the one hand and the other upon distinct accounts are to be reputed enemies to the TRUTH in the Spirit and Power thereof as is at large set forth 1 Tim. 1. the first of which are also meant and described 1 Tim. 4. 1. where they are said to be those that are departed from the Faith through giving heed unto seducing spirits and to inspirations of devils in those transformed Ministers of Satan 2 Cor. 11. 15. who labour to vent the doctrines of devils such as devils either are authors or objects of through whose Ministery they come to have itching ears formed in them 2 Tim. 4. 3. ready to hearken to all that the Serpent transformed into an Angel of light presents to them by way of instruction and under colour of divine inspiration as taking upon him the Prophetical office of Christ and thereby undertaking to carry them forward to what is more spiritual and to heighten them in their experiences of what SPIRIT and POWER is In this very way he offered to impose upon and deceive if it had been possible Christ himself when perceiving that all the literal Religion and legal worship of the Jewes would not hold him but lay short of his light he shewed him all the Kingdomes of the world and the glory of them the utmost creaturely perfection or natural glory which he was able to give the prospect and representation of in his own Angelical nature being of that highest rank of creatures in the whole first Creation and that in a moment or the twinkling of an eye saying All these will I give thee or make thee to live in if thou wilt fall down and worship me This temptation then which Christ resisted these seduced ones fall under and are snared and taken with to the making of them love and believe a lie and to yield up themselves in a fixednesse of service duty and love unto this false spirit as unto Christ the true Prophet And the better to induce them hereunto and strengthen them in the beliefe of a lie Satan in this his coming as an Angel of light is accompanied with power with signes and lying wonders acting the part of a great friend and favourer of all that is spiritual heavenly and high not opposing at all their having the understanding of all mysteries and all knowledge yea or their having of all faith to the working of miracles or removing of mountaines their speaking with the tongues of men and Angels but unto all these attainments he is conducing as much as in him lies in all deceivablenesse of unrighteousnesse to serve his designes by gaining the greater credit and authority hereby in their hearts and affections and so the more unperceivably beguiling and winding them over into the belief of a lie and that in a point of highest concernment unto them prevailing with them to receive him in their love and affection even that adulterous spirit and deceiver of the Nations in this his Angelical brightnesse instead of Christ himselfe THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH and SON OF THE LIVING GOD and that considered as shining forth in the glory of his SECOND COMING In consequence hereof he makes them to resigne up all the powers and operations of their minde absolutely into his hands in obedience to his dictates and inspirations upon which they hold themselves obliged to be alwayes waiting in the posture of passive silence in a Counterfeit imitation of the true conformity unto Christ in his death and resurrection So then by this meanes the Devill is found sitting in the Temple of God as God to the apprehension of those who thus possesse him or if you will whom he thus possesses as also to the imagination of others their deluded proselytes where he is opposing and Exalting himselfe above all that is called God And as in former times by JANNES and JAMBRES he withstood Moses through a lively and skilful imitation of his works and miracles so in the latter dayes by such instruments of his as these he shall resist the TRUTH to the causing of many to stumble and be offended thereat for the resemblance sake which this false spirit is able to forme of it Which false and counterfeit appearance of his as we have said the Scripture sets forth and describes under these two heads MORTIFICATION and VIVIFICATION with a Character of Condemnation upon them in the very description made of them Such mortification is spoken of 2 Tim 2. 17. in the case of HYMENEUS and PHILETUS whose word is there said to eate like a canker Intimating what kinde of mortification the word by them ministered did produce even such a one as is caused in the body by cancerous humors carrying certaine mortality in it if not timely prevented not being a mortification in order to health and life but unto unsoundnesse and death These teachers with their followers are men of corrupt and unchast mindes towards the true Lord and husband under all their abstinence and seeming mortification Againe 1 Tim. 4. 2. this mortification is called the searing of the conscience with a hot iron importing the dead and insensible frame which thereby is brought upon the minde to any other delight love or desire save only towards this false spirit with whom it is as it were bewitched to the contracting a spiritual benummednesse and coldnesse to all other lovers whatsoever to the world and all seen things or bodily objects answering unto the lust of the flesh the lust of the eye and the pride of sensual life yea and also to Christ himself the true and living God so as to become past feeling in the case of any checks accusations or reproofs from the SPIRIT OF TRUTH in order to a totall and full resignation of themselves up to the dictates inspirations and commands of this false and seducing spirit In this sense and on this account we may finde men giving their bodies to be burned 1 Cor 13. 3. yielding up themselves to be deprived of all their natural or sensual comforts yea many times the most lawful of them thereby offering themselves up as in sacrifice unto these satanical flames wherein they are in danger to be everlastingly burning as in a fire that can never be quenched For this searing of their conscience as with a hot yron is but the first fruits in these SONS OF PERDITION of that resurrection into everlasting contempt designed unto such VESSELS OF DISHONOUR as on the other hand the true mortification and resigning up of the natural will and desire to Christ is the first fruits in the true SONS OF GOD of their resurrection into everlasting life This sinne of their under the Gospel as it is more spiritual seems to be pointed out to us by that sinne under the Law committed by those that offered up their children to Molech causing their sons and their daughters to passe through that material fire and to yield up their very bodies in the most literal outward sense and acceptation to be burned in
THE Retired Mans Meditations OR THE Mysterie and Power OF GODLINES Shining forth in the Living WORD to the unmasking the Mysterie of Iniquity in the most Refined and Purest Forms And withall presenting to view I. The Riches and fulness of Christs Person as Mediator II. The Natural and Spiritual Man in their proper Distinction III. The Reign and Kingdom of Christ in the Nature Limits and extent thereof as well in his Saints as over his Enemies IN WHICH Old Light is restored and New Light Justified Being the Witness which is given to this Age BY Henry Vane Knight London Printed by Robert White and are to be sold at the three Bibles neer the West end of Pauls 1655. TO THE READER THere is not any thing which lies more cross to the busie and boundless Spirit of Man then that which takes him off the wing of his Natural desire and is as a bar unto that activity in him which if permitted to run its course makes his feet swift to his own destruction For when such a power is assumed and delighted in by man to direct his own steps the more he is gratified by God with a scope and freedom herein the more is he left alone and singled out in a self-sufficiency of wisdom and strength to be at his own dispose and reap the fruit of his many inventions The springing up of this spirit in man at first aspiring herein to be as God was that that cast him down from his excellency and gave him his Fall setting up in him that great Idol SELF-INTEREST which hath ever since so skilfully insinuated into the desire and heart of every natural man that by its influence the whole world seems to be governed as well in Religion as Civil policy being able to bring that gain and advantage to the observers thereof which as a powerful bait the Devil makes use of to bribe the conscience and by degrees to draw off the heart from God and from sincere love to all righteous and good principles as in the exercise thereof they lie thwart to its designs Self thus considered is no other then the Spirit of man lusting after the doing of his own will and procuring his own glory more then Gods a frame of spirit in direct contrariety to Christs Iob. 5. 30. c. 6. 38. which inordinate affection is the covetousness the Apostle calls idolatry Col. 3. 5. as wel-knowing that the cherishing and upholding of this lust in its credit strength and authority is dearer to man then all other things yea then God himself So as whilst Communion with God and the fruits of his presence are found gainfull and supporting hereunto man is content to part with the filthiness of flesh and be washed from his old darling sins putting on the form of godliness but when the cross of Christ shews it self and comes forth as an enemy against it then God must be dethroned the son of God and the true riches troden under foot so that nothing must stand up or be allowed competition herewith but all must bow and do homage or become the objects of its fierce wrath and displeasure If ever this spirit creep into the purest Forms of Religion in conjunction with worldly Government to back it as the case may be t is then got into its last strong hold and chief place of defence where sitting as on a throne of iniquity it frames mischief by a Law and in casting the truth down to the ground it practises and prospers for a season against the Saints of the most High and against the Prince himself of this heavenly Host magnifying it self and bidding defiance to all adversaries whatsoever Nevertheless the power and wisdom of the cross of Christ is able to grapple with it and in due time will visibly undertake it and triumph over it But forasmuch as this selfish spirit is prophesied of as that which shall be eminently in view in the last dayes 2 Tim. 3. 2. as an immediate forerunner of Christs second coming called Mark 13. 14. The abomination that maketh desolate described as being gotten into the holy place and standing where it ought not even in the very Temple of God clothed with a visibility of Saintship it does therefore behove us to stand upon our watch armed with the whole armour of God against it this being indeed the foundation of all that hypocrisie and apostacy which the last days shall be filled with For this purpose these Meditations on the WORD of Life are presented to thee setting forth evidently before thine eyes Iesus Christ and him crucified in whose grave this self-exalting spirit is found among the dead as conquered and slain either through the power of Faith in the true Saint or by the rod of iron dashing and breaking in pieces all wilful resisters as a potters vessel Christ as he is this WORD of Life is Alpha and Omega the first and the last In which dignity and preheminence he is not only him that is true but hath the property and way of being known by himself as the first and original patern of all true knowledge and discerning So as they that have been with this Iesus trained up at his feet under his immediate teachings are able through him strengthening them to give a reason of their hope whereof they need not be ashamed Being on this account encouraged and having an opportunity ministred through the retiredness of my condition I judged it my duty amongst that variety of witness in the things of God which is at this day given forth to bear also my part and stand up in my lot taking this age to record that I am herein free from the blood of all men as not having shunned to declare unto them the Counsels and truths of God that have obtained a large entrance and reception in my heart as a seed there sowen which is springing up to a perfect day The Warrant and Rule for this practice is so express and undeniable that it needs only the mentioning Rom. 10. 10. where it is said with the heart man believeth unto righteousness and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation And Christ says of himself For this cause was I born and came into the world that I might bear witness to the Truth And to this Paul exhorts Timothy saying Fight the good fight of faith lay hold on eternal life whereunto thou art also called and hast professed a good profession before many witnesses And this in imitation of Christ himself who before Pontius Pilate witnessed a good Confession Yet how ungrateful a thing is it to flesh and blood in the best of us to be bearing that witness which seems to carry contention in it with the whole earth Jer. 15. 10. sending forth a fire upon all that is earthly to consume the false Rests wherein Professors themselves are apt to take up even in that wherein we are allowed only to be as Sojourners Yea what streights are we in as streightned
four and twenty Elders who both stand thus represented in Christ their head in his being Minister of Gods second appearance or the beginning and first-born from the dead the High-Priest presenting himself within the veil in the immediate presence of God bearing on his brest the names of the Children that God hath given to him from all eternity And for as much as Revel 5. 6. there is mention made of a Lamb as it had been slain having seven horns and seven eyes which are the seven spirits of God sent forth into all the earth that John beheld in the midst of the throne and of the four Beasts and of the Elders which argues them to be distinct from them let me therefore as a further witness to the life and glory had and enjoyed by this true Messiah the Ministring WORD of Gods first and second appearance from the foundation of the world endeavour to open to you the analogie that is between him in the exercise of this twofold Ministry of his and this description of a Lamb as it had been slain having seven horns and seveneyes which is the power and light put forth by him as he is the Alpha and Omega the beginning and ending of the whole Creation of God which the number denotes being in himself the perfect measure line and original exemplar of both Creations the spirit sent forth by God as the light life and influencing power unto them both respectively and so having that in a far greater eminency in himself as Head and Mediator then what they have in themselves As first he is King of righteousness in the Ministry of Gods first appearance and then King of peace in the Ministry of his second and in both Melchisedec a High-Priest that implies a sacrifice a Lamb slain from the foundation of the world Thus the eternal life and blessedness prepared by God according to the free and good pleasure of his will to be communicated and imparted unto his chosen vessels whether men or Angels being too big and full to be received by them in their first make and fashion of building there is a means prepared for a new make and fashion of Creation for them whereby that which is in part is done away as it stands single and alone and yet is found again in the whole when that which is perfect is come and made to be their portion and inheritance whereby Gods peculiar ones are made to have that which other natural beings at their best have in common with them and yet have over and above that height and bredth and depth and length of the enjoyment of Gods love and peace which all the wisdom and discerning of the most capacious natural understanding whatsoever remaining upon the foundation of the first building can not reach nor attain Christ thus considered as Mediator is described Dan. 7. 9 10. by the antient of daies who is brought in fitting upon the same Throne as Rev. 4. whose garment was white as snow and the hair of his head like the pure wool his Throne was like the fiery flame and his wheels as burning fire a fiery stream issued and came forth from before him Thousand thousands ministred unto him and ten Thousand times ten Thousand stood before him the judgement was set and the Books were opened even the Books of the Lamb that was slain from the foumdation of the world And behold one like the son of man came with the clouds of heaven and came to the antient of daies verse 13. Here the offspring and root of David meet in marriage-union and the man Christ Jesus returns and ascends into the glory where he was before or in the beginning and they brought him neer before him so neer as both do make but one blessed Person of the Mediator who laies hold on the seed of David his own off-spring thus to bring him neer to him and gives him dominion and glory and a kingdom that all People Nations and Languages should serve him whose Dominion is an everlasting dominion which shall not pass away and his Kingdome that which shall never be destroyed That this Antient of daies is the Son of God considered in the fulness and riches of his Mediatorship as hath been before opened is plain by comparing this with Rev. 1. 13 14 15 16. where the same description is made in most particulars of him as in this seventh of Daniel adding this that out of his mouth went a sharp two-edged sword which is the proper character of the Living WORD of God Heb. 4. 12. and his countenance was as the Sun shineth in his strength This compared again with Ioh. 5. 22 23. where Christ saith the Father judgeth no man but htah committed all judgement unto the Son that all men should honour the Son even as they honour the Father doth import that by this Antient of daies is meant that antient state of things and works of old which was set up in the Mediator from everlasting Prov. 8. 23. and was made manifest in the beginning when he became the first-born of every creature and first-begotten from the dead assuming in the dispensation of the fulness of time into neerness of union with himself the man Christ Jesus as the branch his servant the polished shaft hid in the shadow of his hand to accomplish his designs and be in his use and service the means of perfecting all that entercourse into which God thinks fit to admit the particular beings of men and Angels with himself in which state he is prefigured by the two Cherubims made at the end of the mercy-seat for the shadowing of it and by the two Olive-trees that stand by the Lord of the whole earth CHAP. III. Concerning the Creation of all things by Jesus Christ who is the Mysterie that lay hid in God from the beginning and makes himself manifest as well by the works of Creation as of Redemption IT can never be sufficiently observed how the WISDOM of God in the most difficult and knotty points to the reason of man doth without gratifying at all the curiosity of flesh and blood assert the truth of his own operations Thus Heb. 11. the Holy Ghost as taking for granted what he speaks of doth in short down-right terms declare ver 3. That the worlds were framed by the WORD of God and that by faith this is known to be so In which light it is also discovered that those things which are seen by our natural eye had a prae-existence in their proper head and cause and so had also those things that are not seen but to our spiritual discerning relating also to their proper root The method of which relative and radical being of things in their head in gradations one above another so as the inferiour subordinations of workmanship are the typical significations of them that are above is shortly and mystically yet fully and admirably laid down by the Apostle Paul 1 Cor. 11. 3. where he saith that the
