Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
spirit_n	angel_n	body_n	soul_n	8,225	5	5.5180	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A63192	The tryal of Sir Henry Vane, Kt. at the Kings Bench, Westminster, June the 2d. and 6th, 1662 together with what he intended to have spoken the day of his sentence (June 11) for arrest of judgment (had he not been interrupted and over-ruled by the court) and his bill of exceptions : with other occasional speeches, &c. : also his speech and prayer, &c. on the scaffold.	Vane, Henry, Sir, 1612?-1662, defendant.; England and Wales. Court of King's Bench.	1662 (1662)	Wing T2216; ESTC R21850	115,834	133

or to be born In flying Death thou flyest thy self thy essence is equally parted into these two Life and Death It is the condition and Law of thy Creation Men are not sent into the World by God but with purpose to go forth again which he that is not willing to do should not come in The first day of thy birth bindeth thee and sets thee in the way as well to Death as to Life To be unwilling therefore to die is to be unwilling to be a Man since to be a Man is to be Mortal It being therefore so serviceable to Nature and the institution of it why should it be feared or shunned Besides it is necessary and inevitable we must do our best endeavour in things that are not Remediless but ought to grow resolute in things past Remedy It is most just reasonable and desirable to arive at that place towards which we are alwayes walking Why fearest thou to go whither all the World goes It is the part of a valiant and generous Mind to prefer some things before Life as things for which a man should not doubt nor fear to die In such a case however matters go a man must more account thereof than of his Life He must run his race with resolution that he may perform things profitable and exemplary The contempt of Death is that which produceth the boldest and most honourable exploits He that fears not to die fears nothing From hence have proceeded the commendable Resolutions and free Speeches of Vertue uttered by men of whom the world hath not been worthy A gallant Romane commanded by Vespasian not to come to the Senate answered He was a Senator therefore sit to be at the Senate and being there if required to give his advice he would do it as his Conscience commanded him Hereupon being threatned by the Emperor he replyed Did I ever tell you that I was immortal Do you what you will and I will do what I ought It is in your power to put me unjustly to death and in mine to die constantly What hard dealing cannot he suffer that fears not to die Other designments may be hindred by our enemies but they cannot hinder us from dying The means whereby to live free is to contemn Death It is no great thing to live slaves and beasts can do that but it is a great matter to live freely and die honestly wisely constantly Emori nolo saith one sed me esse mortuum nihil estimo I would not die but to be dead I look upon as nothing But no man can be said resolute to die that is afraid to confront it and suffer with his eyes open as Socrates did without passion or alteration In a miserable estate of a Life which a man cannot remedy Death is lawfully desirable as our best retreat and onely haven from the storms of this Life and as the Soveraign good of nature the onely stay and pillar of Liberty It is a good time to die when to live is rather a burthen than a blessing and there is more ill in Life than good There are many things in Life far worse than Death in respect whereof we should rather die than live The more voluntary our Death is the more honourable Life may be taken away from every man by every man but not Death It is no smal reproach to a Christian whose faith is in immortality and the blessedness of another Life to fear Death much which is the necessary passage thereunto He ought rather to desire and thirst after death as great gain Vitam habere in patientiâ mortem in desiderio to endure Life and desire Death But it is greater constancy well to use the chain wherewith we are bound than to break it A man is not to abandon his charge in Life without the express command of him that gave it him Sylvanus and Proximus being pardoned by Nero chose Death rather than to Live upon those terms Nerva a great Lawyer Cato of Urica and others died as not able to bear the sight of the Weal-publick in that bad and declining state into which by Gods Providence it was brought in their times but they should have considered Multa dies variusque labor mutabilis Aevi Retulit in melius A man ought to carry himself blamlesly and with a steddy courage in his place and calling against his assailants and consider that it is better to continue firme and constant to the end then fearfully to fly or dye It is not a less evil to quit the place and fly than obstinately to be taken and perish It is a great point of wisdom to know the right hour and fit season to Die Many men have survived their own Glory That is the best Death which is well recollected in it self quiet solitary and attendeth wholly to what at that time is fittest But let us