of Divine Glory which Christ's Man-head is exalted unto in which he is according to his Man-head He that is above all one with the only begotten that is in the Father's bosome and hath the highest and clearest sight of God beyond that of Angels themselves It is that all Regenerated ones that are made heirs of the Spirit in the single portion thereof are built up and are Temples of the Holy Ghost an everlasting Habitation of God through the Spirit And because the same Jesus that after this first pattern of humane Perfection which is in him gives only the Witness that he is a meer and perfect man and in the exalted and more heavenly state of Manhead which he also hath as he that God the Father hath sealed and admitted to the sight of his own shape and very similitude hath by Inheritance obtained a more excellent Name than the Angels and must also give the Witness of what he is and in what Glory he lives as he inherits the Spirit in this double portion thereof Therefore by the same new creating Power which he is intrusted to administer as he gives the Holy Ghost he produces this second sort of new men and adopted Children heirs according to the Promise upon whom Christ poures out his Spirit not only by the measure and pattern or Rule of the first Creation but above it and beyond it according to the proportion that his own glorified Manhead hath obtained it in its highest exaltation admitting them into the same bosome of the Father with himself wherein he is as the only begotten into which bosome and most intimate vision of God neither do the Angels nor first sort of Heirs and Children of the Son's Kingdom ever arrive but is reserved to be dwelt alone in by this Seed of Abraham God's friend that are made Christ's peculiar Possession consisting of a select number of his choice Favourites and Friends that he Redeems from amongst all other men to make as the first fruits of his Creation to God and to the Lamb who are joynt-heirs with him of the double Portion and co-habit together with him in his Father's bosom where they see and Inherit his Glory in the Naked and Primitive purity which it hath in the Breast of God himself Experiencing as well what the Gift of the Holy Ghost is when it is God's Name poured out above measure as well as by measure that which Paul had some taste of whether in the body or out of the body he could not tell upon his being caught up into the third Heavens to the hearing of things impossible for him to utter in his Bodily state nor others to receive And if thus we understand the third Heavens as indeed we ought then the finding out the other two next below them will not be difficult since the second Heaven is that wherein are the Angels and Spirits of Just men made perfect upon the laying down the Body and the first that Presence of Christ and knowledge of his Name which he vouchsafes unto his Church and particular Saints in the converse they have with him here below in the Body which Paul doth also call a Heaven Phil. 3. 20. where he sayes Our Conversation is in Heaven meaning by the walking with Christ in Spirit as well as being and living in it whilest we are here in this World in which Christ is able and doth appear to our Bodily sensual part before its change and putting on that which is Incorruptible as it must do and Christ's manhead thus considered as it makes this threefold Heaven was lively represented and described by the form of building God caused the Ark to be built up in Gen. 6. 16. where the directions that are given do require Noah to make it of lower second and third stories or heights one above another like the outward Court the Body of the Temple and Holy of Holies or inmost part of the House which God commanded also in Solomon's Temple and both not without signifying this great Mystery in the glorified manhead of Christ by the Spirit and Presence whereof he makes a threefold Heaven and way of converse with the Sons of men under the threefold degrees of Light and Glory that from his Face and by the Spirit of his Mouth are given forth and hath answerable Hearers and Receivers 1. That Administration of the Light of pure Nature the effects whereof upon the hearts of the Receivers produces healing and restoration of the wound made by sin and renews a like frame of Spirit in man as to the kind of it wherein he was at first Created and is still exercising his first mutable and wavering Principles that in time of tryal fail and so end in Apostacy and Death through the weakness and fault of the Vessel not of the Liquor or Oyl which is poured out into these Lamps that in his own Nature is Incorruptible but is suffered to leak out by these broken and frail Vessels Secondly The Light of pure Nature and right Reason fixed and made incorruptible through Faith and Regeneration whereby the former frailty and leaking of the Vessel is perfectly cured without changing the fashion of it any further than what is requisite to bring it into subjection and obedience to a supream Judgment and Will given as its guide and surety to sustain and influence the actings thereof throughout The Third is the Light of Divine Love which he that dwells in dwells in God and is in the Light as He is in the Light beholding divine beauty in its original where it is most attractive and binds up the Judgement and Will of the beholders into its own likeness most willingly and irresistably transforming them into the thing beloved This is the Love which casts out fear and all torment in the cleerest evidence and greatest assurance that the Creature can possess And by this Love it is when not seen that Faith works and the Spirit of Adoption crying Abba Father that Spirit and Presence of the Son that is sent into our hearts which we are knit into by an inseparable union and the Soul is formed thereby into the likeness of him that doth beget in either of the two last degrees of Light and quickning before-mentioned Both which do beget that Seed of Life in the heart that is immortal the Princely prevailing conquering Seed of Believers that are the true Israel of God to whom all the Promises are sure this is wrought by the coming of the Son in Spirit into the Soul there to beget and form his own likeness in our Understanding and Will the making us know him that is true and that we are in him that is true either according to this lower or higher birth of himself of which he calls us to partake and so become Witnesses thereof in our selves and unto others This then is the knowledge of the Truth which we are to understand doth make the Adopted Children of God free with another and better kind of