are the heavenly spiritual seed and from above measured out with a line of life as adopted children and friends of God the latter are the earthly or fleshly seed and from beneath measured out with a line of death as chusing the state of a servant or to remain single and alone in their natural principles enemies to the cross of Christ and resisters of the grace whereby the other are saved which saving grace we shall find 2 Tim. 1. 9. was conferred freely on the Elect without condition according to Gods purpose and given them in Christ Jesus before the world began So Ephes 1. 3 4. They were blessed with all spiritual blessings in the heavenly in Christ according as they were chosen in him before the foundation of the world to be holy and without blame before him in love Thus we see in what sense the particular beings of men and Angels are the off-spring and seed of Christ children of the first or second covenant frequently so called in Scripture although none but those that are called according to his purpose to be heirs of God and joynt-heirs with Christ of the Fathers glory ministred to them in and by the new and everlasting Covenant do truly deserve the name of Sons or Children who have a name better then that of Sons and Daughters by the other Covenant From this general consideration therefore of Men and Angels as all are the seed and off-spring of Christ we must come to several distributions of them For First Here we have the general Assembly and Church of the first-born which are written in heaven the inhabitants of the true Mount Sion and City of the living God Secondly we have the innumerable company of Angels Heb. 12. 22 23. who are made ministring Spirits to these heirs of salvation Heb. 1. 14. Thirdly we have the Legions of wicked Angels that made themselves such by their fall and disobedience reserved in chains of darkness to the judgement of the great day Fourthly we have the whole race of mankind in one lump or mass as considered in their natural life and being bearing the image and similitude of God according to his first appearance wherein all are brought forth in the beginning as a state for them not to abide in but from whence to be passing into an endless and immortal state of honour or dishonour All these by name are created and have their invisible immortal substances brought forth by the WORD as his off-spring made to stand up together in and with the man Jesus Christ as their head and are committed to the charge of the Mediator to assign unto them all circumstances for their being brought forth into their visible bodily appearances in this world together with the means and method of bringing them upon the stage of this first creation and the lot there wherein they are to stand and serve in their several places uses and relations according as he hath received command from the Father So that from the time that the man Christ Jesus began to be in the WORD as in his head and root standing up in the sight and presence thereof as the promised seed to come we are to date the beginning of dayes unto the invisible substances of Angels and Men who then also began to be in their head and were ever beholding or rather beheld by their Father in heaven untill they were made actually to exist in continuance of time in their own proper persons and beings CHAP. IV. Concerning the Creation Nature and Ministry of Angels IT is said Gen. 1. 1. In the beginning God created the Heaven and the Earth In what sense Christ is the beginning hath been already opened and how as the Messiah he is the Minister of Gods first appearance in which he is head unto the Angels the Lord amongst them in Sinai by whose voice the Law or first covenant was given where he was compassed about with these his fiery Chariots who receive what is spoken by Christ of the mind and will of God to speak it forth again as the Word they are to publish unto men in the Ministry of the first covenant Heb. 2. 2. In this sense it is said Acts 7. 53. that the Law was given by the disposition of Angels They therefore do obtain the first order and rank of all natural beings in the first creation and are endued with an instrumentalness of being and motion to this use and service of their Head as also to be the subordinate means of all converse which by Christ is maintained between God and the first world unto whom it is put in subjection as Heb. 2. 5. compared with Psal 8. 5. do evidence These in their creation are described by the light which God made on the first day Gen. 1. 34. when he said let there be light and there was light and God saw the light that it was good approving this first work of his hands in the beginning of that day and God by his dividing the light from the darkness signified the heavenliness of their frame and constitution as they stand exalted and separate in their beings from all sensual life in the form of invisible spirits whereof the material heavens in their creation are the first shadow which are called Prov. 8. 26. the highest part of the dust of the world as David also giving account of both their creations together Psal 104. ver 2 3 4. saith who coverest thy self with light as with a garment who stretchest out the heavens like a curtain who layeth the beams of his chambers in the waters who maketh the clouds his chariots who walketh upon the wings of the wind who maketh his Angels spirits and his Ministers a flaming fire in which posture and preparation the Psalmist describes the WORD as he proceeds to the rest of the creation ver 5 6. c. intimating that as man in his bodily state was made dust of the ground so the Angels were made a flame of fire in their natural constitution In this their natural frame they excell in strength and power Psal 103. to execute the commands of their head and in their motion and actings are exceeding high and dreadful comparatively with all other parts of the Creation and therefore these Morning-Stars considered as they are together in one society and corporation amongst whom there is a chief and prince called Lucifer the first son of the morning are the image and glory of Christ as he is the first-born of every creature in like service use and relation as the woman is to the man whose image and glory she is A view of these angelical spirits in their nature ministry and use is lively set forth and represented in the vision Ezekiel had Chap. 1. compared with Chap. 10. as the body unto Christ who is there described by the living creature which the Prophet saw under the God of Israel which living creature is said to have the likeness of a man and is also called
deriver of life And both come as worshippers of him by sacrifice for cleansing and perfecting their consciences and maintaining union and communion between them and God which through the fall was lost And he that is thus prophesyed of as one to come Mich. 5. 2. is also prepared and set up from everlasting His goings forth having been of old though he takes occasion by the fall of man to reveal himself more fully who is the WORD that hath been heard from the beginning and hath caused the sound of his voice and the power of his Rule and dominion to go forth and be obeyed from the rising of the sun to the setting thereof in all ages For the government of Angels and men is upon the shoulders of this great Councellor and Prince of peace Who as he had the bounds of his Kingdoms and the confines of his dominions set out by the Father from all Eternity so was it now high time to declare himself in the administration and exercise thereof upon this foul miscarriage of the fallen Angels with all mankind in Adam and to shew himself to be He that is the possessor of all power in heaven and in earth and that hath the chief administration thereof This is he spoken of Isa 49. 2. whose mouth the Lord hath made like a sharp sword who was hid in the shadow of his hand and as a polished shaft in the quiver of the living WORD before the Lord called him from the womb of the virgin and from the bowels of his mother ver 1. and to whom God said ver 3. c. Thou art my servant whom I have raised up in righteousness and in whom I will be glorified Ask of me and I will give thee the utmost ends of the earth for thy possession for it is a light thing for me that thou shouldst be my servant to raise up the Tribes of Jacob and to restore the preserved of Israel I will also give thee for a light unto the Gentiles that thou maist be my salvation to the ends of the earth Thus saith the Lord In an acceptable time have I heard thee and in a day of salvation have I helped thee who as a Lamb slain from the foundation of the world was with God and I will preserve thee and give thee as a covenant of the people to establish the earth and cause to inherit the desolate heritages to say to the prisoners go forth and to them that are in darkness shew your selves to give bread to them that are hungry and waters freely to them that thirst for he that hath mercy on them will lead them even by the springs of water will he guide them and he will make all his mountain a way and his high way shall be exalted Behold these shall come from far and these from the North and the West and these from the Land of Sinim Thus is this polished shaft that is hidden in the shadow of his hand and in the quiver of the Living WORD provided from the beginning with all the power of a mighty Saviour and compleat Redeemer and is bringing of it into exercise upon the first occasion promising the familiar and plain discovery of himself to the very outward as well as the inward senses of man by the Words being made flesh and born of a woman whereby that which was in the beginning might be heard with our ears seen with our eyes handled with our hands of the WORD of life which was with the Father and who from the Creation downward during Moses his ministry was spoken to the Fathers by the Prophets at sundry times and in divers manners till at last he came himself to speak in his own person through whom as in Adam all died all are again revived and made to live CHAP. IX Concerning the Words being made flesh for the performance of the whole will of God in reference to mans redemption and salvation THE WORD in the sense here treated of is not to be understood simply as he is the second in the Trinity but as he is also the root of David the ancientness of whose dayes is spoken of Dan. 7. 13. whos 's goings forth were of old and from everlasting Micah 5. 2. in order to come forth unto God a Ruler in Israel by his being made flesh and so is as well the root as off-spring of David in the same blessed person of the Mediator Rev. 22. 16. having power in the fulness of time to bring forth his servant the BRANCH Zech. 3. 8. or to bring forth himself in the form of a servant as he is that righteous BRANCH Jer. 23. 5. which is promised to be raised up unto David to sit upon his Throne Christ as he is the root of David and head unto both creations is the WORD that was in the BEGINNING the image of the invisible God the first born of every creature and first begotten from the dead in which mysterie that from the beginning hath lain hid in God all men are called to see and know what fellowship is to be had for them by means of the union that is between the man Christ Jesus and the WORD between the ROOT and this BRANCH of the Lord Isa 4. 2. which is beautiful and glorious and whose very earthly fruit is excellent and comely to them that are escaped of Israel Hereby that which was from the beginning kept as a secret is now made the object of open and familiar converse even that which we have heard which we have seen with our eyes which we have looked upon and our hands have handled of the WORD of life for the life which was in the WORD was there the light of men which as a mysterie or secret with the Father does by becoming the BRANCH make it self manifest unto men in their particular beings so that they see it and bear witness and shew that eternal life which was with the Father before the world began but is now made manifest unto us by the appearing of Jesus our God and Saviour God manifest in the flesh justified in the Spirit seen of Angels preached unto the Gentiles believed on in the world received up into glory Here we find the progress of this great mysterie of godliness for the making it self manifest unto Angels and men by the means of Christs incarnation life and death in the flesh and final taking up into glory through the power of the resurrection from the dead And as this Jesus in the dispensation of the fulness of time appeared and descended into the lower parts of the earth So we see that he had a heavenly place in his head and root whereby he was found in union with the WORD of life before the world began lying hid in God and was even then as a polished shaft in this quiver of the WORD ready to be sent forth as the servant the BRANCH in his proper season This union though it was mystical heavenly and invisible
that which Christ in no sort or sense was capable to undergo being every moment of his sufferings the most perfect object of Gods eternal love doing that all along which was most perfectly welpleasing and lovely to the Father even whilst his natural man was the object of his temporary wrath and displeasure But Gods wrath in the first sense hath for its object all sinners whatsoever they be whether elect or non-elect whether such as shall be finally saved or finally damned consisting in that discountenance and rebuke which God hath resolved to put upon sin wheresoever he finds it yea though in his own dear children which therefore is consistent with his peculiar love as himself saith speaking of the spiritual seed to whom the sure mercies belong and with whom his covenant stands fast for ever Psal 89. 30 31 32 33. If his children forsake my law and walk not in my judgements if they break my statutes and keep not my commandments then will I visit their transgression with the rod that is of this wrath and their iniquity with stripes Nevertheless my loving kindness will I not utterly take from him nor suffer my faithfulness to fail With this rod and with these stripes was Christ himself smitten and we healed Isa 53. to the marring of his visage more then any mans and his form more then the sons of men Chap. 52. 14. leaving in him no form or comeliness to the eye of the natural man who therefore when he thus seeth him saith there is no beauty that we should desire him Chap. 53. 2. c. looking on him as despised and rejected of men and therefore hiding the face from him as not valuing or esteeming him at all but judging him as one stricken smitten of God and afflicted or as as one whose name is blotted out of Gods book a phrase usual in scripture to describe those that are under this first dispensation of wrath as accursed and separated from God Rev. 3. to whom God doth in this temporary ministry of wrath attending the breach of the first covenant declare himself as an enemy Thus it was with Christ not only to the judgement and discerning of others whether of his own people the Jews or of the heathens but thus he stood represented to himself in his own natural judgement and sense as a meer man who lay really under this wrath of God as the object of it for the sins and on the behalf of all mankind which seems to be intimated by Moses when in the person of Christ he was mediating with God Exod 32. 32. in behalf of the transgressing children of the first covenant bringing this as his last argument Blot me saith he out of thy book if thou wilt not forgive them as if he should have said Am not I willing to be blotted out of thy book that thou mightest forgive them have not I thus been wounded for their transgressions that by my stripes they might be healed under this wrath or curse Paul also in imitation of Christs affection declares himself willing to fall if thereby he might benefit his brethren his kinsfolks according to the flesh This then is the only sense wherein Christ is capable of bearing Gods wrath and of being made a curse for us And now how innocent and spotless is this precious and most profitable doctrine of Christs sufferings or passive obedience as to the calumnies and unworthy reproaches of those who take upon them to brand it with Popery Socinianism and how unjustly doth this proceed out of their mouths who state the point of justification so as to make it little other or better then that of works or of the first covenant having the imputation of no higher an object then Christs active obedience or legal righteousness singly considered for the matter of it whereas by this doctrine of Christs death and passive obedience we see something farther required by the law of the new covenant over and above the former which as a higher and more acceptable object of imputative righteousness is given to the true and right heirs of salvation viz. that of Christs broken meek crucified spirit the true Isaac as offered up which is before God of great price In this everlasting righteousness all the spiritual seed obtain at once an absolute remission and freedom from sin standing before the throne of God without blame in their spiritual Head the spotless Lamb in whom is no guile to the obtaining an eternal redemption peculiar to themselves from amongst all others the sons of men And forasmuch as herein is asserted that the sinner is thus justified in the spirit and righteousness of his head imputed to him as soon as he is made actually a believer and of that one blessed seed it doth avowedly decry Socinianism which makes the personal obedience of the Saint in conformity only to the death of Christ as his pattern and this but litterally also understood to be that alone which is thesinners justification which withall excludes the secondbranch of Christs passive obedience here asserted as it is the satisfaction to Gods justice and the atonement for the appeasing of his wrath on the behalf of sinners And as thus the true believers have a higher and more excellent objective righteousness offered and imputed to them so have they also a more excellent and precious faith then the other to receive and apply it founded in the spirit of true son-ship and adoption as the spring of that newness of life and operation which the law of the new covenant requires This faith we say is saving and to be of it is inconsistent with our being of works singly considered so that to be and live by this grace is no more to be and live by works otherwise grace is no more grace and if it be of works then is it not of grace otherwise work is no more work Rom. 10. 6. which with what else hath been said on this subject of Christs obedience doth suffiicently bear witness against the Romish doctrine of works Thus we have treated of the obedience of Christ both active and passive through which he fulfilled all righteousness and underwent all things written of him needful to be by him performed and suffered for the compleating mans redemption and salvation without having inflicted upon him the pain of the damned or the wrath of God in that sense as some groundlesly and without warrant from Scripture do affirm And as thus we have seen Christ mystically as well as litterally laid in the grave and rendred obedient to the death of the Cross so in the third and last particular he remains to be considered as through the progress which the witness and teachings of the Father made in him he comes at length to be declared the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead the holy one which was so far from being left in the grave or suffered to see corruption that his crucified natural man or dead
an union between the Word and Christs manhood as we have already shewed in the precedent Chapter that in a threefold respect according to one of w th his manhood is found in the form of God and as the son of man he accounts it not robbery to be acknowledged equal with God the man that is his fellow Thirdly there is a union between the manhood of Christ who in the sense before declared is made Gods equal and fellow and the whole spiritual seed in general and each of them in particular who are as the Bride and wife to this Lamb and so in a sense are his fellows and consorts heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ where the Spirit and the Bride say come living together in this unity as Bride and Bridegroom and so intimated Eph. 5. 32. where the natural marriage is made a type of it and the Apostle saith this is a great mysterie But I speak concerning Christ and the Church And now what is more evident then that the Saints by this union with Christ are not deifyed nor Christed but have the place only of his Bride and spouse as the Queen who is all glorious within and who is one the only of her mother To be therefore a member of this Heavenly City a living stone in this divine building is that which we are to understand by this second sort of calling wherein our Election is made sure to us and a new name given us that none can read but those that have it Secondly through this unity of the faith of the Son of God whereby those that are called are placed in the relation of members to Christ as he is the Head of the Church and the first-born from the dead they are for ever justified receiving this further benefit as they stand related to Christ in this his second Headship beyond those that are singly related to his first and obtain thereby but the common and conditional justification For this everlasting justification extends to sins past present and to come absolutely and at once discharging from all sin that their iniquities may be remembred no more and presents them faultless and without guile before the Throne of God as the objects of his eternal love and favour unto which they are entitled in right of their being made his first-born from the dead whose names are written in heaven adopted into his own line family and descent by this their marriage-union with Christ who according to his heavenly manhood is the immediate off-spring of the WORD and eternal Son of God without Father without mother without descent other then that of the very Son of God into which he is adopted and taken by marriage-union which dignity and grace he freely bestows and conveys in a secondary way upon his whole spiritual seed and in this neer union keeps them from ever departing from him Thirdly these unto whom Christ is thus made their righteousness and justification he is made also their sanctification to the purifying of their hearts through believing and cleansing them from all evil conscience as well that which consists in the filthiness of the flesh as that which lies in the filthiness of spirit renewing them in their minds through the putting on of the new man to the exercising as well their spiritual senses in likeness and conformity to Christs actings and life in that unity wherein he and his Father are one whereby he crucified and kept under his natural man as to the exercising of their natural powers and faculties in likeness and conformity to the actings of Christs natural man making them herein subject to the Father of spirits and to live acceptably and work holiness in his sight as renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created them or according to the pattern of the new man in the holy and righteous actings thereof set up in the person of Christ where Christ is all and in all which good works the Saints are fore-ordained of God to walk in as their true Evangelical and new-covenant obedience Fourthly and lastly those unto whom Christ is thus made sanctification he is made also redemption or glorification to the changing them throughout in spirit soul and body into a likeness with his spirit soul and body as he is declared the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead at such time as our vile bodies shall be made like unto his most glorious bodie by that mighty power of his whereby he is able to subdue all things unto himself which is to be brought to light in his times when he shall be admired in all them that believe and answer the expectation of the creature in delivering it from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the sons of God at their manifestation and the compleating of their adoption by this redemption of their bodies These are the benefits in short and in general that inseparably accompany the guift of Christs person to the soul as he ministers himself in the two Covenants respectively and are the fruits of his presence there Which will serve as a key to open many things in the following discourse when we come to speak of the practical conscientious part that is begotten in and exercised by the subjects of Christ as they live under his Rule and dominion in the world and are therein contesting and warfaring with the adversary the devil and his instruments CHAP. XI Shewing the subordinate use that the elect Angels are of unto Christ in his bearing up the pillars of the creation that else had been dissolved through the fall and the place which they have in the threefold general administration of his mediatoriall kingdom set up in the world THough sin entred upon all men and death by sin through the act of one mans disobedience and judgement came upon all men because in one man all had sinned yet by the obedience of one and his righteousness the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life Rom. 5. and where sin abounded grace did abound much more by reason whereof the whole first creation in all the parts of it is made Christs by the price of his blood which was made Sathans and sins by the fall that as the soul of the Father is Christs so also is the soul of the Son and he only that personally transgresses shall die Ezek. 18. 4. God having been pleased to find a ransom in Christ for atonement and propitiation to the forbearance of sins that are past and to the admitting of man to a new treaty of reconciliation and trial by vertue of the first covenant renewed in and through the blood of Christ whereunto the ministry of the good Angels serves and is made use of by Christ the KING OF RIGHTEOUSNESS who employs these his ministers of justice as the higher powers over the world committed by him to their charge to mannage order and govern in all the affairs thereof under him
