saith God in the Prophet Isa. 45. 22. Sanctification and Salvation Holiness and Ioy come down upon us when we look up to God 2. Ans. From the Spirit of Man What is it Draws Man on to any Course Is it not some Image set up before the Eyes of His mind What is it which Drives the Soul swiftly forward in any way Is it not the Delight which it feels and enjoys 1. Our Saviour tells thee Mat. 6. 22. The Light of the Body is the Eye if thine Eye be Single thy whole Body shall be full of Light Such as the Image is Which is in the Eye such is the whole Man If the Eye takes in One Pure Simple Image of Him who is One who alone is Good then is the Eye Single for it becomes One with this Image Then is the whole Body Light For every Member is formed and moved according to that Image But if the Eye be Evil taking in the Double the Divided Image of any Creature then the whole Body is Dark it is Uncertain Confused Distracted in all its Members and Motions This is the Misery of Men that their Light is Darkness They have no other Images of Things before their Eyes no Appearances of God in their Understandings beside those of this World and the Creature This fills their Life with all manner of Disorder It were Happy for us that we were always in the Contemplations of God that we had Him alone in all our Thoughts so should the Eye of our Soul be Single and we should be ever carryed on towards that Single Supream Good according to Him as Children of Light The Eye wherever it is is the Highest Image and Representative the Immediate Production Habitation and Iâ—let of the Superiour Principle or Power As the Appearance is in the Eye so are the Actings and Out-goings thorow the whole Body The same Word in Hebrew signifies the Eye and a Fountain The Eye and the Heart are the same Thing in Spirituals having only this different Notion the Heart is as the Principle in the Image the Eye as the Image in the Principle the Heart as the Unity in the Variety the Eye as the Variety in the Unity the Heart as the Father in the Son the Eye as the Son which hath the Father in the Trinity But to return thus you see that it is the Image which we have in our Minds which draws us to Good or Evil. 2. It is Delight which drives us This is the Oyl to the Wheels of our Soul The Ioy of the Lord is your Strength Where your Treasure there will your Hearts be saith our Blessed Lord Mat. 6. 21. That is a Mans Treasure in which he hath Joy O that we had less Joy in the Creatures and more in the Creator then would our Treasure and Hearts be in Heaven Cant. 1. 3. The Spouse saith to Jesus Christ Thy Name is as an Ointment poured forth therefore do the Virgins love thee See the Kindly the Spiritual Way of the Lord with that Soul which he espouseth to Himself 1. He poureth forth his Name the Discovery of his Person and Excellencies in the Soul He filleth the Eye of the Soul the understanding of Man with the Contemplation of His Riches and Glories 2. This Name thus poured out becomes as an Ointment in the Soul It perfumes the Spirit It spreads a Strong Delicate Sweetness and Delight thorow the Heart and Affections 3. This Perfume of Delight makes the Soul in Love with Jesus Christ makes her full of Longings after him of Breathings and Cries to be taken up into Communion with Him and made more Conformable to Him Thus as the Contemplations of God draw the Soul so a Complacency and Joy in God drive her on to Believe Love Obey And this is according to the Natural Way of the Spirit of Man The Object informs the Understanding the Understanding moves the Will and Affections these put the Whole Man into Action O then fear not any Danger in Delighting your selves in the Excellencies of God as he is Naked in himself If you be not Good this Joy will make you Such If you be Good this Joy will make you Better So much for this Objection and the First Rule for the Removal of the Second Mistake by which we are apt to look into our Selves for the Ground of our Joy 2. Rule Take the Rise of your Ioy from Iesus Christ not as he Communicates Himself to you but as he Comprehends you in Himself St. Paul expresseth this Distinction and Rule in the Life in his own Example
the Angels and all the Spirits of Just men the General Assembly of all Glorious Spirits meet on Mount Sion which is a Spirit that cannot be toucht with hands The Person of thy Saviour is such a Spiritual Substance He can come into thy Closet thy Bosom thy Heart He can dwell in the same Body in the same Soul with thee in the most Inward Parts in every Part of Both and yet take up no more Room The Word which is Christ is within thee even in thy Heart and in thy Mouth in the most Inward and most Outward Part. All of Man and every Creature is either Heart or Mouth an Indrawing or an Out-driving Power the Inward Principle or the Out-ward Appearance Our Saviour divides the whole Man into Heart and Mouth when He tells us that Nothing which enters into the Mouth defiles a Man but that which comes forth from the Heart Jesus Christ is a Spirit in thy Heart and in thy Mouth He pierceth to the Bottom of the most Secret Principle of Life and Being in thee He is as Inward with That and Thee as That is with Thee He passeth quite through all over the Bredth and Length of that Body that Appearance in which thou walkest He makes it His Clothing as it is Thine This is the First Power of a Spirit 2. Power Receiving A Spirit receives other Things into self as Inwardly as Entirely as It conveys itself into Them We read of the Depths of Satan Rev. 2. 24. of the Deep Things of God 1 Cor. 2. 10. We read of a Pit for the Devil which can be no other than a Spirit of Darkness and Wrath in himself or in God Rev. 20. 3. We read of Chambers for the Saints Es. 26. of a House and Mansions for them above which can be no other than Spirits of Grace and Glory in God A Spirit hath an Opening and a Depth in itself into which it can receive all things without any Breach in it self An Evil Spirit hath its Pit into which it taketh in and swalloweth up whatever it taketh hold of A Good Spirit hath its Chambers and Mansions its Retreats and Abodes in it self for what Guests it pleaseth to admit or draw in Abide in me saith Iesus Christ to his Disciples Iob. 15. 4. As every Thing may be a Temple to a Spirit Your Bodies are the Temples of the Holy Ghost 1 Cor. 6. 19. As a Saint is the Temple of Christ So a Spirit may be a Temple to any Thing So the Lord Iesus is a Temple into which the Saints may at all times enter and have Communion with God Destroy this Temple and in three days I will build it again This he spoke of his Body John 2. 21. The Body of Christ was a Temple shut up with a Vail before it while it was Natural But when it was made Spiritual by the Resurrection it was the most Holy place set open for thee to come into it and never to go out more Heb. 9. 1 3 8. Flesh is a mere Shadow which can only touch upon Things but can take in Nothing A Spirit is the Life and hath a Depth in it for which it is compared to Water This is the Second Power of a Spirit 3. Power Uniting The Spirit is the Band of Unity 'T is true of every Spirit so far as it hath the Nature of a Spirit in it Bodies in Flesh are Divided and Broken things being held together only so far as they are Bound up in One Spirit Bodies in Flesh converse with all things at a Distance in a Divided Manner Our Saviour is said to take away the Wall of Partition in his own Flesh when he crucified the Flesh in himself for Himself and the whole World Eph. 2. 14. A Spirit is Uncapable of Division being One in it self and making all things One with it which it takes in or converses with Spirits are compared to Flames Heb. 1. As Flames they lick up into themselves and Incorporate as it were with themselves whatever they light upon or work upon So the Power which caught up Eliah was represented by a Chariot of Fire It was as a Chariot because it took him into it self It was a Fire because it took him up into the Fellowship of One Life Glory and Spirit with it self This is the First Answer to that Question which asketh What we understand by the Person of Christ when we speak of his comprehending us 2. Answer Christ is the Highest Spirit He is Lord of all We read 2 Cor. 4. the last words thus the Spirit of the Lord. It is in Greek the Spirit the Lord. Jesus Christ is the supreme Spirit that Spirit which is Lord of All. The Majesty of our Saviour's Person consists in this that he is that Spirit which hath the most Absolute Power over all Spirits Persons and Things together with the most comprehensive Greatness A Spirit is like a Prospect the Higher it is the more Commanding and Comprehensive it is 3. Answer Christ is the Brightest Spirit He is the Brightness of the Father's Glory Heb. 1. 3. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Out-shining All the Effusion of Beams from the Godhead is through the Person of Christ. All the Beams meet within the Compass of that Person We before cited a Place of Scripture which calls the Spirit A Band of Unity The Lord Jesus is that Spirit in which all the Goings forth of the God-head are united as a Knot of Beams a Band a Bundle of Divine Irradiations or Manifestations This Blessed Person and Spirit is the Highest the clearest Light which as a Garden-bed discloseth and exposeth all things to view in the most natural naked and distinct manner This is the Word which being spoken all things are exprest Heb. 4. 12 13. The Word of God is lively All things are naked and bare before him with whom we have to do 4. Answer The Person of Christ is the First and Fountain-Spirit The Second Adam is a Quickning Spirit a Life-giving or Life-making Spirit All Spirits Persons and Things that have Life or are from Life they are in this Spirit as Waters in their Fountain They are in Him Primarily and Eminently They are in Him more truly than they are in themselves For they derive that which they are in themselves from Him 5. Answer Christ is the Image of God Col. 1. 15. He is the Image of the Invisible God But you may say that every thing is an Image of God one way or another It is true for St. Paul saith that the Invisible things of God are made manifest by the things that are made Rom. 1. 20. Therefore the meaning of St. Paul in that other place is that He is the Image the Full Image the Proper the Perfect Image of God All the Workings and Manifestations of God are in this Blessed Spirit and that according to their several States with their Proper Distinctions Otherwise the Image were Imperfect All the Discoveries of God are in
But man hath a Head above this Head The Head of Man is Christ as the Head of Christ is God 1 Cor. 11. 3. Man hath a Spirit above this Spirit Whom I with my Spirit serve in the Gospel of his Son Saith St. Paul Rom. 1. 9. The Heavenly Principle is this Head and Spirit Thou hast an Eternal Life in this Head and Spirit of thine In this Life thou art more than an Angel in the midst of the Throne thou art Light in the Lord thou art in the Light of the Lord as He Himself is in that Light This is the First Life 2. Life The Life of the Earthly Principle as it is Comprehended in the Heavenly The Earthly Principle in the Heavenly is as the Heavenly Behold saith Jesus Christ I make all Things new 2 Corin. 5. 17. As the Sun riseth upon the Earth so doth the New Man upon the Old making that also to have a New Face of Immortality as it is comprehended in the Beams of the New Man The Glory of God taking up Elijah was as a Chariot of Fire because as it catcheth up it changeth and conforms to itself that which it catcheth up into itself Such is the Heavenly Principle taking up the Earthly into it When St. Paul was caught up into the Third Heaven and Paradise then he was another man I knew a Man saith he Then he was that Man of Paradise If he was caught up in the Body then was his Earthly Body a Paradisical Body comprehended in the Body of Paradise When he was let down again he was an Earthly Man in an Earthly Body 2 Cor. 12. The Graecian Poet tells us of an Herb which had one Name among the Gods and another Name among Men. All the Things of this world have one sort of Names and Natures as they are in their own Principle But as they are Comprehended and Converst with by a Heavenly Principle they have quite other Names and Natures which are Heavenly As Adam so each Principle gives Names to all Things according to itself and by those Names they are called in that Principle The Sickness and Death of the Earthly Principle have other Names Names of Life in the Heavenly Principle This is the Second Life 3. Life The Life of the Heavenly Principle in the Earthly This is as the Life of Christ in the Flesh. It is the Life of the Son of God in Flesh. This is the Firmament which divides between the Waters of Life above and the Waters of Grief and Death below It reacheth to both and drinks of both It hath in its own Principle all the Springs of Peace and Joy But as it is in one Person and Principle with the Fleshly Man it takes the Infirmities of that upon itself and bears all its Diseases And besides all it hath one Disease of its own which the Earthly Man bears no part in and that is the Imprisonment Restraint and Contradiction of Sins and Sinners which it suffers in the Earthly Principle The Heavenly Principle in the Earthly is both the Primary Inflicter of all Sufferings and the Principle afflicted by those Sufferings 4. Life The Life of the Earthly Principle as it is Subordinate to the Heavenly This is that Flesh of Christ of which St. Paul speaks in the Mystery as of the Spouse of Christ Ephes. 5. 31 32. This is that Spouse which though it have still a Head a Principle of its own yet it vails this Head and subordinates this Principle to the Heavenly Principle as to its Husband till it be taken up into it that so there may be no more Male and Female but one Man in Christ no more Flesh and Spirit but all according to the New Adam a Quickning Spirit This Flesh is indeed washt with pure water that it cannot sin But it is Baptized unto Christ as the Jews were unto Moses 1 Cor. 10 2. in the Cloud and in the Sea It is the Immediate and Proper Subject of all Sufferings This is the Man that saith Lamen 3. 1. I am the Man that hath seen affliction by the Rod of his Wrath. This is a Beast for Slaughter But it is the Lamb among the Beasts It is a Lamb without Spot which is slain all the day long But it is slain as a Sacrifice not as an Abomination 5. Life The Life of the Earthly Principle in itself This is the Wild Ass that runs and snuffs up the Wind. This is the Seat of Sorrows and the Pit of Pollutions St. Paul Colos. 2. 11. calls this the Body of the Sins of the Flesh. The Flesh as it is in its own Principle is the Womb and Mother of all Evil. The Devil sows all his several Seeds in this Womb. So the Body that springs forth from the Flesh is the Devils Body in which all the Members are the several puttings forth of those various Seeds and Divers Principles of Evil cast by the Devil into the Flesh. These Principles are in truth so many particular Devils in him who is their Prince and Head The Body of the Sins of the Flesh is then a Cluster of Devils Incarnated in which each Member in particular is a particular Devil in Flesh Rom. 6. 19. As ye have yielded your Members Servants in a verse before St. Paul called them Instruments unto Uncleanness and Iniquity that is to the Principle of Uncleanness and Iniquity which is the Devil to Iniquity that is to make themselves one with that Principle and the various Images or manifestations of the various Powers in that Principle so yield your Members Servants to Righteousness that is Jesus Christ the Righteousness of God unto Holiness to the pure unmixt unclouded holding forth of the several vertues of Christ thorow your several Members You see the Life of the Earthly Principle in itself that it is the Center or Spring thorow which the Prince of Darkness and Devils thrusts forth all his Evil Powers and Spirits into a Body By this means it is made the Beast that bears the Whore it is made an Ass which bows down its back to all the Burthens of every Devil and Evil. Thus much for the Distinctions which concern the manner of our grieving Now follow the Rules which are drawn from these Distinctions to direct us in the Spiritual manner of Mourning 1. Rule Know the Ground of your Mourning to be the Subordinate only and not the Supream Appearance of God Psal. 30. 5. His anger endureth but a moment in his favour is Life Weeping may endure for a Night but Joy comes in the Morning When thou grievest and lamentest most bitterly then remember that this Discovery of God which covers thee with so much Horrour is but a momentary and dark one it is the Night the Back-part of God The Morning-appearance the Face of thy God is Bright and Shining with Joy The Living True Eternal Discovery which is above all other Discoveries is favourable and kind When thou lookest upon God and takest the Rise of thy