that is not only not in my sight but not in preference to him that I have given to you as my face and mouth Provoke him not for my Name is in him intimating withall that herein they were the more inexcusable because they had him with them and amongst them In him the light of God's Glory was shining forth as in God's own face and very similitude speaking his Mind by his own mouth and he was to be incarnate that the same Word might be near us even in our mouth and in our heart to hear it and do it This is the Prophet like unto Moses which God said he would raise up unto them out of and from the midst of their Brethren Let us then acknowledge this great Mystery of the Father and the Son distinguishing what God is by Nature and Essence from what he gives himself to be in the Person of the Mediator the only begotten that lieth in his bosome who yet is also his Messiah whom he sends and makes his Substitute by way of his in-dwelling Deity and Presence for the performing of all his pleasure in both Worlds The Trinity is the head and immediate cause of the being and fulness which is set up in the Person of the Mediator whom they not only inspire with each of their Names and Similitudes but make him a Vessel of meet use to convey the holy Oyl in the way of a twofold Ministry and Pipe to both Creations He therefore became incarnate that he might make use of no other spoksman immediately to interpret and declare the Mind of God unto his People than the Son of man glorified of which we have the lively Type Exod. 4. 15 16. in the Office of Aaron to Moses shewing that Aaron was made the mouth to Moses and Moses the mouth to God Aarons Office of spoksman figuring out that of Christ's Manhead and Moses his that of Christ's Mediatorship in spirits before his Incarnation upon which occasion God promiseth there in the Type that which he fulfills in Spirit and Truth in Christ's Person For as Moses had Commission to speak to Aaron as God's spoksman to him so hath the Spirit of the Mediator to Jesus the Son of man And as it was Aaron's Office to be spoksman to the People so is it the Office of Christ's Manhead to be the spoksman of Him that Moses typed out that great Prophet the Angel of God's Face and Presence and to be to him the Interpreter and Declarer of God's Mind and signifier of God's Commands to all in both Worlds Christ as he is the Son of man is to himself as he is the Word of God instead of a mouth or Prophet And Christ as he is the only Begotten or Word of the Father is instead of God most high unto his own Manhead answerable to the Promise made vers 15. and thou shalt speak unto him and put words into his mouth meaning Moses to Aaron and I will be with thy mouth and with his mouth and will teach you that is both of you what ye shall do Here we see and may see it with Admiration as the Queen of Sheba did in Solomon's Temple which was the Type the Glorious Ascent into the House of God and the gradual access which by one spirit we have through Christ unto the Father I would have you know saith the Apostle Paul 1 Cor. 11. 3. that the head of every man is Christ the head of the woman is the man and the head of Christ is God Christ that is the head of every man is the head of his own manhead and therefore was Christ God's Angel Messiah or sent-one before he was Man and had for his Head the one God and Father of all things How God is the Head of Christ we have shewed The blessed Trinity is the Father to that only begotten One who is the hidden Wisdom ordained before the World was to our glory The Angel that is the Messenger and Mediator of God's Covenant of whom he commands us to beware Exo. 23. 21. and to obey his voice Provoke him not sayes he for he will not pardon their Transgressions for my Name is in him What can be more plain The most high God hath his Messiah his Angel or sent-one invested with his Majesty and Power of Command whose Voice must be obeyed as the Voice of God it being his Office to be instead of God to his Church What he binds is bound what he remits is remitted for the Name of God is in him He is in likeness and truth so near to God that he is God's equal the true Michael that is second with God in the Throne and yet he that is found in the Form of God and accounts it no robbery to be equal with God doth not disdain to have also his Equals the man that is his fellow the man of his right-haud whom he hath made strong for himself With the most knowing Jews the acknowledgment of Christ in this his heavenly and spiritual being before his incarnation was most usual and avowed The Angel that redeemed Jacob Gen. 48. they call the Divine Majesty owned for God and for Christ that was tempted in the Wilderness whose Voice say they is to be obeyed as the Voice of the living God and his Office is to be the Leader and Guide of the true Israel the great Prince that is the Presence and Majesty of God and the Lord and Ruler over all the Earth as well as Heaven all that is therein being governed by his hand Unto Him the pure and simple Essence of God is the Father and he is set up from everlasting the Father and Root whence that chief Branch springs that is Jesus the Lord and Christ in the capacity of Son to this Father who must reign till all things be subdued under him that is all inferiour Rule Authority and Power whatsoever that officiate or ought to do so in his right But when that is done and finished then shall this Son also himself be subject unto Him that is his Father that raised him from the dead and put all things under him that God may be all in all This occasioned Christ whilst he was on Earth to say Joh. 12. 28. Father glorifie thy Name speaking therein to God the Mediator to Him whose Office is to be to him the Mouth of God from whom he receives the lively Oracles to deliver to his Church as it is written I will declare thy Name to my Brethren in the midst of the Church will I sing Praises unto thee And again I will put my trust in him even in him who wrought in Christ when he raised him from the dead and set him at his own right-hand of the Majesty on high or in the heavenly This made Christ say When I am lifted up I will draw all men unto me that is mediately and in order afterwards to resign them up unto his Father and give up all his interest of Rule in them