having put all its Inhabitants in this sense in subjection unto the government of the Elect Angels to be a terrour unto evil works and a protection and refuge to them that do well who therefore Eccles 5. 8. are described to be those that are higher then the highest ministers of justice in this world or then the supreme powers here below and yet saith the text there be higher then they which are Christ the WORD of God and the blessed Trinty In reference to the Angels therefore in this their office and administration of justice under Christ it is said Deut 32. 7 8. The most high divided unto the nations their inheritance from the daies of old or the beginning of the world when he separated the sons of Adam according to the number of the Angels as the Septuagint renders it or under their rule and government as he separated the day from the night in this visible world by two great lights that he set up in the material heavens the greater to rule the day and the lesser to rule the night Gen. 1. 14. 16. typifying this office and ministry of Angels as to the government of the sons of Adam all the nations whereof in their earthly state God made of one blood to dwell on all the face of the earth but thought fit upon the fall and sin of the first Adam to set the bounds of their habitation according to the number of the Angels or measure of their natural perfection as subjected made subservient to Christ their head being in this respect the shadowy image of Christs first appearance in which they are able to proportion suitable manifestations of Christ to the natural discerning of men in what state or condition soever they are found whether such as are without law or such as are under the law The first of these know no higher rule at present then this shadowy image of Christs natural perfection reflected and beamed forth upon them from the face of angelical glory where the sound of the Scriptures hath not yet been heard who therefore as heathens are said comparatively to abide in darkness as under the rule of the lesser light typifyed by the moon the ruler of the night these are the uncircumcision in the flesh living remote from and as it were without Christ and God in the world as aliens from the Commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the Covenants of promise yet in a capacity to seek the Lord if haply they may feel after him and finde him though he be not far from every one of them being that light that enlightens every one that comes into the world The second sort of men are those sons of Adam that are higher enlightened by being brought beyond this first shadowy image of Christ unto the Ministry of the Law and placed under the dominion thereof becoming actually thereby of the seed of Abraham according to the flesh being made partakers of the first Covenant renewed in the blood of Christ and so called the circumcision in the flesh and in that sense Israelites children of the first Covenant to whom pertains the Adoption and the glory and the Covenants who are called Jews children of God or visible Saints resting in the Law or taking up their station in Christs first appearance or natural perfection making their boast of God as knowing his will and approving the things that are more excellent being instructed out of the Law whether considered as ministred by Moses or by the flesh of Christ who therein is the head-perfection of it who are confident that they themselves are guides unto the blind lights unto them that sit in darkness instructers of the foolish teachers of babes which have the form of the knowledge and truth of the Law or first ministry of Christ whose praise is of men Rom. 2. 29. who in one word are made the children and off-spring of Christ according to what he is as head and root unto the perfection of the natural Creation single yea even unto himself according to the flesh considered as a meer man or in the fashion and likeness of the first Adam in his sinless and incorrupt nature Both these sorts of men being still but the sons of the first Adam or of an earthly descent and birth fall properly under the Ministry of Angels in the hand of Christ whom he hath appointed in a twofold dispensation serving in the one to veil and in the other to unveil him in his first appearance as he is KING OF RIGHTEOUSNESSE being in the witness they give herein as two great lights in the firmament of the spirits of men the greater to rule the day and the lesser to rule the night In this latter they are as the Moon to rule the Kingdom of darkness whereinto all mankinde in their fallen corrupt state are plunged renewing and setting up something of that light in the natural spirit of man with which every man is enlightned that comes into the world however degenerate his condition be in all other respects in the other they discover the Sun that is to rule the day of mans further enlightned judgement when he is separated from amidst all the corrupt world and is clothed with a visibility of Saintship profession wherein he hath the praise of men that measure themselves by themselves and compare themselves amongst themselves without having the true Spiritual light of Christs second appearance to help their discerning therein 2 Cor. 10. 12. and so are not wise but are such children Deut. 32. 20. in whom is no faith who notwithstanding all the commendation they assume unto themselves are not they whom God commends This generation of men are Israel according to the flesh whether under the Law or under the Gospel which are not to pass away till the sufferings of the whole spiritual seed be fulfilled but shall be found in that great city Jerusalem mentioned Rev. 11. 8. which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt where also our Lord was crucified and amongst whom the dead bodies of his witnesses must lie unburied three days and an half ver 9. Thus the most High divided to the Nations their inheritance when he separated the sons of Adam not only into their several countries and local habitations but into the day and night of his administrations of Rule over them and communications of light life and power to them after their Fall when he set the bounds of the people according to the number of angels made by him ministers of his Kingdom of natural righteousness as hath been declared The third sort of people in that distribution of the Sons of Adam are the true Jacob or Spiritual Seed that are of the Faith of Abraham whether Jews or Gentiles and right Heirs of God according to the promise that are not only Sons of Righteousness as the former in the perfection of the natural man but SONS OF PEACE where of twain springs up one new man through the blood of the
of her person in the day of her nativity then God passed by her looked upon her and made it the time of his love saying unto her when she lay in her blood Live and causing her to multiply as the bud of the field till she encreased and waxed great and came to excellent ornaments to have her brests fashioned and her hair grown who was naked and bare for God had spread his skirt over her covered her nakedness and entred into covenant with her so that she became the Lords And he cleansed her with water washing away her blood from her anointed her with oil decked her with ornaments and jewels and caused her to eat fine flower and hony and oil and she was exceeding beautiful and did prosper into a kingdome in which glory of hers she was visible to others so as her renown went forth among the heathen for her beauty which was perfect through the comeliness which God had put upon her This is farther enlarged Deut. 32 4. c. where this work of God upon these Israelites is also called perfect flowing from their rock or from Christ that had been a Father to them and had bought them and made and established them and had thus divided and distinguished them from the rest of the sons of Adam Yet there were amongst these an unwise generation in and under all this those that had no faith and who considered not their latter end but corrupted themselves and had a latter end worse then their beginning so as their grape was the grape of Sodom and their vine was the vine of Gomorah and their spot shewed itself not to be the spot of Gods children declaring them to be a very crooked and perverse generation The first of the same principles with these was Cain whom Eve received as a man from the Lord then those sons of God in the old world who corrupted themselves and left a rebellious race of Giants or men of renown for enmity against God with which fleshly seed the Lord would not suffer his spirit any longer to strive in the daies of Noah Gen. 6. 1 2 3 4. Then Ishmael the son of Hagar the bond-woman figured out this generation under the first covenant after him Esan then the whole nation of the Israelites brought out of Aegypt who were all of them baptized unto Moses in the red sea and did eat the same spiritual meat and drink the same spiritual drink yet with many of them was not God well-pleased And so Israel after the flesh all along from them downward as they are described in all the Prophets to be righteous men and a holy seed yet such as Ezek. 18. 24. turned from their righteousness and committed iniquity stumbling at the stumbling stone being leavened with the leaven of the Pharisees and in whom sprang up a root of bitterness to their defilement so as after all their enlightnings and enlivenings from God they miscaried being such as Elias interceded against saying Lord they have killed thy Prophets and digged down thine Altars and I am left alone and they seek my life Rom. 11. 2 3. and concerning whom Esay is very beld saying All the day long I have stretched forth mine hands to a disobedient and gainsaying people Rom. 10. 20 21. who also saith of them Rom. 9. 29. except the Lord of Sabboth had left us a seed we had been as Sodom and had been made like unto Gomorah which frame of spirit they fully discovered at last when they crucified the Lord of glory and were the Jerusalem in whom was found the blood of all the Prophets Nor are we to think that this generation of men passed away with the Jews since Christ himself in the very Gospel may be known after the flesh and doth beget an Israel after the flesh in and under Gospel-ordinances and ministrations who by the knowledge of Jesus Christ and the holy commandment delivered unto them in his fleshly manifestation for their Rule may clean escape the pollutions of the world through lust and yet return with the dog to the vomit and with the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire 2 Pet. 2. 20. c. yea who may by the word of the beginning Heb. 6. 1. or first appearance of Christ pass through the great enlightnings and quicknings from Christ there spoken of to the tasting of the heavenly gift and partaking of the Holy Ghost to the relishing of the good Word of God and powers of the world to come and yet fall away and draw back unto predition being void of that faith that failes not wherewith we are to believe to the saving of the soul This sort of men the Apostle Paul in all his Epistles takes notice of and distinguishes the true believer from having had his warrant for it from Christ himself who said Many are called but few are chosen and again of the labourers in the vineyard he saith there are first that shall be last in Gods acceptance and last that shall be first and that these children of the kingdom shall see many come from the four parts of the world to sit down with Abraham I saac and Jacob in the kingdome of heaven and they themselves be thrust out with those that say Mat. 7. 22 23. Lord Lord have not we prophecyed in thy name and in thy name cast outdevils and done many wonderful works unto whom Christ will answer Depart from me ye workers of in iquity I know you not These are they Rom. 4. that find whereof to glory in the flesh of Christ or in their own holy flesh as the seed of Abraham that are by the law or first covenant who are righteous workers according to the law in the most Gospel-like administration of it but at the bottom are still upon the tenure and account of debt for so is their reward accounted to them by God as looking upon them still under the first covenant till they be brought to be of the faith with blessed Abraham These in 1 Cor. the 12. and 13. Chapters are intimated under the title of spiritual men in distinction from the heathen as having the manifestation of the spirit given them to profit with by means whereof they may come to great attainments in spiritual gifts and excellent operations of mind so as to speak with the tongues of men and Angels know all mysteries have all faith so as to remove mountains give all they have to the poor and their bodies to be burned and all this but upon the first root and single seed of natural righteousness remaining yet unexperienced of the more excellent way of enjoying and doing all this in union and harmony with a higher and better principle of life by participation of the divine nature which the true heirs do obtain and which is there called by the name of love Again 2 Cor. 10. 11. These are described under the names of those of which number Paul said he was not who measuring themselves
face in his own similitude apparently conversing with him as friend speaks with friend having the natural powers faculties of their mind which they still possess in common with other men so subdued and made subject to this higher birth of the divine will and presence in them that they are taught to do the will of their father in earth as it is done in heaven and to be the fulfillers of all righteousness not only of that which is according to the rule and law of the spirit of life that they are under exclusive to the rest but what is according to the law and rule of Gods judgements given either to the Jew worldly Christian or to the heathen in the right way of subordination wherein they ought to be practised and observed according to the will of God when we are so made one with Christ as he is made one with the Father ever doing that which is pleasing and acceptable in his sight These are they then in the general whom we mean by those that are born after the spirit and of the free-woman that are from above of the Jerusalem that is above the heavenly City whose builder and maker is God by his own immediate hand forming and setting it up for that end in the person of the mediator as that wherein Christ as the first begotten from the dead might become the head to this whole seed of spiritual believers whose names are written in heaven This divine birth is that through which we believe to the saving of the soul and therefore is described Heb. 11. 1. c. under the name of faith and is said to be the substance of things hoped for and evidence of things unseen giving the sight of him that is unseen to every natural eye and bringing the soul to the knowledge of the inward living WORD through the knowledge of whom we come to understand that the worlds were framed and how they are since upheld and governed By the power of this divine birth Abel offered to God a more excellent sacrifice then Cain and the famous men of God in old times whose genealogy as all partaking of this spiritual seed is derived in that Chapter from Abel downward through all the old Testament obtained a good report or lived that life which was in repute with God and which he owned as wel-pleasing and acceptable unto him These are they that throughout the new Testament also are to be understood for the seed of true believers there spoken of unto whom as their pattern in spirit these worthies Heb. 11. are propounded that they might run the same race having so great a cloud of witnesses set before them looking also to Jesus not only as he is the author and beginner of our faith in the ministry of his first appearance but as he is also the finisher of it making it the faith that fails not which is attained in and by the new covenant or ministry of his second appearance through which he doth not only appear a King of righteousness conveying a seed of righteousness answerable to the perfection commanded by the law but also a King of peace conveying a seed of everlasting peace and absolute reconciliation between God and the soul through the blood of the Cross wherein the perfection of the life of faith consists For wherever the single seed of righteousness is in any without this other seed of peace blessing will not stay or long abide in that heart nor will the profession of faith and a good conscience be held fast and without wavering and danger of falling away But where both these seeds are cast in together to live together as brethren in unity the elder serving the younger they are the two that are better then one mentioned Eccles 4. 9 10. who shall have a reward for their labour and when one falleth the other shall help him up but woe to him that is single and alone For the wavering unstable principles of the first holy and righteous seed are never rightly fixed nor made durable or abiding unto life eternal but by this higher divine birth whereby the first hearing of the word becomes mixed with faith and produceth in the heart that ground which brings forth the good seed in abandant fruitfulness without any danger of miscarrying This new-creature-life and glory is signified by the white stone and new name that none can read but those that have it who feed upon the hidden Manna and are admitted to sit down at table and meat with the Son in the Kingdom of the Father having the seal of the living God in their foreheads by which they escape out of all trials and spiritual dangers and are brought forth as gold refined by the fire These are they that are baptized with the Holy Ghost and with fire into the name of the Father Son and Spirit in the truth of the thing in the living WORD and not only in the shadow and figure held forth in worldly rudiments and carnal ordinances being the chosen vessels which God selects out of those many which he hath called causing them to bear his own name his new name whom he makes pillars in his house never to go forth more These are the true seed of the promise as it is written not to seeds as of many but that one seed which is Christ who are now sons though for a season under the veil and form of servants unseen in their true and proper appearance yet at last they must be like unto Christ their head in their heavenly glorified man-hood as saith the Scripture we shall be like him and see him as he is And as thus the spiritual seed considered as living by the faith that fails not are one sort of the subjects under this third dispensation of Christs Rule so there is a counterfeit spiritual seed that are described Jude ver 12 13. who are to be numbred under this third rank of subjects as the second sort under this third administration intruders into this spiritual society of true believers being spots in those feasts of love wherein they feast with them sporting themselves with their own deceivings feeding without fear clouds they are without water carried about of winds foaming out their own shame wandring stars and 2 Pet. 2. 14 15 17 18 19. having eyes full of adultery and that cannot cease from sin beguiling unstable souls cursed children who have for saken the right way and are gone astray who speaking great swelling words of vanity allure through the lusts of the flesh through much wantonness those that had clean escaped from them who live in errour being themselves the servants of corruption whilst they promise liberty to others unto whom is reserved the mist or blackness of darkness for ever Thus man in a threefold respect is the subject of these three kingdoms and dominions of Christ and is so vastly distinguished from himself in these three states that he seems to have as it were a