Jesus Christ. We sprung up in Eternity in the Heart of God out of the Person of the Lord Jesus there as Images of him who as he rose up in the Divine Nature the essential Image of it was Fruitful from the Root of that Nature according to the Power of Life and Store of Spirit in it So he multiplied himself by the strength of the Father into many such Images in the heart and thoughts of God Thus we were chosen in and by him Thus also we were chosen to be Conformed to the Image of this Son as you shall read Rom. 8. 29. Whom he did foreknow he did also predestinate to be conform'd to the Image of his Son The Fathers fore-knowledge of us in his Son was the ground of our predestination by him and conformity to him A chief part in Christ is the dark part his Sufferings a chief part of our Conformity to him lies in our Sufferings and Sorrows Rom. 8. 17. Joynt-heirs with Christ if so be we suffer with him that we may be also glorified together Our whole inheritance is our conformity to the Lord Jesus This Inheritance lies as well in Suffering as in being glorified We have a double interest in Christ One in the Unity of his Spirit Another in the variety of his Body According to our First interest we are one with Christ that is by the Unity of the Spirit 1 Cor. 6. 17. So we are to have the fulness of Christs Sufferings form'd over again upon our Persons in the Spirit 2 Cor. 4. 10. According to our Second interest in the Body of Christ we are only particular members 1 Cor. 6. 15. In this particular membership a particular 〈◊〉 of Sufferings pertains to us according to our place in the Body The portion of sorrow allotted to every Saint in this capacity is as much inferiour to the miseries of our Blessed Saviour as that Member is inferiour to the Head But for this reason the Providence of God leads us to occasions of sorrow and then opens in us a spring of Sorrow that we may fulfil our measure in the sufferings of Christ Col. 1. 21. This is the first Mystery of our Griefs our Conformity to Christ that we may be Brethren Spouses and Members of Christ. 2 Mystery Our Complyance with the Will of God We mourn that we may be like Christ Brethren grown up from one Root with him Spouses drawn forth from his side Bone of his Bone Flesh of his Flesh Principle of his Principle Image of his Image Strength of his Strength Weakness of his Weakness But now you may ask what the mystery of all sufferings and griefs are as they are Christ's first and so ours Answ. I answer to that by a place of Scripture Heb. 5. 8. Though he were a Son yet learned he Obedience by the things which he suffered There are Two Waies of Learning one Speculative in the Contemplations of the Spirit the other Practical in the Conformity of the Person There are Two Waies of Obedience one in the Will being prepared and ready to all things the other in the Work of Doing or Suffering being actually undertaken and thorowly undergone Our Lord Jesus was ever in all things obedient to his Father so far as that State in which he was would permit While he liv'd in Heaven he was obedient to the Death in the Contemplations of his Mind and the Conformity of his Will so far as these two Wings could carry him But all this while the Devil might say of Jesus as he did of Job He dyes for his Father in his Speculations and Purposes at a distance while his Father maintains a hedge of Life and Joys round about him while he sees not Death but as Death it self is a living and beautiful Image in a Prospect of Glory Therefore Jesus Christ is brought down into Flesh that he may try and so experimentally learn another way of suffering by an Actual Descent into the Power of Darkness and Misery as it is in its own Principle Our Father could have prevented the Rising up of the Spring or Principle of Sin in the Heart of the creature So he could have cut off all occasions of sorrow or suffering He could have taken away Sin by a change and not by a Death Transfiguring instead of Crucifying us and this too by the heavenly Person resting upon us in a White Cloud and taking us up in it self without its Descent into the Dark Cloud of this earthly Body Thy Father could restrain the Issues of Lust in thee which send forth so much Filth upon which we pour forth so many Tears So our Tears might have been spared But if all this had been where had been the Testimony of our Obedience to the Father There are Two Waies of Obeying God One in the concurrency of his Will and ours the other in a contradiction between his Will and ours A holy Spirit obeys God the first way in Heaven and Joys For there it takes up its Joys and tasts a Sweetness in them much more out of Obedience than Appetite because they are the Will of God rather than because they agree with its own will But we obey God the Second way on Earth in Afflictions In Heaven we give up our will to be swallowed up in the Will of God as a River in the Sea In our Sorrows we Sacrifice our wills to the Will of God as the Beasts were Sacrificed by their Death and by Fire So Jesus Christ when his will was at the height of contrariety to the Will of God according to its own proper inclination If it be possible let this Cup pass from me Yet then he cut the Throat of his will and laid it panting upon the Altar to be wholly consumed in the dreadfullest way in the Fire of divine wrath and vengeance Thou in all thy Griefs accomplishest the same Mystery after the same manner Thou Feastest the will of the Father by the Fast of thine own will Thou obeyest thy God and servest his Pleasure by the binding and Offering up of thy Isaac all thy Pleasures 3. Mystery The Compleating of our Persons This is yet a Further and the utmost depth in the Mystery of our Sorrows The Scripture holds it forth in the Person of Christ as the Pattern in our Persons as the Copies of that Pattern We read of Jesus Christ Heb 2. 10. that he was made Perfect through Sufferings That is Perfect which hath all parts belonging to it It belonged to the Person of Jesus Christ to act all parts to appear in all shapes For he was to be the dwelling place of all Fulness 1 Colos. 19. He was to unfold the manifold wisdom of God in his own Person Ephes. 3. 10. He came forth as the Word to make a full and distinct expression of God The Nature of God is the Glass in which all Natures are first formed and seen The Natures of Light and Darkness Shame and Glory Joy and Misery to say
Superiour and Inferiour One above Another below In that above is the Fountain of Pleasure from thence the stream descends which makes that below ever-green and flourishing with delights Eden signifies Pleasure or Delight which name in another word is given to Christ as he was eternally in the bosom of the Father Prov. 8. 30. I was by him one brought up with him Delights from day to day Jesus Christ in his Heavenly Image in the Substance and Essence of the eternal Light is Eden the Paradise above In his earthly Image the sweet Shade where all his Beauties seem at once to sleep and spring he is the Paradise below There is he the Eden and the Fountain in the midst of Eden Here the Garden watered by the River going forth from Eden A good Heart hath in itself both these Paradises the Fountain and the Stream Eden and the Garden Cant. 4. 15. The Lord Jesus calls his Spouse A Fountain of Gardens a Well of living Waters flowing from Libanon The holy Heart is both the Fountain which makes all things Gardens Paradises which way soever it flows and those Gardens too It is both Libanon with the Fountain in it and the Gardens below in the vallies in the midst of which the Living Waters from this Fountain run along Reasâ—n The Heart is that Spirit which is the first Spring and Principle of Life in man Prov. 4. 23. Keep thine heart with all Diligence For out of it are the Issues of Life All the treasures of this World its Light Forms Vertues operations are first in the Sun From thence they flow forth in various Streams all round about him while yet they are still comprehended in him as being not only their inmost Center but also their outmost Circle of Light and Life So is the Heart or Spirit of Man an Invisible Sun in the midst of him far more great or glorious than this which we see in which all forms and acts of Life like Beams rise up first and fullest from whence they are dispensed and dispersed The Hebrew word to keep imports a double sense 1st Diligently observe thine Heart what Spirit or Principle it is by which thou art acted Such as this is such is thy whole Life If thy Heart be a Substantial true pure Spirit thy whole way and work all thy Joyes are Substance Truth Light Immortality as the Visions of God If the Heart which is in thee be shadowy thy Life is vain and empty the dream of a shadow Is thy heart corrupt and polluted then are all thy Streams poisoned death lurks and sports itself in them with an innumerable company of Devils 2. Keep that is preserve thine own thy true Heart with all diligence Abide in Christ and his Love as the only root of Life from whence alone spring the sap greennesses flowers fruits of true Sweetnesses Beauty and Blessedness Watch day and night that no other Spirit put forth itself in thee for every other Principle besides Christ and his Love will certainly prove a Counterfeit and instead of a Heart out of which the Issues of Life ought to be a root of bitterness There is a Twofold Heart 1. Natural 2. Spiritual 1. There is a Natural Heart This is the supream part of the natural Soul the Angelical Spirit in Man 1 Thes. 5. 23. St. Paul prayes The very God of Peace sanctifie you wholly and I pray God your whole Spirit and Soul and Body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Here we have the natural Man divided into three parts which are equally capable of being sanctified or by defilement made subject to blame 1. Spirit 2. Soul 3. Body The Spirit is as the Fountain the Soul the Stream of Life The Body the Channel in which this Stream runs along The whole Man is one Beam sprung immediately from the Divine Glory The upper end of the Beam where it is fullest and brightest immediately united to and rooted in the supream Light makes the Spirit The lowest point least and darkest almost vanishing into the Shade with which it mingles its light where it toucheth the Earth is the Body The Soul is the middle of that Beam partaking of both these dividing and uniting them like the Firmament between the Waters above and the Waters below the Angels being the Waters above the Firmament and Corporeal Lives those below The Spirit is the Angel in Man or Man in the Similitude and Society of Angels the invisible Image the first Treasury of all his Natural Beings Beauties and Life which afterward descends and distinguisheth itself into the varieties of Inferiour Acts and Appearances St. Paul therefore in the forementioned place calls it their whole Spirit The Body is the Outward and Visible Image the Shadow below of this above The Soul is the Life by which the Spirit descends into the Body maintains communion with it and gathers it up again into itself According to these Distinctions and Descriptions Solomon discourseth Eccles. 12. 7. Then shall the Dust return to the Earth as it was and the Spirit shall return to God who gave it The name of God there signifies Gods or Angels for whom it is frequently and expresly used in the Holy Scripture The Jews say it properly imports the Divine Nature as it is cloathed with the Angelical God in the midst of all his Holy Angels coming forth into the Creation descending to be the Head of it It is an English Proverb If men could live without the company of Women men they should converse with Angels This is true when the Spirit which is the Head and the Man in us withdraws itself from its Shadowy Image the Body which is as the Woman it finds itself in the Form of an Angel and in the Society of Angels From the Angelical State and Company it descends into the Body Thither it returns again when it leaves the Body This is the Natural Heart the Angelical Spirit in Man made in the Similitude of God as he cloaths himself with the Angelical Image as with a Garment of Light and so vailing his naked unaccessible Glories comes forth to be the Head of Angels This Spirit is the Immediate Seat of the Divine Presence the Glory the Angelical Throne Here the precious things of the Sun and the Moon of the Invisible and Visible Image of the Divine Nature here the Riches of the whole Creation appear together in their fullest Lustre and most beautiful Order The Letters of the Latine Name for Heart Cor make the first Letters of those word Camera Omnipotentis Regis which being interpreted are the Chamber of the Almighty King It is a common observation that the Heart of Man is Triangular which therefore cannot be filled with the round World but only with the Trinity This Heart of which we speak is properly Triangular consisting like the Angels of these Three Essence Understanding and Will the proper and Immediate Type of the Trinity which as it can be
Prize under which all the Troop march for which they fight to which and under which the whole Troop is gathered together The Beauty and Loveliness of Christ's Person is the Banner spread over all things under which in the force of which for which all things move in their several courses to which the gathering together of All shall be The Instinct of this is All Love The Possession and Springing forth of this All Joy We read in the Acts of an Altar with an Inscription To the unknown God St. Paul preaching upon this Text telleth the Athenians Him whom ye ignorantly worship preach I unto you meaning Christ. In the whole frame of Nature every Heart every Creature every Affection every Action is an Altar with the same kind of Inscription To the Unknown Beauty To the Unknown Jesus This is the Mark the White which every Being in nature ignorantly moveth to which every motion ignorantly aimeth at this is that which all Understandings all Loves ignorantly worship esteem and adore this Beauty of Jesus Christ concerning which we now speak Blessed are your hearts O Believers which are Spiritual Altars with the Person of Christ engraven upon them by the finger of God flaming with the fire of an heavenly Love and bearing this Inscription To the known Beauty of that Jesus whom we know whose Person our Eyes have seen our Ears have heard our Hands have handled the Arms of our Spirits have embraced I come now from the Proof to the Reasons of the Doctrine which are four 1. Iesus Christ is Beauty in its Original 2. He is the Perfection of Beauty 3. He hath all the Parts of Beauty most compleat in his Person 4. All Beauty is derived from him Reas. 1. The Person of Christ is Beautiful in its Original He is the First so the Highest and Best Beauty Heb. 1. 3. Christ is said to be The Brightness of the Glory of God Four things go to make up the Glory of God 1. Excellency 2. Excellency at the height 3. An Union of all Excellencies reflecting upon imparting themselves to each other All center themselves in the bosom of every one All see themselves living and shining in the face each of other as in a living Looking-glass Our Beloved is that Image into which this Glory so brings forth it self that it is One with it self Brightness implies three things 1. Glory at the Height as Light in the Sunshine 2. Glory appearing Glory in an Image 3. Glory in its Purity The Person of our Jesus is such an Image as is the Glory itself a Deep of Glory a pure unmixt unconfined infinite Glory He is an Image of so clear Glory so One with the Glory that All the God-Head appears in Him and nothing of it can hide itself from being seen there The Person of Christ is the Essential and Eternal Glory of the God-Head in its own proper Form in which it may be seen by Spiritual Eyes in which it may be a heavenly Bridegroom capable of being possessed embraced and enjoyed by the Spiritual Bride the Wife of this Lamb without spot or blemish Can any soul that hath had the least glympse of this Mine this Mass of Glory the Blessed Person of Christ be so treacherous like Judas as to value him at and sell him for thirty pieces of silver the Riches of this world Can any Spirit upon whose inward Eye the least Beam of his Beauty hath faln be so prophane as Esau was to sell his Birthright his Inheritance in this Kingdom of Beauty the Glorious Person of his God and Saviour for a Mess of Pottage for sensual satisfactions for a lust for a shadowy life on Earth It is added Heb. 1. 3. That He is the express Image of His namely God the Father's Substance or Person True Beauty is defined to be the proper and native Image of some True Good The True Beauty calls and allures all hearts to it The True Good gives them rest in the bosom of that Beauty Beauty is Goodness visible Good is the Invisible Spring and Center in that Beauty God is the First and Supreme Good Jesus Christ then who is the Express Image of His Substance and Person in whom He is figured after the most exact and lively manner is the First and Supreme Beauty God the Father is the First and Supreme Good as the God-Head in the Root Jesus Christ is the First and Supreme Beauty as the God-Head in the Flower springing out of and standing in the Bosom of its Root having all the virtues of the Root in clear and full figures forming themselves most gloriously and most amiably upon it The Holy Spirit is the First the Supreme Love and Joy as the God-Head in the Fruit in which all the precious virtues of the Root all the lively and lovely Beauties of the Flower are tasted feasted upon and enjoyed To make our Esteem Admiration Adoration and Love yet greater we must also observâ— that these Three in the Divine Nature in the Person of Christ the Root the Flower and the Fruit are inseparable they all mutually comprehend each other that every One may be perfect having the Other Two entire in it self Ho! every one that sitteth under the shadow of any melancholy any grief or fear that saith who will shew us the True Good Who will shew us Beauty indeed or where the place of Love is Who will make us to drink of the Fountain of Joy Come hither to the Person of Christ. But come boldly stand not without the Vail press into the Holy of Holies come near to the Person of Christ himself Come past all shadows of Glory come to the brightness of Glory the naked Person of your Jesus Here shall your Eyes be satisfied with Beauty your Souls shall rest in Goodness you shall take your fill of Love and Joy Reas. 2. The Person of Christ is the perfection of Beauty Psal. 50. 2. From Sion the Perfection of Beauty God shall shine There are three Things which I would make clear to you in this Scripture 1. That Sion is the Third Person in the Trinity the Holy Spirit 2. That the Perfection of Beauty is a description of the Second Person the Lord Jesus 3. Why these two are so joyned as if one only were meant This verse hath a deep Mystery of Divinity in it Glorious Persons are contained here But there is a Vail of borrowed Names from inanimate things upon them It will be worth your time and patience to stay a while at this place to search into the Mystery to take off the Vail and discover the Beauty 1. I think it will be plain to every understanding that the blessed Spirit is figured by Mount Sion if you compare three Scriptures Gal. 4. 26. Jerusalem above is free which is the Mother of us all Gal. 4. 28 29. We Brethren are the Children of the Promise as Isaac As therefore it was then so it is now he that is born after the Flesh