old ere ever the Earth was And what is true in Christ who is not only the Root but the chief and principal Branch hath its Witness and is declared in the Work which he begets and shines forth in amongst his Members knit to him by an abiding or indissoluable union all that are Branches in this true Vine whose Fruit is such as is cheering both to the heart of God and of Man that is to say of Man considered in his higher or lower attainments and growths up into the knowledge and love of God as he is Man and no more partaking of the Spirit of God by measure And secondly of Man made the only Begotten of God that lyes in the bosom of the Father and is anointed with the Oyl of gladness above his fellows which Christ's exalted Manhead is and that after such sort as not to have and inherit the dignity of it to himself single and alone but as the Head and Husband to that General Assembly of the First-born whose Names are written in Heaven and have right to the double portion The right opening of this is the great Key to all our practical and experimental Knowledge of God which is found amongst the dispersed Seed of God that are either of the one or other birth Children of the first or second Covenant in every Nation Tongue Language or Form truly searing God and working Righteousness and therein accepted of God either through Faith or with that common acceptance declared Gen. 4. If thou dost well shalt thou not be accepted whilst in the mean time they may be great strangers unto if not much prejudiced against one another for not walking together in one and the same way of Profession and external Communion Give me leave then to distinguish this Seed of God into Four sorts Two that are Witnesses unto Christ's first Ministry as he is the Author and Restorer of the Law and Principles of pure Nature and is the dispenser of God's Image and the manifestation of his Will upon the terms of the first Covenant And other two that are Witnesses unto the truth of Christ's second Ministry as he is the new Creator that regenerates and makes over again his first work anew is the Author of Life from the dead and bringer of Immortality to light which is not done by the first Covenant nor can be but by this second knowledge and Image of God begotten and wrought by and according to the tenor of the new and everlasting Covenant The first sort of Witnesses we shall speak unto and rightly to have the knowledge of them we must yet further consider Man in his first make and in the primitive constitution of being that was given to him in his state of Innocency before sin entred So as to enquire upon what terms Man then stood with God and in what respect he was pronounced good in God's eyes and might be said to be accepted of him Man then had the perfect knowledge of God and of Christ as his Creator and Law-giver for God created all things by Jesus Christ by the Word of God's mouth in the Mediator did all things live move and had their being so that what might be known of God even of his Eternal Power and Godhead by the things that were made that is by the means of any created beings visible or invisible it was manifested in man and was shewed to man by that mixt com pound being which was given him of an intellectual and sensual or animal Soul which furnished him with inward and outward senses proportioned for such a knowledge and which were retained in due subjection and subordination the one unto the other From such a prospect and survey of things as Man at first was fitted to receive both from within and without him the invisible things of the Godhead were clearly seen by him rendring him without all excuse being thereby instructed in the duty of his obedience and subjection to the Law of God under which he was made to the glorifying him as God which as God expected and required from man so he owned a liking and acceptance of from man with whom he treated and agreed upon the terms of his personal obedience and entire observance of all his Commands and continuance therein Three things man in this state might and did experimentally find in himself First The light and manifestation of God's Mind and Will as a Law within him called in Scripture The Candle of the Lord the Oyl with which God furnished the Lamp of man's spirit which he was to take care that through his default he did not let it go out nor diminish but quicken and renew it as it should need by such means God instituted The second thing which man experienced was the life of a rational and intellectual Soul that is to say a superior part in the same Soul affording the use of inward senses that by keeping open and awake he had as it were an intercourse with the spiritual and invisible beings of Angels and saw the intrinsick natures of the Creatures And thirdly He found also a brutish nature of which he was compouuded and made which furnished him with the use and operation of outward senses by which he might go abroad and walk up and down in converse with earthly things and inhabitants The fountain of these outward senses his inferior part to be in his soul or spirit With these he came to perform and put in execution that which the superior and directive part of him judged right and fit to be done This was the inward and outward order of actings that Man at first was created in with a freedom to make use of this Light within himself which God as a Talent had committed to him to imploy according to his will and rely upon his guidance and the sufficiency of it to attain the end God set before him in the way of his perfect obedience and keeping out the entrance of sin or else upon the sense of the instability he might discern in these Principles of Freedom that leave him alone and to himself and the Insufficiency to continue by the power of the Grace received in well-doing against all resisting and deceiving temptations to chuse rather to make resignation up of this his Freedom wherein he was at his own guidance and dispose in exchange for a better and more perfect Freedom that is to say in order to be intirely at the will of another and the leading influence thereof in all things even of such another whose service is perfect Freedom and who should be as Surety for the performance of the duty to God's Law and secure us from the penalty of the Curse therein threatned against the Transgression thereof which was pointed out to Adam in the Tree of Life as John interprets by the Promise mentioned Rev. 2. 7. To him that overcometh which is done through Faith will I give to eat of the Tree of Life or Immortality which is fed on