threefold nature and spirit proper to each of them In one of which all the nations of the world live and walk as they are distinguished from the earthly Jerusalem the children of Mount Sinai or the first convenant In the second the fleshly seed of Israel or the worldly Church lives and walks distinguished both from the nations of the world and from the heavenly Jerusalem or the true Mount-Sion And in the third the spiritual seed or children of the Jerusalem that is above do live and walk distinguished from both the former each of them therefore are placed by God under a several Rule and law according to which their lives and actions are to be fashioned and conformed and by which they are to be tried and judged at the last day when the secrets of men of all sorts shall be judged by Christ Jesus according to the Gospel which is of that large comprehension as to take in all the three dispensations First for the nations of the world they have judgements given them by God Ezek. 5. 6 7. with which Israel is reproched as having walked short of them so that the uncircumcision did out-doe the circumcision in the righteousness the effect whereof was contained in the law as in a much superiour and more excellent administration These the Apostle cals Rom. 2. 12. such as sin without law and perish without law but yet are acknowledged as such that though they have not the law as it was given to the Jews yet have a law given them from God the work and effect of which sheweth it self in their consciences accusing or excusing them as they walk up to it or short of it even the law of nature in which they are a law unto themselves having that within them that shall witness for them or against them before the Throne and judgement seat of Christ that is to say the law of natural right and just exhibited to them through the ministry of Angels that are invisible Thrones Dominions Principalities and powers set up by God for this very end as his ministers for terrour unto evil works and as encouragers and Protectors of them that do well as will presently more fully be evinced The second Rule or law containing the judgements and ordinances of God given unto the fleshly seed or children of the first covenant is the WORD of God coming forth in his first appearance or the law proceeding from Mount Sinai witnessed unto by the Scriptures of truth and Oracles of God that were committed to the Jews first and afterwards to the Gentiles which in all the degrees and steps of its administration answers the true measure and proportion of Christs natural righteousness and perfection as he is and so hath been here described the head and root thereof to Angels and men being that holy commandment that either may be turned aside from leaving them that have been under it to a far worse state then it found them in and rendring their latter end worse then their beginning as 2 Pet. 2. 20. c. or else be kept without spot and blameless through the power of faith by the true Saint or spiritual seed The third law and Rule is the law of the spirit of life in Christ Iesus the WORD of God in his second appearance which comes forth from Mount Sion the heavenly Jerusalem consisting not in meats and drinks and worldly rudiments but in the power of an endless life and an everlasting righteousness written out in fair characters in the death and resurrection of Christ when he ceased from his own works and became the beginning and author of life from the dead as the first-born among the many brethren whose names are written in heaven and upon whom God hath written his new name and the name of the new Ierusalem The perfection and righteousness of which second appearance is brought to light fully by the brightness of Christs comming the second time the first-fruits whereof are already given and set up in the hearts and spirits of the children of promise and of the free-woman being the hidden Manna which they feed on the new name which they can read and the holy anointing whereby they judge all things whilst themselves are judged of no man CHAP. XII Shewing wherein the three Rules and forms of administration in Christs mediatorial Kingdom do differ one from another and maintain an entire jurisdiction within themselves but in due subordination and subserviency still of the lower to the higher over the respective subjects that live under them THE first of these is the law and Rule which is given by God to all nations even to the whole world in their corrupt degenerate and fallen state occasioned by the entrance which sin made by Adam overrunning his whole posterity like a spreading leprosie whereby man that by his creation was made a temple of God became a habitation for Dragons a court for owls or birds of the night a hold for every foul spirit and a cage for every unclean and hateful bird so that although there was a natural being life and motion left unto man it was in the next degree to no being at all if not in some respects far worse Yet how great soever this desolation was and how thick soever the darkness be in this howling and barren wilderness-condition of mankind the blood of Christ is of vertue to make the heart of man again rejoyce and blessom as the Rose and the voice of the Mediator can make it self to be heard in the remotest and darkest corners of the world to the opening of the eyes of the blind and unstopping the ears of the deaf to the making the lame to leap and the dumb to sing to the causing the waters of his manifestation to break forth and stream in this desert in one word to the letting in the sound of the Gospel it-self in the shadowy dark appearances thereof upon the very ends of the world in pursuance of the extent of the reconciliation made through the blood of his Cross by whom all things are reconciled unto God whether they be things in earth or things in heaven so as the very creation it self is made capable to serve unto the ministry of the Gospel the heavens to declare the glory of God the firmament to shew his handy work day unto day to utter speech and night unto night to shew knowledge by means whereof there is no speech nor language where Christs voice is not heard their sound going into all the earth and their words unto the end of the world as Psal 19. 1 2 3 4. compared with Rom. 10. 18. doth evidence Thus the invisible things of God even his eternal power and Godhead shining forth in the face of the Mediator may be seen by the things that are made Rom. 1. and that either inwardly by the influence and operations of the holy Angels maintaining and keeping up the witness of Christ in the manifestation of natural justice
applied unto Christ himself to signifie that they are planted with him into the same likeness in Gods twofold name figured out thereby and so have that twofold name and witness wrought out in them which distinguishes them as well from the children of the first Covenant who bear conformity but with one of the Olive branches as singly communicable without the other as also from all that are called Gentiles whose very light is but as darkness to the shining forth of the single witness only in the children of the first Covenant Thus we are to understand by the two OLIVE TREES and the two CANDLESTICKS mentioned Rev. 11. 14. the whole Spiritual Seed considered in their exact conformity to their Head as well in his second as in his first appearance who are the two witnesses that from the very beginning of the world successively in their several generations have been the slain ones of the Lord the slaughtered sheep of Christ for the word of God and testimony of Jesus Yet we are not to rest and content our selves only with this general sense of the place which is true and doth give the proper character of the true Saint possessing and inheriting whole Christ and bearing upon him his whole name or his new name wherein of twain they are made one inseparably communicated as the twofold witness wherein the true heirs of salvation must be found to the glory of God the Father But we may farther take notice of a more restrained and particular consideration of these two witnesses which will be but a small digression from the matter in hand as they are spoken of in that place Rev. 11. where they are also to be looked upon as a particular number of the true Seed living and standing up in the world in that age and season foretold by John and qualified with an extraordinary Spirit of prophesie in reference to the justifying before the eyes of the world the truth of this twofold witness being clothed with power suitable in a way of working wonderful things during the time of such their prophesie whereof Elijah was the type in his days who by praying to God shut up the heavens for three years and an half that it did not rain the like is prophesied to be done by these witnesses ver 6. and brought down fire from heaven to prove that he was a MAN OF GOD and that his God was the true God yet after all this was forced to flie for his life to get from under the cruelty and oppression of his enemies and was at last taken up visibly into heaven in a chariot of fire Elisha beholding and looking upon him In which Spirit of Elijah some of the true Spiritual Seed are reserved by God to be brought forth in the last days and to give a most spiritual and remarkable witness unto the truth of Christs first and second appearance in his Saints before the great and terrible day of the Lord come In which dispensation they shall serve as the immediate forerunners to the brightness of Christs second appearance for the restoring of all things preparatively by this their Ministry of fire as John Baptist served unto the coming of Christ in the flesh by his Ministry of water and in that sense was owned by Christ to be as Elijah already come to wit in the shadow or figure of this Elijah that is to precede his second coming By what then hath been said we may perceive who are meant by the Spiritual Seed and how they are described in the Scripture as the two witnesses of God first in a more general acceptation as in all Ages they are to have their heel bruised and to be slain for the word of God and then in a more particular and restrained sense as some of them are to come forth in the latter days in the Spirit and power of Elijah to prepare for Christs second coming and then to have their dead bodies for three days and an half remain unburied in the great City spiritually called Sodom and Egypt which city as the mother of Harlots hath been extant in its spirit and principles from the beginning as well as the prophane heathenish world with the powers thereof embodied together upon differing grounds and interests by the Spirit of the old Dragon and influenced by him as suitable instruments of War and Engines of battery for the bruising of the heel of the true Spiritual Seed and keeping them under in all generations as spectacles to men and angels who are weak despised thirst hunger are naked and buffeted have no certain dwelling place but labour working with their hands who being reviled bless and being persecuted suffer and being defamed entreat are made as the filth of the world and off-scouring of all things to this very day To this War between the Seed of the woman and the seed of the Serpent all things tended and wrought from the very moment that Christ did accomplish and finish the seventh days work discovering thereby Gods true REST as it was set up in his own Person as the Mediator and Lamb slain from the foundation of the world when he offered up that in sacrifice according to the will of the Father wherein he rejected and cast under his feet the purest choicest excellency and perfection of all natural beings as they stood single in themselves unperfected by the union and subjection they were to be taken into by his second appearance necessarily conducing to the breaking of the serpents head and top glory in his Angelical nature and to the trampling it under the feeet of the Saints In like manner the Devil that old Dragon perceiving that to be done in Christ the Mediator which he could by no means rellish or bear that which was totally cross and destructive to him as fixed in that selfish spirit or single state of natural perfection wherein he lusted to Rule and Reign as god in the world and propounding the greatness of a Kingdom and glory to himself in which to enjoy his own will think his own thoughts do his own works and speak his own words which were not lawfull for him in the Sabbath of the true Rest to the Lord he wilfully and maliciously quitted his head Christ left his own habitation choosing rather to become the Father of lyes then to remain the son and servant of truth and so finished and compleated that root of enmity against Christ and the Spiritual Seed in himself whose off-spring they are that have this root of gall and bitterness springing up in them notwithstanding the life and perfection of their natural beings wherein either they were at first created or unto which in the principles thereof they are again renewed in the blood of Christ by which they strike in with the devils interest in downright opposition to Christ taking part with that King Apollyon Rev. 9. 11. to destroy him what in them lies as himself plainly tels this sort of men Joh. 8. 37. acknowledging
the natural will or judgement in all the power and light thereof at best whilst unregenerate have no skil in nor know how to set about but as fools and little châ—ldren men must be found at the feet of Christ that he may give them a new birth and so teach and enable them thereunto But now these that thus have a right litteral knowledge of the Gospel are necessitated as to the life and power of their inward principles to fall in with and agree upon the same natural righteousness holiness and perfection in kind with their opposers and make use of their weapons to fix the truth of their witness taken up by them from theletter of the Scripture in such expressions as belong to the new-covenant-life in the second Adam upon those principles of the first Adams purity and perfection or the life of the covenant of Works as restored in and by the blood of Christ which the Scripture never intends if rightly understood but indeed on this account doth undeniably cast the cause upon those that are for the common and general Redemption who are not to be blamed for what they assert as to the extent of the benefit of Christs death to all men but for denying the truth of that witness held forth by the other which ought to have its due place and to be owned by them as consistent with theirs if they understood it yea as that which alone can give perfection and stability thereunto which therefore if rightly stated and acknowledged by them would return shame sufficient upon their adversaries discovering them to be self-condemners as opposing that very thing in the spirit and truth of it the grace faith and principles of the second-covenant-life which they do so zealously contend for in the Letter as to the peculiarity and durableness of the benefit which the true Saint receives by the death of Christ and as agreeing with that in spirit and truth the single activity and life of first-covenant-principles which they implacably oppose in the letter These are the contradictions that with great confidence and censoriousness are maintained on both sides in this our age whilst truth it self suffers every way and is unacceptable to either none being more ready then these to lay Heresie Blasphemy and high Notions at the wrong door of others in hopes to make themselves appear the sound and good Physitians Thus we see under the shadow and letter of the covenant of Grace the truth and spirit of it opposed and kept out and those that do it miserably tearing out their own bowels and pleasing themselves with names for things Whence it is that none are more confident of their being within the covenant of Grace freed from any danger of the covenant of Works then this latter sort of men who do that honour and right to the covenant of Grace as to be for it in their mouths but remove their heart far from it and hug in their bosoms the principles and life of the covenant of Works as that which they will not part with by any means but in such case will rather as with weeping may be said of them become enemies to the Cross of Christ whose God is their belly whose glory is in their shame who mind earthly things Phil. 3. 19. And herein they are hardned also two waies First by considering those that are behind them who maintain the doctrine of works against the litteral witness which they give unto the covenant of grace whence they conclude themselves free from any danger of being comprehended under a covenant of works Secondly by the consideration of their witness that pretend to be above them and to hold forth a Kingdom that consists not in word only but in power who under pretence of spirit and power do either with those called Ranters set up the doctrine and inspiration of devils in opposition to the truth of their witness that is but in the letter introducing again the filthiness of the flesh whereby to destroy the righteousness and holiness of the natural man which is not done away as some falsly and scandalously affirm we say by conformity with Christ in his death but is thereby fulfilled for that garment is made yet more pure and white by the blood of the Lamb and is kept spotless by this means to the second appearance of Christ or else they do annihilate the creature-being and assert perfection to consist in a swallowing up thereof into the pure being of God even in that glory wherein he is in communicable and saith I am and there is none besides me as the Familist and such who gather up all at last into a state of eternal salvation or rather into no state of creature-being at all and so in effect making neither heaven nor hell The contrary unto both these opinions is freely and fully asserted in this treatise in the believers conformity to Christs death and resurrection a doctrine which nevertheless in the true and full extent of it is accounted very offensive and scandalous in these daies of ours even amongst those that are most zealous for it in the letter who possibly may oppose it ignorantly for a season but when it comes to wilful sinning in this case it carries its own fire about with it whereby to devour the adversaries This little excursion I judged not unuseful for the cleerer and fuller asserting of the doctrine of the cross and death of Christ as it operates upon and is mis-judged by those that are yet under the first covenant considered as dispensed by the Son himself in his first appearance wherein he is a minister of the circumcision in the truth of it the righteousness and holiness of his flesh or natural man being the law or covenant of works in its highest and most glorious administration In this respect Christ is said himself to be made under the Law who also doth effectually teach those that follow him in the power of his death and resurrection how the Law may be used lawfully and according to the true intent of the giving of it So that Christ by coming in the flesh and considered as giving himself singly in and by the means of his first appearance doth beget unto himself children of the law or first covenant whose knowledge of him is only after the flesh and who though they be taken by him in to his house and built up with him in his flesh as one Tabernacle and habitation unto God yet attain no higher thereby then to be in the holy place and to minister and serve before the Lord there in a state figured out by the charge of the Levites under the Law who notwithstanding their officiating and performing service unto God in the Temple are capable of being for ever excluded from coming into the holiest of all there to do the office of a Priest or to come neer to any of those holy things which are within the veil in the most holy place and to be made
for ever to bear their shame and their abominations though yet for a season made keepers of the charge of the Temple for all the service thereof and for all that shall be done therein Ezek. 44. 13 14. Nevertheless the true Saints by being built up one Royal Priesthood with Christ shall be admitted into the most holy place This the Apostles well understood that were the first ministers under Christ of this dispensation unto the Gentiles which considered singly as the ministry of Christs first appearance is acknowledged by them to be but the building up again of the Tabernacle of David that was fallen and brought down to the grave with Christ in his death which thus he had power to rear up again amongst the Gentiles notwithstanding its fall among the Jews Acts 15. 14. when he did visit the Gentiles to take out of them a People for his name that was now ceased or ceasing amongst the Jews In this sense Paul understands the mercy of God shewed unto the Gentiles Rom. 11. upon the rejection of the Jews confessing it to be but such an implantation of the Gentiles into Christ the good Olive tree which the Jews had before and from which state they might again be broken off as the Jews were already which can therefore be no other state but that which Christ doth communicate as he is the minister of circumcision or of the covenant of works by the means of those gifts and distributions of the Holy Ghost which he gives forth amongst them after his ascention dividing to every one under this first covenant severally and a part according to his good pleasure till thereby his whole flesh or natural body be built up also among the Gentiles and compleated With this agrees fully the exposition which Peter gives Acts 2. of that which was spoken by the Prophet Joel It shall come to pass in those daies saith God I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh and your sons and your daughters shall prophesie and your young men shall see visions and your old men shall dream dreams and it shall come to pass that whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved ver 16 17 21. From the right consideration hereof we may discern that this dispensation was no other then that of Christs first appearance wherein he was the perfection of the first covenant the giver forth of common salvation and Redemption the minister of circumcision and the setter up of the truth of God in his own flesh which was promised unto the fathers and whereof the whole ministry of Moses was but the type and figure as appears Acts 7. 37. where Moses is brought in saying a Prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren like unto me him shall ye hear Christ as thus the true Tabernacle and sanctuary in his flesh which God pitched and not man was also to suffer that so he might bring down the first standing thereof into the grave whereby to make way into the holiest of all whereinto he entered by his own blood and did build up the Tabernacle of David thus fallen in and by his death into the power of an endless life wherein he sate down at the right hand of God exalted far above all heavens having all principalities and powers made subject to him who in his fleshly man was made lower then Angels for the suffering of death We are therefore to understand the TABERNACLE OF DAVID by the means of the eternal words being made flesh to have had a twofold being and building up given unto it First in the natural and fleshly man of Christ wherein he was the perfection of the first Adam bearing that image and made in all things like unto him as he was made a living soul and enjoyed a sinless spotless nature before the fall In this natural perfection singly considered Christ as meer man was inferiour to the Angels as having that life of man in him which was lower then theirs which was the heel which the Serpent had permission to bruise the Lamb without spot and blemish the body that was prepared him to offer up in sacrifice to God as he had received commandment In this building he became Emanuel God with us according to the first covenant and was a new head unto all the sons of Adam in the first Adams image which all that are planted into are taken out of the wild and engraffed anew into the good Olive tree to partake in the fatness and goodnes thereof as it is the root and spring whence proceeds that restauration and renewal of mans first nature given to Adam by creation and corrupted by the fall which renewal as it flows from the flesh of Christ is the fruit and benefit of his death and where-ever it is wrought by Christ in any sons or daughters of Adam it makes them to become members of his body flesh of his flesh and bone of his bone baptizing them all whether Jews or Gentiles into the same living body with himself the first Sanctuary and building making them all to drink intothe same spirit and seed upon the same natural perfection and purity which flows forth from his own flesh or natural man typed out by the Manna given from heaven which is said to be Angels food and is interpreted by Christ himself to signifie his flesh which he was to give for the life of the world or for the renewing of life unto the world from himself as head of the first Adams perfection and purity This flesh of Christ is spiritual meat such as the Angels themselves feed upon in heaven as on the incorruptible food which is prepared for them by the quickning given unto Christs natural manhood through the resurrection from the dead which flesh considered as given to men in this world may be received and eaten of by them either worthily or unworthily either in the lawful use thereof for which it was ordained and given by God as the Angels in heaven feed on it and true believers here in this world or in the unlawful use of it as it is fed upon by those that discern not nor distinguish between Christs living body and his crucified body between a being made one living soul with him and a being made one quickning spirit with him in a life springing up out of the ruines of this first Tabernacle the fall whereof in this Lamb slain and the true followers of this Lamb whithersoever he goeth is in order to its being built up anew in him and in them by the resurrection from the dead This second sort of building is that which we mean by that second being which is given to the Tabernacle of David in the person of Christ in which he is exalted above the Heavens and is the Temple opened in heaven Rev. 11. where also is seen the Ark of the Testament and so is Emanuel God with us in and by the New and everlasting Covenant having