of my Countenance or the Salvations of my Persons of my Persâ—n in every Form and Appearance and my God Psa. 42. 11. Thus do thou discourse with thine own Soul when it is overcast and bowed down with fear care or sorrows Why droopest thou my Soul Why doest thou mourn and groan Why art thou thus unquiet within me Look to thy Iesus I shall yet sing new songs of my Beloved and praise His Beauties these are the Spiritual wine that maketh glad my Heart the Oyl of Joy that maketh my face to shine He is a Million of Salvations and Heavens to me in every state He is my God Why art thou cast down O my Soul Lift up thine Eyes to the Person of Christ Is not this Anoynted One with all the Beauties of the God-Head ever before thee Doth not be continually encompass thee and shine round about tâ—ee with all variety of pleasantnesses and glories like the Rainbow round about the Throne of God Rev. 4. Is not His Desire towards thee that thou mayest rule over His Beauties and satisfie thy self at all times with these Breasts of Divine Sweetneâ—s Feed then like a Roe among these Lillies The Person of Christ is not His own but Thine Thou hast power over it and all its Heavenly Treasures Let Him then with all His Excellencies lye like a bundle of Myrrhe between thy breasts all thâ—â— dark Night breathing Sweetness into thy Spirit and as a Cordiall fortifying thy Heart against all assaults with a glorious Joy Here make thy self with all thy flocks of thoughts and affections to lye down O my Soul Here lose thy 〈◊〉 and this dark appearance of Things in these Lovelinesses of thy Saviâ—ur's â—ersâ—n which cometh forth like a Brdegroom out of His Chamber of Eternity 〈◊〉 His Father's Bosom like a Sun fresh in all His Morning-Beauties to run his race of Glory in thy Person and to swallow up that into the Circles of His Pure Light Reas. 4. I come now to the 4 th and last Reason why Jesus Christ is the Fairest of all things All Beauty is derived from Him Beauty any where in the Creature is an Image of the Divine Nature by which that maketh itself visible testifieth its Presence awakeneth the Soul to a sense of itself and to seek after it The Lord Jesus is the First Image of the Invisible God the Supream Beauty So every other Image is drawn from Him dependeth upon Him and is comprehended primitively purely in Him Every other Beauty is a Copy of Him taken from Him who alone is the Life Col. 1. 18. All things are made by Christ invisible visible in Heaven on Earth Angels all were made by Him and for Him by Him as the Exemplar Cause for him as the End that thorow the Picture the Person Himself might as a Sleeping Seed stir up itself and spring in the Light of every understanding and sense in the Love of every Heart All Things are By Christ Two ways 1. As the Pattern of the Work 2. As the Power Working 1. Every thing is by Christ as the Pattern of the Work Our Lord Jesus is the Wisdom of God Wisdom is an Inward Image in every Spirit according to which it ordereth its way and fashioneth its work that the Whole may be One Piece and a Beauty may result from the agreement of all Parts in the unity of the whole as also from the Harmony of the outward Form and the Inward Image which by their mutual reflections pour forth pleasures and joys into the bosom of each other In Nature the Spirit included in the Seed of a Rose hath within it self the Image of a Rose-tree with all its proportions leaves and flowers beauties and sweetnesses several growths the bud and the full-blown Rose According to this Image the Seed putteth forth it self the Spirit in the Seed formeth it self upon the outward Matter and figureth the whole Plant in all the progress and perfections of it The Person of our Beloved is the onely Image in that Eternal Spirit which is God blessed for ever In this glorious Image doth He ride forth upon the face of the whole Creation from the beginning to the end In all His works of Power and Providence He consulteth onely with this Beautiful Image in His own Breast in which all the Treasures of Wisdom and Knowledge all the Patterns of Beauty and Excellency are laid up He figureth this Image upon every Creature and Work he fixeth this Image itself in every Creature and Work which by the lustre of its presence putteth a Life in the Figure and giveth a gloss to it as the Sun-shine to a Flower Gen. 40. 38 39. We have the History of Jacob laying streaked and speckled rods in the Water-troughs before the Cattel When they came to drink they saw these conceived and brought forth their young streaked and speckled like to these Thus God the Father in all the Excellencies of the God-Head generateth Jesus Christ and setteth his Person before him When he cometh to drink of these waters of Life to take in and feast himself upon the Joys of his own Essence and of the Divine Nature he hath his Beloved Son in his Eye continually From this Beatifical vision he is filled with the Innumerable Forms of his Son's Beauties From this Fulness the Father becometh Fruitful and bringeth forth the Creation with all the Forms and changes of it in the Figure of these Eternal Glories 2. All things are by Christ as the Power working Job 38. 14. It is turned as Clay to the Seal they stand as a Garment How sweet and clear a Depth is this Text How doth Jesus Christ in it shine from the Face of every Creature and from the unfathomable Light of his own Person What is this it it is turned You shall see in the verse immediately before it is the Earth which frequently is taken for the whole Creation in the language of the Scripture as Heaven for God But what is this Seal to which the Earth is turned like Clay Two verses before will shew you that this Seal is the Day-light Luk. 1. 78. Zacharias in his Song expresseth Jesus Christ by this name the Day-spring These are his words The Day-spring from on high hath visited us As the Day-light when it springeth in the morning overspreadeth the whole visible World and setteth a new Form upon every thing so the Lord Jesus as a Seal by the presence of his Person with every Creature imprinteth the figure of himself in a beautiful Form upon it Thus it is turned as a Clay to the Seal Job addeth they stand as a Garment The Creation is spoken of first Collectively It then all the Creatures in particular distributively They. There are two rich Glypmses given us of the glorious Person of our Lord in the Creation by these words 1. As the whole Creation in general so each in particular is sealed with the entire Person of Christ. 2. All the Creatures are Sealed with the
Fountain of wisdom above with the voice of our Faith to seek it as Silver in every thing round about us the pure mettal in the oar of the Creature by the Flame of our Love to dig for it as hidden Treasures within our selves below the Foundations of this Creation by Humility and the Cross This is the Comprehensiveness of the Knowledge of our Saviour 2. The Second Excellency in this Knowledge is the Efficacy This divideth itself into three Branches It worketh Grace 1. Universally 2. Powerfully 3. Kindly 1. The Knowledge of the Lord Jesus worketh Grace Universally It worketh all Grace together in a sweet Harmony John 17. 3. In a bosom-discourse between himself and his Father where he is most naked sweet and free the Lord Jesus saith to his Father This is Eternal Life to know thee the only true God and Him whom thou hast sent Jesus Christ God is True the Truth as he is God He is the True God as he is the Onely One Jesus Christ is sent forth from him as he is the Brightness the Effulgency the Outshining of his Glory his essential Image Thus is he also one with him The Father cannot be perfectly known by him if he be not perfectly one with him This verse hath in it a figure called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 One thing expressed as two like that a Cup and Gold for a Golden Cup. So here to know the only true God and Jesus Christ sent forth from him is to know that God who is the Unity and Truth in Jesus his essential Image in which he comprehendeth and cometh forth into all manner of various Images the outgoing of his Divine Essence in Eternity and Time Eternal Life is the whole Work of God upon the Souls of the Elect from the Beginning to the End the Divine Life begun in Grace on Earth compleated in Glory in Heaven I have formerly said that Knowledge maketh the Spirit One with that which is Known How should this endear the Knowledge of our Blessed Lord and quicken us to follow hard after it The true Knowledge of our Beloved maketh us One Spirit with Him and transformeth us into His Image which is the whole Armour of God put on at once the compleat frame and fabrick of all Grace rising up at once in the Heart All Graces are One in the Person of Christ. By taking him in and being made One with Him we take in All Grace and are molded into All Grace in One according to the measure of the Revelation of our Lord Jesus in us The want of having this Pattern upon the Mount Jesus in His Heavenly Form in the Eye of our Spirits is the great reason why the Tabernacle of God goeth up so imperfectly and brokenly in us One Saint is careful of his way but goâ—th sadly on another is chearful but careless One is sweet and slight another serious and soure censorious One is zealous and ignorant another high in his Light and loose in his Life Particular rules and precepts are like a Watering-pot which a man carrieth up and down in his hand watering his flowers and plants singly and slightly While one is watered the other withereth The Discovery of our Saviour in His Spiritual Person to the Eye oâ— our Spirits is as the gentle Rain from Heaven which at once watereth thy whole Garden and descendeth to the Root of every Truth Grace and comfort in thee Grow saith St. Peter in Grace and in the Knowledge of Jesus Christ. 2 Pet. l. l. Grace indifferently universally in the whole Nature and Kind is inseparable from the Knowledge of Jesus Christ. These two mutually breed and feed each other All Grace in the entire Frame and Harmony is the similitude the Image of Christs Person as it is in Glory formed in us As Christ riseth and shineth forth upon us this Image springeth up groweth clearer and fairer As this Image cometh to perfection so Jesus Christ is seen more perfectly in it as in a Glass If you be compleat Christians grow at once proportionably in all Grace in Light in Life in Love study the Heavenly Person of your Bridegroom grow in the Knowledge of him As the Eye of the Husband should be the Looking-glass of the Wife by which she adorneth her self so let this glorious Person of thy Beloved be that Spiritual Glass in which thou O Queen O Believing and loving Soul dressest thy self 2. The Knowledge of our Lord Jesus worketh Grace powerfully Psal. 19. 5. The Sun cometh forth like a Bridegroom out of his Chamber and a strong man to run a race His going forth is from the end of Heaven to the end thereof nothing can hide it from his Heat St. Paul testifieth to us Rom. 10. 18. that the Lord Jesus is the subject of the Spirit in this Psalm When he cometh forth from the Chamber of Invisible and Spiritual Glories in his Resurrection He cometh into the Soul at once as a Sun for Light and Glory as a Bridegroom for Love and Beauty as a strong man for Life Power and Progress When he riseth and shineth out in us he encompasseth our whole Person and Life from one end to the other he searcheth out every corner in both There is nothing so close so dark so corrupt so hard so unclean so dead so comfortless that can hide itself from the convincing enlightning consuming softning cleansing quickning comforting heat and power of his Appearance Every Beam of the Sun is a Figure of the Sun sheweth the Sun itself and carrieth along with it three Things Light Heat and Influence or Vertue Such is every Spiritual Truth in the Soul It is a Beam from the Person of Christ. It beareth a Figure of his Person and setteth his Person open and naked like a clear Sun before the Soul drawing the Eye of the Spirit to that and terminating it alone upon that Each Spiritual Beam each Glance every Discovery of Christ bringeth with it into the Soul a Light of Knowledge a Heat of Love a Convincing Converting Melting Transforming Chearing Sanctifying Spiritualizing Glorifying Influence and Power Go then in all thy pantings in all thy Prayers by night and by day cry to this Blessed Person Arise O Sun shine O Light that my Soul may become a Spiritual Garden that my Garden may flourish with all Spiritual Plants of Truth Grace and Joy that all my Spiritual Plants may give forth their smell and vertue by thine Appearance 3. The Knowledge of Christ worketh all Grace and maketh it most kindly Psal. 110. 3. The Spirit saith to Christ in the day of thy power thy people shall be a willing people in the beauties of holiness from the womb of the Morning the Dew of thy Youth The word Power signifieth also Armies Willing hath a twofold sense a natural pleasant Freedom and a Princeliness The Morning is the Person of Christ in the Glory of the Spirit who is called in Scripture the Day-spring the Light the Sun-rising When this
Job 1. 14. The Word was made Flesh. The true and Spiritual Body which is an Immortal Plant in the Heavenly Paradise according to the Almighty Power and Mysterâ—ous Will of the Eternal Word in which it standeth and Flourisheth maketh itself into a Body of Flesh. Again by the same Power in the sweet and glorious Mystery of the same Will it maketh this Flesh a Spirit If you ask now where it is it is Singing and Triumphing throughout all the Divâ—ne Powers throughout all the â—nnumerably various Forms of Eternal Life Beauty and Joy in the Heavenâ—y Body â—or that which was Flesh is now Spirit As the Tabernacle was removed into the Temple when the Temple was built up and set there as a part of the Sacred Mysteries in that Holy Place so the Spiritual Body when it is raised taketh up into itself and comprehendeth in itself the Vailing Form of Flesh as a Beautiful Form in that Divine Mystery which it finisheth in itself Qu. But you will say now perhaps How is this done by what Power and in what manner is the Body of our Lord in the Resurrection made a Quickning Spirit Ans. I answer that it is done by vertue of the Personal Union between the Divine and Humane Nature in Christ. The Person is the Word the Eternal Spirit This Word the Soul the Body of our beloved Jesus are all one Person so all one Eternal Spirit the Fountain of Life As the Soul is said to be all in the whole Body and All in every part of it so is the Person in Christ the Immmâ—rtal Word All in the whole Humane Nature and All in every part of it either Soul or Body The Union between the Divine Nature in our Bridegroom and his glorified Body is equally immediate and entire as between that and his Triumphant Soul The Humane Nature subsisteth and standeth in the Divine as a Tree in its Root But this Union in the days of his Flesh is as that between the Tree and its Root in Winter The Resurrection is our Saviours Spring-time and Summer Every living Root in Spring ceaseth not to send forth its Sap into the Tree until it have brought forth the Tree into that Form and laden it with those Fruits which are proper to the Root In the Resurrection the Divine Nature riseth up with all its Sweetness and Fatness all its Vertues and Powers into the Humane Nature till it have spread and fashioned it entirely into its own Form till it have laden it all over with the precious Fruits of its own excellencies Joys and Glories In every power part and point of Soul and Body though never so mean so small the Fountain of the God-Head openeth itself the Fulness of the God-Head poureth forth itself that as the Waters cover the Sea so every distinct Part or Point appeareth as a distinct Sea of the Divine Life Joys Loves and Glories without bottom or bound This O shadowy Man O faln lost Man is thy Jesus thy Life thy Saviour Look to this Jesus with an Eye of Faith with an Eye of Love live by Him live in Him live to Him Triumph thou because of this Jesus Look to Him as 1. Thy Principle 2. Thy Pattern 3. Thy Price 4. Thy Portion 1. Look to this Jesus who is All-Beautiful with the Beauty of the GodHead itself as thy Principle I am the vine ye are the branches He that abideth in me and I in him bringeth forth much fruit Without me ye can do nothing saith Jesus Christ Job 15. 5. The Tree first comprehendeth the Branch in itself then sendeth it forth supplying it continually with its own Life and Sap. By the vertue of this Life Sap the Branch taketh hold of the Tree sucketh in continually fresh and vital nourishment by which it flourisheth and bringeth forth much fruit What shall I say for thee who yet partakest not of the sweetness and fatness of this Spiritual Tree of Life and love Thou canst bring forth no Fruit thou canst do nothing towards thine own fruitfulness Without this Jesus thou canst do nothing O that thou didst understand thine own Emptiness and the Fulness of Sap in this Vine How truly All things Angels Men All the Creatures can do nothing are nothing without this Jesus that Spirit which is the onely Truth the onely Lfe in and thorow All I will pray over thee with inward bleedings of Divine Love from my heart O that Jesus thy Root who comprehendeth even thee also in the Fulness of His Heavenly sap and vertue would bring thee forth by a new birth as a Heavenly branch in Himself O that He would continually milk forth from His Breast the streams of His Life into thee Thus He abideth in thee Now do thou now wilt thou by Him abiding in thee abide in Him Shoot forth thy self into Him as roots do their Sprigs and Branches into the Earth beneath by the actings of thy Faith upon him Draw his Spirit and Grace into thy self Be green be fair and flourishing in the Eye of Heaven Bring forth much Fruit for thy self thy Saviour thy Heavenly Father all Angels and blessed Spirits to feed upon in Eternity 2. Look to this Jesus as thy Pattern What thou hast seen done in his Soul and Body by the Union between these and the God-Head the same Glory shall be brought forth in thy Soul and Body also by the Union between him and thee if thou in thy Soul and Body adhere and stick to his glorified Soul and Body as they are full of the Eternal Word dwelling in them and resting upon them The Angels reproved the Disciples when Christ was taken up into Glory because they looked to a visible Heaven to see their glorified Lord still with Eyes of Flesh Why stand you here gazing up into Heaven This same Jesus who is taken up from you into Heaven shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into Heaven I say to you in another sense stand and look upon your Jesus as he ascends This is your Pattern As you have seen him in his Humane Nature go up out of all Fleshly and Visible Images into an Invisible Glory as you have seen him taken out of the sight of every created Eye in the white Cloud of the most excellent Majesty of the Father which is the Heaven of Heavens so shall the same Jesus in like manner come again in your Souls and Bodies descending into them upon those Spiritual Heavens and changing them by degrees from Glory to Glory till they also put off every thing of Flesh and disappearing to every natural Eye be made perfectiâ—n the same Spirit to be for ever together with him there where he is and like him 3. Look to Jesus as thy Price The Lord taketh notice of the low thoughts and disesteem which the Jews had of him by that which they gave for him thirty pieces of Silver This saith he by the Prophet is the Price at which they valued me
