altogether ignorant of the Spiritual nature of his visible Kingdom yet to come and of that Spirit and Life in which it will be managed According to appointment were they assembled on the day of Pentecost waiting for the Holy Ghost that Spirit in which Christ's Kingdom is to be managed That day under the Law was a commanded feast of first fruits reaped in the Typical Land of Promise This type significantly represents the mystical truth or substance the first fruits of the true Land of Promise or Christ's risen Spirit brought forth in and by Saints This Spirit came upon them as a sound from Heaven of a rushing mighty wind and sate upon each of them as cloven Tongues like Fire So they spake with other Tongues words which the Holy Ghost taught them as that Spirit gave them utterance These other Tongues were the new Tongues Christ promised them they should speak with Mar. 16. 17. The new-creature-Spirit of Christ partaken of by Saints becomes another or new Tongue in them distinct from and superiour to any Tongue thoughts or words found in their natural Spirit This new Tongue both from its own nature and operation of it on the natural Spirit of the Saint may fitly be typed out by a visible cloven or twofold fiery Tongue First From its own nature as consisting in Christ's person the true original thereof of a twofold Resurrection-state and building inseparably united though distinct from each other Secondly From its twofold secret invisible operation upon man transforming yet not burning or consuming him by its fire-baptism upon him It empties him of all his changeable life and wealth unmakes and builds him anew and fill's him with its newness of Life and true riches And as in Christ so in his peculiar spousal Saints capacitated by their double portion of Christ's twofold Resurrection-Life to receive the double vision of the divine Glory are the twofold spiritual Principles of Christ's new-creature-nature fitly represented by cloven Tongues as Fire The inferiour earthly glorified Saint of the single portion in spiritual resurrection-life as found in unchangeable harmony with those of the double may both and altogether be fitly signified by cloven Tongues of Fire as distinct from each other and yet inseparably join'd together The Holy Ghost that descended upon the Apostles is that new-creature-Spirit which in Christ lives in personal union with the Divinity in both parts thereof upper and lower or most heavenly and glorified earthly all spiritual and above the first-creation-building or natural state of Angel or Man at best as far as the material Heaven is above the Earth No wonder then if the effects of this Spirit poured down on the Apostles were amazing to all natural observers thereof For as a figure of this commanding Tongue or new-creature Spirit could they make themselves understood by all their hearers of whatever differing languages By this litteral miracle was given an undeniable demonstration of the comprehensive nature and universal knowledg of this new Tongue or Spirit including all spiritual both heavenly and earthly-glorified wisdom and knowledg and also comprehending all single natural knowledg in it self Hence fitly said to know see or judg all things 1 Cor. 2. 15. This new-creation-tongue that could make itself understood by all in that primitive Gospel-day was a type of the powerful ministration of the Gospel in the last days under the latter rain or pouring down of the same Spirit or new-creature Tongue in a visibility and discernableness to all so as to command its acknowledgment from all hearers thereof through its suitable sound or voice to every one's understanding and irresistible demonstration of its intrinsick excellency to all hearts The wonderful effects of its first showring down were that the receivers thereof did work miracles cast out Devils and healed all sorts of Diseases litteral and spiritual This precious mystical balm of Gilead became in them a powerful antidote against all inward and outward Poison Mar. 16. 17 18. They could thereby not only discern but cure all diseases of Spirit as well as Body Yea a union by Faith with this Spirit under the Law was of such power that Elisha at a great distance was able to discern and declare the secret designs of God's and his People's Enemies and to cure diseases spiritual as well as bodily as in Naaman the Syrian He not only by his counsel cleans'd him from his bodily Leprosy but as seems implied by bidding him go in peace and Christ's owning his coming to a spiritual Prophet as a reproof to the Jews for rejecting his spiritual ministry and gospel-doctrine Luk. 4. 27. of the enmity of his Spirit by an effectual faith in the new-creation name of the true Son of Peace He was able also to discern the inward disease of enmity in Gehazi to be mortal and incurable as was figured by the outward Leprosy which was cureable in Naaman but rendred unchangeable in him and his unbelieving Seed forever 2 King 5. 27. And by the like new-creature power of spiritual Faith did he raise the Widow's Son from bodily death typing forth the like power of raising the natural Spirit out of its state of enmity and death All this as fore-running types of what was fulfill'd on the natural spirit of Saints by the first Gospel-rain of Christ's risen Spirit upon them And this yet was but a type of the more abundant effects of the latter rain of the same Spirit in the last days Under that first rain were they impowred to find out and cure both bodily and spiritual diseases by forgiving all Sins that were of a pardonable nature Joh. 20. 23. But under the former or latter rain are Saints not to assume any thing to themselves but ascribe all to the new-creation power of their Lord and Head Act. 3. 12 16. To him must they ever own and pay their subjection though in marriage union with him by partaking of his Spirit Nor does the Saint by surrender of his will and life to Christ in order to live in his will and Spirit any more lose his distinct personality from Christ's than the distinction of sexes is lost in the litteral marriage-union of man and woman The Saint by union with Christ lives wholly in his will at last and so is possess'd of his power and riches Whatever he asks in that will new name or life of Christ is given him Joh. 16. 23. This Spirit qualified Saints above all the inticing words and thoughts of man's or Angel's natural wisdom that 's but vain Philosophy for their distinct respective Offices in the Gospel-Church as Apostles Prophets Evangelists Pastors Teachers c. By the diversity of the gifts and operations thereof was every of them fitted for their distinct Offices in the assemblies of Saints 1 Cor. 12. 4 11. They were thereby enabled rightly to discern and determine all things according to the mind of Christ And hereby did they gain Love from those that believed and fear from those that would
upon them are they brought into a living union with his new-creature-spirit and so safely returned into their prepared places to enjoy according to the fathers distinct choice of them their respective visions of the divine glory in the relation of Spouse Friends or Servants So have every of them their joy full and compleat But none of them exceed the nature or name of a pure new-creature spiritual man What ever their portion of his new-creature-spirit be single or double capacitating them to receive and enjoy a single or double portion in the vision of the divine glory yet are they all but new-creature spiritual men filled with the vision of God according to their distinct capacites This new creature-spirit of saintship through the personal union of it with God in Christ is called the spirit of God Hence is it an infallible mark of a true saint to have this spirit dvvelling in him This spirit of God Ro 8 9. is in the same verse called the spirit of Christ distinct from the divine spirit of Father or Son divine essence or form The Seed of this new creature-spirit in saints is called also the seed of God 1 Jo. 3. 9. Which preserves the saint from such wilful sin and enmity in his natural spirit or carnal mind as would be eternal death to him Rom. 8 6 7. The desires and appetites of the fleshly or carnal natural mind and spirit in the saint himself till subjected to his spiritual are after that natural state which is death But at same time the mind of the new-creature spirit though hid from his own heart in which sown God and Christ do see to be after that life which gives everlasting peace with God The spiritual seed quickened up in the saint is in all its life and motion purely obedient to Christ and by its powerful influences upon the natural spirit will not cease to teach and beget in that the like unchangable subjection to it self and so of the whole saint to Christ and God most high And as subjection and love to God is natural to the new-creation-spirit disobedience and enmity to God is grown natural to the old or first since the fall Hence is it impossible therein to please God Ro. 8. 