the grass withereth the flower fadeth away because the spirit of the Lord blows npon it surely the people is grass The grass withereth the flower fadeth but the WORD of our God shall stand for ever ver 7 8. So then at length the believing part in the Saint cometh to see and experiment the emptiness nothingness and fading of the best natural perfection and fleshly purity not only in legal worldly rudiments and principles but even in Evangelicals so far as they consist in the knowledge of Christ himself but according to the flesh Whereupon the believer becomes willing to be crucified to all confidence esteem or desire of Rest and abode in them seeing a patern left by Christ himself herein when he suffered in the flesh that we also might be armed with the same mind and by being crucified in the flesh may come at last to cease from sin attaining a perfect freedom there-from by the resurrection from the dead And now what high thoughts and proud imaginations do rise up in the heart fit to be brought down and subdued by the cross of Christ then which nothing is more grievous to the soul which loves this Absolon it s own uncrucified fleshly mind and the enlightned reasonings thereof in their very rebellion and endeavours to out it of the everlasting kingdom yea it struggles hard and wrestles vehemently to keep its Isaac from being offered up in sacrifice Oh! how with Zipporah doth the flesh cry out against faith as a bloody husband thus to require the full resignation of the judgement will and desire of the pure holy natural man as well as that of the corrupt All this it doth require and no less will serve its turn then the bringing of the exercise of these natnral senses as they are contesting with and resisting the workings of faith into perfect captivity to the obedience of faith and into perfect rest and silence in the grave of Christ where they are to be bound as in chains and fetters utterly disabled for ever acting more in any resisting or contradicting way unto the power and life of faith and so indeed are set free and have their truest liberty given to them to act more fully then ever in harmony with and subserviency unto the workings and life of faith Thus Rom 8. it is said If Christ be in you the body or flesh is dead because of sin but if the spirit of him that raised up Christ from the dead dwell in you he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies or crucified fleshly senses by his spirit that dwelleth in you to the bringing them forth in a better and more excellent way of operation then ever they had before For these fleshly senses as they are planted into the likeness of the death of Christ are made one dead body with him and so are shut up for ever in an everlasting impossibility to act against the truth but only for the truth to act in a way of resisting and contradicting the workings of faith but in subjection and subordination to â—â—em This is that we mean by the obedience of faith and keeping of the word of Christs patience which is required by the law of the new covenant the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus as it frees us from the law of sin and death which is so far from destroying the law that it fulfils it and so far from abolishing the good works required by the law that it disannuls only the unlawful use of them setting them up in their right and lawful exercise not single and alone without the faith that is saving or in resistance and contradiction to that faith nor so mixing them with a faith that fails whereby both faith and a good conscience may come to shipwrack but making them in such manner the fruit and children of the operation of the faith of Gods elect as that against such there is no law This is the gathering together into one dead body with Christ wherein all his elect must be found as fashioned into a similitude with him in his death and that for the filling up of the measure of his sufferings in the whole number of his beloved ones that so at last they may arise likewise with his dead body and be gathered together into one glorified body with him or into a similitude with him in the glory and power of his resurrection when they shall be like him and see him as he is when at this appearing of Christ who is their life they also shall appear with him in glory The hope and expectation hereof grounded upon the promises made to this purpose in Col 3. 4. 1 Joh. 3. 2. Phil. 3. 21. and many other places of Scripture is that that hath born up the spirits of his people and faithful ones in all ages that have been made willing to follow this Lamb whithersoever he goeth from desponding and sinking away under all those insolent affronts and contradictions they have met with in their several generations from their insulting unreasonable adversaries the inhabitants of the earth who flourish prosper in the world while they are chastened every morning disciplined under the cross of Christ miscarrying as to all that 's visible and overcome in those hot contests oppositions and assaults which the seed of the Serpent lusting to envy will not fail to exercise them with who indeed could have no power against them unless it were given them from above as Christ the head of this spiritual seed told Pilate in his own personal case Ioh. 19. 11. and as power was given from above against that great Master Lord so is it also given to them to make war with the Saints and to overcome them Rev. 13. 7. but though at present they be so overset by worldly powers that they cannot work any deliverance in the earth neither do the inhabitants of the world fall before them Isa 26. 18. yet at this second coming of Christ he will call up the dead bodies of these his crucified Saints and faithful witnesses not only into a state of security from the destroyer but into a singing and triumphing condition ver 19. Thy dead men shall live together with my dead body shall they arise awake and sing ye that dwell in dust Both these states of the true Saint are most lively described Isa 54. which we shall endeavour to give some short tasts of for our clearer enlightning in the present truth specially as to what concerns the former branch the Saints conformity with Christ in his death The other consisting in a conformity to him in his Resurrection-state we shall reserve for the latter end and conclusion of this discourse CHAP. XVIII Concerning the Saints conformity with Christ in his death particularly opened and cleared from those mistakes which the enemies to the Crosse of Christ are apt to brand it with BY conformity with Christ in his death which some have been
come to passe that when it is come to passe ye might beleeve And further I command ye that ye love one another when I am gone If the world hate you you know it hated me first before it hated you if ye were of the world the world would love his owne but because ye are not of the world but I have chosen you out of the world therefore the world hates you and if they have persecuted me they will also persecute you for the servant is not greater then his Lord These things they will do to you because they have not known the Father nor me But these things I have told you that when the time comes you may remember that I told you of them Which things I have beene telling you from the beginning ever since I was with you but now I must put my sayings in execution for I am going my way to him that sent me and none of you are sensible of it or so much as enquiring into that state to which now I am going but because I have said these things unto you sorrow hath filled your hearts Neverthelesse I tell you the truth it is expedient for you that I go away for if I go not away the Comforter will not come unto you but when I depart I will send him to you Yet upon my departure the change will be so great which you will experience through my withdrawing of my self as a Bridegroome from you that you shall weep and lament but the world shall rejoyce ye shall be sorrowfull but your mourning shall be turned into joy As a woman which whilest she is in travel hath sorrow because her hour is come so shall you be in the pangs of this new birth when faith begins to be brought forth into exercise and operation by way of encountring these sharp trialls But as soone as the woman is delivered of the child she remembreth no more the anguish for joy that a man-child is borne into the world Thus also shall it be with you when the birth of the Soone of God as the man-child that is to rule the Nations with a rod of iron shall be brought to light in you through believing and the growing evidence of things unseene Ye now therefore have sorrow for a little moment but I will see you againe and your hearts shall rejoyce and your joy no man taketh from you Such preparative teachings and instructions as these Christ is continually giving forth during his tabernacling with believers in his first appearance that he may make them as little children weaned from the milk and from the breasts in order to traine them up to the use of stronger meat prepared for them in his dead body and crucified flesh which is given to them by him to feed upon till he come and take them into conformity with him in his glorified body which he promises them to do through his intercession with his Father for to make them one with him as he and the Father are one willing that where he is they also may be Through these glances of spiritual light whilest the Bridegroome is yet with the soul in his fleshly presence the Saints do with the Disciples sometimes think and say Lord now speakest thou plainly and not in parables by this we beleeve that thou camest forth from God and art againe leaving the world and going to the Father and yet when the hour of his departure comes indeed then every one scatters and leaves him alone as unwilling to accompany him in his sufferings but are rather drawing back and desirous to stay where they are in the fleshly life and perfection which they have experienced to the making a faire shew of God in the flesh and gaining the visibility of Saint-ship amongst men then to suffer with Christ without the gate leave the Holy City the earthly Jerusalem to go along with Christ to Golgotha the place of skuls bearing his reproach Before the very beleevers themselves will be brought to this what strugling and wrastling is there within themselves to detaine the Bridegroome or first Husband who with the Angel that wrestled with Jacob saith to them Let me go for the day breaks or the day-dawn of my heavenly appearance is overtaking me and calling me away to rest in silence and in the grave as to my appearing to you singly in my fleshly state any more but as I shall come in company and association with a better consort and so compleat the marriage betweene us in the glory wherein I am risen from the dead that you may bring forth fruit in newnesse of spirit and of life This is the weaned unsetled condition of soul which beleevers whilest under the first Covenant and being in nothing differenced from servants as to what is yet appearing in them and to them in the work of the conscience are led into by this preparative administration of Christ who is in them as in seed even in their new-creature-being and life but as a seed under ground very weakly undiscernably working as yet save only in loosening the soul from resting in its present attainments and keeping it in expectation of some better thing wherein to be made perfect In which state probably most of the dear Saints of God were detained under the Law before Christs coming in the flesh and most of them may still be under the same legal perfection heightned and improved by Christs coming in the flesh or by the effusion of his Spirit upon all flesh in and by the same Ministery of his first appearance and in this first step and degree of the new birth are in as safe a state as to Gods love to them here and heaven hereafter as others that have larger fuller and greater attainments and experiences And as the knowledge of this truth ought not to satisfie any to stay here but should still put them on to be pressing forward whereby to come neerer to the mark of the price of their high calling as the more comfortable strong and prosperous state so also should it satisfie the groundlesse objection of those who stick not to brand this witnesse of the beleevers conformity to the death of Christ with the reproach of rendering the faith of all those Saints and precious ones that have died without the experience or acknowledgement thereof to be of none effect as a most pitiful weak affrightment to deteine some tender-hearted well-meaning persons from receiving and owning the excellency of the knowledge of Christs death which to set evidently before our eyes that is to say Christ crucified within us in making us partakers with himself in his sufferings brings to the second thing the consideration of what Christ does when he actually withdraws and takes himself away from the soul as the Bridegroom that hath cohabited with it for a season in the light and glory of his fleshly perfection or first appearance when he refuses the wife of his youth and leaves her comfortlesse
desolate and a widow for a little moment This act of his in a word is called the hiding of his face from the heart that he had been espoused and married unto by the first Covenant and so hiding as never to be seene or known more after the flesh or in the single light and life of this his first Ministery which is caused two wayes First by the dawning and near approach of the glory of his second appearance which by coming in place turns the Sun and Moon of the first natural glory into darknesse and blood before this great and notable day of the Lord which Christ is willing to suffer and to own it to the soul as that which deserves not the name of glory in comparison of that which doth excel and therefore judges it meet for him in his first perfection and light to decrease as the other increases upon the soul whereby doing this by degrees the soul is not found naked but still becomes cloathed upon with a greater as it is uncloathed of a lesser perfection and between both sin and all evil conscience consisting in the filthinesse of flesh and spirit is kept out more firmly then ever so that as the Mannah of Christs flesh failes and the nourishment thereby decayes the hidden Mannah comes in the roome as bread that is given upon the munition of rocks and waters that will not faile but become a Well springing up to eternall life and a seed of life and light increasing to a perfect day Thus the Sonne resignes up the Kingdome to the Father in the beleeving heart giving way to the Fathers ruling over the heart in his roome that God may be all in all and that by the Sonnes decreasing till he voluntarily abase himself as low as Gods footstoole in obedience unto the Will of his Father he may bring down all enemies with him into the same abasement and subjection whether they will or no to the putting down all rule all authority and power that would under pretence of friendship to his first appearance be enthroning themselves there which thus are triumphed over in this grave to the leading captivity captive And therefore Christ as the Sonne singly considered in his first appearance doth absolutely refuse any longer to continue a Husband and to command in that capacity but gives up his rule into the Fathers hand and comes again along with him in that new glory as second in the Throne and abides ruler over the soul for ever Thus the Bridegoome takes himself away and discontinues his rule in the heart as he is married and entertaines converse with the soul in and by the first Covenant wherein he is known according to the flesh and by this his separation from the soul doth bring the natural man of the Saint into a most perfect wildernesse-condition for barrennesse disconsolatenesse and untrodden paths to sense and reason together with exposednesse to all manner of trials and temptations from within and from without and into this forsaken Widowhood doth Christ purposely lead the beleever for the trial of his faith and to work that work of repentance and change in his mind which is never to be repeuted of even to arme him with the same mind that was in Christ Jesus when he suffered in the flesh to the ceasing or causing of sinne for ever to cease and be abolished And therefore makes it his own work which he fixedly carries on in the soul against all its reluctancies wrastlings and strivings to the contrary as the great discriminating work of his love to his chosen generation the chastenings wherby he reaches the true sons and heirs of salvation the obedience of faith and which he prevailes with them patiently to endure that thereby they may be brought into subjection to the Father of spirits and live This is the discipline wherwith Christ exercises the many sons that he is bringing up unto glory being but the same he exercised in and upon himself Heb. 2. 10. and ch 12. 6 7. not thinking fit to deale thus with bastards v. 8. but leaving them to their liberty content to be out-wrestled and over-mastered by them to their crucifying in themselves the Sonne of God afresh and putting him to open shame in a counter-endeavour to his voluntary resignation of power and enmity to his Crosse setting up the Sonnes Kingdome in their hearts in competition with and opposition to the Fathers which the Sonne himself disclaims hiding his face as one ashamed thereof Thus Christ the Bridegroome takes himself away and becomes dead to the soul that was as his married wife calling to the Saint to follow him into the grave where he shall find that out of the devourer comes meat and out of the strong Lion of the tribe of Judah slaine and crucified doth proceed sweetnesse And as Christ in this manner thinks fit to hide his face and leave the soul in this state of weaknesse and disconsolation in reference to his first presence and communion with the fruits thereof so Satan the great Tempter finding it as it were dark night with the Saint when no man can work nor see his way he then as a wild beast comes out of his den judging it his time to stir and move all his engines of battery on all hands to adde affliction to the afflicted and to bear down to the very pit the broken sinking-spirited Saint in this night of his sorrowes and sufferings and is encouraged hereunto from the general rule of permission given unto him by God as the fruit of that enmity which God said he would put between the seed of the Woman and the seed of the Serpent to the bruising of the Devils head and the Saints heele when therefore the Devill sees he cannor prevaile by all his temptations and deceits against the preparation-work that is used by Christ to fit this Saint for sufferings as the oile or ointment poured out upon his head disposing him to conformity with himself in his death but is rejected and cast off by the Saint as he was by Christ the Head when he was led by the Spirit into the wildernesse to be tempted and when by Peter he was moved to spare himself in confidence that such things should not befall him then this great destroyer comes as a down-right enemy to assault the suffering Saint from all corners as he did Job in his sufferings set before us by the Apostle James as meet for our consideration and as the forerunning type of the end of the Lord in his death upon the Crosse In which remarkable exercise of patience we may behold the enraged malice of this restlesse spirit the Devil at such a time as this For First he endeavours to set God against Job upon pretence that Jobs godlinesse was all for the gaine he had from it and by it and not out of any true love to God or godlinesse for its own sake and as a means to discover the faithfulnesse and to trie the