composed and equal motions are the Beauty and Musick of your Spirits 2. The Reason of this Precept followeth The Lord is at hand is near nothing will so quiet the Soul and bring it to rest in every Appearance of things here so as a right sence of the near and immediate presence of the Lord Jesus in Glory with all these things after the same manner in which the Body or Substance is present with its proper Shadow The Body is present with the Shadow four ways as sending it forth immediately from itself and keeping it hanging upon itself by an immediate touch and union every moment as governing all its motions by its own Acts and Operations in itself by its own Appearance there in its Figure and Similitude by its Approach and Readiness to break up the Shadow by its breakings forth thorow it Canst thou think that thy beloved in the sweet shinings of his Beauty in the wonderful actings of the Divine Life in the pleasant motions and mysterious operations of his Love is thus near to every Creature every Providence and not answer this Beauty with the Beautiful smile of a contented mind this Musick with the melody of a well-pleased and harmonious temper of Spirit many that were sick were healed by the shadow of St. Peter overspreading them as he passed by When thou art sick with discontent for any passage of things in this world submit thy self to it as the shadow of thy dearest Lord with which he overspreadeth thee from his own Blessed Person being himself ever at hand there where his shadow is figuring himself with his own Divine Motions and Operations upon it being even now ready to disclose himself thorow it as the Rose breaking out of the Bud. Lie down under every accident as such a Divine Shadow of this Divine Lover with his Love and thou wilt find thy self healed of thy sickness of Mind of every Grief and Melancholy 3. A third Thing in this Scripture alledged is a Prohibition of Care Be careful in nothing Care is a Sin universally in the greatest things as well as the least in the highest things as well as in the lowest Qu. But you will say what Care is that which is Sin Ans. I answer that Care is a Sin which breaketh the moderation of your Spirits which defaceth the Spiritual Beauty which disturbeth the Spiritual Musick of a well-pleased and contentedâ—mind in you which putteth your Spirits out of tune cloudeth the clearness disordereth the Harmony of your Spirits distempering them and making them to jar with discontent Again that care is sinful which is contrary to this Three-fold sense of the presence of the Lord Jesus with every Creature and Occurrence on the Earth as with his own Shadow his Powerful Presence giving it Being and Motion from himself fastning it immediately to himself his Beautifulâ— Presence imprinting the Likeness and Image of himself upon it his Love-Presence calling the Soul to himself by it coming down to meet and embrace the Soul there ready to set himself in the place of his Shadow making that the mark and forerunner of his Person and Loves in their full Light and Heat 4. In the last place the Holy Spirit that skilful Apothecary prescribeth a Cordial to preserve you from this trembling of the Heart from carefulness This Cordial is made up of six precious Ingredients 1. Ingred Prayer With Prayer The word is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It importeth thus much stand not at a distance tarry not without Come boldly up to the Throne of Grace to God in the purest and most raised heights of his Glory and Love to Love as it is seated upon its highest and most glorious Throne the Heart of God to love as it shineth with its sweetest smiles in the Divine Nature unvailed and naked Enter boldly within the Vail behold God Face to Face so talk familiarly with him as a Friend doth with his Friend Like the beloved Disciple lay thine head in his Bosom so speak to him as a Bride to her Bridegroom 2. Ingred Supplication By Prayer and Supplication v. 6. The word rendred Supplication signifieth in its root three things Want a Band Decency or Harmony Have a Divine sense of thine own Shadowiness and Vanity upon every want which thou feelest Go by a Divine Power and in the Divine Mystery empty thy self into God bind thy self up together with him in that Golden â—Band the unity of his Spirit So move be carried along thorow all things in the Order Decency and Harmâ—ny of the God-Head of the Divine Wisdom and Will As when Sugar is cast into Wine the Wine penetrating into all parts of the Sugar dissolveth and melteth it entirely into itself 〈◊〉 in every state in every streight cast thy self by the Blessed Spirit into that Spirit which is the Wine of the Kingdom of the Father let that Spirit wind and work itself into every part and power into every thought and affection until it have drawn thee quite down out of thy self into one Stream one flood of Desires and Delights of Sweetness Strength and Fulness with itself Moses ascending upon Mount Sinai passed thorow the clouds and fires so he came to the top of the Mount where he saw God face to face The Eternal Spirit is Mount Sion the Mount of Prayer Here are white Clouds of Glory which do much more overshadow the Creature and Love-fires which do much more melt down the Soul and devour it From the Valley of every low Condition betake thy self to this Mount of Prayer Wait for this Holy Mountain the Spirit of Prayer to spring up in every Valley and take thee up and carry thee along upon itself As thou ascendest pass thorow these Clouds lose the light of thine own Beauties and Being before this excelling brightness Pass thorow these Fires Lose thine own Fleshly Substance and Subsistence in the flame of the Spirit Lose thine own Life and Form in the Unity of Divine Love So shalt thou arrive at the top of this Mount where thou shalt see God Face to Face with Life answering Life Love answering Love Beauty answering Beauty being in the full view of his naked Glories transformed into the same Glory by the same Spirit 2 Cor. 3. l. 3. Ingred Thanksgiving with Thanksgiving What a powerful Antidote against Care in every Cross or Difficulty is this to give thanks To see a Divine Glory To tast Divine Love To behold God descending in that Darkness as in a Chariot of Clouds of Angels taking us up to ascend with Him thither into His Palace above where this Cloud shall become a Throne this Chariot a Bed of Love this Angel an Eternal Glory in the Form of God where our Beloved and our Souls shall reign together feast together ly down together in mutual Joys and embraces for ever O Believing Soul art thou in Darkness Open the Eye of Faith see thy Jesus and thy self from the supream Circle of the God-Head running forth with all Lines
already said in order to my present purpose to shew how the knowledge of Christ in Glory sanctifieth and sweetneth Death 1. Obser. Here are three distinct Frames 1. A Building v. 1. 2. A Tabernacle v. 1. v. 4. Where take notice that in both places it is translated this Tabernacle but is in Greek the Tabernacle 3. The Earthly House v. 1. This seemeth to allude to the Temple which was a standing stately Building set up by Solomon in the Kingdom of the Jews to the Tabernacle in the Wilderness which was less and moveable but rich and â—ine for the Workmanship and for the Materials to the Tent of course stuff a covering â—or the Tabernacle All these were Figures of Christ and his Church to which they are also applied 1. The Heavenly Person of Christ as it standeth in the high and holy place of Eternity as it springeth up out of the Bosom of the Father and abideth in his Bosom as it is one Spirit and one Glory with the Father is the Temple the Building For the Building hath this Three-fold Character 1. It is of God in Greek out of God as Gold is out of a Mine of Gold 2. It is Eternal 3. It is in the Heavens The Glorified Person of every Saint as it is comprehended in this Glorious Head of all Saints is a Temple a Building in Heaven in Eternity of the same manner and fashion 2. The Tabernacle made of Sky-colour of Scarlet of Purple of fine Linnen with Silver and Gold and all manner of precious stones wrought with Cherubims and all curious Workmanship is the Image of God in Christ and a Saint here below in the Wilderness of this World John 1. 14. And the Word was made Flesh and dwelt in Greek Tabernacled among us and we beheld his Glory the Glory as of the onely Begotten Son of God full of Grace and Truth Here you have the Temple which is higher greater in compass and more glorious than the Heavens contracting itself into a Tabernacle and residing in that Tabernacle filling it with its own Sweetnesses and Glories which are Grace opposed to Wrath Truth opposed to Shadows The Word was made Flesh. The Eternal and Substantial Image of God which is the Temple the true Heaven brought forth itself into a Temporary and Shadowy Image which is the Tabernacle and the Paradise of the whole Creation As it is in the Lord Jesus so is it in his Spouse who is the Fulness of him that silleth All in All. This vile Body in which a Saint is here this dark and course Form with which our Souls and Bodies are cloathed here is the Tent that covereth the Tabernacle the Earthly House of the Tabernacle 2. Obser. The Effect of Death is different in these Three 1. The Tent the Earthly House onely is dissolved It is dissolved and no more It is taken to pieces The Word belongeth to the taking down of a house or the taking of Horses out of the Coach and setting them up in a stable at an Inn when the day and the Journey are ended The Dark and Narrow Form which made it a Vile Body a Body of Death is lost The Materials are laid up in the Tabernacle 2. The Tabernacle is taken into the Temple This is that which shall be cloathed upon from Heaven v. 2. If so be that being cloathed or as it is in Greek if having been cloathed namely with the Tabernacle we shall not be found naked of the Tabernacle in Death v. 3. So it is explained in the words following For we that are in the Tabernacle do groan being burthened not that we should be uncloathed of the Tabernacle but cloathed upon that Mortality might be swallowed up of Life that the Form of Mortality might be lost for ever in Immortality and the Mortal Things continue being now become Immortal When thou puttest on Jesus Christ thou puttest on that Image of Grace and Nature in which Paraâ—ise is revived and heightned in which is contained all that is good fair and pleasant thorow the whole Creation quickned with a new Sun-shine from on high This thou puttest on in thy Natural Man This thou shalt never put off after that thou hast once been cloathed with it It is still cloathed upon with a higher and higher Glory from Heaven until in Death the Glorified Body of Christ come down entirely upon it in the fulness of all its Divine Beauties 3. The Eternal Building in Heaven thy Glorified Person which was hither to hid in God with and in the Glorified Person of thy Saviour now cometh down cloatheth thee entirely resteth openly upon thee never to go off from thy Tabernacle more 3. Observ. See the beautiful and sweet manner of Dying Death is expressed in Two Representations 1. A Dissolution 2. A Deluge a Swallowing up 4. Death is a Dissolution If our earthly house of this Tabernacle be dissolved v. 1. A Troop of everblessed Spirits united by Eternal Love into one Form of Glory make the Heavenly Body of thy Beloved In the same Form and yet another they make thy Heavenly Body and Person in the Bosom of thy Bridegroom O Believer These descending are by the sacred knot of this dark and narrow Form in Nature tied together into One Mortal Person in which they are the Shadow of themselves and tied down to the Earth to stand their Tryal in the midst of all sorts of Temptations Thus they continue till they have finished the Mystery of God and compleated the Figure of Divine Things in their Persons here below Then when the set Time is come according to the Laws of that Eternal Harmony in the Nature of God which is the Supream Love Beauty and Wisdom all in One they dye after this manner That Troop of glorious Spirits which is Thy-Self above come down upon Themselves Thy Self imprisoned in their Shadow below As the Fire of God they touch with some Mysterious Stroak of Providence the knot of this Earthly Form Immediately it untieth and is dissolved Now all these Spirits thus set free retaining the Unchangeable Unity of thy Person return Each to Itself in the Liberty Beauty Joy and Glorious Majesty of its proper Substance and It s own Its First Heavenly State Yea they are already there in their Building Eternal in the Heavens This Eternal Building these Heavens come down upon them to cloath them from above that in no one moment they may be found naked At once they spring up out of the Earth they come down out of Heaven and meet and kiss each other and fall into One with a Wonderful Shout a Triumphant Concurrence of all Blessed Spirits in the Perfect Freedom of all their Joys and Glories They fall into One because they are One and this One is Thy self In an Instant the Twinkling of an Eye the Living Word cometh to them the knot of Nature is dissolved all fly this knot the Figure itself the Shadow like Doves to their Windows like a Court to their
mixture in Christ I shall give 3 Answers to this Objection 1. A Concession 2. A Distinction 3. An Application 1. Answ. A Concession It is true Contrary things are spoken of Jesus Christ in this point We read I judge no man Moses in whom you trust he judgeth you The Son of Man came not to dâ—stroy Men's Lives but to save them The Work for which Christ came is a Work of Love of Light of Life not a Work of Wrath and Death Jesus Christ came to destroy the Works of the Devil The Devil Is a Lyar and a Murtherer from the Beginning He is the Serpent the Seed of Enmity The Deceit of Sin Death Wrath are the Devil's Work Jesus cometh full of Grace and Truth like the Sun full of sweet Light and influences of Life to destroy the Deceits to scatter into Nothing the Clouds and black Shades of Sin of Death of Wrath to make all a clear and Lovely Sky over our heads a Green and Flowry Earth under out Feet O the Delightfulness of Christ's Person and of his Appearance We read again I came not to send Peace but a Sword I came to Kindle a Fire The Lord Iesus shall come in a Flame of Fire to render vengeance to all those who know not God and who have not believed our Gospel 2 Thessal v. 8. O the Dreadfulness of the Lord Jesus and of his Appearance 2. Answ. A Distinction 2 Corin. 3. 13. You have Moses brought in with a Vail upon his Face You have the Effect of this Vail There is a Blindness upon the Minds upon the Notions 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Jews The Children of Israel cannot see to the End of that which is to be done away They cannot see thorow beyond the Shadowy Glory of the Vail to be taken off to the Naked Glory of the Heavenly Face which liveth and is the same for ever v. 13. 14. There is the Interpetation of the Vail The Vail upon the Face of Moses is a Vail upon the Hearts of the Israelites v. 15. The Vail is removed by the Turning of the heart to the Person of Christ v. 16. The Person of Christ and the Removal of the Vail are Both described v. 17. Now the Lord is that Spirit and where the Spirit of the Lord is there is Liberty The Lord Jesusâ— in Glory is a Spirit the Eternal Spirit The Person of Christ was ever a Spirit the Spirit the same Yesterday to Day and for ever even in that Day when he was made Flesh in his humane Nature this Spirit carrieth Liberty along with It as the Sun doth the Light of the Day This Liberty of the Spirit answereth to that Removal of the Vail in the verse before The Vail shall be taken away It is significant Word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 shall be taken away quite all round about on every side from off the Whole Image of things from off the Whole Person of Christ from off the Whole Heart the Compleat Person of the Lord Jesus in his Supream Glory as the Supreme Spirit shall shine entirely in the whole Image of things in the whole heart in every Part in every Point of Both. The Close of all is the Blessed Effect of the Removal of the Vail of the Free and full Appearance of this Spirit the Lord Jesus A Liberty of Sight A Liberty of Growth a Liberty of Union and Divine Communion A Saint looketh forth with Opâ—n Face with an Open Eye in the Naked Glory of the Spiritual Man having cast the Vail entirely off He seeth the Glory of the Lord in the Naked Beauties of the Spirit himself compleatly unvailed He seeth this Glory in the Unity of the same Spirit as in a Looking-Glass where Face answereth Face where one is seen as the Dear Image and Reflection of the other A Saint in the same moment seeth and is changed into the Image which he seeth as by one Spirit at once working Both. The Lord the same Spirit in its Unity is the Root the Eye the Life the Light the Looking-Glass the Glorious Face in the Looking-Glass to a Saint Where this Spirit is there is Liberty in that Heart The Vail is taken off from it when the Spirit existeth and appeareth in it There the Lord Jesus and a Saint see each other grow up together in one Glory We all with open face as in a Glass beholding the Glory of the Lord are changed into the same Image from Glory to Glory even as by the Spirit of the Lord or by the Lord the Spirit By this time I believe you see the Distinction which I aim at Jesus Christ with the Vail upon his Face is Mâ—ses Mâ—ses unvailed is Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ to the Vailed heart is Moses still Moses to the Naked heart is the same Jesus from the Beginning The Appearance of Jesus Christ according to the Letter after the Flesh is Christ with a Vail upon his Face casting a Vail upon the heart The Appearance of Jesus Christ as the Spirit the Lord of Glory is Christ with his Vail cast off taking the Vail off from the Heart that Both may meet see embrace each other Nakedly Immediately at Liberty in the Open Light of their Eternal Loves and Beauties 3. Answ. Applications 1. Application Fear the Wrath of the Lamb. There is a Day in which the Kings of the Earth Great Men Captains of Thousands shall cry to the Rocks and to the Mountains to fall upon them and hide them from the Wrath of the Lamb. When the Great Day of his Wrath cometh who is able to stand Rev. 6. v. 16 17 18. Revel 5. 6. 8. You read of a Lamb who had bin slain standing in the midst of the Throne of God of the Four Living Creatures of the 24. Elders having seven Eyes and seven Horns which were the seven Spirits of God sent forth into all the Earth Behold the Lord Jesus risen from the Dead He standeth in the mâ—dst of the Throne of God of the Four Living Creatures of the four and Twenty Elders He is the Center of All Glories He filleth All He uniteth All and Compleateth All in his own Person the Uncreated Glories of the God-Head the Four-fold Fountain Glories of the Uncreated and Created Natures in Union The Manifold and Multiplyed Glories of Those Fountains in the Person of every Saint from the Beginning to the End of things having his Crown upon his Head the Universal Kingdom of all Glories in himself with which Kingdom he standeth out of the Person and in the Person of the Lord Jesus which Mysteriously and Divinely involveth and unfoldeth all in itself For this reason they cast down their Crowns at his Feâ—t This Jesus uniteth all States in himself from the highest the Sweetest Light of Life to the Darkest most Dismal Deep of Death For he standeth in the midst of these Glories as having bin slain shewing all the Bloody Baleful Forms of Death in the Triumph of Eternal Life This