8. Paul therefore rejoyced in that work of the Cross by which his natural mind was brought into a like subjection to his spiritual as that to Christ Through this subjection of the natural to the spiritual and so of the whole man to Christ have saints the certain witness of Christ's spirit dwelling in them His spirit beares vvitness not only in but to them that they are the Children of God Members of and Coheirs with Christ therein of God Ro. 8. 17. The new-creature-spirit from its universal obedience to God in head and members is called love 1 Cor. 13. It is that in which only God becomes the object of his creatures unchangable love and they of his The natural spirit is described by fear 1 John 4. 18. Perfect love casteth out fear The spiritual life of love perfected in the saint the life of his natural spirit with all its things thoughts lusts carnal reasonings doubtings and feares is extinguished abolished and cast out They that dwell live and walk in the spirit of Christ which in him is in personal union with the divine are said to dwell in God He that dvvelleth in love dvvelleth in God and God in him vers 16. God has declared the height of his love and greatnes of his condescention in this marveilous contriving a marriage union of divine and creature-nature by which to preserve his divinity from being touched or immediatly beheld by saints and to come forth in such a safe and sutable discovery thereof to his creatures through the man Christ as to be a food of everlasting blessedness to them The saint is made one vvith the new-creature spirit of Christ as that vvith God Jo. 17. 21. That spirit of Christ is the blessed shelter and fitted medium by which the divine vision is given to saints so as not to be a consuming fire to them Saints by partaking of this spirit become parts and Pillars of that nevv-creation sanctuary Gods place of meeting vvith the vvhole congregation of his true Israelites Angels and Saints amongst vvhom he vvill dvvell and vvalk for evermore In this spirit have they all an accesse unto and vision of the divine glory yet partake not of the divinity as an ingredient into the constitution of their persons But by partaking of that spirit that from personal union with the divine in Christ is called God Jo. 1. 1. they are said to partake of the divine nature 2 Pet. 1. 4. The creature-spirit of Christ is the holy unction in and upon saints by vvhich they knovv all things The holy Oil or Ointment of his heavenly and glorified earthly spirit runs dovvn from their high-priest to the lovvest Skirts of his new-creation Garments or meanest spiritual Members This spirit in Christ and saints is Truth and no Lie an infallible spirit in head and members distinct from the divine spirit in Christ and natural spirit of man or Angel at best The lowest capacity of creature-nature in the mediatour is above the highest saint The spousal saint one with Christ in his most heavenly and exalted creature-life sees not or enjoyes the divine glory as the lowest part of creature-nature in Christ does by personal union therewith The new-creature spirit in its highest and most heavenly or lowest earthly glorified life is inferiour to the divine but superiour to the first-creation spirit of nature at best because incorruptible and unchangable in the life and goodness thereof In the first being corruptible and changable man is in perpetual bondage and fear as impossible to be secured from death therein Heb. 2. 15. This therefore was never intended by God for an abiding state of rest and true blessednes to Angel or man not being a spirit of unchangable light and life or that can qualify them to receive the vision of the divine glory This shews the absolute necessity of the saints being clothed vvith a House from Heaven by the new-creating vvorkmanship of Christ for his everlasting blessedness From what has been said then it appeares to be the peculiar priviledg of the mediatour to be in every part of his creature-nature in personal union with the divine Consequently is it a crime equally unpardonable for any creature to deny to him or assume to himself his conjunctive divine and creature-name His comprehensive creature-spirit or nature is the living Book wherein the whole divine mind or Law is written in order to be declared to Angels and men If any man then or Angel from heaven shall dare on pretence of adding thereto to make Christ's person only and purely divine and so divide and take from him his creature-nature which is the supream Book and Table on which the divine mind is engraven and by which the divine glory shines forth to
the effect of John's baptism and ministry Act. 19. 1 5. Paul baptized them in the name of the Lord Jesus that is into a true acknowledgment and experience of his new-creation-life and Spirit So in that other institution the laying on of Hands ver 6. was the Holy Ghost actually given them On this such new Gospel-Believers immediately spake with new Tongues and prophesied So that other ordinance or institution for anointing the sick was practised by them with like success at that time The Elders of the Gospel-Church anointed such with the new name of Christ as the soveraign cure for spiritual and bodily diseases Jam. 5. 14 15. Those spiritual teaching apostolical-elders who were the highest Order in the new Gospel-Church by their powerful prayer of Faith in the name or spirit of Christ did actually cure the sick strengthen the weak hands and feeble knees of faulty spiritual-saints Thus have we seen the power and spirituality of the gospel-ministration beyond that of the Law by the actual dispensing of that Spirit which was only witnessed by faith under the Law But brought into sight under the Gospel Gospel-Saints then are thankfully to receive the convincing discoveries hereof by spiritual light and to shew themselves willing and ready on any terms to enter into the promised yea shew'd and offered new-creation-Land or state of Life by personal union with Christ in his heavenly or glorified earthly spirit which will prove such a state of blessedness the gates of hell all the powers of darkness can never prevail against or disanul But on the contrary such as evilly entreat Christ's mystical Spies the spiritual discoveries sights and tasts of his Resurrection-life given in conviction suited to their natural spirit so as wilfully to reject them and discover and betray them to the enemy the Devil joining with him to mock at and do despite thereunto God will swear in his wrath they shall never enter into his rest that new-creation-land or state of life by them finally refused and contemned The spiritual light as a spirit of prophecy given to them received and exercised by them for a season Saul's case by which they see the great advantage of accepting God's offered spirit of Grace on his declared terms shall depart from them and in the room thereof an evil angelical Spirit with the highest deceitful light shall enter into them And thence-forward will they express implacable enmity against the spiritual David's Christ and his Saints Thus the Gospel-ministration and light received as a temporary blessing and the Gospel-Life or eternal blessing thereof wilfully rejected that temporary blessing is turned into an everlasting curse and judgment on them Bare spiritual light then which makes a spiritualized natural understanding is no ground of a firm rejoycing though for a season they be enabled thereby to cast out Devils or obtain a victory over the corrupt spirit of nature brought into and instigated in Men by the Devil This Christ signified to the seventy disciples Luk. 10. 17 20. All spiritual light may be withdrawn if the life thereby shew'd and offered be hated and rejected And then the evil Angel or Spirit enters with its counterfeit imitation of the true Spirit of prophesy as into Saul which did presently excite in him an enraged malice against David because he saw the Lord was with him 1 Sam. 18. 10 12. Till then we experience a change of principle and life from natural to spiritual by which infallibly to see and know our names written in Heaven Christ's new-creature book of Life we have no firm ground of spiritual joy The unspeakable gift of the Spirit of truth itself is the full accomplishment of the promise to Saints under the Law Jeremy and other Saints were shewed the means and season for this Gospel-gift as the new thing and wonder to be done in the Earth of our fleshly nature in Christ's person It is expressed by a Womans compassing a Man Jer. 31. 