more particularly and upon truly and purely Christian Principles weigh and consider Death They that live by Faith die daily The Life which Faith teaches works Death It leads up the mind to things not seen which are eternal and takes it off with its affections and desires from things seen which are temporary It acquaints the soul experimentally with that heavenly way of converse and intercourse which is not expressed by sensible signes but by the demonstration proper to spirits whether angels souls separate or souls yet in the body as they live by faith not by sense In which respect the use of voice and mouth is attributed to God to Christ to Angels who have that with them and in them whereby they outwardly manifest what they inwardly conceive although they express not the inward word of their mental conception by any outward voice hand eye or other external sign but by the way of its own self evidencing brightness and essential demonstration Such a way of living and shining forth in man's naked essential beams he then arrives unto when the thick vail and wall of his flesh is dissolved and his earthly tabernacle put off The knowledge sight and experience of such a kind of subsisting and heavenly manner of Life that man is capable of is the best preparative and most powerful motive to leave the body and surcease the use of our earthly organs This in effect is all that bodily death rightly known and understood doth impart a lawful surceasing the use and exercise of our earthly organs and our willing and chearful resorting to the use and exercise of that Life without the Body which man is capable to subsist in when made perfect in spirit an equal and associate with angels under the power and order of expressing what he inwardly conceives as they do This made Paul look upon Life in the Body and Life out of it with no indifferent eye but as accounting the being at home in the body an absence from the Lord and such a kind of absence from the body as death causes to be that which makes us most present with

the Lord which therefore we should be most willing unto and with greatest longing after desire The strait which the Apostle found himself in was not at all from the least haesitation in his mind which of the two was in it self best and to be preferred but by which Christ might most be magnified and the Church benefitted according to the will of Christ So then unless to live were Christ and a real and clear magnifying of Christ in his Body he cared not for Life but contemned Death He saw evidently how it was his own particular loss and hindrance even not to Die since to be dissolved to depart and be with Christ and in the Society of the blessed Angels and Saints in Heaven was best of all and far more gainful and to be valued by him than any longer continuance or abode in the flesh The magnifying of Christ in his Body whether by Life or by Death was the Consideration with Paul that held the ballance cast the scale and that onely So it ought to be with every true Christian The end of man's coming into the Body and his temporary continuance and abode there according to the Law of his Creation is the magnifying and glorifying Christ either by his Life or by his Death or both the one of which if he do not it must needs be his sin and he is left without excuse For none can violate or corrupt the mind of man by the Law of Nature nor let in Death upon his Spiritual Substance but himself though they dissolve his temporary abode in the flesh break his outward case and shel and rather than do the one we should choose the other choose affliction rather than sin the dissolution of the Body rather than the corrupting of the Mind In so doing and dying Christ is magnifyed Thus Peter was foretold by what Death he should glorify God And to such it is given by Christ not onely to Believe but Suffer and Die for his Names sake as a transcendent priviledge and honour If no restraint then be upon our mind from without what hinders that Christ is not magnified in our Body but something within us in our judgement will and affections that are not right set and fixed nor as yet wrought to this self same thing by God who hath given us the earnest of his Spirit But it may be demanded What is it in which this great duty of man lies as to the magnifying of Christ in his Body by his Life or living in the Body which is a more difficult thing to do than to Die Christ himself tells us when he saith Let your Light so shine before men that they may see feel and sensibly discern your good works and so glorify your father which is in Heaven There are two sorts of signs we read of in those that believe which justifie their Faith in consortship as it were with which their Faith works and is made perfect so as the work of Faith is fulfilled in them with power 1. Signs Extraordinary as Mark 16. 18. with which the Primitive Christians were well acquainted and so may all such again as arrive to any competent maturity in that primitive Christian Spirit 2. Signes Ordinary as those mentioned Gal. 5. 