the other sort of these Witnesses is because that is wanting to them which should fix them and make them unchangeable in well-doing and cause them to be Pillars in the House of God that never go out more That they are partakers of righteous Principles and are qualified with Power to work Righteousness and this from present annointing and impression of the true and right Spirit is not nor ought not to be denied them They may be Virgins and have Lamps well trimed with Oyl fresh and full and yet not able to keep this Oyl from spending and going out nor prevent their own being to seek for want of it when they should have the greatest use of it And indeed the first sort do confess as much and own their Righteousness to be mutable and they no longer to have certainty in it than they can stand in the Obedience and that their standing or falling may be or may not be as they give their free assent or dissent to the Good and Evil that presents it self to them But with many under the second sort of Witnesses it is not so for they fasten upon the Righteousness of Christ that is wrought in his Person as that which is unchangeable in it self which it is if they do but rightly apply it and hold it upon the Texnure of the absolute and better Promises which are by the new Covenant whereof they make no doubt but they do And as to their Sanctification they have the Law for their Rule which in it self is Moral and Perpetual and so they believe all real and true Conformity to it wrought in their hearts must also be although their hearts be not yet made that good soyl that where it hath received the Word and retained it for a season are not prepared to keep it for ever and to bring forth fruit with that patience as will lose all other things rather than ever be prevailed with to let it go From both these sorts of Witnesses Christ is Preached and Righteousness made known and Propagated in the World and a Testimony kept up against open Looseness and Prophanness Atheism and Idolatry and by these Spiritual Traders and Merchants in the Traffick of Christ's Goods and Talents of the Common Gifts and Graces of his Spirit there is by some a right good use and approvement made so as they are at last perswaded to put them to the Exchangers for their Lord's Advantage and their own benefit being willing to purchase the one Pearl of great price which is obtained through saving Faith and Regeneration for many of these small Pearls that in the Day of Proof and Tryal will not endure And those that do eat and drink unworthily of this Table of the Lord notwithstanding the many wonderful things they do in his Name he will profess he knows them not but let them see they have eat and drunk their own damnation and left themselves wholly without all excuse And therefore both these degrees and growths up into Christ Jesus as branches in the Vine that after real union must either by better husbandry applied to them come to receive a fastening in and with the Root that cannot be shaken nor dissolved or else prove withered branches at last that upon tryal are only fit for the fire Their great care and business should be to make their Calling and Election sure and from evidence which cannot fail nor deceive experience that the Root bears them and not they the Root And thus we come to the Consideration of the other two sorts of Witnesses that are the standing Plants and Olive Trees in the House of God which are planted by the Fathers right hand and none whatsoever can pluck up In the former I have spoke to Christ dwells as in his Tents and mutable habitations who in that respect are called Temples of the Holy Ghost that may so be defiled that God may destroy and cast them out of his sight for ever but these we now come to describe do Constitute that Mount Zion that cannot be moved that Heavenly Jerusalem which is made a quiet habitation a place of everlasting Rest a Tabernacle that shall not be taken down as the first must in order to be new built in the Regeneration not one of the Stakes thereof shall ever be removed neither shall any of the Cords thereof be broken but there the Lord will be for ever a place of broad Rivers and Streams that shall spring up into life eternal and that from the lowest Ebbs at first no higher than the Anckles become still ascending not only to the heighth and stature of man in his fullest perfection but also above it till it come to be a River to swim in a River pure and clear as Cristal that proceeds from the Throne of God and of the Lamb the Son of man glorified in the midst of the street and on either side whereof is the Tree of Life or those who live and feed upon that incorruptible Fruit. The work which is wrought by Christ in and upon the two first sort of Professors of his Name is that which seals them and binds them fast up in the bundle of life unto the Redemption that is eternal and makes them to give witness to what Christ is and doth in his second Ministry as he sends the holy Ghost the Spirit of Truth which abides in them that are made Receivers of him under an Obligation never to depart from them nor suffer them to depart from him that is he that stablisheth us in Christ pouring out that Anointing which sealeth us with the Seal of the living God as with the Name of our Father in our forehead the effectual calling of whose Name upon us by working in us and making us fit Vessels to receive it and bear it is our Adoption and that manner of admitting us unto the right and dignity of Sons which makes us heirs according to the Promise And this is done by Christ not as Creator and the Giver of the Law and Life of pure Nature upon its first Principles but by Christ as he ministers that Spirit of Truth which is the Inspiration before-described that proceeds from the Father and the Son by the operation of the holy Ghost or third Person in the Trinity whose work is Perfection and consummative of what is already in being by the Creation and Operation of the Son or Eternal Word and yet causeth so great an Alteration in the natural being of man taken at his best from what it was before and that so much for the better with respect to abundance and immutability of that which Nature it self calls good and righteous that it justly deserves to be call'd a new Creation or Regeneration that gives a new Creature Being and Life far excelling the first and much differing in glory from it To evidence this Let us consider Man in the righteousness of his Natural being wherein he hath a right understanding of God's mind in what is required