22. This was fulfilled in letter by the Virgin 's compassing or containing in her the holy Thing begotten and conceived by the Holy Ghost or new-creature Spirit of Christ the builder of its own visible house in our nature But the mystical and principal meaning was the natural Spirit of Man figured by the Woman in Christ did compass or contain in it a holy seed of his new-creature-spirit of truth and by the death thereof brought forth the new-creation man-child which received its first visibility in and through the earth of our glorified nature in him This new man-child-spirit or principle of life till thus manifested lay as a mystery hid in God not discerned by Angel or Man but through Faith And so had it remained for ever had not the Son of Man in Heaven from everlasting prepared this natural capacity in himself for partaking of our fleshly nature and by the death and glorification thereof become the declarer of his own invisible man-child-Life and Spirit The natural Man of Christ that was to pass through a mystical child-bearing and death was the Woman and so in Saints shewed John Rev. 12. who was with Child and travelling in pain cried out to be delivered This was effected by such a pure subjection of Christ's natural to his spiritual man that he was pained and straitned till the fire-baptism had accomplish'd the death of the former on which the new-creation-life of the latter might shine forth in and through it And this did he in a publick capacity as the means to obtain a birth of new-creation-life for the whole spiritual seed of his heavenly and glorified earthly Family On their behalf John heard a sound of joy in Heaven for the victory thus obtain'd for them by Christ in our nature as the only means for their obtaining the same victory and blessedness with him Now is come Salvation and Strength ver 10. to the whole new-creature seed-royal by the death of that state in Christ the old Serpent is a Prince and Ruler in Thus did Christ handle our nature in himself as his Followers are to do in themselves and by such Death overcame all enemies This Christ did in our nature as a declaratory repetition of the first battel in Heaven fought by Michael and his Angels against the Dragon and his ver 7. Christ as a Resurrection-Lamb and his good Angels that with him quitted and exchanged their changeable first-creation-life for his unchangeable second beat the Devil and his Angels who did rebelliously set up for themselves in the first against God Christ and his Angels that obediently followed their head into the life of the second Ezek. 1. 20. 10. 11. This twofold Victory obtain'd by Christ in the resurrection-state of his invisible angelical nature before the foundation of the World and since in our glorified humane nature makes up the glad tidings of the Gospel-state of Christ in his conquering man-child-spirit the leading witnesses whereof were extraordinarily qualified by the first shower of it to become more than
she is to remain waiting the return of her spiritual Lord in the latter rain of his Spirit in the last days whereby spiritual Saints will again come forth in a visibility of spiritual life all along their sack-cloth state hid with Christ in God through the wonder-working power thereof beyond what was experienced in the primitive Gospel-day Between these two signal rains or powrings forth of the Spirit the dead body of Christ or crucified natural man of Saints is the state wherein they are shut up for a like trial and fixed exercise of their faith in Christ's second and spiritual coming as the true seed of Faith were shut up in under the Law as to his first coming in Flesh But with this advantageous difference by his first coming suffering and exaltation in our nature the birth of the man-child-spirit therein became a means of the actual and visible powring forth of the said Spirit on Saints as long as the first shower thereof continued And the withdrawing the visible presence of that Spirit ever since is so far from being any just argument whence to conclude the total ceasing thereof that it ought rather to be a strengthning motive for expecting the like yea and a greater power and demonstration that it will break forth in at its return This should quicken up in Saints a steddy fervent and well-grounded desire after the same in the latter rain thereof which is to ripen and bring in the full harvest of the spiritual seed of which the former rain afforded but an earnest and first fruits This ought to encourage the as yet invisible Spiritual Saints by faith to wait for that return of his Spirit in the end of the year or last age of this World by the powring down thereof in a much more transcendent clearness and visible demonstration than ever before Spiritual Saints then in this long season of God's withdrawing the visible presence of his Gospel-Spirit for wise and holy ends are by a fixed faith therein to be faithful witnesses of Christ's spiritual life in their sack-cloth state of prophecy experienced for many past ages forasmuch as those infallible marks of Christ's visible spiritual presence whilst pretended to by all have bin found wanting in all societies of Christians ever since his withdrawing During this season sack-cloth is the safest clothing for the chast spouse of Christ in which she is by a perfect subjection to his will to wait for his second coming with longing desire and not dare in the life and activity of her own will or spirit to be found untimely stirring up or awakning her beloved before the appointed time for his return from his far Country By faith are they to wait for this and not make haste from the impatience of their own spirit but by a constant growth in his to hasten towards his spiritual coming that they may daily be more fitted to see him through an encreasing likeness to him therein 1 Joh. 3. 2. They are to withdraw from the voice of every Stranger not bowing to any false power or spirit and to acquit themselves as Christ's faithful witnesses in their very sack-cloth prophecy and invisible spiritual saintship After this manner has God kept his witnessing-work on foot in this long black and dark season of sack-cloth-prophecy The second of the two days Hos 6. 2 3. was the primitive Gospel-day by the former rain or first shower of the resurrection-spirit from our glorified nature in Christ instituting for the season of it a much more spiritual revelation and worship of himself then in the first witnessing day of spiritual Saints by faith under the dark dispensation of the Law But this first Gospel-day as to the visibility thereof has had its succeeding long night-season of Sack-Cloth-prophecy After this then is to follow a third and more joyful day than ever before The dawning or morning-light of this will begin on the latter rain by which God will revive and raise up his people causing his spiritual life resurrection-power and strength to shine forth in them beyond what was experienced in the former Gospel-day In this third and last day will he raise up his Saints out of the grave of their crucified natural Spirits and cause them for ever to live in his sight in the visible glory of his new-creation-life This third day begins after the ending of the Sack-cloth prophecy on the ending of which the two witnesses are to be slain by the beast ascending out of the bottomless pit with new hidden weapons to war upon them overcome and kill them And their dead bodies must lie in the street of the great City spiritually called Sodom and Egypt where also our Lord was crucified Rev. 11. 8. The peculiar season for an eminent slaying the two witnesses may appear by the means or hands by which to be slain spiritually or literally It is by Satan's coming out of the bottomless pit with the utmost depths of deceit in which he has lain hid from the beginning by his conjunctive visible and invisible power to war against and kill them These subtile workings by his said twofold power reserved by him for the last times of all has Christ fore-warn'd his Saints of First he will then more powerfully than ever before influence both the clean and corrupt principles of nature in men so as to cause a more universal abounding in all sorts of iniquity then ever before Hereby will he render men as willing and ready instruments to exercise his persecuting malice against the Saints of the most high as he can desire In that season above all other will Saints be hated and betrayed by all Nations and killed for Christ's new name-sake having nothing left them but such an enduring to the end as shall render them more than Conquerors For it is Christ's quarrel not their own in which they contend Under this sharp trial destitute of all visible relief will they be somewhat helped by God's outward providential dealings with and punishings of the World Hereby in some measure will he avenge his own and peoples quarrel so that while all natural principles shall center and agree in the slaying them God will from unknown causes set every man's sword against his fellow causing a universal commotion war and rumour of wars thorow-out the whole Earth Nation shall rise up against Nation and Kingdom against Kingdom Yea and divers places shall after a wonderful manner be visited with Famine Pestilence and Earthquakes Yet though a signal hand of God will be evident in all these judgments this last and most sinful age of the World will in a self-condemning-light be willingly hurried by the Devil so as in a hardned contempt and wilful neglect of all the voices of God's providence to gratify themselves in all sorts of lusts and vanities And they will practise the same in an enraged enmity against God Christ and Saints All this will ripen them for their final destruction From their implacable malice for the