Lamb hath seven Eyes and seven Horns which are the seven Spirits of God sent forth into all the Earth Seven is a Perfect Number the Power of all Numbers which multiply themselves endlesly by the Marriage of the Two First Numbers Three and Four the Numbers of the Trinity upon the Throne and the Four Living Creatures most immediately to the Throne and from thence spreading themselves thorow all things being in the midst of the Throne and round about the Throne on every side Revel 4. 6. The seven Spirits of God sent forth into all the Earth are the Holy Ghost that one Manifold Infinite Spirit which divideth Itself into Innumerable flaming Tongues Eyes Horns into all Forms of things according to its own Good Pleasure ever Containing all within itself ever filling all with itself See now the Lamb with seven Eyes and seven Horns seven Spirits sent forth into all the Earth The Lamb is Jesus risen from the Dead The Lord the Spirit who hath Innumerable Living Lights of Glory in himself Innumerable Living Springs of Light and Glory with which as with so many ever-waking Eyes he shineth and seeth thorow all things who hath innumerable Powers Almighty Powers Fountains of Power as so many Horns with which he ruleth and reigneth in the midst of all things A Poet in a bright Night taken in a Wood by Robbers which would kill him said to them As many stars as shine in the Sky so many Eyes now look upon you and will be witnesses of this Murther O Sinner who art hatching who art practising any lust in the most secret corner of thine heart or Closer be awake be aware See the Lord Jesus with ten thousand with a Numberless Number of Eyes Shining Flaming Eyes of Pure Glory looking forth full upon thee from every point of the Walls the Roof the Floor all things round about thee from every point of thine own Heart and all that is within Thee See the Lord Jesus with as many Horns of Divine Power from every Point of things running upon thee to break Thee off from thy Lusts or to break Thee in pieces O Saint who mournest sitting in Darkness Lying in Prison encompassed with black thoughts with Enemies Invisible or Visible be awake be aware See thy Jesus thy King thy Beloved with ten thousand a Numberless Number of Eyes sweetly-shining sweetly-Flaming Eyes of Pure Love from every Point of the blackest Darkness of the darkest Prison of thy Darkest thoughts themselves looking forth upon Thee See him with as many Golden Horns of Divine Power from every part from every side running upon thine Enemies to ruine them to cast them down to the Ground down to the bottom of the Pit until they rise no more whether they be things Visible or Invisible See him with the same Innumerable Golden Horns from every part of things from the thickest Darkness round about thee running to Thee to raise Thee up to set Thee on high upon the Rock of Eternity in the midst of the Throne of God Revel 1. 14 The Eyes of the Lord Jesus are compared to a Flame of Fire A Spirit is all one Entire Eye and full of Eyes The Lord Jesus is the Supreme Spirit spreading himself thorow all things from the height of Heaven above to the Depth of Death and Hell beneath The Firmament is not set so thick with Stars as the Whole Earth the whole-Creation all things are set with the Eyes of the Lord Jesus These Eyes are so many Suns of Love to the Flowers the Wheat the Gold the Diamonds to increase their Beauty draw forth their Sweetness ripen their Fruit make them sparkle and shine more pleasantly But to Stubble and Thorns to Vanity or Enmity they are a flame of Fire burning upon it until it be consumed O Fear the Wrath of the Lamb. 2. Application Fear to look with a Vailed Heart upon the Vailed Face of the Lord Jesus If thou seest the Shadow the Letter of the Gospel if thou seest the Vail the Flesh of Christ if thou seest not to the End of these as things to be done away if thou seest not thorow these beyond these the Lord the Spirit which is the Heavenly Body and Substance to the Shadow the Naked Face the Naked Unchangeable Eternal Person of Christ hid under the Vail it is not Jesus Christ but Moses in whom thou trustest Thou art not in the Arms of a Lovely pleasant Bridegroom but at the feet of a severe Judge This is the Law from Mount Sinai which engendreth bondage which trembleth and shaketh for fear where Thunders roar and Lightnings fly abroad from the midst of a thick Darkness This is not the Lord Jesus full of Grace that Perfect Love which casteth out fear the Perfection of Beauty on Mount Sion which standeth firm for ever which may be touched kissed and embraced Take heed to thy self O Temporary Believer Thou Jew thou Christian outwardly in the Letter onely This is not the Sun of Righteousness on which thou lookest but the Cloud which covereth the Sun If the Eye of thy Spirit stay here and pierce no further out of this Cloud will come down upon thy head a tempest a Whirlwind and Flames of Fire The Vail is upon your Hearts while the Gospel is read even to this day 3 Application Blessed art thou who lookest with a Naked Heart upon the Naked Person of Christ. He who is fixed in the Letter the Outward Form the Flesh of the Eternal Word is One of the People of the Jews who stood below at the Foot of the Mountain having in their Eye the Outside onely of things These saw nothing but the Blackness of Darkness and the Flashes of Lightning these heard nothing but the dreadful claps of Thunder He who ascendeth and entreth into the Truth the Spirit is with Moses within upon the Top of the Mount He talketh with God face to face as a man talketh with his Friend He seeth the Divine Light and Calm of Eternity in the naked Person of the Lord Jesus He receiveth the Language of Divine Love the Musick of Eternity with kisses of Love immediately from the Lips of the Lord Jesus He feeleth the Fountain of Life all Joys flowing from the Heart of the Lord Jesus running nakedly thorow his whole Body and Spirit being a better Feast than that of all meats and Drinks filling him with Spirit and pleasantness cloathing him with a fresh Lustre Beauty in a more excellent way The Lord Jesus saith of himself in the Gospel I have a Baptism to be baptised with and how am I streightned till it be over The Loves the Lovelinesses the Divine Life the Delights the Glories the Lord Jesus all the Treasures of the Eternal Word are streightned in the flesh of Christ as the Beauties and Sweetnesses of a Flower the Fruits of a Tree are shut up and imprisoned in the Seed When the Lord Jesus by Death is baptised into a Divine Form and Glory when he cometh
round about you Then shall Worldly Christians Hypocrites Temporary Believers all who have lived in the Lusts of the Flesh or the Letter onely of the Gospel take hold of climb up upon the outside of the Ark the outward Fleshly Form and Appearances of the Eternal Word the Lord Jesus Then shall they too late cry to be taken into the Spirit which alone is Truth which alone hath Immortality But they shall be rejected They shall lose their hold drop off into the flames and perish there I will conclude all with that Scripture John 14. v. 30. 31. When Jesus Christ perceived that the hour and Power of Darkness were now come upon him he saith The Prince of this World cometh Arise let us go hence Thus saith the same Jesus now in the Hearts of his Beloved Ones to his Spouse The Prince of Darkness The hour and Power of Darkness of dread of Destruction of the Devouring Fire cometh Arise let us go hence out of the visible things of the Flesh into the Invisibility of the Spirit The Ark of Pure Gold Paved with Loves 3 Property Plenty This is the Third Property in the Effusion of Divine Love upon the Glorified Person of Christ. It is poured forth plentifully I will divide this Head by Streams flowing from it 1. The Fulness of all Love is poured forth in Iesus Christ. 2. The Person of Christ is all Full of Love 1. The Fulness of all Love is poured forth in Jesus Christ. We read Colos. 1. 19. It pleased the Father that all Fulness should dwell in him that is in Jesus Christ. All Fulness and so the Fulness of All Love had its Seat its Bed in the Bosom of our Saviour But the Pleasure the Will of the Father which is the Highest Pleasure Pleasure in one Substantial most Perfect Eternal Act is the Well Spring which sendeth forth this Plenitude of Divine Love into Christ. The Words lye so in Greek that they may be properly rendred according to the rules of Grammar after this manner All Fulness was well pleased to dwell in him God is the Fulness which filleth all in all He alone is in any Place in any Spirit in any Creature Repletive so as to fill it God is Love God then is the Fulness of all Love Nothing attracteth and draweth so powerfully as Pleasure doth God who is that Love which is all Fulness the Fulness of all God who is the Fulness of all Love poureth forth himself to the Full to the last drop if we may so speak of that Love which hath neither First nor last Beginning nor End in the Lord Jesus For in Christ he poureth forth himself with Pleasure which is the highest of all Pleasures The Effusion of Love is itself a Pleasure Then the Beautiful and Blessed Person of the Lord Jesus is the most pleasant Channel the most pleasant Seat and Palace of Divine Love This Fulness of Divine Love in Christ shooteth forth itself into Three Branches 1. Love in all States 2. Love of all Kinds 3. Love in all Degrees 1. There is in Jesus Christ flowing forth from the Father a Fulness of Love in all States There are Three States of Divine Love in our Blessed Saviour There is 1. Preventing Love 2. Assisting Love 3. Finishing Love Divine Love in Jesus Christ hath these Three States and a glorious transcendent triumphant Fulness in every State 1. There is in the Lord Jesus poured forth from the Father A Fulness of all Preventing Love 2. Tim. 1. 9. St. Paul teacheth us that God hath saved us not according to works which we have done but according to his own Purpose and Grace given us in Christ before the World was Before thou hadst any thoughts of Love to Jesus Christ before thou hadst any Being in This World before the World was there was a Love from the Father in Jesus Christ to Thee to Thee whoever thou art that liftest up the Eye of thy Spirit the Eye of Faith to see thy true Self thine own Person in this Dwelling-Place this Palace of Divine Love where thou hast bin hid where thou hast had thine abode thorow all generations from Eternity Christ in the Glory of the Father the heart of the Father in Christ. This Preventing Love well understood removeth Two Objections out of the way of many hearts to the Bosom of their Jesus Object 1. Broken-hearted Sinners distressed Souls frequently plead thus against themselves We cannot think that Jesus Christ hath any Love for us because we cannot believe his Love Answ. Hear O broken-hearted Sinners O Distressed Souls Hear and believe Jesus Christ hath in himself from his Father the Fulness of all Preventing Love He beginneth to you in Love He beginneth with you He giveth you Faith to believe his Love To you it is given to believe The Son of Man cometh and giveth you an understanding to know the True God by his Proper Name of Love 1. John 5. 20. The Preventing Love of God in the Bosom of Christ cometh to Thee poureth forth itself in thy Bosom giveth Thee a new Eye to see the Divine Beauty a new Ear to hear the heavenly Melody a new heart to take in rellish and understand the Spiritual Sweetnesses Fulnesses Joys of this First Love Love in its Fountain in the Fountain of Eternity This New Wine of the Everlasting Kingdom giveth itself to Thee with a New Bottle a New Spirit which will take in and hold this precious Liquour Not one drop of it shall ever fall besides this Bottle or be spilt out of it Object 2. But still thou poor troubled trembling Soul thinkest the glad Tydings of the Gospel of Pure Preventing Love too good to be true Thus thou arguest against thy self If I were but moderately evil or morally good if I could in any degree comply or close with Jesus Christ when he offereth his Love and himself to me then might I have some hope that I had some place in his heart But if the Lord Jesus himself should shine forth with the Sweetest Vision of Preventing Love in the midst of my Fleshlinesses Filthinesses hardnesses Enmities and should say to me as the Angel to Mary hail thou that are greatly Beloved Hail thou that are freely Beloved I should not onely wonder at this Salutation but believe it all to be a vain Dream of my deluded Fancy Answ. Let me tell Thee a Story A beautiful Aegyptian Youth when his Friends desired to take his Picture desired them to take him up seven daies after his death and then to take his Picture Thou the most defiled the most deformed Sinner wert once beautiful once in the freshness and flower of thy Youth in Paradise It is true thou art now dead dead of the most loathsom disease dead by the most killing and corrupting Death dead in sin Yet now after that thou hast bin many years dead Jesus Christ in his Glorified Person cometh like a Bridegroom from heaven not onely to take thy Picture but
to take thy Person into the Arms of his Preventing Loves to breath bis Preventing Loves into Thee as a New Life the Spring of a New Beauty excelling that which was lost by Thee in Paradise incorruptible that never fadeth not passeth away Ladies and Queens have sometimes hatched Eggs in their Bosoms Thy dead deformed Person will thy Saviour hatch in the warm and naked Bosom of his Preventing Loves unto a Divine Life that shall answer Love with Love and flourish in the Loveliness of every Grace every Glory through thy New-born Soul and body according to their proper seasons Having known the Love of the Lord my Spirit laboureth yet not my Spirit but the Love of the Lord Jesus in my Spirit laboureth by all means to bring forth itself in the fresh and full Sense of its First its Free its Preventing Sweetnesses in your hearts as a Spring of Living Waters in a dry and barren Wilderness But as a tender Mother taketh a beloved Child weak and peevish laieth it in her lap poureth a Cordial down into its stomack so will your Jesus do with you O Grieved Spirits who are weak without strength froward will not take in his Love He will take you lay you upon his knees and pour this precious Cordial of his Preventing Loves into your Mouths Then will it go right and sweet down to the bottom of your heart There it will become a Well springing up with pure sweet and plentiful Streams of every Spiritual Truth Grace Comfort or Joy unto Eternal Life This is The First State of Love in the Lord Jesus Preventing Love 2. There is in the Lord Jesus poured forth from the Father a Fulness of all Assisting Love 2. Cor. 14. v. 7. 8. 