be reigning as Kings in a fleshly visibility and worldly glory without the true crucified Saint that in the meane time is made a spectacle to men and Angels and judged as the filth of the world and as the off-scouring of all things unto whom neverthelesse Christ speaks after this manner Esay 26. 19. Thy dead men shall live with my dead body shall they arise awake and sing ye that dwell in dust This is the last particular of our conformity to Christs death And now by what hath beene said in these four particulars as the result rising out of them all our eye may receive enlightning if God please in this great and glorious mystery of Christs death and the effect it hath upon us when it conformes us unto its own likenesse and similitude For we see it doth not annihilate the first Adam or natural man in us but it spoils and disrobes him of the power in effect to sin against God which he upon specious pretences would faine keep for sacrifice in bodily exercise though of little value a power to do his own will and to be at his owne disposal in the strength of grace received bearing oile in his Lamp but not in his vessel In the exercise of which power man is perfectly weakened and disabled by the Crosse First through Christs withdrawing the food and nourishment of it in him Secondly through Satans bruising and breaking down his stout-heartednesse as an executioner of Gods wrath upon him in bereaving him of worldly comforts which God sanctifies to a laying low of mans spirit under this rod of God though applied by Satan and his instruments Thirdly through the victory and conquest of faith which never leaves till it captivate all the powers and faculties of the natural man and bring them into obedience and subjection unto Christ to live unto him that is risen from the dead and so to bring forth fruit unto God in newnesse of spirit and of life made at last to take faith in the principles and operations of it for its Lord and best friend and therein to observe the Law of God given on that behalf that the elder should serve the younger that the first Adam should serve the last Adam Esau should serve Jacob or the naturall powers and faculties of the Saints mind should serve the heavenly birth and spiritual senses thereof that the righteousnesse of the Law may be performed in the Spirit of faith by being made one spirit with Christ in the glory of his resurrection from the dead the life whereof doth not yet fully appear but shall do when he shall be seene in that admirable glory and bring his Saints with him in the same likenesse that they may see him as he is as his associates and coheirs of the same incorruptible inheritance having hereby the use of heavenly faculties and powers given unto them whereby Christ will be admired in all those that do beleeve and they are admitted to enter within the veile and are made capable to converse with God in his own similitude apparently face to face as friend converses with friend which no man as a natural man in his best capacity did ever see nor can see and so the true Saints are made such excellent seers and contemplators of God thus influenced and over-ruled in all the powers and faculties of their subdued natural man as fashions them to do the will of God in earth or their earthly natural man thus taught obedience as they see it done and as they are the doers of it in heaven or in their spiritual and heavenly part and have oile in their vessels as well as in their lamps In which heavenly frame of spirit they are beheld by the Prophet Isaiah in the 54 chapter before mentioned when he saith All thy children shall be taught of the Lord and great shall their peace be In righteousnesse shalt thou be established thou shalt be farre from oppression for thou shalt not fear and from terrour it shall not come near thee when thou art made thus to dwell on high and art seated upon this munition of rocks behold they that shall gather together against thee shall not do it by me but whoever shall gather together against thee shall fall for thy sake no weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper and every tongue that shall rise in judgement against thee thou shalt condemne this is the heritage of the servants of the Lord and their righteousnesse is of me saith the Lord. And let me say thus much upon this occasion in one word to the youthful visible and flourishing Saints of these our dayes who with great earnestnesse and zeale are trimming their Lamps with oile to go out to meet the Bridegroome in expectation of the fleshly glory of Christs Kingdome to the keeping up of Absalon against the true David in Spirit of my Lord Esau against the true Jacob or of Isaac in the flesh against Isaac crucified and offered up in sacrifice to God to be received againe in spirit in the life from the dead They are not yet under those promises before mentioned by reason whereof those that gather together against them may prevaile over them and the weapons formed against them may prosper till the power of the holy people be scattered and none shut up or left Whereas if the Lord take down and bruise the youthful spirit that is in them and cause them with David when they have tried the armour of man to put it off againe to go forth in this armour of God which makes the Saint strongest when he is weakest our Goliah shall be slaine that defies the Hosts of the living God and great salvation shall be wrought for Gods people when they shall be little more then standers by the Lord of the whole earth and lookers on By this time we come to see wherein our conformity to Christ in his death consists the place whereof is found under the third administration of the Kingdome of Christ which in the three branches thereof we have endeavoured to describe in the preceding chapters The first of which may be compared to the Moone that rules the night as the weaker and fainter light of Christs first appearance the representation whereof is given by the single Ministery of Angels as the supreme Lords and Rulers under Christ of the natural and first world by the first Covenant considered meerly as the Law of nature receiving its renewal in the blood of Christ The second is likened by the Scripture unto the Sunne which shadowes forth the vigorous light and glory of Christs first appearance as it is ministred singly in and by the first Covenant considered as the Law and perfection of his flesh in the principles and life whereof the sonnes and servants are not differenced one from another but both walk to the house of God as friends the sonnes of God as well as the sonnes of perdition those that are borne after the flesh as well
as those that are borne after the Spirit until the manifestation of the sonnes of God be brought forth The third and last is described Isaiah 60. 20 c. by the Sunne that shall no more go downe and the Moone that shall not withdraw her light for as much as the Lord himselfe shall be their everlasting light and the dayes of their mourning shall be ended When the light of the Sunne shall be sevenfold Isaiah 30. 26. in Christs second appearance to what it was in the first under which light the sonnes that are Lords of all begin to be distinguished from the state of servants by the pangs of the new birth that through the power of faith are wrought leading them into fellowship with Christ in his death lively described Rev. 12. 1 c. as the great wonder that appeared in heaven the Church or spiritual seed under the type of a Woman cloathed with the Sunne signifying the glory of their fleshly man in communion with Christ by the first Covenant having the Moone under her feet as one that is farre exalted above the morality and civility of the heathenish state and upon her head a Crowne of twelve Starres to signifie her conformity of state with the Disciples when Christ as their fleshly Bridegroome was about to leave them John 16. This woman is taken notice of as being with childe travelling in birth and pained to be delivered in opposition to which birth there appeared the great red Dragon the Devil and his Angels mustering up all their forces against the powerful workings of faith towards this birth ready to devoure the childe as soone as it should be borne ver 4. but as hath beene shewed This woman does notwithstanding bring forth a man-childe that is to rule the Nations even the divine birth of faith which is caught up to God and to his throne whilest the Woman or natural man in the Saint flies into the Wildernesse and is there fed and nourished under all the opposition of Satans malice and rage against her till she obtaine with her seed a perfect conquest over the old Dragon and all his adherents CHAP. XIX Giving a general view of the Counter-workings of Satan to the government of Christ in all the forementioned administrations thereof WE are now come to the next general head propounded viz. to lay open the work of the Devil or old Serpent as he with his Angels fights against Michael and his Angels from the beginning of the world to the ending thereof to withdraw and seduce the sonnes and daughters of Adam from subjecting themselves unto Christ under any of the administrations of his government in the consciences of men and to fix them in rebellion and enmity against Christ by the abuse of all his patience and what ever means have beene used by him to the contrary For the Devil knowing very well that whatever kind of union or marriage-band is contracted and renewed betweene Christ and any soul under the first Covenant whether dispensed as the Law of nature or of Circumcision there is place and roome left for him by some means or other to beguile them afresh and by his subtilty to corrupt their minds from the simplicity that is in Christ as he did Eve at the first He therefore makes it his businesse to work the subjects of Christ from under both these dispensations and to dissolve as much as in him lies all obligations and intercourse betweene Christ and them in order thereby to prepare them to receive his serpentine seed as he is that strange Spirit or adulterous competitor with Christ in his bed that sits in the Temple of God as God shewing himself to be God and exalting himself above all that is called God This birth of spiritual uncleanesse he therefore endeavours by all wayes and means to propagate in opposition to the birth of Christ in his heavenly appearance through which he fixes the soul in an implacable and unchangeable enmity thereunto causing a root of gall and bitternesse yea a spirit of falshood and murder to spring up against all growing and encreasing light that witnesses an excellency surpassing the purity of nature or glory of flesh as watching over the birth of such a man-child to destroy it so soone as it appears In which actings of his he distinguishes himself into two sorts of Kingdomes and Rules in the consciences of his subjects represented under the two beasts Rev. 13. which he maintains and upholds in opposition to the Rule and Kingdome of Christ gaining as many as possibly he can from Christ in order to make his opposition the more universal and formidable to hinder and keep out the approaching glory and power of his second coming which that he may the better accomplish he puts himself into all formes from the lowest to the highest from the most fleshly and outward to the most Angelical and inward that the natural man as such is capable of to gaine thereby Proselytes to himself in all ages And whom he cannot hinder from joyning with Christ at all he thus labours to procure their defection and apostasie from him after they have known the way of righteousnesse tasted the good word of God and beene so farre enlightned as after which when they fall away it is impossible to renew them againe unto repentance Thus the worldly and natural spirit of man corrupted and prevailed over by Satan is brought under his dominion and becomes his subject in a twofold capacity in both which men are made the throne and seat of the great Dragon and are impowred by him to carry on in the world two differing administrations of his Rule and Government both centring in one common interest of self and making up one worldly Babel or City of confusion wherein is the strife of tongues the nature of which we shall first treat of in general before we come to the particular unfolding thereof in the following chapters The way used by the Devil to bring these his designes about is by gratifying the natural desires and lusts of men with baits suited and calculated by him unto that frame of spirit and dispensation of light which he findes them under as they have in lesser or greater measures and degrees beene made partakers by Christ of a renewall and restauration of pure natural life by vertue of his blood all his aime being to make them sin wilfully against the reconciliation or atonement freely made for them offered to them and received by them as a fruit of Christs sacrifice and death For the Devill well knowing that the proceedings of Christ through the Gospel in judging and condemning men will be according to what they have and know and not according to what they have not and know not so as those that are without Law shall perish without Law and those that are under the Law shall be judged by the Law and where there is no law made known the disobedience to such unknown Law shall not be
them v. 16 17. He that heareth you heareth me and he that despiseth you despiseth me and he that despiseth me despiseth him that sent me and the seventy returned with joy saying Lord even the Devils or uncleane Spirits are subject unto us through thy Name that is to say that sort of Devils that dwell and act in hearts unswept and ungarnished wollowing in the pollutions of the world the grosse and foul abominations of corrupted Nature For there is another sort of Devils that delight to rest in swept cleansed and garnished consciences and to come in there whence the other have beene cast out with whom also the same that dwelt there before as transformed into Angels of light can find an unsuspected re-admission in order to more closse and dangerous designes then ever which the Scripture takes notice of Luke 11. 26. The same thing is darkly intimated in the case that was brought before the Disciples Mat. 17. v. 14 c. to 22. concerning the Devil in the party there mentioned propounded to them as by vertue of their power to have beene cast out and the Text sayes that the Disciples could not cast him out first because of their unbelief ver 20. and secondly because saith Christ this kind of Devils are to be cast out only by Prayer and Fasting or by the power of the Son himself as he openly triumphs over all sorts of Devils whatsoever in the vertue of his grave signifying hereby to his Disciples the need they stood in of that Faith which had power over this sort of Devils as well as the other Thus then by the mouth and hand of servants whether Angels or Men as is plaine in the case of the Centurion Acts 10. going forth in the Name of Christ men may be and are brought out of their corrupt degenerate state Devils in their proper appearance as uncleane Spirits being cast out of them their hearts cleansed their consciences purged and made meet for the service of RIGHTEOVSNESSE for the worshipping of the True and living God without ever conversing immediately with the Son himself so much as in the knowledge of him after the flesh as to the life and power given forth in that Ministery not as yet partaking of those higher and greater Priviledges which all they do in whom and to whom the Sonne is pleased to communicate the Image of God by the Ministery of his own personal presence though it be but in his first appearance wherein all flesh may see his glory together This light either by the inward Ministery of Angels or by the outward Ministery of the Word is that which Enlightens every one that comes into the world John 1. 9. setting up such a work of God in the conscience Rom. 2. and of the Law written in their hearts as sets them free from the service of sinne and bondage of corruption and qualifies them for the service of righteousnesse and of the True and living God All which though it be in it self simply considered but the Effect and Operation of common grace and that which may be fallen from yet if withal there be cast into and found in such a heart that seed of heavenly manhood though yet unawakened as to the exercise of its spiritual sences as in Paul when a persecutor which brings along with it the things accompanying salvation this soul is so farre on-ward of its journey towards heaven by this Legal work and first Covenant-state of principles and life enabling to walk as a man that it is said to be near to the Kingdome of God in the young man's case in the Gospel in a posture ready to receive the higher discoveries of Christ and communications that are inseparable from his own personal presence considered either in his first or second appearance But however it be as to this the general benefits of Christs death communicated in his legal dispensation as he is the Minister of Circumcision puts all men again upon their trial whether they will chuse to go backward or forward and takes away the occasion of using that Proverb in Israel Ezek. 18. wherein it was objected against God that the fathers had eaten sour grapes and the childrens teeth were set on edge For by the meanes of this Ministery renewed unto man in the blood of Christ he laies his claime now to all souls as his by purchase saying All souls are mine giving them admittance upon this score into the favour of a new parley and entercourse as to a full and final reconciliation with God So that now it is he that eates the soure grape whose teeth only are set on edge Jer. 31. 29 30. and unto whom the guilt of the fathers sins are imputed By this meanes then man is put upon his trial againe whom he will hearken unto and obey whether the Law of Righteousnesse Christ in his first Ministery thus visiting him and coming freely to his rescue and redemption setting up the candle of the Lord in his very bowels to search his inward parts or else yeeld himself up to the motions and perswasions of sin and Satan to continue and abide under the bondage of his corrupt state or to be againe entangled with it after a good degree of escape from the pollutions thereof obtained whereby he is rendered altogether inexcusable especially when this good will of God as to reconciliation and a new treaty is tendered freely without any obligation on his part to shew so much grace to fallen man tendered likewise upon promise of communicating more and making farther discoveries where this little is well received faithfully obeyed and rightly used for the end unto which it was given as well as accompanied with threatenings not only of denying more grace upon the evil reception and ill use of this but even of taking away againe this which he hath The benefit then which all under this Ministery have by Christ is the non-imputation of sinnes past upon condition of future obedience and faithful walking with God in the light received to the yeelding themselves obedient servants to this RIGHTEOUSNESSE made known to them in order to lead them forward to higher attainments without hearkening to the motions of sin on the left hand for the bringing them back againe under the bondage of corruption or being prevailed with by the motions of sin on the right hand for the taking off their eye from the mark set before them and causing them to swerve from the FAITH by stopping up the passage towards the glory of Christ in his second appearance the inseparable Benefits and Priviledges whereof they are capable to be sharers in The second Ministery then in and by which RIGHTEOUSNESSE or the Image of God in the second Adam is dispensed and given forth unto men is by the mouth of the Sonne himself speaking on earth in the administration of the first Covenant as the Image of God shines forth in the face of Christs natural man or as he is God manifested in flesh