pouring fourth of the first Vial of God's Wrath a noisome grievous sore answering those sad curses threatned Deut. 29. for wilful disobedience to God's Law when convinced of that state of everlasting righteousness and eternal life that is in the true spiritual and full comprehensive significancy of it shew'd and offered to them After such conviction and experience as by fleshly Israelites through spiritual light confessed Jos 24. as having been by the mighty hand of God brought out of Egypt or the corrupt spirit of nature and possessed of the refined state thereof figured by literal Canaan to turn after all this work of the true God in and upon them to strange Gods evil Angels and receive Satan's indeleble character and mark even his spirit of unchangeable enmity to God renders their disease incureable and remediless Their sin is unpardonable For a more excellent state of true life and everlasting blessedness was set before them wherein to serve and enjoy God for ever And after all their apostacy and turning from that spiritual light by which shewed it shall the said light be set up a fresh in them in wrath to be a witness for God and against themselves in their own consciences that everlasting condemnation to signal and endless punishment is but such recompence of their error and wilful disobedience as is meet and most just The second vial is poured on the Sea which import's the corrupt spirit of nature fixed in and so as a raging Sea continually foaming and casting up mire and filth Esay 57. 20. They give themselves up to vile affections with literal Sodom and God in judgment gives them up to take and run their course therein which brings them to the same just recompence of their error the vengeance of eternal fire Jude 7. In such a state and course of gross wickedness men cannot on any pretence look for peace with God after conviction as to the means for cleansing them from such filth of Flesh They love their gross darkness and bondage so as disdainfully to reject Christ's enlightning cleansing and restoring gifts The wrath poured on this Sea turns it into blood so that every living Soul that will not come out of that Sea-state becomes dead The horrid ugliness and deformity of this corrupt Spirit of nature will by the bright light of this preparatory day be so discovered as not to be able to stand before the same Their hearts with Nabal from the weight of their own guilt now convincingly set before them will sink and die within them The Plague by pouring forth the third Vial lights on the Rivers and Fountains of Water turning them into Blood These Rivers and Fountains of Water may fitly represent that cleansed earthly state and party of Men which have not yet received the spirit of the Devil as their unchangeable mark but are in God's way of trial brought to the test under the cross which requires the turning of that righteous natural state though received from Christ himself into blood by way of sacrifice in exchange for Christ's new-creation spirit and life in which to enjoy an unchangeable union with him as their spiritual Lord and Husband If now with Zipporah they cry out of Christ as a bloody Husband for requiring them to yeild to his spiritual Circumcision for cutting off even holy Flesh righteous nature and so absolutely reject him in his spiritual life the Vial of his just wrath will turn that very cleansed natural state into blood and death in a way of final judgment on them In the voice of the Angel that pours forth wrath on these Waters is included the voice of the convinced consciences of these Sinners against their own Souls acknowledging God righteous in thus judging them Rev. 16. 5. for their envious murmuring mind against his new-creature-spirit for which they have spilt the blood of his Saints and Prophets So are worthy to have blood given them to drink ver 6. The fourth Vial is poured forth upon the Sun with power given the Angel thereby to scorch men as with fire On this they blaspheme God and repent not to give him the glory The Sun here may fitly signify the utmost spiritual height attainable in first-creaton-life This received from Christ in a way of love and trial and then retained and used in a deceitful counterfeiting Christ's spiritual state thereby shewed and offered is such an unpardonable offence as deserves a scorching with unquenchable Fire by the kindling of God's wrath upon them And under this torment they discover their unchangeable enmity to God in blaspheming that new-creature name of Christ that has power over these Plagues not repenting to give him glory The like sad effect we find on the pouring forth of the fifth Vial on the seat of the beast rendring his Kingdom full of darkness They gnawed their Tongues for pain blasphemed God and repented not of their deeds By the seat of the beast must not be understood the corrupt principle of nature under the prevailing influence of the Devil carried into all manner of gross abominations filth of Flesh For in this seat or throne of rule is he discoverable by the common light of reason in all mankind The invisible place or seat of this evil angelical Beast is that heavenly place or appearance by which he practises all sorts of spiritual wickedness in and upon the most refined and hightned principles of nature as made serviceable to his most dangerous design against the new-creation-new-creation-spirit of Christ In reference to this as a peculiar favour to John the Angel shews him this great wonder and mystery of iniquity on which the seat of this Beast is established together with the punishment thereof The new-creation-new-creation-spirit in Angels and Saints can discover all these depths and devices of Satan For this was beloved John led into that mystical Wilderness where he was shewed that Whore or Woman that in a yet greater depth of deceit removed from the waters of cleansed nature to the scarlet-coloured beast decked with precious stones having a golden cup in her hand c. Rev. 17. 1 -7. This Whore on the scarlet Beast is the evil angelical nature transforming itself into the highest appearance of the spiritual resurrection-state in Angels and Men. The natural state in both is figured by the Woman as the spiritual new-creation-state by the Man which this Woman would personate with design to make the highest opposition thereunto In this posture do evil Angels and Men the Whore and Beast come in their distinct natures to practise their utmost wickedness against Christ and commit all sorts of spiritual whoredoms amongst themselves All this when this Whore comes to be judged in the pouring forth wrath on this seat of the Beast shall be found out and wicked Angels and Men thereby detected in their highest and most secret uncleannesses together The evil Angel will fill the golden cup of refined nature in men with his angelical excellencies and endeavour in Christ's
better thing and state by God provided for and offered to them In order to this they find that by obedience to the law of the Cross God in love requires from them that that River be dryed up Whoever refuse to submit to the dispensation that is to do this the same thing will be done by the same hand in displeasure pouring out this Vial of wrath which will blast and dry up the most flourishing streams of this great River that must universally be dried away and brought into a state of mystical death in all Men good and bad In a more remarkable manner than ever before is this to be the work of the preparatory dispensation to make way for the coming of the spiritual Kings of the East Christ and his choice Saints to raign on the Earth Rev. 5. 10. The glorious Sun of everlasting righteousness will fill the whole Earth with his bright rays and beams when he personally shines forth Then all in the first creation that shall not willingly disappear as to their own fading life and glory which is the due homage to his greater and everlasting shall have Vials of wrath poured on them so as signally to blast and dry up all their life and fruits And if when they see and feel this as God's just dealing with the first-creation-state they do in a wilful enmity to the light of the day keep up the same still as their place of rest and safety then shall all their strength and labour therein come to nothing All their sowing in and to the flesh shall afford them no other fruit to reap but corruption Their most beautiful Garments wrought and woven in that spirit shall not warm or secure them The most curious webs spun and made up therein shall by the light of this day be discovered insufficient to cover them Their best works are iniquity Esay 56. 