9. St. Paul had a thorn in his Flesh messengers of Satan sent to buffet him He prayed thrice that he might be delivered from them He had this answer from the Lord My Grace is sufficient for Thee Many tender-hearted Saints who feel their Lusts as Thorns in their Flesh who feel their Passions as the Messengers of Satan the Angels of the Dragon buffeâ—ing them cry out frequently in the Agonies of Fear and Grief O this Lust O this Thorn in my Flesh Sure at last it will wound me so deeply to the heart that it will let out the Life-blood of all faith hope grace and comfort O this Passion O this Messenger of Satan It will one day carry me back again into those Chains of Darkness and that Bottomless Pit out of which I seem to my self sometimes to have escaped But O Believer tossed with the Tempests be comforted Fear none of these things Look up continually to the Blessed Person of your dear Saviour lifted up into Glory in the midst of your Spirits See the Father pouring forth himself into the Fulness the Glorious Fulness of all Assisting Loves in his Bosom Pray continually and hear this Blessed voice from the Mouth of your Saviour continually sounding in your ears My Assisting Loves are sufficient for Thee Obj. But some Soul that wanteth Comfort will say When the Lord Jesus hath once by his Preventing Love planted a New Principle and Habits of Grace in me he now expecteth that I should improve this Principle and act these Graces If I do this and make use of that which I have I may comfortably look for his Assisting Love and that more Grace should be still given me But what New Loves can I promise my self to accompany me and carry me on in my way while I so ill requite the Lord Jesus for his First Loves that I suffer his Gifts to lye unimproved his Graces to lye unactive in me hid in the Earth by my Sloth or Sensuality Answ. I shall proceed in my answer to this Objection by Three Steps 1 Stâ—p This Objection wrappeth up together in it something True something False 1. This is False That the Assisting Love of the Lord Jesus dependeth upon our Emprovement of Grace already received from him This is not True No by no means Assisting Love is as free as full as absolute as much all as much alone in Carrying on the Work of Grace in us as Preventing Love is in Beginning it God hath poured forth in Christ the Fulness of all Assisting Love I am the Truth the way and the Life saith our Saviour Jesus Christ is the Truth and the Life of all Grace in the way as much as in the Beginning or End Without me ye can do Nothing Every Act of Grace every thing in every Act of Grace which distinguisheth it from a meer Non-Entity from an Absolute Nothing Every Degree of Spiritual Being in the whole Life of Grace with all the Exercises of it through the whole way from the Beginning to the End is all alike Immediately from Jesus Christ. That which is True in the Objection is this the Emprovement of Spiritual Principles the Exercise of our Graces are attended with Clearer Illuminations Sweeter Enlargements more Divine heighthnings of all heavenly Truths Graces and Consolations in us On the other siide when Faith is not acted when holiness is neglected Darkness Decay Distress and Death dwell upon us But these things are all entirely Consequences and Effects not Causes or Attractives of Assisting Love The Assisting Love of our Lord Jesus is as the Sun which by its Presence bringeth Light Warmth Fruitfulness Life Beauty Pleasurealong with it When it withdraweth itself leaveth the Cold hardness Storms Desolation of Winter behind it The Bridegroom chargeth the Virgins of Jerusalem by the Roes and Hinds of the Field that they stir not up nor awake his Love until She please Cant. 2. 7. The Angels of heaven which are the Invisible Ministers by whom all things move in the whole Order of Second Causes are here understood according to the sense of some learned Divines By the Virgins of Jerusalem The Roes and hinds of the Field are the Pleasant Loves and Lovelinesses of the Eternal Spirit in the heavenly Person of Christ. The Law of the Eternal Beauties and Loves of the Divine Nature lieth upon all things upon all the Ministers and Armies of God that the Spouse of Christ be never laid to sleep or awakened but according to its own good pleasure as it is One Spirit with the Lord Jesus by a knot of Everlasting Love as a Queen at the Right hand of her King set down in Heavenly Places with him in him upon the same Throne When the Divine Principle which is the Bride and the Spiritual Man in a Saint retireth itself and goeth to its rest in this Night the Wild Beasts Bruitish Lusts Raging Passions come forth to prey upon the Natural Man covering it with filth wounds But when the Day spring ariseth from on high when the season cometh for this Man this Heavenly Seed Bride to awake to stir up her self and come forth again in this New Morning the Beasts return to their Den Lusts and Passions sink down into their own
hath quickened us together in Christ v. 5. He hath raised us together made us to sit together in Heavenly Places in him v. 6. Thus you see the Absoluteness the Compleatness of Finishing Love as well as of Preventing and Assisting Love You see the Finishing Love of the Father poured forth with all Fulness in our Blessed Saviour You see Divine Love in the Bosom of your Beloved Alone Beginning Alone Continuing the Work of Grace Alone in the Purity Power Simplicity of Free Grace Finishing Perfecting All in Glory I will make this clear to you by One Scripture more 2 Tim. 1. 9. he hath saved us not according to works which we have done but according to his own Purpose and Grace given to us in Christ before the World was Who hath abolished Death and brought Life and Immortality to Light by his Appearance in the Gospel Behold this Heavenly Sight Believe rejoyce and wonder A Saint is a Spiritual Building of all Heavenly Graces and Glories It is entirely composed thorowout of Free Grace of Pure Love The Foundation of it is laid in the Fair Colours of Divine Love all the Rooms the several Stories the Furniture the Riches the Entertainment is of Pure Love The Roof is laid with the Precious stones of Pure Love The whole Work of a Saint's Salvation the Materials the Form the Proportions the Measures of the Whole and of every Part are Free Grace Pure Love He hath saved us according to his Purpose and Grace given us in Christ before the World was That Word Purpose signifieth properly the Fore-laying of a thing This Divine Bâ—ilding of Love this Heavenly Frame of Life and Immortality which is the True Form of a Saint was set up in the Glorious Person of our Jesus from Eternity All that is done in time is the unvailing and Discovery of this Heavenly and Eternal Building by Degrees according to the Measure of the Appearance of the Lord Jesus in us in whose Person and Spirit this Frame standeth as a Living Precious Corner-stone out of which it is grown up as a most pleasant Situation which encompasseth it on every paâ—t This Palace this Temple of Divine Love of Light of Life of Immortality is Eternal in the Heavens in Christ. Time Flesh Sin the whole Work of this Creation are a Vail of Darkness and Death cast upon It. As Jesus Christ shineth forth upon the Soul in the Gospel he casteth off this Vail he abolisheth this Death he discovereth and bringeth forth into the Clearness and Sweetness of Its own Divine Light this Divine Frame of Life and Immortality which is the True Saint the New Jerusalem the Bride the Lamb's wife coming down out of Heaven with her Beloved ready trim'd How manifest how full is the Finishing Love of God in Christ The whole Being of a Saint is a Building where all the Materials the Work the Finishing is Pure Love Pure Love finished all its Works in this Building before it began the World from Eternity and set it up in the Person of Christ. Pure Love cleanseth it from the Dust of Time the Filth of Flesh and bringeth it forth into the clear Lights of Grace of Glory which are the Brightness of its own Spiritual Beauties in the Evangelical Appearances and Out-Shinings of Jesus Christ. Use 1. Receive the Love of God in Christ. 2. Resign your selves to the Love of God in Christ. 1. Receive the Love of God in Christ. It is a sweet and easy work For this Love giveth reception to itself in the Soul When the Sugar taketh in the Wine In truth the Wine into which the Sugar is cast or which is poured upon it worketh itself into the Sugar then melteth and dissolveth it into One Body with itself until you can no more distinguish between the Sugar and the Wine So the Soul lieth in the midst of Divine Love Love in its own way by its own force worketh and melteth itself into the Soul until it have melted and wrought the Soul into One Spirit One Love with itself Divine Love is received into thy Soul as thy Soul is received into thy Body by Bringing it forth New out of its own Bosom by Comprehending it in itself by Forming it unto a Divine Image of Itself by Inhabiting Filling Acting it by Delighting in it as its Daughter Sister Spouse as its self multiplyed Receive this Love which thus receiveth you giveth reception to itself in you 2. Resign your selves to Divine Love This Love worketh all your works all its own works in you and for you all Works of Love and of Loveliness Philosophy teacheth us that all Colours are Light mingled with Shade in various degrees and manners until it break up thorow the Shades and drink up the Shades into One Pure Brightness The Gospel teacheth us that all Graces are Divine Love shining variously and gradually forth thorow the Darknesses of our Spirits until by a sweet and Heavenly Force as the Fire of the Divine Life kindled from the Throne of God it burn out and burn up all those Darknesses Distances Deâ—ilements Enmities into One Eternal Flame of Pure Love of Perfect Joy St. James teachâ—th us c. 1. 4. If Patience have its perfect work it shall make us perfect wanting nothing This is the same thing as if he had said Let Divine Love Preventing Assisting Finishing Love have their Perfect work These will make you Perfect wanting nothing This is the Grace of Patience the Love of God in Christ by its own force insinuating itself into our Souls by its own Charms alluring our Souls tempering them to a harmonious Repose in it a sweet entire Resignation to it until it have wrought out and finished its own Glories upon it Patience hath its Perfect Work when Love hath its Perfect work Love hath its Perfect Work in us when we oppose nothing of the Devil to it when we mingle nothing of our own with it O that I were indeed a Minister of the Gospel Then I should minister the Spirit to you which is Love The Fountain and the Sea of Love Then while I speak of Love you would feel the Holy Ghost in his own proper Form in the Form and Fulness of Divine Love coming down upon you entering into you forming himself in you unto a Free Reception of himself a Full Resignation to himself until he had Finished his own most Lovely Form of Heavenly Love in you Use 3. Be aware that you must receive the Love of God in Christ thorow Death St Paul admonisheth us that as many as are baptised into Christ are baptised into the Similitude of his Death Rom. 6. 3. If we will be baptised into the Love we must be baptised into the Death of the Lord Jesus When Moses son was circumcised Zipporah his wife said to him A bloody husband hast thou been to me Some interpret the Words as they run in the Hebrew Thou hast been to me a Husband in Blood So they are the Solemn words
effect of that union Jesus Christ put a life a divine life into every Creature by his union with it St. Paul seemeth to relate to this Scripture and to confirm this living beautiful and Divine State of all the Creatures as they came forth from God Colos. 1. 16. All things were made in him all things were made thorow him unto him and into him v. 18. All things stood together in him Well then the Dust the Ground the Earth the Darkness in the pure state of the Creation were made in Christ were life in him were made in union with Christ. They were made thorow Christ as their mould and channel They were made by Christ as their Original pattern as the immediate power putting forth itself in them They stood together with the rest of the Creatures in the Divine Unity in Christ. Thus had this Dust of which we speak a Divine life in it a Divine Beauty upon it a Divine Seed in it this life was the life of Christ and so comprehended according to its kind all the lives and vertues of all the Creatures and of Paradise It s beauty was the beauty of Christ in which after the like manner all created beauties centred and met in one Christ himself was the Seed in this Dust and so not only the excellencies and virtues of the whole Creation but all the uncreated Treasures of Life and Glory lay together shaded and vailed within this Dust. But their vail and their shade was a living beautiful and pleasant Picture of themselves all filled with the sweet Odour of those hidden Ointments I have one thing more to say to describe this Dust. Man who was the last days work the comprehension and perfection of the whole Creation was made in a shadowy Image of God For so the word Image in the first of Genesis signifieth and the Scriptures in their whole course testify In the beginning all things came forth from God in an universal Darkness before the Light of the first day This Darknâ—ss is remarkable in several eminent circumstances 1. It was cast forth immediately from the Divine Nature and from the glorious Person of Christ to be a vail round about upon the Eternal Glory itself and to be a ground of the whole Creation 2. It stood in an â—immediate union with the Divine Nature and the glorious Person of Christ springing forth immediately from it and depending immediately upon it 3. The unsearchable riches of the God-Head and of Christ with all the various Excellencies of the creatures as they were in their eternal patterns and principles lay hid together within this shade 4. Out of this ground did God make to spring all the creatures in their primitive paradisical purity and pleasantness being wrapt up here as in their first matter and having their proper seeds sown here Thus was this Darkness a shade indeed but pure indued with a Divine Life cloathed with a Divine beauty and lustre bearing a Divine figure breathing forth a Divine sweetness spread forth every moment fresh with a new lustre and sweetness from the Divine Nature vailing within itself all the Joys and Glories of God Christ Heaven and Paradise and as it hides all these in its Bosom lying itself in the Bosom of Christ. Such is the Ground such is the Dust of the Ground and the Earth out of which the Body of Man was first taken and into which the Body of a dying Saint returns Such is the Darkness of Death that overshadows a Saints body like the Nights in Paradise But there is this advantage now that this pure primitive Dust and Darkness are heightened have a new and greater beauty and sweetness by the Resurrection of Christ from the Dead This is the first Dust the Dust before the Fall 2. The second Dust is that after the Fall understood in that sentence Dust thou art and to Dust thou shalt return This is the Dust of that Death which sin brings forth a cursed Dust the Dust of the cursed Earth which bringeth forth Bryars and Thorns That former beautiful and blessed Dust lies captivated in this as in a Prison or Grave of contrariety and enmity This Dust is composed of three things 1. A Separation Dissolution and Desolation from the â—orce and power of Enmity 2. A Blackness of Darkness from a cloud and storm of wrath 3. The seeds of shame pain anguish horrour and torment hidden in it This Dust is that which the Body of a Saint casts off in Death upon this worldly Image and Spirit together with the Spirit and Image of this world This is that which suffereth dissolution which representeth deformity and striketh the horrour in Death All which are now of the Image of this world and to the Image of this World in the Spirit of this World and to the Spirit of this World within the Kingdom of the Devil having no more relation to a Saint in Death than the filthy raggs of a Prince in a Dangeon to the Prince at Liberty and in his Pallace Death rubbing off the Rust of this cursed Dust from the Body of a Saint leaves it all a shining rich incorruptible Dust of pure Gold His Body is now entirely with Christ a precious pleasant and living Dust in the Garden-Beds the Beds of Spices or perfumed Flowers in Paradise This is the second Distinction of the two Dusts 3 Dist. The third distinction is of a twofold sense Rom. 8. 6. St. Paul teacheth us That to be carnally minded is Death but to be spiritually minded is Life and Peace The Greek runs thus the mind of the flesh and the mind of the spirit The word mind is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifieth a practical understanding and comprehendeth a twofold act one of the understanding to disâ—â—rn and judge another of the will to tast and rellish So the mind is here a sense and a favour both in one Thus you have here a twofold sense Spiritual and Carnal or Fleshly 1. The Spiritual sense is set forth three ways 1. By the Principle 2. By two effects of this Principle 3. By two companions of these effects 1. The Principle of a Spiritual sense is the Spirit this holy and blessed Spirit is the only and proper Principle of a Saint and Saintship of a Son of God and a Sâ—â—ship to God Art thou indeed a Saint then thou art in the Spirit of Glory and of God as in thy Root and Element as a Tree of Life in the Root of Eternal Life and Love as Fishes in the water of Life as Birds in the pure air of Divine Love as Angels in Heaven Rom. 8. 9. You are not saith St. Paul to the Saints in thâ— Flesh but in the Spirit Art thou indeed a Son of God Then is this Spirit of Grace and Immortality in thee as thy natural Principle as the power of Nature according to the new and Divine Nature which acteth thee Rom. 8. 16. As many as are led by the Spirit of God are