of Christ Jerusalem is destroyed by Titus Vespasian and there ended the second great Period and Revolution of this War that was managed between the two seeds All along this second War the seed of the Serpent was possessed of the Universal Monarchy of this World had all the countenance and assistance which that could afford The main visible Protection vouchsafed by God on the other hand to his Church and People was continued in the line of Abraham accounting from Sem downward unto God's judicial rejection of that seed of Abraham according to the flesh upon their crucifying the Lord of Glory In this second War we find the seed of the Woman bruised still in the heel and coming off with loss Yea upon the winding up of this second great Day or Period of time wherein the Prince of Life was by wicked hands put to death and the whole Nation of the visible Church of God on Earth rejected and their Worship prophaned and destroyed the Devil might seem to himself and others to have come off compleat conqueror But the War is again renewed by the Serpent and his seed against the seed of the Woman who are repeated and brought forth again by the Regeneration from amongst the very heathenish Nations of the World that were not before accounted by God as a People of his but given up as it were to the dominion of Sin and Satan This third War had its foundation laid in the Incarnation Death and Resurrection of Christ who though a Son was taught obedience by suffering and in the condition of a sufferer obtained the victory Through death he destroyed him that had the power of death that is the Devil And by tasting death for every man as became the Captain of our Salvation he was made perfect through sufferings This way of fighting and overcoming the Devil and Sin was a great mystery till then and the most unlikely of all other ever to break the Serpents head and dispossess him and his Instruments of their worldly Thrones and Powers Yet in this way of the Cross by the blood of the Lamb and the word of their Testimony do the true Witnesses of Christ manage and carry on this third War One thousand two hundred and sixty dayes that is yeares have bin alotted them for prophesying in sackcloth in a persecuted wilderness condition Then they are to rise out of their graves stand again upon their feet and prophecy with power 'T is past all dispute that the conquest must fall on the side of the Lamb and his followers at the ending of this third great season and revolution of time wherein the seed of the Woman hath still been on the suffering hand The end of their suffering season will be when the seventh Trumpet begins to sound immediately after the effect which the pouring forth of the Vials shall have upon the Beast and his kingdom This is the Rise Progress and Issue that is given unto things in the third Age of the World called Christian that was made to spring up and have its being out of the destruction of the Jewish World Rom. 11. 11. The cleer view and prospect of things in this Christian World both as to the Civil and Church-government as also the War between the two Seeds brought on again and continued was given by Christ unto the Apostle John and revealed to him by his Angel in the Book of the Revelation For there we find the period that must happen also to this third World and to the Heavens and Earth or the Civil and Church-state appertaining to it and carried on under this dispensation in order to give place to a world to come which is yet to succeed This World to come will be of a more heavenly and spiritual Constitution as to the general state and frame of things which is to be brought forth by Christ's second appearance upon the spirits and bodies of men on this side their compleat and utmost glorification The final ascending up to the Father to sit down at his right hand is after this world that is yet to come or the thousand years Reign of Christ withall his Saints on earth shall have had its course Unto the risen state of Saints when they shall begin to come forth in their victorious posture and unresistable power of Faith and Prayer doth the Prophet Hosea seem to refer chap. 6. vers 2 3. After two dayes sayes he or great seasons of Affliction and Suffering already described he will revive us by the WORD 's being made Flesh and the day-spring from on high therein visiting us This Hab. 3. 2. is called a reviving the work or preserving it alive in the midst of the years of Wrath and Oppression from the Serpent and his seed that was yet to be under-gone for the space of 1666 years after Christ's birth as will appear in its proper place In the third day sayes Hosea that is at the end of it when the Witnesses are to arise we shall live in his sight By following on to know the Lord we shall perceive that his going forth in this his third great revolution of time hath been as the morning shining more and more unto a perfect day and that his coming to us according as hath been by him purposed in his first and in his second Appearance will be as the former and latter rain unto the Earth The former rain of Christ's Spirit in the season of his first Appearance began at the day of Pentecost in visible gifts and distributions of the holy Ghost dividing to every man severally as himself pleased By this means he raised up a Ministry that formed and laid the Foundation of the Primitive Church That Church was upheld in its original purity more or less as long as they kept the Word of God's Patience and withstood the opposition made against it after a right manner by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their Testimony in the giving whereof they loved not their lives unto death This appeared all along those hard and cruel Persecutions they under-went until such time almost as Constantine came to the Empire But to avoid Persecution Christians then began to mingle Interest with worldly Powers and to please Governours took their rest in the outward Court some out-side form of godliness so as that which we call Christian Religion became the Religion of the Empire or of the body of the Nation unto which it was received as commanded and compelled by the Laws of the State and power of the Sword This practice commenced and bears date about four hundred years after Christ from which time little of the former rain hath fallen upon such visible or state Christianity in their Publick and National Meeting-places of Worship That rain became then hidden Manna the peculiar food and refreshing of the Woman and her seed in the Wilderness where she is nourished for a time and times and half a time From about the time that Christian