6. The changeable nature of work principle and worker will be manifested The strength therefore and vigour of all will be then more signally dried up than ever before And then shall God's twofold great design be evident for taking down the first-creation-building and setting up the second in a visibility The former is called Man's House the latter Gods On what pretence soever then any shall in that day presume to build or establish their own house in opposition to God's they will be blasted and disappointed At that time Angel or Man that shall lay anew the foundation of the old building that 's then to be pull'd down and laid wast will find themselves under the curse threatned on the rebuilders of demolished Jerico and be totally frustrated as to their vain attempt and rebellious design as they at Babel for setting up the first-creation-principle in a towring and gigantick height to war against God and the second or Heaven itself God will command the Heaven to with-hold its dew and the Earth her fruits suspending and withdrawing the first-covenant-presence and fructifying influence of Christ as a fleshly Bridegroom formerly for a season afforded them By the new-creation-voice of Christ all the first World and glory thereof shall be as declared dealt with as grass and all its fruits blasted and withered by the spirit of the Lord Esay 40. 6 7. Their holy Flesh shall consume away while they stand upon their Feet their Eyes in their holes and Tongues in their Mouth Zech. 14. 12. All this shews the vanity and misery of Man as endeavouring to keep up the whole or any part of his make in single first-creation-life which is but a fading flower at best For if not obediently surrendred and chang'd for what is spiritual and unchangeable the sentence of death passed on it in all will be executed in final displeasure on the wilful resisters thereof And when this Euphrates is dried up in wrath So as no longer to cover the deceitful workings of Angel or Man in the form against the power of godliness and righteousness of God John saw three unclean spirits like Frogs come out of the mouths of the Dragon Beast and false Prophet that is evil Angels and Men that are of their party in worldly States and Churches shall then be seen and known in those shapes and births in which they have till then lain hid by a sinful transforming of themselves into the likeness of Christ and his Apostles Prophets and Saints By the light of this day will they be detected and so lose all their former credit and authority Therefore though still working false Miracles or lying wonders in a spirit of falshood to deceive they shall prevail only on such Men as are ready to be made unchangeable in their evil minds whom the Devil will then gather together even the Kings and chief inhabitants of his wicked earth against the great day of God Almighty or of Christ's personal presence And herein will he be permitted till by Christ's own sentence sent into a chained up-state or place But in all this have we seen the opening of the Seals and pouring forth of the Vials only in their invisible operations for laying open all sorts of natural principles and the secret hypocrisy and enmity that is the old leaven which hath sowred and corrupted the whole lump of man's natural being The hidden works of dishonesty and darkness herein wrought shall now be discovered and proclaimed as if done on the house top visible to all And all this yet is but a fore-running report to the full punishment from Christ's own presence to be inflicted on such incorrigible Sinners This report will smite them with raging madness The visible effects of the Seals and Vials open'd and pour'd forth will shew how far this preparatory day is to extend in its influence on the material parts of this World As the destruction of the former World was a requisite punishment of the Inhabitants by Water will the super-abounding iniquity of this expose it to an universal destruction by Fire 2 Pet. 3. 6 7. The water-destruction pointed out the Sin of that day under that dispensation an abuse of the restor'd natural state as rather turn'd into pollution then rightly used as a passage into the spiritual So what God gave as a blessing to them they turned into a judgment So the water-punishment declared the nature of their Sin The present World is guilty of the same wilful abuse of renewed natural principles and also spiritual enlightning gifts by which the state of true life and salvation is now brought so near through our ascended nature in Christ's person as to give remarkable tasts thereof Heb. 6. 4 5. even to the natural principle Yet it is too generally refused or at least not diligently hearkened unto and heeded in this present age The nature of this sort of wilful offences fits the invisible parts of this World for a spiritual everlasting burning of wrath And as the compleating of this punishment must this World pass through such a material burning as will become the certain
the whole comprehensive single earthly generation and party of evil Angels and Men who will have nothing to pretend as to God's omitting any ways or means for the doing of them good In Israel's case he gives an account of the method of his proceedings with all his Creatures Angels and Men in reference to their everlasting happiness Esay 5. 4. All that set up for themselves in the first-creation-spirit against the second instead of good kindly fruits bring forth wild Grapes from a root of bitterness and known enmity to him In this do they practise all sorts of mystical uncleanness idolatry and fornication And as we have seen the ruine of the old World or first-creation as exalted against the second gradually carried on as to the judgments of God on the several parts thereof and at length upon the whole to their total and irreparable ruin in this preparatory dispensation and close thereof So are we to consider what 's done therein and by towards the building the new Christ will send his Angels for this with the great sound of their seven-fold Trumpet to gather together his Elect from the four Winds from one end of Heaven to the other Mat. 24. 31. This by powerfully wakning up the seed of spiritual life in all Nations Then will the Earth bring forth in one day and a Nation of spiritual Saints shall be born at once Esay 66. 8. and this marvellous wonder-working hand of the Lord which will so be made known towards his Servants will be attended with and made serviceable to the discovery of his indignation towards his Enemies ver 14. All the power and strength of the first-creation shall then like the Walls of Jerico fall without hands before the clear shining forth of the resurrection-power of Christ in his Angels and Saints causing the destruction of the old World and passing away of all the old things thereof as an immediate introduction to the building of the new the new Heavens and Earth to be set up by Christ's new-creation-workmanship wherein he will delight and rejoyce for ever ver 22. Isa 65. 17 -19. Come we then particularly to consider the second general part of the preparatory work the laying the Foundations of the new World or preparing the spiritual materials for the new-creation-building and kingdom of Christ In this second as well as first part of the work of this preparatory day will Christ make remarkable use of his Angels and ripen'd Saints fitly qualified in his spirit for the same This second part of the preparatory work seems necessarily to accompany the former For if this old World for the fleshly and spiritual defilements thereof must be destroyed by Fire mystical and literal as altogether unfit for Christ's presence there must be such a new Heaven and Earth built up as may be found faultless before him fit for his divine and new-creature residence as answering God's mind for the exercising of a visible rule and dominion of love over his Saints and Angels and also of good will over all mankind on the Earth In order to this will these preparatory builders Angels and Saints powerfully assert Christ's right to the visible universal rule and monarchy of this World And then secondly will they declare the great advantage of his assuming the same to all the inhabitants thereof Both these particulars shall in this fore-running dispensation be so clearly stated and asserted with such demonstration as to prevail on the whole new Earth not only to own Christ's right of ruling over them but to express their impatient desires for the same as their unexpressible benefit as well as his unquestionable right For hereby shall they be totally redeemed from the unreasonable bondage under the oppressive governments of this World and brought under the peaceable and righteous rule of Christ so as to perform universal obedience to him in the new-creation-principles of true love and freedom In order to this has Christ reserved a greater effusion of his Spirit in the latter rain thereof to be showred down in this preparatory dispensation to his second coming than the former in the primitive day amounted to The gradual operations of this shall cause all the Kingdoms of this new World to become the Lord's and his Christ's And every member and subject thereof shall receive his summons his Lord 's actual coming being now at hand By the powerful angelical ministry accompanied with the rain of Christ's risen spirit shall the true seed of the Kingdom be universally awaken'd and quicken'd up as a beginning to that full restitution of all