22 23. called the fruits of the Spirit in us that makes us mighty in word and in deed not onely to will but to perform that which is good by being filled with the Spirit in our very Bodies made the Temples of the holy Ghost rich in Faith and Tuch good Works as are the fruit of Faith without which Faith it self is dead and unprofitable and by which Abraham justified his Faith and was called the Friend of God It is in this sense the Prophet urges the sanctification of our Vessels when he saith Be ye clean that bear the Vessels of the Lord. And the Apostle when he saith 1 Cor. 6. 19. What! know ye not that your Body is the Temple of the holy Ghost unto which Redemption by Christ extends as well as to your Spirits therefore glorify God in your Body as well as in your Spirit which is God's and wherein he hath and challengeth a special propriety The Body in Scripture acceptation signifies not onely the material substance from which the Soul is actually separated when it is laid in the Grave but very usually the Soul it self that is to say that part of the Soul which vitally unites the Body to it self whose faculty and operation is in and by the Body and doth properly and immediately exercise bodily Life as that which is co-natural and co-essential to it There is a higher part in man's Soul called Spirit in distinction from Soul and Body expressed 1 Thes 5. 23. as if the Spirit were an entire thing in it self though it be that in and with which Soul and Body doth consist as parts of the whole Man I pray God saith the Apostle that your whole Spirit Soul and Body be preserved blameless to the coming of Christ and that you may be sanctified throughout or in every part of you in your Soul and in your Body which are to be esteemed but as parts comparatively with your whole Spirit Man considered as entire in his Spirit may have and hath being before he partakes of Flesh and Blood as it is written Behold saith Christ I and the children which thou hast given me Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of Flesh and Blood he also himself took part of the same even he who with the children were a mystery hid with the Father before the World was and had their Seminal and radical Being in the Word of Life the Father of Spirits In this Word as in the Image and Mental conception of the invisible God the Souls of all men even of Christ himself as man were comprehended as in their original pattern and rule in order at the time appointed to come into flesh and there make their temporary abode allotted to them By the Condition and Law of Man's Creation he is made a Spiritual essence with two distinct faculties and operations according to which he may be said to be both Immortal and Mortal Immaterial and Material Spirit and Body as Body signifies man's animal rational Soul that is to live in flesh and hath its peculiar desire faculty and operation proportioned thereunto In all this Man bears the Image and Similitude of God the Mediator or of the Godhead in Christ as two Natures in him are Hypostatically united and make but one Compositum or Person This was comprehended in that Counsel which the blessed Trinity took concerning the making of Man in their Image and after their Similitude He was made male and female in his very Spiritual substance First with a faculty and operation of mind superiour stronger and more excellent which is free and independent upon bodily organs exercising Life properly and purely Spiritual and Immaterial above and without the use of sensible signes or shapes Secondly With that inferiour faculty and operation of mind whose subsistence life being and motion is in with and by the body and through the use of bodily organs sensible signes and external mediums on the loss of which this second faculty and operation of man's Soul which is the weaker inferiour and less valuable ceases at least is for a time suspended which in Scripture phrase is called Death even the Death of the Body Yet the more vigorous the exercise of this latter is and the more that thereby we are at home in the Body the more in truth and reality we are dead at least asleep in the earth as to our more Noble and Spiritual part in and through which we enjoy most of the presence of God and of Christ Since therefore mans constitution of Being in such as he cannot live both these Lives together untill the Resurrection but that in the one of them he must be incompleat have his operation much suspended and be as it were dead or asleep To resolve which of these to choose and prefer ought not to be so difficult as commonly it is made On the SUFFERINGS of the Renowned Sir H. Vane Knight GReat Soul ne're Understood Until deciphered by thy Blood A Priest a Prophet and a King Systeme of every worthy thing Dying that Liberty might Live The English Cause he doth retrieve Stating it in no formal dress But in the Spirit of Righteousness Which he from th' earth perceiving fled Dy'd to Return with 't from the Dead Persons or Forms of Government Did little make to his intent To nought was he an Enemy But what was fix'd in Enmity ' Gainst which he fought with eager breath Became Victorious in his Death And this not by necessity It was his