knowledge of the Life which is hid with Christ in God Those that are in this Kingdom and in whom the Power of it is are fitted to flye with the Church into the VVilderness and to continue in such a solitary dispersed desolate condition till God calls them out of it They have VVells and Springs opened to them in this VVilderness whence they draw the VVaters of Salvation without being in bondage to the Life of Sense and the objects depending thereon as touch not taste not handle not which perish in the using 2. But Secondly Christ's Kingdom is also outward appearing to sense and to the eye of the sensual or inferiour part of the mind which works only by bodily organs judging by the sight of that eye and the hearing of that ear whose life is in and by the body consisting in bodily exercise and is therefore compared Revel 11. 2. to the outward Court and the VVorship thereunto appertaining This is the Dominion of God in the Conscience also though but in the inferiour or sensual part of the mind where it becomes a Law in our Members to put in execution and perform the Law of the Spirit of our Mind that so our very bodies may become the Temple of the holy Ghost and we may be able to glorifie God not in our Spirits only but in our Bodies also as clean Vessels and earthen Tabernacles upon which may be written HOLINESS TO THE LORD Zech. 14. Now the Kingdom of Christ comes not properly to appear in outward shew and visibility but as it shines forth in this lower and earthly part of the Soul witnessing the Dominion and Power of God to be there as a Law and commanding Principle in and over the outward man With respect to this kind of its Appearance in affecting and influencing the bodily part of man and becoming the Life thereof it is capable to come forth in a Power and Glory that is corruptible fading and that wears away as also in that which is incorruptible and abides for ever The first of these is meant 1 Joh. 3. 1 2. where 't is said Now are we the Sons of God and it doth not yet appear what we shall be but we know that when he shall appear we shall be like him or have the like appearance with him for we shall see him as he is The Sons of God are not yet in the proper appearance of his Sons but do bear the form and appearance of the fleshly man to the making a fair shew in the flesh They have their Treasure but in an earthen Vessel unredeemed from its present bondage unto corruption But the time is hastening when they shall in Spirit shine forth as the Sun in its strength in the Kingdom of their Father and their very bodies shall be as the Firmament transparent and of service to unvail the glory of the inward man and not cover and disguise it as now they do But alas This fair shew in the flesh which may also be made by those that are strange Children passes with most for the Kingdom of Christ even yet in these last dayes some crying Lo here and some lo there according to that form of service and divine worship they are perswaded in their minds is according to the Rule of God's VVord though it be but that only which appertains to the outward Court which is given up by God into the hands of the Gentiles to possess and tread under foot at their pleasure The Heavens hereof are passing away with a great noise and these worldly Elements are melting apace As a Vesture they shall be folded up and changed they shall perish and wear old as a Garment whilst Christ's inward and spiritual Kingdom shall remain and in its due time come forth in an appearance that shall be lasting and unshaken for ever VVherefore we receiving this Kingdom which cannot be moved let us hold fast and have Grace whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and Godly fear For our God is a consuming fire But to return and apply our selves to the subject we were on before which is To give the view of what Word God is fulfilling and what part of his Counsel he is executing among us in this our day The Heavens are now black over our heads the Sun is turned into darkness the Moon into blood and mens hearts are failing them for fear of what God is bringing upon the Earth Great distress is in the Land and upon the Nations Wrath is coming upon that People who say they are Jews and are not but shall be found liars The Sea and the waves also will roar the prophane heathenish party of men will be in great perplexity too Surely the Figtree and all the Trees are shooting forth and after this cruel sharp Winter that is and for some space is yet to be upon us the Summer approaches that will make amends for all Great cause there is for the Sons of God to lift up their heads as foreseeing that their Redemption draws nigh In this point the Book of the Revelations will be every day more and more opened to give us light and instruction the Providences of God helping much every day too as to the interpretation thereof together with the Spirit of Truth that dwells and lives in the hearts of Saints Through mercy the Lord who is that Spirit hath not been wanting in his Teachings of this kind to a poor Worm in my present solitude and bonds I shall have occasion to tell you by and by that there appears cause to me of dissent from Mr. Mede as to some applications that are made by him in his learned Commentary on that Book when I come to speak of some particulars concerning the Witnesses and their twofold time and state of prophesying 1. Their thousand two hundred and sixty years prophesying in sackcloth in a persecuted wilderness state 2. Their prophesying in power and glory during the space of the pouring forth of the seven Vials of Wrath as a fore-running Eliah-like Ministry preparatory to Christ's thousand years Reign on Earth Yet as to that which Mr. Mede calls his great Key for the opening of that whole Book to wit his Synchronisms or Contemporations of things which he finds to agree and fall out together in the same age and time I exceedingly reverence his Judgement and look upon him as one that hath most happily found out the hidden order and method used by the holy Ghost in that Prophetical Book This method being once known to the very rational judgment of man that may be exercised upon the matters contained in that Book they are thereby rendred much more easie and intelligible Let us also take it for granted as that which is the common judgment of those that acknowledge the Scriptures that in this Book of the Apocalypsâ— are contained and revealed in an orderly method the things which were to fall out in the course of God's Providence and wise ordering of