things to be accomplish'd by Christ's own personal spiritual coming in his new-creation-temple of our glorified nature And herein will he be beheld before his visible presence on Earth on the opening the doors of that his Temple in Heaven by the powerful preaching of his everlasting-Gospel in the preparatory ministration so as to make the divine inhabitant thereof to be seen through Christ's creature-nature as with open face And this sight shall also have its powerful and peculiar effect on all the mystical members of Christ so as to change or transform them into a likeness to him in his new-creature-new-creature-spirit as members of his heavenly or earthly-glorified body This great charge is committed to the spiritual and powerful preachers of his everlasting Gospel as in figure was shewed Ezekiel chap. 43. to give his mystical Israelit's a more clear view than ever of the exact form and fashion of the new-creature House and Temple of their great Lord and Head and that in such a manner as to shew them all the ascents and descents and every coming in and going out thereof with all the distinct Laws and Ordinances belonging to the same And this will beget in them a like admiration to that of the Queen of Sheba that came from the utmost corner of her natural Earth to behold the divine and new-creature glory of her spiritual King Solomon in the figure thereof When Saints shall see the divine King and the glory of his creature-House and Temple with the subjected ranks of his attendants in blessed harmony amongst themselves and universal obedience to him they will jointly ascribe all the glory of that order and their blessedness therein to the wisdom of their divine Lord and spiritual King Solomon the maker of those spiritual Laws in observing of which they shall live for ever in perfect blessedness and freedom The sight of this divine King and creature-Lord and of the everlasting blessedness of his Servants and Subjects is to be given in this preparatory dispensation This was exactly figured out in the setting up of the tabernacle or worldly Sanctuary before Israel's entring Ganaan the type of this visible spiritual Kingdom of Christ For in this preparatory day must be proved and fitted all sorts of materials needful to the setting up of Christ's visible Kingdom as then for Moses his Tabernacle And the means as there must be the free-will-offerings of the
indissoluble bond of love for ever In it shall be no more curse For nothing of the enmity of the mystical first-creation Heaven and Earth Angels or Men shall be found in Christ's new Earth the lower part of his Kingdom or meanest of his spiritual Subjects This was also typed by Canaan and the literal Tabernacle there erected as God's resting place Hence John saw that Sea representing the first-creation-Spirit as fallen into universal enmity pass away as forc'd to give place to the new Heaven and Earth or two-fold Principles of Christ's new creature-Spirit on which the new Jerusalem is built In this City John also saw the Throne of God and of the Lamb who in the shining forth of his divine and creature-name in personal union is the light thereof to all the Inhabitants the whole heavenly and earthly glorified family of Christ the train or blessed retinue shew'd John belonging to and standing with the Lamb on mount Sion even the Church of the first-born and whole assembly of Saints and Angels that are perfect Spirits waiting to be establish'd in their place of attendance about his spiritual Temple that 's to be open'd by the setting up of his visible Kingdom on Earth Then the most inferiour spiritual Subjects in it shall be cloathed in long white Robes and have palms in their hands garments of immutable righteousness and palms of victory as redeemed from the changeableness and bondage of the first creation Spirit of nature and translated into new creation-principles of true freedom in which to perform an everlasting service of love to Christ in their respective places about his Throne and Temple The vision of all this was given John An Angel open'd to his faith the door of the mystical Temple of Christ's glorified humanity in which he beheld a Throne and as Stephen God the Mediator sitting and Jesus his Son and Branch in our glorified nature standing at his right hand as having in that soveraign exaltation committed to him his Father 's whole rule and authority under him as in personal union with him sitting on the same Throne And round about this Throne John saw twenty four seats and thereon sitting twenty four Elders clothed with long white robes and having crowns of Gold upon their heads Rev. 4. 4. By these are charactered the highest rulers under Christ himself to be by him set up in his Kingdom They are second resurrection-Saints who are the first row of attendants and encompassers of the Tabernacle and Throne sitting on their distinct seats according to their Services The highest seat for the highest of these is beheld in a subjected distance not only from the true Moses the Mediatour but from the true Aaron Jesus in our glorified nature the supreme high-Priest and Parent of his highest priestly Sons that are a select number out of the second resurrection Saints peculiarly qualified for his marriage-bed by a twofold resurrection-garment earthly glorified and heavenly as also by a double portion of the glorified earthly and heavenly spirit of their Lord implied in the distinct kinds of holiness as well as differing measures by which the high Priests are distinguish'd from other Levites These highest priestly Saints seem peculiarly represented by the twenty four Elders who with the younger brothers in the single portion of the second resurrection-state make up the first row of attendants about the Throne or Tabernacle To all these John saw given over and above the white raiment of the earthly glorified congregation members of the first resurrection crowns of Gold that is either a double or single portion of Christ's heavenly or second resurrection-life or spirit And before this Throne thus set up in the third Heaven encompassed with Spiritual Priests and serving Levites John saw a Sea of Glass clear as Christal and round about the Throne four beasts full of Eyes before and behind One like a Lion another like a Calf a third a Man a fourth an Eagle By these angelical rational and sensual faces or likenesses may be represented the whole number in the first-resurrection-state consisting of angelical Princes or chief rulers and of subordinate rational rulers and obeyers For in this first-resurrection-state as well as second are mystical Stars or spiritual Saints differing from one another in glory yet all with the whole earthly congregation of spiritual Israelites Christ's new Earth make up but the second or outward row of attendants about the spiritual Throne or Tabernacle And the clear cristal-Sea typed out by the Court of the Tabernacle dividing and distinguishing the first and second resurrection-attendants through its transparent nature causing them to behold each other and in all their various distances to behold the Throne itself may fitly represent the glorified humanity of Christ This is the blessed and proper medium by which himself and his first-born-Church do converse with Angels and Saints in the first resurrection-state who though without the Tabernacle Court or cristal Sea before the Throne yet through the union of these two distinct spiritual states and principles in Christ do all with unspeakable joy behold the Throne of God the Lamb and also Bride the Lamb's Wife And so do all live in an absolute unchangeable obedience to Christ and perfect union of love with his peculiar spouse and their elder-brother-Saints This appears by the blessed harmony of these first and second resurrection-Saints attending at several distances about the Throne signified by twenty four Elders and four Beasts all falling down together before the Throne of God and the Lamb in an unanimous discharge of the duty of their respective places crying day and night Holy Holy Holy Lord God Almighty which was is and is to come These two distinct communities of Saints and Angels ascribe everlasting Glory Honour and Power to God and the Lamb who created all things as their due praise for their immortal and glorified beings The last circumstance in the parallel between the literal and mystical Sanctuary or new Jerusalem City is this No fleshly defiled persons were to enter the former no fleshly or spiritually defiled the latter The touching a dead Soul is in mystery and truth such a touching the first-creation-spirit and life of nature through enmity to God become a dead unclean thing as imports a love to and union therewith This touch renders men unclean on which they are to be cast out of the spiritual Camp and Kingdom of Christ Such mystical Dogs Sorcerers Whoremongers Murderers and Lyars as from wilful hatred to Christ's new-creature-new-creature-spirit of truth chuse their own spirit of lyes and falshood are for ever to be excluded out of Christ's new-Jerusalem City or Kingdom In this twofold work of leading men to Christ the true door of entrance and keeping out all that climb up some other way will Christ use his Angels typed by the twelve Princes of the Tribes They then as the literal Princes must number the true subjects of Christ's spiritual Kingdom for his service in order to take their