several as they may without the seed of saving faith accompanying them how high and heavenly soever they may seeme to be they are but common grace and may be fallen from and so those may perish that have them But where such gifts are followed with that farther work in the soul which is the proper fruit and effect of the third Ministery containing in it things that accompany salvation then those very gifts hereby washed in the blood of the Lamb do change their fading and failing property and become saving and everlasting In the righteousnesse then of Faith both the former righteousnesses are fulfilled and established upon better principles and Promises then those of the first Covenant to the making the possessors thereof heirs of God co-heirs with Christ and so partakers of the Divine nature entering them into the glory that is within the veile and setting them downe with Christ on his Throne as he is set downe with the Father on his Throne in the fulnesse and perfection of both Creations having all power in Heaven and in Earth put into his hand This is the Mortification and Vivification the dying to sin and living to righteousness witnessed unto by the Scriptures and shining forth in the face of Christ as the Truth that is in Jesus unto which we are made conformable by being planted together with him in the likenesse of his death and resurrection comprehending in it all that righteousnesse and holinesse which is but in part and is upon right grounds pleaded for either by the Natural or Legal Conscience and holding forth over and above that which is higher and of a better and more durable kinde then theirs But however it be that the defect and miscarriage we are speaking to that is incident to Natural or Legal righteousnesse lie not in this that it is counterfeit or hypocritical but that it is that which is but in part and which therefore does unwarrantably exalt it self into a competition with or opposition to the whole as it comes to passe in those who make such ill use of Christs first appearance as thereby to resist and keep out his second yet we are neverthelesse to acknowledge that there is much counterfeit work to be found in the world as daily experience sheweth both as to light practice principles and converse amongst those that pretend fair to be great proficients in that righteousnesse and holinesse that makes up the answer of the Natural or Legal good conscience who do not truly live in the principles of either of these states but make a flourish with meere notion head-work and light without heat together with some overly performances as desirous of a share in the praise of men with those who truly live in such principles by a meere outward plausiblenesse in converse whilst their inward part is full of ravening and wickednesse Others also that are unsincere and faulty in their very principles we are to discover and lay open for the preventing of the deceit with which under these the Devil lies in wait to insnare and turne men aside from the TRVTH This sort of men in whom are found these corrupt principles whereby they become men of corrupt minds reprobate concerning the Faith speaking lies in hypocrisie the Scripture expressely takes notice and warnes us of above all the rest as the great engines the Devil makes use of for the instillation of his Doctrine by faire speeches to the deceiving of the hearts of the simple Since therefore there is such deceivable work kept on foot in men by that grand Impostor Satan and that under pretence of their dying to sin and living to righteousnesse in many feigned shews of mortification forbidding of marriage and commanding to abstain from meats which may be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth which things have indeed a shew of wisdome in will-worship and humility and neglecting of the body not in any honour to the satisfying of the flesh all which is so far from being comprehended in the righteousnesse revealed by the Gospel as any part of it that under a counterfeit shadow and similitude thereof it stands in direct opposition thereunto begetting in the conscience such a dying unto Christ or the Spirit of TRUTH as imports and plainly speaks forth a living unto Antichrist or the spirit of lies and fashood prophesied of as that which with great confidence will be obtruded by the witnesse and practice of divers in the last times 1 Tim. 4. 1 2 3. and elsewhere since I say these things are so I have held it my duty in very faithfulnesse unto the TRUTH not to passe by the same in silence without giving my Testimony against all such deceitful workings in those who having departed from the faith give heed unto seducing spirits speaking lies in hypocrisie or in feigned resemblances unto TRUTH Of such the Apostle speaks 2 Cor. 11. for whose sake he was exceeding jealous lest the Corinthians through their influence and subtilty should be corrupted from the simplicity and chastity of mind which they ought to bear as chast Spouses unto Christ their one Husband v. 2 3. Such saith Paul are false Apostles Prophets and professors of Christ transforming themselves into the appearance of Christs true witnesses and followers and no marvel For Satan himselfe is transformed into an Angel of light Therefore it is no great thing if his Ministers be transformed as the Ministers of righteousnesse taking upon them to personate true mortification or dying to sinne and true vivification or living to righteousnesse whose end shall be according to their Works ver 13 14 15. This sort of men as appeares in the examples of Hymeneus and Alexander have been once enlightned and through the receivings of grace and attainments under the first Covenant have had that which the Scripture calls Faith and a good conscience 1 Tim. 1. 19 20. who notwithstanding do put away their good conscience and concerning faith make shipwrack being the adversaries on the one hand which Paul exhorts Timothy to maintaine a good warfare against as well as against the Teachers of the Law on the other hand who being ignorant whilest they are under the Law how to pursue the true end of it run out into unprofitable heady disputes and endlesse questions having once turned aside unto vaine jangling understanding neither what they say nor wherefore they affirme v. 4 5 6 7. But stumbling at that stumbling stone in Sion and rock of offence to enemies Rom. 9. 33. but of defence and salvation to his chosen beloved ones Psal 95. 1. the same Christ becoming to these a sanctuary or place of refuge to them a stone of stumbling even to both the houses of Israel a gin and a snare to the inhabitants of the earthly Jerusalem Isa 8. 14 who going about to establish their own righteousnesse do not submit unto and so fall short of the righteousnesse of God Rom. 10. 3. Both these sorts of men on
that sacrifice Jer. 32. 35. which was expresly prohibited Lev. 18. 21. and they threatned with death that should be found practisers hereof Chap. 20. 2 3. yea if men be found conniving in such case as loth to discover the offender God farther declares that he himself wil come forth in his wrathful appearance or face to do execution as it is written v. 4 5. If the people of the Land do any wayes hide their eyes from the man when he giveth of his seed unto Molech and kill him not or cause not execution to be done upon him then will I set my face against that man and against his family and I will cut him off and all those that go thus a whoring after Molech This just judgement and severity of God in his proceeding against this sin as practised in that lowest and most literal sense under the Law will be found in the issue not to be lessened or mitigated but rather much heightned and raised to appear in a more flaming execution of vengeance upon all such in whom this sin finally takes place in a more sublimated and spiritual way to the offering up of their own living bodies and the sensual comforts thereof in a strange fire to the Devil which they ought by fire from heaven taken off the true Altar Christ to have offered up in sacrifice unto God Rom. 12. 1. Secondly the same Scripture 2 Tim. 2. 17 18. that intimates this way of mortification does also mention the proportionable vivification accompanying it called there the resurrection which such false guides do affirme to be already past in them looking for nothing as future or to come of hell or heaven to the quickning or raising them up into the utmost perfection of life and glory as their attainment whilst herein this life and before that redemption of the body mentioned Rom. 8. 23. which the Saints and the creature it self yet groane after and wait for This resurrection of theirs is called 2 Col. 18. a worshipping of Angels in a voluntary humility intruding into those things which they have not seene as taking it for granted they are hereby made the true spiritual seed and that they are enter'd within the veile as having passed through the STRAIT GATE and undergone the BAPTISME of the HOLY GHOST AND OF FIRE and so that they are also come to be intirely under the teachings of the Father as actual possessors and inheritors of his everlasting Kingdome and glory In all this they are seduced and made through strong delusion to beleeve a lie being vainly puffed up in their fleshly minde to the despising and undervaluing of Christ the Mediatour yea 2 Pet. 2. 1. to the bringing in of damnable heresies privily by cunning sleights and beguiling insinuations even to a denying of the Lord that bought them in the incommunicable properties of his Godhead by esteeming and at length in down-right termes asserting themselves to be God or at least to be as much the Sonnes of God in all respects as Christ himself in his own person who is God blessed for ever in consequence whereof we shall finde them at length owning an everlasting and general salvation of all men and Angels This is that posture of spirit into which that old Serpent called the Devill and Satan swells up those that are thus deceived by him in down-right opposition at length to Christ and God asserting himselfe in them and so causing them to assert and own themselves through his inspirations and indwelling presence in them to be both Christ and God Father and Sonne or another while to affirme that there is no God no Heaven no Hell no Angel or Spirit as the Sadduces for if he can perswade them either that he is God or else that there is no God at all he hath enough And in order to make this witness of theirs to stand and take place against all opposition from the true light when he has cried down the living WORD OF GOD into a meere equality on all accounts with the creature or advanced himselfe and his children into the room and place of God himselfe or partnership at least with the WORD in his incommunicable properties but then findes that the outward Word of God can very difficultly be made use of long to countenance either of these designes by degrees he labours to draw them into a state of alienation to that also rendring even the written Word nauseous and despicable to them and causing them to fall a slighting the Scriptures this outward Word of God which rightly represented gives forth the discovery and pleads for the true interest of the inward and living WORD and so professedly to disown all bodily or outward worship and service whatsoever as carnal and inconsistent with the spiritual service they performe Hereupon some of them also forbid marriage and other lawful creature-comforts as called to abstinence and a Virgin-life by which Rule the spirit they live and walk in judges marriage unlawful and commands to abstaine from meats two signal characters of this spirit held forth undeniably to our view 1 Tim. 4. 3. And in all this they carry a shew of wisdome in wilworship neglecting of the body and all things done in honour or satisfaction thereunto as hath been said To these also belong those characters in Jude and Peter where it is said of such that they count it pleasure to riot in the day-time or under pretence of highest light and spirituality to turne the grace of God into wantonnesse and so at last returne with the dog to the vomit and the washed sow to her wallowing in the mire yea and that avowedly in point of judgement now as a condition they can satisfie their owne consciences in and in which they undertake to justifie themselves against all contradiction These by Peter are called spots and blemishes sporting themselves with their own self-deceivings in their feastings with others having eyes full of adultery beguiling unstable souls and alluring through much wantonnesse them that were cleane escaped from those that live in error Yet all this while they will confidently own themselves as lovers and favorers of the Spirit of TRUTH notwithstanding that they live unto a spirit of falshood in the sight of God even in whoredome and defilement with the father of lies But because many of these may be so meerely deceived as verily to think themselves with a chaste and Spouse-like affection to be embracing of Christ their true Lord and husband and so may be doing what they do ignorantly and not wilfully the Scripture sayes in such case Of some have compassion making a difference and others save with fear pulling them with a holy severity out of the fire lest otherwise they finally perish for this is that kinde of sinning which is unto death and therefore unpardonable when it is done knowingly and wilfully This false seducing spirit is capable of putting forth it self in a greater or lesser degree in and under all
formes through counterfeit resemblances unto TRUTH to beguile and mislead unstable souls and is daily detected and discovered under all professions or visible formes of Saintship whether more or lesse refined whether earthly and sensual or heavenly and Angelical Hereof there are in these dayes of ours but too many living instances who as Lots wife are turned into Monuments of Gods righteous judgment declared upon them for the admonition of others And that we may not leave this subject without endeavouring to contribute some assistance towards the resolving of that great Question how the true Spirit may with certainty and infallibility be known and distinguished from the false I shall briefly recommend to consideration as conducible to the discovery hereof these following particulars The Spirit of TRUTH is evidently and infallibly distinguished from the spirit of lies and falshood three several wayes by which we may make a trial and judgement of the spirits whether they be of God or no. First by the evidence and witnesse which is given of it by the three that bear witnesse in heaven where the Spirit of TRUTH shines forth in its supreme original light and self-evidence as we have at large shewed in the first and second Chapters Secondly by the Record and witnesse that the Sonne or Christ the true Spirit gives of himself in his flesh or humane nature causing the truth to shine forth in the face of Jesus opening what he is and what he did by coming in the flesh suffering and rising againe according to the Scriptures which 1 John 5. 6. is rendred thus This is he that came by water and blood even Jesus Christ not by water only but by water and blood and it is the Spirit that heareth witnesse because the Spirit is truth even the witnesse shining forth in his Spirit and person who whether considered as being and subsisting in the WORD OF LIFE before his being made flesh or considered as after his coming in the flesh living dying and rising againe hath a witnesse born of him in heaven by the FATHER WORD and SPIRIT which Three are one and also in earth by the SPIRIT WATER BLOOD declaring themselves in and upon him as he was found in the fashion and habit of a man which agree in one Thus in the same person we have the greater witnesse which is the witnesse of God or of Christ as he is God and the lesser witnesse which is the witnesse of man or of Christ as he is the Son of man and in both these considered also as testified unto by the Scriptures we have the compleat witnesse which God hath testified of his Son By reason hereof 't is said 1 Joh. 2. 12. Who is a liar but he that denies Jesus is the Christ He is Antichrist that denieth the Father and the Son Whosoever denies the Son the same hath not the Father Whosoever sees not nor acknowledges the TRUTH as witnessed and shining forth in the face of Jesus the Son of man with those that are rightly admitted to serve in the first Sanctuary among the many that are called can much lesse behold it as witnessed and held forth in the brightnesse of Gods face or of the blessed Trinity with those who are culled out of the former and rightly admitted into the holiest of all among the few that are chosen By both these witnesses and records in harmony with the outward Word we do come to know him that is true as the right and whole object whereon through faith we are to fix our eye in the proper forme character and distinction which he gives of himself from all idols or counterfeit appearances of him whatsoever The third or last witnesse which is given us of the true Spirit is that which immediately and necessarily flows from his indwelling presence in our hearts growing up there more and more unto a perfect day by working out in the conscience and spirit of the beleever a confōrmity unto Christ in his death and resurrection causing a dying to sinne and a living unto righteousnesse in the full extent of both as we have opened For if any man have not the Spirit of Christ he is none of his and if Christ be in you the body is dead because of sinne but the Spirit is life because of righteousnesse Examine therefore your selves whether ye be in the Faith know ye not your owne selves how that Jesus Christ is in you except ye be Reprobate And If the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead awell in you he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortall bodies by his Spirit that dwellesh in you and so the Spirit it-selfe comes evidently and infallibly to witnesse with our spirits that we are the children of God as having this Spirit of Adoption poured into our hearts for if we be adopted children then we know we are heires heires of God and joynt heires with Christ if so be we suffer with him that we may also be glorified with him And though we are now Sonnes so as it doth not yet appeare what we shall be when we come to the stature of perfect men in Christ Jesus at the full manifestation of the sonnes of God yet now we know that we shall then be like him and that we shall then see him as he is yea by faith we now see him who is invisible Heb. 11. 27. and by this knowledge we have of him in the mean time we come to see and experience him that is true and that we are in him that is true even the true God and eternal life having the witnesse in our selves through that holy anointing which is TRUTH and no lie teaching us of all things and abiding in us as a seed to preserve us from the evil and snare of all false and seducing spirits Abide therefore in him that when he shall appear we may have confidence and not be ashamed before him at his coming These things I have written unto you concerning them that seduce you CHAP. XXI Shewing particularly the evil seed that is sowen in the natural conscience by Satan through which he works men off from their subjection to Christ in his first dispensation and fixes them in rebellion against him HAving already in general laid open the methods of Satan the weapons of his warfare together with the diligent and skilful prosecution of his designes upon mankind to seduce them work them off and forever deteine them from their duty and faithfulnesse unto Christ their true Husband and Lord we shall come now in a more particular manner to shew how closse an attendant he is upon the foregoing works of Christ in the hearts and consciences of men considered under the former dispensations walking about like a roaring Lion seeking whom he may devoure watching what he can find in such hearts that in the BEGINNING are Gods and Christs owne workmanship as hath beene shewed and trying whom he may corrupt from their first
fire of more dreadful vengeance and wrath in whom the Devil transformes himself into an Angel of light by meanes whereof these his Ministers do become false Apostles deceitful workers transforming themselves into the Apostles of Christ and Ministers of righteousnesse whose end is according to their works an end that deceives them as well as they by their works deceive the world All these under the various formes and visibilities of Saint-ship wherein they are found throughout the whole world under the name of worshippers and servants of God whether more or lesse refined whether Seraphicks in Angelical brightnesse or Sensualists in meere bodily exercise which profits little are embodied and incorporated together as into one Temple or house of rest unto the false spirit or great deceiver through whose subtilty and dexterity they are beguiled to sinne againe after the similiude of Adams transgression that as the Serpent beguiled Eve so are these also corrupted in their minds from the simplicity that is in Christ Jesus 2 Cor. 11. 3. drawne by the taile of the great Dragon out of their heavenly habitations unto a revolt and backsliding with him into a fixed enmity against Christ their true Husband to the committing of whoredome and lewdnesse with a false spirit as adulterers and adulteresses which adulterous brood of hypocrites and back-sliders that the Devil hath in all ages propagated and multiplied by occasion of the same meanes that Christ ordeined to bring to life and lead unto salvation are compared in Scripture to the holy City where our Lord was crucified spiritually called Sodome and Egypt the Israel after the flesh which Esay complaines of saying Had not the Lord left us a seed we had all beene like Sodome and Gomorrah referring to Deut. 29. where Israel Gods covenanted people v. 3. that had seene with their eyes the great temptations signes and miracles which he did were not yet so secured thereby v. 18 19 c. but that amongst them even that enlightned people might spring up a root that bears gall and wormwood that though they hear the words of the curse declaring the wrath of God against the falshood uncleannesse and deceitfulnesse of spirit which they live in towards God under all their righteous and holy operations makes them neverthelesse blesse themselves saying We shall have peace though we walke in the imaginations of our owne hearts adding drunkenness to thirst In which case the Lord declares that he would pour out his fury upon them to make them as Sodome and Gomorrah Admah and Zeboim which the Lord overthrew in his anger and in his wrath And Deut. 32. 32 33. this generation of men in their good beginning as well as in their backsliding accursed end are at large described where their Vine is said to be as the Vine of Sedome and of the fields of Gomorrah their grapes grapes of gall their clusters bitter their wine the poyson of Dragons and the cruel venome of Aspes their choisest food and ministrations leading to the chambers of death and tending to the bowing downe of the back alway Is not this sayes God sealed up among my treasures and laid up in store with me in the proper time to be revealed when they shall be consumed by the breath of Christs mouth and brightnesse of his second coming This is the great City BABYLON the great who is fallen is fallen from the glory of her first state in communion with Christ himself in his first appearance and by the first Covenant and through Satans seducements and beguilings is become the habitation of Devils the hold of every foul spirit and cage of every uncleane and hateful bird For all Nations or all sorts of men in all Nations have drunk more or lesse of the wine of the wrath of her fornication or have made themselves drunk with the wine of this false spirit and the Kings or eminent ones of the earth men of renowne for godlinesse and vertue have committed fornication with her and the Merchants of the earth are waxen rich through the abundance of her delicacies even all that are for gaine from their quarters that count gaine godlinesse or are followers of godlinesse for earthly rewards and as they gaine by it some way or other in this world The Devil muster 's strong of the inhabitants of this City from the lowest and sourest spirited legalist to the largest loose spiritual Apostate and wanderer from the truth who center in one common interest of enmity to the Crosse of Christ and the glory that followes in the power of an endlesse life by attaining the resurrection from the dead taking in all hearts and consciences upon what pretence and cause soever that do faile of the grace of God and instead thereof have some root of bitternesse springing up to their spiritual defilement and corrupting of their way towards him that is risen from the dead and offers to marry them unto himself by an everlasting Covenant In this I shall not need to enumerate in regard the universal Apostasie of the latter times will be the best interpreter hereof and will signifie as it were by name the several distinct professions that will be herein concerned whether of such as are zealous of Ordinances shut-up under them or of such as are loosen'd from them living above them in a false deceitful spirit This sort of Satans instruments and subjects are described Rev. 13. 11. and represented by the other beast which John saw coming out of the earth who had two hornes like a Lamb to signifie the likenesse he bears in all his actings unto Christ according to the flesh or in his first appearance but however keeping the fiercenesse and cruelty of nature that was in the first beast by speaking as a Dragon For indeed this is still the first Adam or natural man new washed in the blood of Christ and healed of the deadly wound at first given to him and all his posterity by the fall through which healing he comes to be wondered at or admired by the rest of the world that are made partakers of this change as if these men were so the mighty power of God that nothing could withstaud or make warre against them to the puffing of them up in this their cleansed healed state of nature and emboldening them to open their mouth in blasphemies against God to blaspheme his Name his Tabernacle and them that dwell in heaven and to prosecute these their words with execution to the making warre with the Saints and overcoming them So as what with the power of the first beast and the power of this second the Devil rules and hath his dominion over all kindreds tongues and Nations and all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slaine from the foundation of the world This second beast which is the first considered as having the deadly wound thus healed as wash'd from the filth of the flesh is