Principle to Dye Flesh will resist but Faith can suffer The soft hand 's gone beware the rougher Th' envy and hate of every Form Upon his head pour'd down the Storm Whilst he sublim'd and sav'd the good O' th' lowest and seal'd it with his Blood How great he was his Enemies tell Who while he liv'd could not be well And in what stead his offering stood By resolute silence Friends made good The male o' th' Flock is ta'ne the best To expiate the blame o' th' rest What tears and prayers wanted in strength His crying blood brings down at length Groan English Hearts groan help the cry Lord Jesus Come I come quickly FINIS The Printer to the Reader IT 's very probable thou mayest meet with some faults and misprintings escaped the Corrector which could not be avoided by reason of the distance between the Transcriber and the Press thou art desired to correct them and pass them by with candor One thou mayest find in page 54 and 55 all those words within the Parenthesis should come in after the word Penetent And page 97. in the Title to that part read Case for Cause ☜

of being prejudiced thereby against him unless they were as willing to abuse him as the Counsel But here were many things said at random against all Sense Law and Reason as if Tully had been charactering a treacherous Catil●ne and the innocent Prisoner must be mute and suffer the Jury to be dismissed and sent to pass their Verdict on his Life without the least possibility of Remedy Put this and all the rest together to wit that the Jury themselves were of the opposit party to him in the late Wars and whole Cause in question depending before them and it had been far better for the Prisoner to have cast lots on a Drum-head for his Life as a Prisoner of War than to be so tryed in a time of Peace unless it can be reasonably presumed that they that would have killed him any time this twenty year in the field should now be like to spare his Life at the Bar. Occasional Speeches before his Tryal HE said there was something in this Cause that could never be conquered and that he blessed the Lord it had never been betrayed by him or conquered in him And before this in a Letter from Silly to a Friend he said God's Arm is not shortned doubtless great and precious Promises are yet in store to be accomplished in and upon Believers here on Earth to the making of Christ admired in them And if we cannot live in the power and actual fruition of them yet if we die in the certain foresight and imbracing of them by Faith it will be our great 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 now exposing to the light When he came from his Tryal he told a Friend he was as much overjoyed as a chast Virgin that had escaped a Rape for said he neither flatteries before nor threatnings now could prevail upon me and I bless God that enabled me to make a stand for this Cause for I saw the Court resolved to run it down and through the assistance of God I resolved they should run over my Life and blood first June 13. being Friday the day before his Execution On this day liberty being given to Friends to visit him in the Tower he received them with very great chearfulness and with a composed frame of spirit having wholly given up himself to the will of God He did occasionally let fall many gracious expressions to the very great refreshing and strengthning of the hearts of the hearers To wit That he had for any time these two years made Death familiar to him and being shut up from the World he said he had been shut up with God and that he did know what was the mind of God to him in this great matter but that he had not the least recoyl in his heart as to matter or manner of what was done by him And though he might have had an opportunity of escaping or by policy might have avoided his Charge yet he did not make use of it nor could decline that which was come upon him It being told him by a Friend that his Death would be a loss to the People of God He answered that God would raise up other Instruments to serve him and his People And being desired to say something to take off that charge of Jesuitism that was cast upon him He said That he thought it not worth the taking notice of for if it were so he should never have been brought to this A Friend said Sir the Lord hath said Be thou faithful unto Death and I will give thee a Crown of Life The Lord enable you to be faithful He replied I bless the Lord I have not had any discomposure of spirit these two years but I do wait upon the Lord till he be pleased to put an end to these dayes of mine knowing that I shall change for the better For in Heaven there is an innumerable company of Angels the Spirits of Just men made perfect and JESUS the blessed Mediator of the New Covenant There are holy and just Laws a pure Government blessed and good Company every one doing their duty herr we want all these This is that City spoken of Psal 48. 