THE REIGN OF CHRIST Unto which He hath had a Right from everlasting WHICH God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy Prophets since the World began Acts 3. 21. LONDON Printed in the Year â—â—â—â— The PREFACE NOAH a Preacher of the Righteousness of God and a walker with him therein gave signal Warning a hundred and twenty years together of the approaching judgment on all despisers thereof Gen. 6. 3 -9. Mat. 24. 38 39. 2 Pet. 2. 5. The neglect of his alarming ministry was so universal that the flood came and swept them all away save Noah's family of eight persons And so shall also the comming of the Son of Man be say's Christ Mat. 24. 37 -39. The like dark midnight-state shall the World be found in at Christ's second coming People will be generally given up to sensuality signified by eating drinking marrying and giving in marriage and so will also be found scoffing at any such thing as Christ's coming to reign on Earth 2 Pet. 3. 3 4. But the Spirit he will come in will prove a mystical Fire that will burn up and consume all the highest excellencies in the fleshly earthly changeable corruptible first-creation-nature of Man or Angel signified by all the Kingdoms of this World and glory of them Mat. 4. 8. This will be an amazing surprize and cause a consternation in all concerned therein beyond and above all conception or language by the understanding or tongue of natural Man or Angel Even when Christ is at the door ready to come forth about this terrible work in righteousness to judg and make war on all first-creation vanities will Men generally more than ever contradict and blaspheme the spiritual Watchman's warning thereof so that he with his Fellows shall be men wonder'd at reckon'd mad-men and the contemptiblest Fools in the whole World for believing or asserting any such thing Hence will that day of the Lord or the Lord coming forth in that judgment-day-light of his all-searching all-discovering all-trying new-creation Spirit be a general surprize to the World Sea and Land all inhabitants of the Earth and of the Sea in the but reformed or in the polluted spirit of nature He will come as a Thief with his irresistible light upon them in their midnight darkness never less expecting or more deriding any such doctrine or thing The temper of the World before the general destruction of it by Water is made by Christ himself a representing figure of the desperately rebellious condition and most evil circumstances it will be found in immediately before the near approaching destruction of it by Fire Abel Enoch and others doubtless though not all recorded did in the true new-creation spirit of prophecy warn the people of their day of their groundless security and self-flattery as to any approaching judgments Enoch before that destruction by Water prophesied the second destruction of it by Fire at Christ's second coming with the ten thousands of his Saints Jude ver 14 15. His being the seventh from Adam may seem not to be taken notice of without some concerning significancy It was the judgment of the more enlightned sort of Jews when in their flourish that the World would stand six thousand years a thousand years for a day answering the six days works of God in the first-creation and then Christ would come in the glory power and marvellous light of the new-creation to keep his seventh thousand years Sabbath-day wherein to proclaim a jubilee to the World and so a rest or cessation from all the works of man in his own work-a-day first-creation spirit life or activity Of the said six thousand years 5678 are past Whether that saying of Christ speaking of the great tribulation in these last days beyond all that ever was or will be that for the Elects sake those days shall be shortned may not import a period of Satan's reign and Man's day in this World before the sixth thousand year be fully expired is a question with some But what less can it signify The Jews appropriate that perswasion as to this World 's continuing six thousand years more peculiarly to Elias Elias complained he was left alone in his spiritual testimony as to any associates with him in the awaken'd exercise of the same spirit as also that his witness was universally rejected and person persecuted by those in power God's answer to him was he had seven thousand men in that Israel who had not bowed to Baal that is not wilfully and knowingly through self-love to their earthly life and state Satan's dwelling place rejected and hated the heavenly life of that new-creation spirit that is God's dwelling place for ever in which he will dwell amongst shine upon and own his true Sion-Saints as his People and himself their God for evermore Any that have come forth in the awaken'd exercise of the true new-creation spirit of prophecy grace and prayer everlasting righteousness and truth have experienc'd an almost universal contradiction and discountenance as Fools and mad Men. The Apostles and primitive gospel Christians when clothed with a wonder-working power under the former rain or first shower of the spirit from Christ's ascended humanity seem to have had the best on 't as to this yet how were even they yea the most eminent teachers among them hated and disturbed contradicted blasphemed and murdered I have laboured in vain I have spent my strength for nought and in vain says Esay in my prophetical ministry declaring the righteousness of God as the only true way of Salvation to Man This he concludes as relating to the next to no success he found amongst Men. But he found the Lord's approbation judgment and that his work found acceptance and he a reward there Esay 49. 4. So Paul if our ministry says he of himself and fellow-Gospel teachers prove through mens wilful neglect and hatred of it a savour of death unto death yet are we therein a sweet savour of Christ unto God 2 Cor. 2. 15 16. No big looks nor stout words of contradicting Enemies should appale or discourage God's Commission'd Messengers of Truth How were they mock'd misus'd and despised even in Jerusalem till there was no Remedy 2 Chron. 36. 16. God charg'd Ezekiel to discharge his Watchman's Office in speaking his Words to them Whether they would hear or obey or whether they would forbear that is rebel against and reject them So also does he command Jeremy to arise and speak his words to them and not be dismaied at their Faces lest says he I confound or break thee in pieces before them Jeremy Prophesied amongst the then only professing People of God in the whole World and yet had the whole Land against him the Kings Princes Priests and People of Judah But God made him in the strength of his true Spirit of Prophesie too hard for them all a defenced City an iron Pillar and brazen Walls against the whole Land Jer. 1. 17 18. Yet notwithstanding all this fencing and steeling him
The infinite divinity wrapping up it self in a fellovvship or personal union with its own creature-house makes up that wonderful Mystery Ephes 3. 9. The Fellowship of divine and creature-nature was before all time a Mystery hid in God But in this supream divine and creature-fellowship was the certain foundation laid from everlasting for God's revealing his own divinity to Angels and men when made which otherwise had remained invisible and unapproachable to them all for ever The divine Spirit in Building it s ovvn creature house hevv'd out the seven Pillars thereof Prov. 9. 1. This signifies the fulness and variety of this creature-building or spirit in the capacity of Root and Branch Father and Son And through the Son and Branch as admitted into union with the divinity in the same personal fellowship with his Root comes all to be beheld by blessed Saints and Angels But for better understanding this whole Mistery consider farther the relation of Root and Branch or Father and Son in the Mediatours creature-nature as well as in the divine This distinction was fitly figured out in the top and foot of Jacob's Ladder the divinity of the Mediatour standing above or on the top of it as Head thereof And this top of it or creature-root is Head to its ovvn foot the Branch and as fitted by immediate Personal union with the divinity receives the fulnes of that divine Ocean to which so united But in this first and highest Marriage-union of divine and creature-nature is God yet in too great a height for the creature 's immediate sight or enjoyment of him The scorching Beams of the Mediatour's divinity are not so allayed and tempered in this highest union thereof with his supream creature-Spirit the root of all creation as that Angels or Men may receive or converse therewith This highest creature-mount or spirit in the Mediatour was fitly typed out by that mount under the Law that was so glorious and dreadful as to become present