and Body This is that Principle and Power that after the limited time of 1260 years must fall and be taken out of the way 15. By the Witnesses Prophesying in Sack-cloth are meant the true Circumcision in Spirit who Worship God in Christ Jesus and live in a through-resignedness of mind to him that is risen from the dead who is the Spirit of Truth which is given them by the Father to be their guide of whom and of whose Testimony they are not ashamed what ever disgrace it be in or however rejected by the Government under which the Providence of God hath placed them They do therefore own it as their Principle and make it their practice to bear and suffer under such worldly Powers and Governments in Faith and Patience whatever befals them for their Testimony 's sake without attempting to resist the Powers that are to disturb their peace or give them any just cause of offence They are called Witnesses because of the word of their Testimony which they forbear not to give in the worst and most suffering times whatever it cost them And they are Two described by two Candlesticks or Societies of Believers and two Olive Trees or Sons of Oyl because through Faith they are the receivers of the Anointing which comes from the Holy One and is Truth and no Lie This Anointing proportions it self in its Gift either according to the measure it finds the Nature of man capable to take in and possess without any new addition of a distinct superiour capacity and reception or else gives forth its self in a vast and boundless communication wherein it is capable to flow forth into man and to form in him an answerable Reception thereunto beyond and above that capacity and measure of knowledge and discerning which is proper to man in his first make or building to the extending and enlarging the intellectual part of man's Being into a more abundant fruition of God in a superiority to that of Angels even to a joynt inheriting seeing and enjoying of God with the exalted humane Nature of the Son of God in that Name which he obtains above Angels and wherein he is more excellent than they At this more excellent Name of Christ as it originally shines forth in Christ's own Person every knee must bow and every tongue confess to the glory of God the Father These two sorts of Saints are in most intimate Union and inseperable conjunction with the Lord that Spirit who is the Son of man glorified or justified in Spirit and who hath the gift of the Anointing in both the respects before-mentioned The one sort of these Saints as well as the other do with open face behold as in a glass the Glory of the Lord whether that wherein he is perfect man or that wherein he is more than man the man that is God's Fellow and Equal and so Superiour and Head to Angels Principalities and Powers ascended far above all Heavens And they are changed into the same Image respectively whether of the one Glory or of the other by the Spirit of the Lord or the Lord the Spirit These Two Witnesses do live and abide in their Principles and word of their Testimony when their persons die and they have put off their earthly Tabernacle For the Witnessing-work is carried on in a succession of new Witnesses brought upon the stage of this World one Generation after another during the time declared of 1260 years whilst they are appointed to prophesie in Sack-cloth And when that suffering season of theirs shall have an end put to it as it must the like two Companies and Societies of Saints spirited with the same Principles that these sackcloth or suffering Prophets are of both of them making but one Church and House of the Living God shall be quicken'd and rais'd up in Power by such a Redemption wrought in and upon their bodies even here in this life from the bondage of Corruption as is called the Adoption of the body Rom. 8. 23. This Adoption or Redemption of the body on this side the Resurrection will hold proportion very much with Christ's Transfiguration This state of the body is prophetically described Dan. 12. 3. where we are given to understand that the bodies of the Saints or of those that are wise shall shine as the brightness of the Firmament and their Spirits as the Stars for ever and ever For into such an intimate relation and conjunction will Christ as he is the Head of Angels take and adopt the Spirits of Angels and men regenerated with himself and with one another as by his own influence on the Spirits of Saints and by his and the influence of their own Spirits on their bodily or sensual part to reduce their bodies into so near a relation to and conjunction with the Life of their Spirits and Christ in Spirit as will raise and advance them into a heavenly frame and render them meet for so great a glory of Spirit or eminent exercise of spiritual Life and Power This will be a glory of the body not before known as a common and general dispensation since the World began nor yet hardly so eminently experienced even by those few choice Types and Shadowes of it Enoch Moses and Elias or others This is that state of body or of the very outward-man and sensual part of the Saint whereby Christ will be glorified in his Saints and admired in all those that do believe A LETTER OF Sir HENRY VANE To his LADY from the Isle of SCYLLY My Dear Heart THe Wind yet continuing contrary makes me desirous to be as much in Converse with thee having this opportunity as the Providence of God will permit hoping these will come safe to your hand It is no small Satisfaction to me in these sharp Tryals to experience the Truth of those Christian Principles which God of his Grace hath afforded you and me in our measures the knowledge and emboldned us to make the profession of For surely by this Fiery Tryal which is from God appointed to try us no strange or unusual Dispensation of God hath happened to us differing from that which all his Servants and Prophets from the beginning of the World to this day have found also to be their Lot Nor is it other than the Condition as I may say and Law that all those must come under and submit unto that will approve themselves Christ's Disciples indeed Luk. 14. 26 27. And it is no small Mercy that the greatest Extremities we have already under-gone and which do as yet threaten have found that strength and rooting of the Grace and Love of Christ in our Hearts which causes us not to despair of being made more than Conquerors in the end without desiring those Conditions of peace vers 32. which are not consistent with our being such Disciples of Christ as will cheerfully when called to it forsake all they have in love to him and subjection to his Will Why should Christ ask us