all things new in the newness of its own Heavenly and Immortal Beauties The second Scripture is 2 Corin. 5. 6 8. Therefore we are alwaies confident knowing that whilst we are at home in the Body we are absent from the Lord. We are confident I say being willing rather to be absent from the Body and present with the Lord. Of what Body speaketh the Apostle here What Body is this which thus divideth between the Spiritual Bride and her Heavenly Bridegroom that a Saint cannot be present with both at once If he be at home in this Body he must be absent from Christ and a banished Person from his Bosom If he will be present with Christ and enjoy him he must cast off this Body and be absent from it Is this the true and proper Body of a Saint How can that be The true Body of a Saint is as much himself as his Soul is himself He can be no more absent from his own Body than he can be absent from his Soul or from himself We read in the same Chapter 1 Corin. 6. Towards the latter end that the Body of a Saint is the Member of Christ and the Temple of the Holy Ghost When St. Paul speaketh of a Body from which we must be absent that we may be present with the Lord Jesus sure he cannot mean this Body which is a Member of Christ which is united to Christ and implanted into him Can I be absent from Christ by being present with that Body which is a Member of him a Member in him Can I be absent from this Body which is a Member of Christ while I am present with Christ O Believers be not weary of living in the Body only know your true selves and your own Bodies while you live in these you live in Heaven and are ever with the Lord Jesus For your-Bodies are his Members and so the fulness of him who filleth all in all O Believers fear not to die you part not with any thing that is truly your selves truly your own You part not with your Bodies nor with any thing in which they have any true propriety or which hath any dear Relation to them For your Bodies are the Members of Christ Baptized into one Body with him by that one and the same Spirit which gathereth up all things together unto him and into one in him Thy Body O Believer is the Temple of the Holy Ghost When the Spirit of God and of Glory rests upon this Temple he never removeth off from it any more When he enters into this Temple of his he never goeth forth nor leaves it empty This is his true Temple upon the true Mount Sion the Soul and Body of a Saint which he hath chosen for a resting place for ever O Saints have patience and peace in life For by being at home in your Bodies you are in the Temple of the Holy Ghost which he fills with his Glory where every thing utters Glory O Saints have pleasure in Death For Death cannot divide your Bodies from you nor the Holy Ghost from your Bodies which are his Temple Can you ever be absent from Christ while you are present in your own proper Bodies which are the Temples of the Spirit of Christ Can you by being present with the Lord Jesus be absent from these Bodies of yours which are the Temple of the Holy Spirit which is the highest band of Unity the dwelling place of that Spirit which is one with the Lord Jesus No certainly this can never be Thy Body O Saint is ever in life and in death filled and overshadowed by the Holy Ghost When it seems to fall into the Dust and Darkness of Death according to the Carnal sense then doth thy Heavenly Dove give to it according to the Spiritual sense its own silver Wings and golden Feathers What then is this Body of which St. Paul speaks to the Corinthians which gives him a triumphant confidence in the face of Death while it is his greatest desire to be absent from this Body that he may be present with Christ Is it not that Body of Death against which he cryeth out Rom. 8. l. O wretched Man that I am who shall deliver me from this Body of Death This he calls also a little before in the same Chapter that flesh of his that self in which there dwels no good This is the Fleshly Principle and Sense the Spirit and Image of this world which is sprung up out of the Fall which lies as a disguise and a cloud upon the true Person the Soul and Body of a Saint What is not this the Body which is the partition-wall between these two Spiritual Lovers Christ and a Saint while he lives here which being cast off in Death they find themselves in the pure beautiful and naked Arms of each other What is Death now to a Saint Is it not the power of the Divine life and love in a Saint breaking forth and as it breaks forth tearing off and burning up this disguise of Flesh Is it not the power of a Divine Light and Glory breaking forth and as it breaks forth scattering and blotting out the cloud of this Body of Death for ever How beautifully does the Body of a Believer shine forth now in Death as a naked Member of our glorified Jesus cleansed from all its dust and defilement when it is taken up entirely out of the fleshly Principle and Sense How beautiful and glorious a Temple on every side of it doth the Body of a Believer now appear in Death when it cometh entirely out of its Cloud by being entirely taken out of the Spirit and Image of this world The true Body of a Saint lieth while this life lasteth as in a Dungeon or Grave It stands here like the glorious Tabernacle composed of the most precious materials Silks Silver Gold the choicest Woods wrought with all the richest colours and the most curious Figures in Needle-work and Carvings of a Divine Workmanship which stood in a vast and howling Wilderness covered with a Tent of Badgers Skins O! how pure how precious how beautiful how divine a thing is the Body of a Saint in Death when it casts off this Body of Death the corrupt the carnal Image and Principle entirely and is seen now no more for ever in any appearance besides that alone of a naked Member in the most lovely shining Body of the Lord Jesus With what sweetness and beauty doth it break forth now as a most amiable and admirable Tabernacle of the Eternal Spirit when by death it casts off the Tent of Badgers Skins with all the darkning and deforming impressions of Dust and heat and at once passeth out of the Wilderness of this worldly Spirit and form of things unto the good Land of rest and promise by passing in a dry and flowry path thorow the River Jordan that sweet and blessed bound of Death between the dreadful desart and heavenly Canaan Give me leave here to
his Heart continually bringing him forth into his whole Person and Life with an increasing clearness and fulness As the Object is to the Faculty and to the Soul so is Jesus Christ to a Spiritual Person his Pattern his Object his Food his Feast which spreads itself quite thorow his Person and Life which all throughout turns into Life Strength Beauty Cheerfulness and Joy to him 5. A spiritual person in a sweet and sealing manner sees the Spirit himself presenting the Lord Jesus to him within himself in a spiritual Glory feels the Spirit himself springing up immediately within him in all sights of Christ in all his changes and growths into Christ. He sees and feels this Spirit to be Jesus Christ himself He sees and feels this Spirit and this Jesus to be in himself and one Spirit with himself So the verse forementioned runs We all with open face beholding as in a Looking-glass the Glory of the Lord are changed into the likeness of the same Image from Glory to Glory as by the Spirit of the Lord or according to the Greek by the Lord that Spirit These are the sweet and blessed Advantages of a Spiritual State I will add some few and short Directions to this State 1. Look to the New Birth in You. See that you be born again that you be born from above that you be born of the Spirit that this which is born in you be Spirit Jesus Christ saith That which is born of the Spirit is Spirit This only is the New Birth Newness is only in the Eternal Spring the Spirit 2. Take care of your Union with Christ that it be a Spiritual Union that you be united to Christ as he is risen from the Dead and in Glory as he is a Spirit the King and Bridegroom of Spirits that you be united to Christ in the Spiritual Man that your Union be a Spiritual Marriage that you be one Spirit in the Unity of the Eternal Spirit which is Love 3. Pray for the Spirit for a Spiritual Understanding for the Knowledge of things in the Spirit as they are Spirit and Life and so alone Truth Suck in the Spirit by day and by night from the lips of Christ from the kisses of his mouth 4. Die to every thing of the Flesh that you may live in the Spirit Bear about in your Bodies the dying of the Lord Jesus that the Life also of the Lord Jesus according to the Spirit may be manifested in your mortal Bodies At the young Phoenix is said to spring new and fresh out of the Ashes of the Old One so doth the Spirit in the newness of an Heavenly and Immortal Glory spring out of the Grace of Christ. 5. Live purely live in Love These two Purity and Love are the principal fruits of the Spirit by which the Spirit himself is drawn down and held in our Hearts being fed and delighted with them Every kind and degree of impurity and enmity quencheth the Spirit and maketh him to withdraw himself into Heaven again The Scripture saith The Flesh lusteth against the Spirit to bring forth its own Beauties Delights and Fruits all over the Spirit of Man in the place of the Eternal Spirit The Scripture saith also That the Flesh envyeth against the Spirit The Flesh hath an envy and an envious malice to see the Spirit with its Eternal Glories Joys and Fruits to flourish in the Soul 6. Lastly Take heed of thinking that you know enough He that thinks he knows any thing knows nothing as he ought to know it saith St. Paul He that thinks he knows any thing knows things only after the Letter which is a knowledge of shadows only and a shadow of knowledge This is that knowledge which pusseth up which swels a man with a windy conceit of knowledge But that knowledge which is from the Spirit as its Fountain and in the Spirit as its air and element and of the Spirit as its only object this makes a man at the highest degree of his knowledge on Earth to be sensible that all his knowledge is but as the light of the night a light shining in a dark place not the day-star and the Sun itself risen upon him This man thinks himself at best as a door-keeper only or as the Hebrew word signifieth one standing at the threshold of the House of God who looketh in at a distance and hath only a weak glimmering prospect of the Glories there but is not yet entered into the Light of those Glories to behold them as they are to know them as he ought to know them and is to know them He therefore as a new born Babe from the Womb of the Spirit keeps his Eye ever fixed with wonder and pleasure upon the light of the Spirit and ever thirsts to drink in more and more the sweet milk of this Light The Subject of our discourse hath been the passage of a Saint by Death not only in his Soul but in his Body also into a State of purity pleasure perfection and immortality One of the objections against this was taken from common sense to which Death presents the Bodies of the holiest Persons liveless ghastly dissolving to dust We have answered this objection by a distinction between a twofold sense Carnal and Spiritual But this objection was enforced from the Body of Christ which was a rueful and bloody spectacle in Death which lay three days in the silence darkness and restraint of the Grave It is necessary therefore to say something particularly to the State of Christs Body in Death by the application of this distinction to that also I shall ground this discourse upon that Scripture Luke 12. 50. They are the words of Christ I have a Baptism to be Baptized with and how am I streightned till it be over This Baptism is generally and as I humbly conceive rightly interpreted to be the sufferings of Christ at his Death The Baptism of Christ and the accomplishment of that Baptism were both at the time of his Death The sense of this Baptism before it came was an unexpressible streightning or affliction and oppression to the Soul of Christ. He cries out how am I streightned The words thus opened afford this observation The Lord Jesus had his greatest trouble and his greatest Triumph at the time of his Death Then was this bloody Baptism and then was the blessed accomplishment of this Baptism I shall open this in seven Propositions whereof 5 set forth the trouble the other two the Triumph of Christ at his Death 1. Propos. It was the most glorious and eternal Person of God himself in two Natures Divine and Humane which was our Jesus 2. Propos. God in his own Person as the Divine Nature lived in our Nature here on Earth stood at once in a twofold Principle one Natural and Temporary the other Supernatural and Eternal 3. Propos. As this Eternal Person our Jesus with his God-Head in the Humane Nature stood in a Natural and Temporary
at an end as the life of Christ ended O you who are followers of Christ and predestinated to be conformed to him in your Lives and in your Deaths meet Death with Joy with the shout of those who cry out for victory Now is your Warfare accomplished now is your Captivity in the Fleshly Spirit and Image at an end You shall dwell now no more in Meshek at a distance from the Divine Glory nor sojourn in the Tents of Kedar in the Land of Darkness The Vail of the Flesh is now rent from the top to the bottom thorow your whole Soul and Body In both as you seem to fleshly senses to enter into the shade of Death you in that moment enter into the Kingdom of Light the Glorious Pallace of your Father the Divine Beauties and Joys of the Heavenly Image You have now fought the good Fight and finished it Henceforth from this moment it is that the Crown of Righteousness the Crown of Life and Immortality hath been laid up for you to be set upon your Heads and worn by you which God shall now give you from his own presence from his own hand in this day of Glory which now breaketh and riseth upon you 3. Scrip. Colos. 2. 15. The Apostle speaking of Christ saith thus and having spoiled Principalities and Powers he made a show of them openly and triumphed over them in it that is his Cross which was mentioned in the latter end of the foregoing verse There are three parts in this Scripture which is a glorious description of the Victory of our Lord Jesus 1. The Subject of his Victory 2. The Victory itself 3. The Seat of his Victory 1. The Subject of Christs Victory are Principalities and Powers The first word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifieth Principles The second word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifieth Dominions Principalities and a power of ruling By these names the Angels are expressed as they are the Invisible Springs out of which all visible things continually flow as they are the Supream Glories Virtues Powers among things created to which this present world is subjected by which it is enlivened enlightned formed acted and ruled Thus the Victory of Christ extendeth itself over the whole Creation the whole frame of Nature in its Heavenly Angelical and unseen part in that which is Earthly and visible in the Fountain-Glories and flowing Streams in the Princes on high and their Principalities beneath 2. The Victory itself is exprest in three steps 1. The Spoil 2. The Show 3. The Triumph 1. The Spoil He spoiled Principalities and Powers The word signifieth to uncloath The Lord Jesus as a conquering Prince uncloathed the Invisible Princes of this World of all Power Principality and Appearance by which means the whole Creation and the frame of Nature which stood by these Powers in these Appearances according to their first and natural State were dissolved fell into the depths of Darkness and confusion disappearing for ever 2. The Show Our Victorious Saviour brought forth all the Principles Powers and Appearances of Nature into the open light of the Eternal Spirit There he led them as Captives through the Streets of the Heavenly Jerusalem showing them as the subjects and marks of his Victory to all the Innumerable and Glorious Inhabitants of that Blessed City of the great King 3. The Triumph He Triumphed over them All natural Powers Glories Lives and Images lay beneath the Feet of the Lord Jesus as his Footstool while he sat down upon a Throne of Glory cloathed all over with Garments of Glory and wearing a Crown of Glory upon his Head These are the three Parts of Christs Victory 3. The Seat of Christs Victory was his Cross. He Triumphed on it Heaâ— this all ye that are one Seed one Spirit with the Lord Jesus that are made conformable to his Death in your Lives and Deaths Hear this let it be written upon your Hearts in Characters of Glory with a living Beam from that bright Sun the Face of our Lord Jesus as he shines in the Eternal Glory of his most Blessed Victory and Triumph It was upon his Cross it was upon his Cross that the Lord Jesus spoiled made a Show of Triumphed over the Principalities and Powers of this World Our Blessed Saviour in dying by dying in that very moment by that very act dissolves and defaceth at once the whole frame of Nature and of the first Creation He taketh away from it all Power of being subsisting acting or appearing He blotteth out every natural Image and form of Light or Darkness Life or Death Beauty or Deformity Shame or Glory Grief or Joy for ever You have this excellently painted out in a clear Prophesy Psalm 73. 20. As a Dream when one awaketh O Lord when thou awakest thou shalt despise their Image The word Image signifieth a Shadow The Eternal Word the Heavenly Image our Lord Jesus was in this Creation as under the Vail of Darkness and Night as in a sleep He bringeth forth and beareth up all the Powers and Forms of Nature as a Dâ—eam in this sleep and as shadowy Images in this Dream By dying he awakes out of this sleep he sets an end to this Dream The whole frame of Nature with all Forms and Images of things within the vast compass of it either Visible or Invisible break up fly away and vanish as a Dream as the shadowy Images in a Dream when a Man awaketh But neither are they quite lost They only change their Principle and Appearance In the same dying moment doth the Lord Jesus who is that Eternal and Essential Image in whom they all subsist appear and pass thorow their several changes carry them with himself into the Divine Light and Life of the Eternal Spirit There are they seen again as the Fruits of his Conquest spoiled of all their own Life Light and Form having put on a new Life Light and Form according to the Will of the Conqueror to show forth his Power and Glory to make them pleasant and Eternal Spectacles of his Divine Triumph to all the Inhabitants of Heaven and Eternity Now before he is taken down from the Cross even upon the Cross itself the Lord Jesus as he gives up his Spirit with his last breath Triumphs in his Soul and Body too whose proper Seat the Cross was In both cloathed with Triumphal Robes of an immortal Beauty and Blessedness he rides forth in the Glorious Chariot of the Heavenly Image and of the Eternal Spirit All the Powers and Forms of Nature of Life and Death the Cross itself and the Crucifiers as Captive follow his Chariot bound in the Golden Chains of Divine Light and Love making up the delight and Glory of his Triumph This also doth the Psalmist clearly Prophesy of Psal. 68. 18. Thou hast ascended up on high thou hast led Captivity Captive The descent of our Lord Jesus was finished with his Life He begins his ascent upon his Cross the first moment of his