therefore armed with the same power which the first had for publick acting in and by the use of civil Rule and Government exercising all the power of the first beast before him or in superiority to him and by way of greater eminency causing the earth and them that dwell therein to worship the first beast or the old Adams image and perfection as having the deadly wound thus healed In which administration great wonders are wrought so that he maketh fire to come downe from heaven upon the earth in the sight of men presenting to the judgement of man the fire and zeale of holy actings and righteous operations of the right impression exactly answering unto Rule whereby they that dwell on the earth are deceived taking this image of God in which they appeare and shine forth for the highest and best discovery of God they are to arrive at which thus mistaken and abused is compared Rev. 13. to the making of an image to the beast which had the wound by a sword and did live having power to give life to that image in righteous and holy actings in which to cause the old Adam or first beast to speak and go forth in such vigour and perfection as not to beare with any that will not receive the image of the beast and take his mark in their right hand or in their fore-head in their actings or professions denying liberty to any to buy or sell to have any worldly commerce that have not the mark or name of the beast or the number of his name All this he does from the great credit he hath gained in the sight of men by giving plaine evidence and visible testimony of the life that is brought into this image and of the spiritual gifts and enlightnings from heaven that accompany it as a fruit and effect of Christs owne workmanship which therefore he would exalt above all that is called God causing all to fall downe to it and worship it as the highest and fullest discovery of God beyond which he will allow nothing to be owned or received though this image be but the number of a man of the first man made of the earth earthly as the summe of his natural perfection which all the children of wisdome know how to count finde out and unriddle This second beast is the same with the little horne Dan 78. before which there were three of the first hornes plucked up by the roots and behold in this horne were eyes like the eyes of a man and a mouth speaking proud things and v 11. I beheld sayes Daniel because of the voice of the great words which the horne spake even words against the most high v. 25. who shall weare out the Saints of the most high and think to change times and lawes I beheld sayes he untill the beast was slaine and his body destroyed and given to the burning flame v. 11. All which does lively describe the usefulnesse of this second heast as he is diverse from the first being set out and adorned with the purity and perfection of the first Adam renewed up-upon him by the blood of Christ to make warre with the true Saints of the most high and to weare them out with his cruelty and rage pretending to visible Saintship himself and by the power of his Rule and Government in the Magistracy that is subservient to him to give Lawes and Rules in Gods worship under colour of warrant from the Scriptures making himself Umpire of all controversies in matters of Religion and declarer of Heresies Blasphemies and the like in the exercise of which power he speaks great words against the most high and tramples as dust under his feet the spiritual seed or inhabitants of the heavenly Jerusalem thinking upon this faire pretext to change times and Lawes and over-turne all that stand before him in the managing of so glorious a designe as to bring in upon the prophane wicked world the Kingdome of Christ and at the same time to slay the right heirs that the inheritance may be his and that he may reigne as sitting upon Christs throne when he cannot any longer carry it as detected and laid open in the falsenesse of his owne spirit and principles This second state of Antichrist and his Kingdome is that which John Rev. 17. beheld with a holy kind of wonder and great astonishment as little suspecting so foul and unchast a spirit unto Christ should come forth in so fair and neere a likenesse and similitude to him in life and operations and therefore describes it under the name of the great Whore whom God was about to judge that is to lay open and to destroy She is found sitting upon many waters to wit people and multitudes Nations and tongues inhabitants as we have said of the holy City spiritually called Sodome and Egypt with whom the Kings of the earth or Princes of the world men in the honour and dignity of the first Adams purity and principles have committed fornication trusting to this beauty and reteining it in opposition to Christs heavenly appearance as unwilling to veil it and let it fall into the grave with Christ that the way thereby into the most holy might be set open making all the inhabitants of the earth drunk with this wine of her fornication This is the Character of that unchast spirit that acts and influences the subjects of this branch of Antichrists Kingdome under a fair shew in the flesh a likenesse and conformity in life and actings unto Christ himself But the beast that carries this Whore is the spirit of man made drunk with the wine of her fornication who in his actings of understanding and will whether in his private or publike capacity of a Magistrate and Ruler gives up himself to the service interest and love of this Whore or Antichristian spirit which beast compared with the other is set out in an adorning of scarlet colour yet full of names of blasphemy having seven heads and ten hornes the like power of man by counsel and force to carry on the designs of the old Dragon as the first beast hath The woman that rides this beast or this false spirit that influences this sort of enlightned men makes a very faire shew and is exceeding beautiful and alluring to the eye and judgement of man being arrayed in purple and scarlet colour decked with gold and precious stones and pearls many admirable and excellent spiritual gifts received from Christ having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations and filthinesse of her fornication and upon her forehead written Mystery Iniquity or Babylon in mystery or its hidden deceit Babylon the great the mother of harlots and of the abominations of the earth But under all this tempting ensnaring glory she is famous and eminent for two things whereby Antichrists work is exceedingly advanced and carried on by her after such a dexterous manner as could not possibly be contrived by the first beast with all his power For
this woman perfumed and decked with excellent ornaments and gifts as she is described to the full Prov. 7. 10 to the 24. and Eccles 7. 26. is exceeding skilful at inveigling and drawing in numbers and multitudes into her nets and fnares and when they are once caught she leads them as the Oxe to the slaughter fatting them to destruction and Secondly this falsenesse of spirit with which she entices and ensnares men is alwayes accompanied with a fixed implacable rage and enmity against the chaft Spouse of Christ so as she is found drunk with the blood of Saints which is so sweet to none as to this sort of men under and by whom the Lord was crucified at Jerusalem and concerning whom he speaks when he sayes Behold I send unto you Prophets and wise men and Scribes and some of them ye shall kill and crucifie and some of them shall ye scourge and persecute from City to City that upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth from Abel to Zacharias and againe Oh Jerusalem Jerusalem Thou that killest the Prophets and stonest them that are sent unto thee how oft c. Luke 13. 34. Matth. 23. v 34 to 38. CHAP. XXIII Concerning the common interest wherein the Devils subjects meet and correspond under both the dispensations before mentioned which yet by the wisdome and power of Christ comes at last to be dissolved in the use which he makes of the one to destroy the other THE two sorts of subjects before spoken of are the two maine pillars and supports of Anti-christs Kingdome who are figured out in those two beasts which as two fit engines of warre the Devil makes use of in carrying on his enmity against the Saints of the Most High in the contendings of him and his Angels with Michael and his Angels from the beginning of the world to the ending thereof These two beasts in the eleventh of Daniel under the figure of the Kings of Persia and Greece have their ruling power described the one as King of the North the other as King of the South which Ezekiel chap. 20. v. 46. ch 21. v. 2 3 4 5 12. interprets to our hands where by the South he shews is intended the earthly Jerusalem as in her declining apostatizing state she is ripening her self for judgement by the hand of those that are not a people even the Heathenish Nations And by the North He shewes is to be understood the King of Babylon as Head of those Heathenish Nations who areall remote and aliens from the beauty of holinesse that like the Sun in his strength shines forth in Zion These also in the 8. of Daniel are signified by the RAM and the HE-GOAT all which places compared together do make known to us the consistencie and correspondencie wherein the Devil does at his pleasure through Gods permission retaine these two branches of his Dominion when it is for the furtherance and advancement of his work making leagues between them and strengthening them by marriage for in the end of years they shall joyne themselves together saith Daniel The Kings daughter of the South shall come to the King of the North to make an agreement or association in prejudice to the Saints of the Most High and both these Kings hearts shall be to do mischief and they shall speak lies at one table in joynt consultations against the true witnesses of Jesus those that would serve to the introducing of his everlasting Kingdome But in this combination of theirs they shall not prosper to the end though they mingle themselves thus with the seed of men and as the iron and the clay Dan. 2. 43. would faine be embodying themselves together all such attempts shall be frivolous and disappointed by God made an occasion of hastening the ruine and downfal of Antichrists Kingdome that would thus be peecing up it self in both its branches against the Kingdome of Christ For when the hypocritical Apostate-generation of Professors signified by the daugher of the KING OF THE SOVTH as having lived in the warmth and zeal of a legal spirit under the Sun shine or day of Christs first appearance shall be so put to it as to have no other relief left them but to associate themselves in combination with the prophane Heathen against the spirit of Christ in his faithful Witnesses and to espouse the interest and principles of the corrupt degerated world figured out by the first beast and by the KING OF THE NORTH as living remote from the Sun-shine of Christs first appearance under the single Ministery of Angels and by the Iron Dan. 2. as a stony-hearted generation that cannot mix with the Clay Israel with their hearts of flesh or knowledge of Christ after the flesh then is the time of the downfal of both these Kingdomes neere as is intimated by that Dreame of Nebuchadnezzar with the interpretation thereof Dan. 2. signifying to us the whole Kingdome of Anti-christ under the great Image whose brightnesse was excellent and whose forme was terrible the head whereof was of gold and his armes of silver his belly and his thighs of brasse his legges of iron his feet part of iron and part of clay to signifie his two supporters before described and as both of them consist together in one body or Universal Kingdome of Anti-christ having the adornments of spiritual gifts and all sort of natural perfections to set it self out by though ever declining decaying and growing worse and worse in its apostatizing frame of spirit from Christ who towards the end will smite both these Rules and Kingdomes of Satan as well the Iron as the Clay and by dividing them will break them and shatter them to peeces making one of them the ruine of the other So that the great Whore shall be burnt with fire by those very hands that were on her side for a season and so both of them in a manner shall fall together to make way for the stone cut out without hands which as a great mountaine is to fill the whole earth As therefore we have thus seene these two branches of Antichrists Kingdome described in their consistencie and association together so it will be requisite to consider them as in those Chapters in Daniel before mentioned they are represented also in their divided interests and fierce irreconcileable oppositions one against the other Thus we see them signified to us under the RAM and the HE-GOAT the RAM being the same with the King of the North and the HE-GOAT with the King of the South the first having a Kingdome and interest within himself which the openly prophane will and judgement of man espouses and embraces in opposition to and dislike of the rule and interest of the renewed natural man and the reformations and purity of his actions in the exercise of which power the RAM pushes Westward and Northward and Southward laying about on all hands to subdue all unto his degenerated interest and way so that
threatned with destruction the Mystical earthly Jerusalem or worldly Church under the Gentiles is therein comprehended and also meant as that which shall at the end of the world and in the last times be found in a most corrupted declined estate of Apostasie 2 Thes 2. 3. 1 Tim. 4. 12. 2 Tim. 3. 1 c. unto which therefore several characters and signes are appropriated that cannot be understood to be accomplished at the destroying of the material Temple and outward Jerusalem but are necessarily to be meant of this Mystical one as the Heavens that are remaining to be shaken yet once more Heb. 12. signifying the removing of those things that may be shaken as of things that are made that those things that cannot be shaken may remaine This Mystical earthly Ierusalem is that which shall not have one stone left upon another as well as the other Typical Ierusalem not so much as any visibility or forme of worship shall be left to her but she shall be given to the Gentiles or prophane world who shall tread this holy City under foot fourty and two moneths And to make this hour and power of darknesse the more terrible there shall be warres and rumours of warres Nation shall rise up against Nation and Kingdome against Kingdome and there shall be Famines and Pestilences and Earthquakes in divers places yea all these things shall be but the beginning of sorrows For as thus warres and troubles and sorrowes shall be in reference to the outward man so also deceit and errour by false Prophets and false Christs shall arise causing much defilement in reference to the inner man whence will flow great declinings and apostasies from holy and righteous principles for saking of the truth or a waxing cold in the love of it amongst the inhabitants of this Mystical earthly Ierusalem and not only so but there will spring up a root of bitternesse and an implacable persecuting spirit against the faithful WITNESSES of Christ that shall in those dayes be found in her to the afflicting killing or flaying of them and letting their dead bodies lie unburied in the street of this great City which the Nations shall come and destroy for all her whoredomes and apostasies as they did the literal Ierusalem God putting it into their hearts to agree together and burne this Whore with fire And then they themselves that are thus made the rod of Gods anger and executioners of his vengeance on this great City shall not escape but Zach. 14. 3. The Lord shall go forth and fight against those Nations as when he fought in the day of battel For a great tumult from the Lord shall be among them and they shall lay hold every one on the hand of his neighbour and his hand shall rise up against the hand of his neighbour ver 13. So Mat. 24. 29 30. Immediately after the tribulation of those dayes shall the Sunne be darkned and the Moone shall not give her light and the Starres shall fall from Heaven and the powers of the Heavens shall be shaken And then shall appeare the signe of the Sonne of Man in Heaven and then shall all the Tribes of the earth mourne and they shall see the Sonne of man coming in the clouds of Heaven with power and great glory actually entering upon the exercise of his Kingdome and this First by sending forth his Angels and gathering together his Elect from the four winds from one end of Heaven to the other as into one glorified body with himself to the constituting of this GENERAL ASSEMBLY of the FIRST-BORNE which shall be made up partly of those the Lord brings with him and partly of those which shall be found alive and remaing unto the coming of the Lord or shall be in the natural body during the thousand years all which shal be changed in a moment in the twinkling of an eye by way of translation as it was with Enoch and not see death Whereby their mortal shall put on immortality and their corruptible shall put on incorruption and death and the grave shall be swallowed up in victory The first in order then which Christ quickens at his coming shall be his own Mystical dead body for the dead in Christ shall rise first 1 Thes 4. 16. that is those that have beene slaine and have born the marks of the dyings of Jesus upon them who are called Rev. 20. the souls of them that were beheaded for the witnesse of Jesus and for the WORD of God who all of them at this time through the quickning power of their Head shall live and reigne with him the first-fruits who hath already for a long time beene living and reigning at Gods right hand as it is written 1 Cor. 15. Every man in his owne order Christ the first-fruits afterwards they that are Christs at his coming whom he builds or raises up with himself into one spiritual and glorified body v. 44. causing them thereby to bear the image of the heavenly and last Adam as they have borne the image of the earthy or first Adam and this in the utmost perfection thereof as arrived to the measure of the stature of that fulnesse and perfection which declares and manifests it self in Christs heavenly manhood enabled to exercise in copartnership with him the power and glory of a threefold humane life and perfection in which he went before them First when upon the laying down of his natural body he came into the exercise of a life proper to the spirit of a just man made perfect in likenesse and equality with that of the holy Angels who stand in a superiority of life unto the earthly man even of Christ himself Heb. 2. 9. Secondly when he also came forth in the exercise of a humane bodily life raised up in a glorified and incorruptible forme never to die more Rev. 1. 18. in which he conversed with men the fourty dayes betweene his resurrection and ascension Thirdly when yet farther he came forth in the exercise of a divine humane life in which ascending to his God and their God to his Father and their Father he was exalted into a unity and copartnership in life and operation with the ROOT OF DAVID the WORD OF LIFE the first-born of every creature and first-begotten from the dead This is spoken of as the fruit also of his resurrection from the dead Ephes 1. ver 20 21. When through the mightinesse of Gods power that wrought in him he was raised from the dead and set at Gods owne right hand in the Heavenly or in the first and Heavenly Tabernacle that is set up in the WORD treated on by us in the first Chapter farre above all prin ipality and power and might and Dominion and every name or particular nature and being not only in this world but also in that which is to come In which life ver 22. 't is said that to the humane nature of Christ it is given to be the Head over all things or