Whether we be able to drink of the Cup he drank of and be baptized with the Baptism he was baptized with Was it not to intimate That if we die with him we shall also live with him if we suffer we shall also reign with him and have it granted to us to sit down with him on the Throne of his Glory our very Enemies beholding What would it be less even in this world if he should but please to cause upon this occasion of our Suffering that the Spirit of God and of Glory should rest upon us and bring forth his Kingdom within us in Power giving us that Mouth and Wisdom that will make us mighty in word and deed that Faith to which all things are possible that Spirit of Supplication and Prayer that he will alwayes hear and immediately answer God's Arm is not shortned doubtess great and precious Promises are yet in store to be accomplished in and upon Believers here on Earth to the making of Christ to be admired in them If we come not to live here in the actual fruition and full accomplishment of them as they will be experienced by Believers even on this side the death or full change of their mortal body yet if we die in the certain fore-sight and embracing of them by Faith this will be no small blessing This dark night and black shade which God hath drawn over his Work in the midst of us may be for ought we know the ground-colour to some beautiful piece that he is exposing to the Light His Sons must be manifested and evidently distinguished from those who say they are such and are not There is a glory to be revealed in them unto which their Suffering is made the needful Preparation and this is called the Redemption of the body In that day the tabernacling of God in men shall be visible Their very bodies shall be the Temple of the Holy Ghost In them as his Sanctuary will God dwell for evermore whence shall be given forth such visible signs of his extraordinary Presence as shall render it past dispute to the sight of every man that God is in them and with them of a Truth This state of entire resignedness and subjection of our bodies to our Spirits and of our Spirits unto Christ the Father of them shall certainly be brought to the view of the whole World The eyes of those that see them shall acknowledge them and the ears that hear them shall bear witness to them that they are the Seed and Off-spring which the Lord hath blessed Our body thus considered as capable of such advance and honour is not meerly the outward case or shell that must return to dust but includes also the bodily organical state of Life or that souly animal Life which the Spirit of man exercises in conjunction with his mortal body In this kind of Life it is we see hear and speak have the exercise of our Senses after a distinct manner from Angels and intellectual Substances in a way of operation inferiour to theirs proper and peculiar to the rational Soul as needing and using the earthly Organs or Instruments of the mortal body There is also in man that which is peculiarly called Mind or Spirit in distinction from his Soul or from the souly Life and activity of the same Spirit in and by its earthly body 1 Thess 5. 23. The Spirit or Mind of man as distinguished from that life and operation it performs in the mortal body is capable even while in the body to be awakened by the Father of Spirits and come forth in a superiour way even of natural life received by man in his first creation to act as out of the body or without the use of bodily organs as an equal or associate to the very Angels Now because the bodily and inferiour powers of our mind are the instruments of that converse we are subjected to in these dayes of our vanity so that if we will be sociable it must be by the use thereof the Apostle James comprehends all the action of these inferiour powers by the sensible organs we make use of in the exercise thereof under the name of the tongue when he saith If any man offend not in word the same is a perfect man and able to bridle the whole body To bridle and regulate the tongue order all the language action and expression of the animal powers aright is to bridle the whole body under the government or ruling authority of the Mind or Spirit considered in its superiour and angelical kind of life and acting as out of the body or above and without the use of bodily organs The Mind or Spirit of man thus considered is as the Pilot that turns the Ship about whithersoever he listeth If it well and truly exercise its governing power it causes the animal life in all the operations and affections thereof to obey its dictates and commands however fiercely driven by contrary Winds false Doctrine any corrupting violent influences of Devils or men upon it and fetches it off from whatever tumultuous disorder it s own sensual lusts and passions are ready to run it into Jam. 3. 2 5. To be partaker of the Redemption of the body is to be made this perfect man which is taught so to live and act from right spiritual Principles as not to offend in word through the Power actually conferred on him and exercised by him for the bridling of the whole body in the sence above declared and for the keeping it in subjection to the Spirit or angelical part in him in righteousness and true holiness This taming of the tongue or subduing of the bodily part in us to the spiritual and intellectual is a work of no small difficulty a thing that is not to be purchased but at a dear rate It may cost us all that we have and no ill bargain neither since by our words it is that we shall be justified and by our words we shall be condemned For until we have brought under our body and reduced it into a fixed subjection and entire resignation to our Spirits let us boast never so much that which is perfect is not yet come even that perfection which in a very eminent degree shall be experienced by the Saints here on Earth on this side the grave and during their continuance in the mortal body This for ought I can discern will be the product of the present sharp and fiery Tryals that God hath brought upon his People all the World over After they have suffered a while and the same Afflictions have been accomplished in the rest of their Brethren that are in the World they may so far have the work of Patience perfected in them as in this sense to become perfect and entire wanting nothing and to shine forth as so many bright morning stars and fore-running signs of the near approach of the brightness of the Day of Christ's second coming This God hath set before the eye of my