1 2. That strong City that cannot be moved Isa 26. Why therefore should we be unwilling to leave this estate to go that And although I be taken from hence yet know assuredly God will raise up unto you Instruments out of the dust Another said to him Sir There is nothing will stand you in stead but justifying Faith in the Blood of Jesus To which he said There are some that through Faith in the Blood of Christ do escape the pollutions of the world yet afterwards are entangled therein again others there be that are carried through the greatest sufferings by a more excellent spiritual sort of Faith in the Blood of Jesus and endure them with the greatest joy He further said We were lately preaching a Funeral Sermon to our selves out of Heb. 11. 13 16. where those blessed Witnesses do declare themselves to be pilgrims and strangers on the Earth and do desire a better Country that is a heavenly Wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God for he hath prepared for them a City And if God said he be not ashamed to be called my God I hope I shall not be ashamed to endure his Cross and to bear his Reproach even whatsoever it be that man can impose upon me for his sake Yea he will enable me not to be ashamed I have not the least reluctancy or strugling in my spirit against Death I desire not to live but my will is resigned up to God in all Why are you troubled I am not You have need of Faith and Patience to follow the Lord's Call This ought chiefly to be in our eye the bringing Glory to our heavenly Father Surely God hath a glorious Design to carry on in the world even the building up of David's Throne to all Generations For he is compleating all his precious Stones making them Heaven-proof and then laying them together in the Heavenly Mansions with the Spirits of the Just till it be a compleat City When the Top-stone thereof is laid then will he come in all his Glory This day is a day wherein Christ appears in the Clouds Oh that every one of our eyes may see him and consider how we-have pierced him in his Members that we may mourn Our Lord Jesus said Father I have finished the work that thou gavest me to do and now Father glorifie me with the same Glory I had with thee before the world was Our Lord was capable of his Glory beforehand and although we be not so capable as he yet this we know he wills the same to us that where he is we may be also that we may behold his Glory And he is our Head in

whom we are made capable being chosen in him before the foundation of the world and he hath set us in heavenly places in Christ Jesus The hope of this Glory sweetens all our Sufferings I know a day of deliverance for Sion will come Some may think the manner of it may be as before with confused noise of the Warriour and garments rolled in Blood but I rathe think it will be with burning and fewel of fire The Lord will send a fire that shall burn in the Consciences of his Enemies a worm that shall not die and a fire that shall not go out Men they may fight against but this they cannot fight against It being told him by a Friend that he had delivered him up unto God as a Sacrifice though said he I have day and night prayed that this cup might pass from you He replied That he blessed God he had offered himself up first to God and it was a rejoycing to him that others had given him up also And why said he speaking before all the company should we be frighted with Death I bless the Lord I am so far from being affrighted with Death that I find it rather shrink from me than I from it His Children being then present to take their leave of him he said I bless God by the eye of Faith I can see through all my Relations to Mount Sion and there I shall need none of them I have better Acquaintance in Heaven These Relations are nothing to those I shall meet with there Then kissing his Children he said The Lord bless you he will be a better Father to you I must now forget that ever I knew you I can willingly leave this place and outward enjoyments for those I shall meet with hereafter in a better Country I have made it my business to acquaint my self with the society of Heaven Be not you troubled for I am going home to my Father I die in the certain faith and forefight That this Cause shall have its Resurrection in my Death My Blood will be the Seed sown by which this glorious Cause will spring up which God will speedily raise The laying down this earthly tabernacle is no more but throwing down the mantle by which a double portion of the Spirit will fall on the rest of Gods People And if by my being offered up the Faith of many be confirmed and others convinced and brought to the knowledge of the Truth how can I desire greater honour and matter of rejoycing As for that glorious Cause which God hath owned in these Nations and will own in which so many Righteous souls have lost their lives and so many have been engaged by my countenance and encouragement shall I now give it up and so declare them all Rebels and Murderers No I will never do it That precious Blood shall never lie at my door As a Testimony and Seal to the Justness of that Quarrel I leave now my Life upon it as a Legacy to all the honest Interest in these three Nations Ten thousand Deaths rather than defile my Conscience the chastity and purity of which I value beyond all this world and God is not a little concern'd on my behalf He will certainly judge my Case wherein is the bowels of this good Cause and in the bowels of that the Kingdom of Jesus Christ which will speedily be set on foot in these Nations I would not for ten thousand Lives part-with this Peace and Satisfaction I have in my own heart both in holding to the Purity of my Principle and to the Righteousness of this good Cause and the assurance I have that God is now fulfilling all these great and precious Promises in order to what he is bringing forth Although I see it not yet I die in the faith and assured expectation of it Hebr. 11. 