may not yet be sprung up in thee like the ripe corn in the ear in the Ripeness and maturity of their own Spirituality and of the Heavenly Image Yet may they flourish in the Ear that is in a high and sweet Figure of Spirituality according to the purest letter of the Gospel which may have the Spirit itself for a hidden life in it and ready to reveal itself as the perfect Fruit. But suppose thou hast not attained to this yet sing for Joy the Spring and the Summer Season are come Harvest is not far off if the Kingdom of God which is Christ Heaven Paradise all in one and all in a Heavenly Glory be come up in thee into a Green and Living stalk Perhaps thou art yet subject to the Ministry of the Law Rejoyce in this if it Spring from the Seed of Promise if it flourish by the Virtue and Life of this Seed forming itself into this stalk although it lie vailed there This living Stalk this living Ministry of the Law hath not only an outward Glory and Lustre upon it but the inward Glory of the Spiritual Kingdom within it which sends forth this outward Life and Lustre which will itself also in its proper season sprout forth from it Dost thou fall short of this also dost thou see nothing in thy self of Letter or Spirit of Law or Gospel in any clearness of Life or Power by which thou canst make any comfortable Judgment of thy self Are not these mournings of thine that sence those impressions those desires affections endeavours the causes and companions of these mournings which come up so thick in the ground of thy Spirit by day and by night are not these that Kingdom of God that Jesus with Heaven and Paradise in the midst of thee before thine eyes as in the Blade or the Herb which can hardly be discerned or distinguished from common grass by common eyes In the mean time thou like Mary complainest that Christ is taken away from thee when he standeth before thee risen from the dead and talketh with thee though vailed under the form of a Gardener But let it be that no green things appears in the field of thy Soul it is naked cold and hard like the Earth in Winter Yet mourn not as one without hope This naked ground may be a flourishing field of Corn in the Summer time This naked and hard heart of thine may in its proper Season soften and flourish into an Heavenly Paradise by the springing up of Christ in it For even now in this disconsolate desolate state may God the Father and the Holy Angels from on high have their eye with Love and delight upon it from one end of the year to the other as seeing Heaven and Paradise with all their own Joys and Excellencies treasured up there in their seed which is Christ sown in thee 3. Ans. The Heavenly Image in thee who art born again while thou livest on Earth is subject to various Clouds and Storms It is always in a conjunction with the fleshly Image and the Spirit of the Devil These never suffer it to shine forth clearly and purely These often so cloud it and captlvate it that it can send forth no one sweet beam or spark to enlighten thee to any sensible discovery of it or warm thee with any sensible comfort in it The Law of God which is the Law of the Spirit of Life in which Spirit the Heaven and Paradise of a Saint are seated is within in the inward man in the mind But the Law of Sin which is the Spirit of this World where Death Hell and the Devil have their place and their Throâ—e is still manifest and Powerful in thy Members in thy outward man What wonder then if thine inward Man like the Face of Heaven and of an Heavenly Paradise with the Lord Jesus in his Spiritual Glory shining in them as the Sun in its purity and strength be discerned by thee very weakly and uncertainly when they are to be seen thorough so thick so polluted so troubled an Air of the natural Spirit in thy Members Nay what wonder is it if from the Morning of thy Life to the Evening of it such blackness of darkness cover the whole Face of these beautiful and Heavenly things in thee that they appear not at all to thee although they constantly shine in the same Glory and move in the same order in themselves to themselves within thee when as such Powers of Darkness have their seat in thine outward Man thorough which they are to appear 4. Ans. Thou perhaps O afflicted Soul with the eye of Sense and of Reason by the Light of thine own Spirit lookest to see the Kingdom of God with its Joys and Glories and Glorious Inhabitants in thee But these are Spiritual things and to be discerned Spiritually They are Spiritual Senses which alone can take in the Divine sweetnesses and Beauties of this Spiritual Paradise and Heaven It is the Light of the Spirit alone in which they shine forth and appear It is the Breath of the Spirit alone which makes their Spices to flow forth and give their smells Thou O dejected Soul mayest have thy Spiritual senses yet weak Like a new-born Child thou mayest behold and gaze upon the Light of the Heavenly Sun and yet not understand what that is which thou seest or that thou seest any thing at all Again the Spirit is free he breaths and gives his Light where he pleaseth when he pleaseth and in what degree he pleaseth The Garden of God may be in thee thou mayest be in the midst of this Garden and yet not aware of it because it is either a dark Season where nothing appears or a twilight of the Spirit only where the Flowers and Plants of this Garden appear like little Clouds or dark spots undistinguished 5 Ans. There are three ways by which the new Birth or the Resurrection from the dead evidenceth itself to the Soul 1. The Seal of the Spirit 2. The Witness of the Spirit 3. A Spiritual Instinct 1. The Seal of the Spirit is the clearest and compleatest evidence Of this you read Eph. 1. v 13. You are sealed with that Holy Spirit of Promise The Spirit himself in his own person was the Promise and is the Seal St. John 14. v. 20. Jesus Christ in that Chapter promiseth the Spirit which he would send down when he was ascended to be in them He calleth this Spirit the Spirit of Truth and the Comforter Together with the promise of the Spirit he promiseth them that he would come again to them and that they should see him and have Joy and that none should take this Joy from them because they should never more lose the sight of him He promiseth likewise that at that day of the Spirit his Father and himself would come together and sup with them and lodge with them The rich and glorious ground of all this sweet mystery of the Divine Love and
other of the Creature While man stood in Innocency he abode in the Inward Image as his Center in that he Comprehended and Commanded the Image of the Creature The Image of God was Eden the Fountain of pleasures within from thence a River went forth watering the Image of the Creature and making that a Paradise All things were Trees in this Paradise good for food and pleasant to the Eye Trees of perpetual Youth Beauty Pleasure to Man Man was seated in this Inward Image as on his Throne from which he commanded and changed all the Creatures into divers Shapes of Delight at pleasure This is the First Explication 2. Explication The Departure of Man out of this Inward State When Man fell he went forth from his Inward Glory into the Outward Image this is signified Gen. 3. by the Woman yielding her self over to the Will of the Serpent and the Man giving himself up to the Will of the Woman So it was true of Man what is said of the Devils Jude 6. He left his First Estate and his Proper Habitation Now he lived wholly in the Out-forms of things which he broke off from the Inward Image and so made them all an Image of Vanity Darkness and Death keeping the Image of God imprisoned in this Outward Image which suffered it not to put forth itself or appear St. Paul expresseth this Departure as the Root of all Sin Rom. 1. 18. All wickedness is there sum'd up in this Detaining the Truth of God in Unrighteousness That is keeping down the Image of God and True Glory in a corrupt and false Image 3. Explication The return of Man into this Image Man hunting and hunted thorow the exteriour face of things finds neither his desired Prey nor Rest Poor Man oppressed with cares and sorrows he sinks down by a sad Retirement to the bottom of his own Spirit There he happily falls into the bosom of the Divine Image which lay buried under the Ruines of his Soul Here he catcheth some Glimpses of Immortal beauty some Tasts of a high delight some sense of a true Rest. Now he loaths the Empty Tedious Tormenting Follies of this Outer World David experimented this in himself Psal. 16. 7. My Reins instruct me in the Night-season When a Night of nature or melancholy takes away these sensual forms of things from us or makes them a Torture to us then this Hidden Image from the retired Principles of Nature from the secret of our souls puts up itself before us draws us down into itself makes its own Impressions upon us Impressions which have another manner of Light Strength Sweetness in them Now the Soul cries out in the language of Cain to a sweeter purpose How have I been a Fugitive and a Vagabond upon the Earth while I have been driven out from thy Face and Presence and thou beautiful Image of things Come lock me up in thine Embraces that I may never go forth more into that Outward Court of things which is troden down by the Feet of Lusts and Confusions Or if I must go forth again O that I might carry thee forth with me as my Brother that suckt the breasts of my Mother-Nature I would kiss thee and I should not be despised I would enjoy perpetual pleasures in thee and no shame but strength and glory should rest upon me This is the First Change into the Inward State in Nature 2. The Spiritual State in Christ. The Change to this State we are to consider in Three Parts 1. The Preparation in Man 2. The Spiritual State 3. The Passage of Man into it 1. Part. The Preparation in Man to this Spiritual State Man pursued by Griefs from without retired into the Inward Image the Recess of Nature as David into his Cave meeteth with a fresh unexpected view of Beauties here Now he is refresh't now he comes to himself Now he begins to raise himself and say as Samuel did when the eldest Son of Jesse was presented to him Behold the Annointed of God is before me Surely this is no other than the Gate of Heaven But after a little Tryal Man finds this to be but a Natural Image of God an Earthly Paradise only which so soon as it puts forth is ready so soon to dis-appear again He finds it too weak to raise itself clearly from the bottom of those Waters of Vanity Sin and Trouble which have over-flown and over-whelm'd it He perceives it too slight to satisfie him 'T is an Intimation of true joys rather than the Joys themselves 'T is a fair Invitation no full Entertainment Mans joys and hopes here prove to him like the Seed sown in Rocky Ground which springs up suddenly but suddenly withers when once the Sun the Tempting Glories or Scorching Furies of this World beat upon it Now the Soul is as Mary Magdalen at the Grave of her Saviour She looks into her Heart for this Image but finds that gone and her heart as an empty Grave Then she cries O my God who hath taken these Comforts away I thought that these should have delivered me and dwelt for ever with me But wipe away thy Tears distressed Soul As Jesus carryed away his Natural body from Mary to bring it again a Spiritual body So thy God hath withdrawn this Natural Image of divine joyes in thy Spirit but he will restore and bring it into thy soul again a Spiritual Image St. Paul gives thee this Consolation Rom. 8. 3 4. What the Law could not do being weak thorow the flesh c. That the Righteousness of the Law might be fulfill'd in us who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit The weakness of Natures Inward Image prepares the Spirit of Man for the Spiritual State of things 2. Part The Spiritual State itself The Prophet represents this in a Promise Joel 2. 28. I will pour forth my Spirit upon all Flesh. Three things are here to be explained 1. The Spirit 2. Flesh. 3. Effusion or Pouring forth of Spirit upon Flesh. 1. The Spirit is the Unity of things Ephes. 4. 3. The Unity of the Spirit Unity is appropriated to the Spirit This Spirit is the most High God For he is the First Supream only Unity Gal. 3. 20. God is One. God eminently and exclusively is One. This Spirit the Unity is the Fountain and Life of Things All sorts of Life all Beauty every where are Images of this Self-comprehending Aâ—-comprehending Unity This is the Spirit 2. Flesh Flesh and Spirit differ as Unity and Division or which is the same as Life and Death Rom. 8. 6. To be Carnally-minded is Death to be Spiritually-minded is Life and Peace Life is the Unity of Things in which they Contain themselves Death is the Division of Things from themselves Flesh is all Divided Forms of things in the Creature according to the language of the Scripture The Scripture in this sense reckons Angels and Souls of Men as Fleshly things Though Angels are the most United Things the
First Unities or Springs in the Creature and so Spirits Yet they compared with God are Compounded and Divided Things and so fleshly St. Peter thus sums up under the name of Flesh all things that have a Principle of Division in them by which they are cut off from their own Beauty or Being by which they fade and fall away This is Flesh. 3. The Effusion or Pouring forth of the Spirit upon Flesh. This signifies Three things 1. The Spirit nakedly sustaining the Creature as its Immediate Root and Principle So the Spirit is a Spring pouring itself forth into Flesh as it 's Channel 2. The Spirit filling the Fleshly form with its Waters with its clear and fresh Streams the workings of its own Life 3. The Spirit planting its own Image upon each Created Image clothing and overflowing it with its own Appearances Thus St. Paul expresseth the Effusions the Overflowings of the Spirit Rom. 8. 6. To be Spiritually-minded is Life and Peace To be Spiritually-minded is to see Things as they are in their Spiritual State In this State all things have a Twofold Representation 1. Represen Life true Life without any mixture of Death Every Sight here is Life For all things are seen as growing up out of this Life-Principle the Spirit and Themselves as Powers of this Life displaying themselves and working in themselves 2. Represen Peace This is the Efficacy of that Life in the Harmony of an Inward Sweetness an Outward Beauty Thus this Spiritual State brings forth to Light again in itself the Inward Image of God in Nature For it shews all Fleshly Forms being yet Fleshly and yet Harmonious Images of the Supream Unity or Beauty But it brings forth this Natural Image with this Twofold Advantage 1. It formerly grew upon a Natural Principle and so was subject to Decay Now it is rooted in this Immortal Spirit and so becomes Immortal 2. It was in Nature an Image only Now it is an Image and a Glass It doth not only Represent the Glories of the Spirit by an empty Show but it sets them before you as Present in their proper substances and so shining thorow it Thus we have gone thorow the Second Part in this Head and seen the Spiritual State in itself 3. Part The Passage of Man into this Spiritual State When the Soul is taught by her Experience and her God that the Secret Delights of the Natural Image are for a Repast only not a Repose that in the strength of these as Eliah's food brought by Angels she is to travel thorow a Wilderness the Ruines of Nature with all its Principles and Images till she comes to the Mount of God Then she takes up a resolution to stay no longer in this Field of Swine with the Swine but to make hast to her Fathers House where every Servant hath Bread enough each Fleshly Form is fill'd with a Substantial Glory When God hath secretly instructed the Soul thus to resolve he as a tender-hearted Father meets her in the beginning of these resolutions falls upon her neck and kisseth her God shews himself in the Soul gives her sweet Testimonies of his Love carries her further off from the Outward Image carries her thorow the most retired Principles of Nature beyond and above them into this Spiritual Principle and State which is the Spirit of Christ where God and the Creature are United where the Spirit is as Water the Flesh as a flourishing Earth standing in that Water and out of it being continually fed continually made Fruitful and Beautiful by it As Jacob at the sight of the Waggons which came from Joseph so this Soul now revives she begins to be her self and to live again as after a long Trance or Death She looks about and sees her self at home she perceives her self in that Spirit in which she came forth from God in which she sees the Face of God again by which she is assured to be carryed on to the full and eternal enjoyment of her God and Father Now saith the Soul I have enough I have not only seen the Face of my God but He hath made me to see His Seeds also the Face of each Object as the Face of an Angel of God Now let me die that I entirely in my Body and whole Soul may be call'd home from my Banishment into this remote part of Things the Out-side of Nature Now let me die in Peace with this Spiritual Image in my Embraces this Sense of Ioys and Glories in my Heart Let me ever abide here O my God! never to go forth more from this Inner Chamber of the Great King into the Tumultuous street of my senses or sensual Reason O that this Spiritual State so full of ravishing Sights which like the Sheet full of all living Creatures before Peter is now let down out of Heaven into my Soul O! that it might never be drawn up again until it take me also up with it into Heaven I have finisht the Second State of our Change at our Conversion The Spiritual State in Christ I pass to the Third 3. The Divine State of things in God As Christ is the way to God So the Divine State is the Spiritual State made Perfect The Soul having been a while taught in the Bosom of Christ begins to grow up to a fuller sense of God in a more naked abstracted absolute and comprehensive manner Now she begins to put off all that ever she put on that God may be her only Clothing She begins to think it not enough to live and walk in the Spirit of God except she be One Spirit with Christ and God She perceives some dark glimpse of that which is meant 1 Cor. 13. 12. To Know as we are Known that is in patrid at home in God Comprehensively by being Comprehended in God and so Comprehending him again The Soul in the glimmering Light of this State brought forth in her Flesh as a small Candle in a dark Lanthorn or faint twinklings of a Star in a Cloud the Soul rudely descries a difference between making the Creature the Glass thorow which we see God and having the Godhead for the Glass placing itself next our Eye and discovering all the Creatures in itself this the Soul climbs up towards this makes her long for Heaven that she may enjoy this Beatifical Vision clearly unâ—as'd of Flesh. The imperfectest Beginnings and rudest Hints of this State in the Soul are to the other State as Honey and Wine to Milk They melt the Spirit of Man to a Transcendent Sweetness and heighten it to a Triumphant Strength As Jesus Christ saith of God out of the Psalmist Psal. 82. 16. He saith of those to whom the word of God came I have said Ye are Gods Joh. 10. 35. So saith the Soul to all things as she looks upon them in this Divine State Ye are God-like Appearances rising up out of God and abiding in him Saul cries 1 Sam. 28. 13. I see Gods ascending up out