13. And the eternal blessedness God hath prepared for me and is ready now to receive me into will abundantly make up all other things Through the power and goodness of God I have had in this Tryal of mine such a proof of the integrity of my own heart as hath been no small joy to me The expressions of grief from his Friends he said were but so many lets and hindrances to him in the view he had of that Glory he was going to possess that heavenly City and Commonwealth where he should behold the face of God and of his Son in a society of Angels and the Spirits of Just men made perfect Some few dayes before his Suffering his thoughts were much fixed upon Psal 118. 27. where are these words God is the Lord which hath shewed us light bind the Sacrifice with cords even unto the horns of the Altar From this he said that God gives light and is light to his People under their darkest circumstances and sufferings and when he calls them forth to suffer he binds them as Sacrifices with cords in three respects First by the Cord of his Love to us for he loved us first Secondly by the Cruelty of our Enemies Thirdly by our Resignation-duty and love to him These three Cords have bound me so fast I cannot stir Upon Friends perswading him to make some submission to the King and to endeavour the obtaining of his Life he said If the King did not think himself more concern'd for his Honour and word than he did for his Life he was very willing they should take it Nay I declare said he that I value my Life less in a good Cause than the King can do his Promise And when some others were speaking to him of giving some thousands of pounds for his Life he said If a thousand farthings would gain it he would not give it And if any should attempt to make such a bargain he would spoil their market For I think the King himself is so sufficiently obliged to spare my Life that it is fitter for him to do it than my self to seek it He rejoyced exceedingly that God assisted him so eminently in bearing his Testimony with faithfulness even unto Death and that he as willingly laid down his Life and with as much satisfaction as ever he went to bed For in a natural sickness Death seized on the body without any consent of the mind but this was a free action of his mind without any constraint upon his body Mention being made to him of the cruel proceedings against him Alas said he what ado they keep to make a poor creature like his Saviour In discourse he said If the shedding of my Blood may prove an occasion of gathering together in one the dispersed Interests and Remnant of the Adherers to this Cause of whatever differing perswasions I should think ten thousand Lives if I had them well spent in such a service He was much pleased in this consideration That he was hastening to a place where God nor none of his would be ashamed to own and receive him Here is nothing in this world saith he but reproaching and

God 3. Such Appeal answered and the issue decided by Battel the Peoples Delegates still sitting and keeping together in their Collective Body may of right and according to reason refuse the re-admission or new-admission of the Exercise of the former Rulers or any new Rulers again over the whole Body till there be received Satisfaction for the former Wrongs done the expence and hazzard of the War and Security for the time to come that the like be not committed again Until this be obtained they are bound in duty in such manner as they judge most fit to provide for the present Government of the whole Body that the Common-weal receive no detriment 4. In this which is the proper Office of the Peoples Delegates and concerns the keeping and defending the Liberty and Right of the whole People and Nation they may and ought during their sitting to Exercise their own proper Power and Authority the Exigents of the Kingdom requiring it although the other two Estates joyntly instructed with them in the exercise of the Legislative Authority should desert their station or otherwise sail in the Execution of their Trusts yea or though many or most of their own Members so long as a lawful Quorum remains shall either voluntarily withdraw from them or for just cause become excluded In this discharge of their trust for the common welfare and safety of the whole their Actings though extraordinary and contrarient to the right of the other two cannot be treasonable or criminal though they may be tortious and erroneous seeing they are equals and co-ordinate in the exercise of the Legislative Power and have the Right of their own proper Trust and Office to discharge and defend though their fellow Trustees should fail in theirs Nor can nor ought the People as Adherents to their own Delegates and Representatives to be reputed criminal or blame worthy by the Law In the exercise of one and the same Legislative power according to the Fundamental Constitution of the Government of England there are three distinct publick Votes allowed for Assent or Discent in all matters coming before them the Agreement of which is essential and necessary to the passing of a Law the personal Vote of the King the personal Votes of the Lords in a House or distinct Body and the Delegated Vote and Suffrage of the whole People in their Representative Body or the House of Commons Unto each of these appertains a distinct Office and Priviledge proper to them 1. The Regal Office and the Prerogative thereof to the King 2. The Judicial Office to the Lords as the highest Judicature and Court of Justice under the King for the exercising Coercive Power and punishing of Malefactors 3. The Office of the Keepers of the Liberties and Rights of the People as they are the whole Nation incorporated under one Head by their own free and common Consent The Regal Office is the Fountain of all Coercive and Executive Power pursuant to the Rule set to the same by Law or the Agreement of the three Estates in Parliament The Rule which is set is that of Immutable Just and Right according to which penalties are applicable and become due and is first stated and ascertained in the declared Law of God which is the signification or making known by some sign the Will of the Supream Legislator proceeding from a perfect Judgement and Understanding that is without all Error or Defect The Will that flowes from such a Judgement is in its nature Legislative and binding and of right to be obeyed for its own sake and the perfection it carries in it and with it in all its actings This Will is declared by Word or Works or both By Word we are to understand either the immediate Breath and Spirit of Gods mouth or mind or the Inspiration of the Almighty ministred by the holy Ghost in and by some creature as his vessel and instrument through which the holy Scriptures of the old and new Testament were composed By works that declare God's Will we are to understand the whole Book of the Creature but more eminently and especially the particular Beings and Natures of Angels and Men who bear the name and likeness of God in and upon their Judgements and their Wills their directing Power and their executive Power of mind which are essential to their Being Life and Motion When these direct and execute in conjunction and harmony with God's Judgement and Will made known in his Law they do that which is right and by adhering and conforming themselves unto this their certain and unerring Guide do become Guides and Rulers unto others and are the Objects of right choice where Rulers are wanting in Church or State The Rule then to all action of Angels or Men is that of moral or immutable Just and Right which is stated and declared in the Will and Law of God The first and highest imitation of this Rule is the Creature-being in the person of Christ The next is the Bride the Lambs Wife The next is the innumerable Society of the holy Angels The next is the Company of Just Men fixed in their natural Obedience and Duty through Faith manifesting it self not onely in their Spirits but in their outward Man redeemed even in this World from the body of corruption as far as is here attainable The Power which is directive and states and ascertains the morallity of the Rule for Obedience is in the Law of God But the original whence all just executive Power arises which is Magistratical and Coercive is from the will or free gift of the People who may either keep the Power in themselves or give up their Subjection into the hands and will of another as their Leader and Guide if they shall judge that thereby they shall better answer the end of Government to wit the welfare and safety of the whole then if they still kept the Power in themselves And when they part with it they may do it conditionally or absolutely and whilst they keep it they are bound to the right use of it In this Liberty every man is created and it is the Priviledge and just Right which is granted unto Man by the Supream Law-giver even by the Law of Nature under which man was made God himself leaves man to the free exercise of this his Liberty when he tenders to him his safety and immutability upon the well or ill use of this his Liberty allowing him the choice either to be his own guide and self-ruler in the ability communicated to him to know and execute Gods Will and so to keep the Liberty he is possessed of in giving away his subjection or not or else upon God's Call and Promise to give up himself in way of subjection to God as his Guide and Ruler either absolutely or conditionally To himself he expects absolute Subjection to all subordinate Rulers conditional While mans Subjection is his own and in his own keeping unbestowed and ungiven out of himself he