Death to all that immediatly touched the same But there is a lower capacity in the mediatour's creature-nature called the Son and Branch which answers the creatures vvish in an immediate Head-ship to them This Son and Branch is to be considered in his invisible angelical state before the foundation of the World and that both in a pure but changable first-creation state as the first-born therein and as the Lamb slain and so by the death of that mortal state taken into personal union with his creature-root in new-creation-Life and through that with his divinity also So comes the Son and Branch to be filled with all the fulness and life of both And the same thing did he in and with our visible humane nature in the fulness of time He made the like sacrifice thereof for the like end And thus is the son and branch in his resurrection-life the blessed medium by which the vision of the divine Glory is let down and given to his creatures which by the root or top of his creature-building singly considered was incommunicable to them By the branch is it brought so neer as with a meet regard to the dignity of the mediatour and safety of blessed creatures to become fit for the sight and injoyment of Angels and Saints The twofold resurrection-state or Heavenly and Glorified earthly Spirit or Life of the exalted branch is the mistical Golden Pot into which the divine Manna the everlasting Food or Bread of life to happy Angels and Saints is put and hath been hid from before the foundation of the world This capacity in Christ as branch is of the same Date with his creature-root as possessed thereby in the beginning of his vvay toward 's the creation of the world Prov. 8 22. By the Man Christ Jesus as living in his new-creature root did all things receive their invisible existence and visible creation By him so considered vvere all things made and vvithout him vvas not any thing made that vvas made or created Jo. 1. 3. 1 Col. 15-17 Heb. 1. 2. Thus the sutable medium by which God condescend's to let down himlelf to creatures sight and enjoyment was prepared as the immediate hand by which they received their creation In the spirit of the branch as standing up in his root had Angels and the spirits of men their first invisible existence and thereby as their parent are brought forth into their personal subsistences by creation And in him is treasured up the Bread of everlasting Life for their Immortal spirits which they are not capacitated to feed on in the mortal life of their first-creation but immortal life by a second This never-perishing food is suted only to a never-perishing Life Both root and branch or creature-Father and Son in the mediatour had from everlasting not only the enjoyment of each other but of the divine glory also in the same blessed person And so did God most high with delight behold all his designs and purposes finished in him before any thing was brought forth by creation And in the wonderful fellowship of divine and creature-nature in himself did God the Mediator rest also from all his vvorkes before any of them were brought forth as beholding all the contrivances of his divine mind in the first conjunction of his divine nature with his creature root thus declared and executed in the Son and branch This branch also had his peculiar delight in the principality or headship given him over Angels and Men as existing in him and looked on as the habitable parts of his Earth before the foundation of the World Prov. 8. 30 31. He rejoyced alwayes before his father not only as enjoying the vision of the divine glory but as the same was in him treasured up and by him communicable to them And thus see we the need of root and branch in the mediatour's creature-nature as the ascent and descent of his great creature-building By the former is he qualified to receive the divine vision in the immediate Ocean-fulnes thereof by the latter to conveigh and communicate it to his blessed Angels and Saints In the creature-root or top of his creature-house is his divinity shut up from his creatures till revealed or opened by the branch The branch is the mystical Door of this great creature-building and also opener thereof to his creatures David by faith saw and heard the great Lord the Mediatour in his highest and first Union of divine and creature-nature speaking to Christ the branch as David's immediate Lord and Head saying The Lord said unto my Lord sit thou at my right Hand until I make thy Foes thy footstool Psal 110 1. Here is a Prophecy of Christ the polished Shaft hid in Gods Quiver as to what he was to be and do in our nature for exalting it into the Glory long before attain'd by him as Resurrection-Lamb and therein head not only to the immortal Spirits of Men and Angels but in a peculiar manner to his spiritual Church He will appear in our glorified
nature at the appointed season for actual setting up of his visible Kingdom on Earth Thus may we with admiration behold the ascents and descents of the mediatours creature-building by which marvelously fitted for preserving the dignity of his own divinity and accomplishing the blessednes of his creatures The ascent or top of it is a fitly capacitated immediate habitation for the divinity And the descent of it in the branch is that wherein Christ becoms a two-fold Head to his Angels and Saints from whom they receive their immortal beings and also the heavenly life and clothing thereof by which fitted for their mansions in this his Fathers House This Son and Branch though but foot-stool to himself as creature-root and Father the Throne on which his divinity sits is in a headship and preheminency over all blessed Angels and Saints by the appointment of his divine and creature-lord This foot-stool or lowest part of the creature-Throne or House of God in the mediatour is the immediate object of Faith as that by which the divinity in the top of this creature-House or Throne invisible and inaccessible to his creatures is let down to them By this blessed medium are Angels and Saints admitted to the sight and injoyment of the divine glory for ever Christ when on Earth witnessed his spiritual life as Son of man in Heaven into which he returned with our nature and so into that enjoyment of the divine glory he had both as creature-root and branch before the foundation of the World according to his prayer Jo. 17. 4 5. He that descended and he that ascended is still but one and the same Son of man in the invisible angelical and visible humane Life of the branch Eph. 4. 10. This did he that he might fill all things In the transformed angelical state as spirit of the branch in his own creature-root the Son of Man in Heaven was he head and parent to the immortal spirits of Angels and Men by a first creation and of the spiritual being and state thereof by a second In this first capacity as spirit of the branch is Christ the heavenly place in which Angels and Saints have been blessed as chosen thereunto before the foundation of the World Eph. 1. 3. In the second as a visible head to them in our glorified nature iâ— he qualified actually to give them a life of everlasting blessednes with the never-perishing meat thereof the divine and new-creature glories together with the life in which alone they can see and enjoy them were both and all treasured up for them in him Our exalted nature in him iâ— the adapted conveyer of his divine and otherwise invisible creature-glories to us In our glorified nature he declares the Gospel or glad tydings of salvation to men By this are they made capable of receiving the joyfull news of mansions provided for them in his Fathers House and of entring into them No entring for us but by his entring first in our nature into the state of everlasting life Christ thus is the Key of the house of David Isaiah 22. 22. In his creature-root was treasured up from everlasting the divine glory This must be unlock'd and set open to blessed Angels and Saints by the creature-branch in the second or visible capacity of it even in our exalted nature This is the mystical Key that opens his heavenly creature-life and gives the vision of the divine glory to us By his coming in flesh and death and resurrection thereof has he entred into that state himself as our Head Spiritual saints under the Law safely shut up in the faith of Christ's so comming and doing for them rejoyced therein Christ in his first capacity of creature-branch as resurrection-lamb in his angelical spirit was the invisible Door to his own great creature-building as Root The very Door yet was invisible as well as House and divine Inhabitant At least that Door was not opened nor the divine and creature-glories of the House and Inhabitant revealed as now In our visible nature glorified the second capacity of the branch does he compleat the Door of entrance into the House and is the spiritual Key and Opener thereof so in both capacities of the Branch fitted to be the Authour and Finisher of our Faith And so was he presented at first to Angels and Men as the compleat Object of their Faith for the perfecting their Salvation Blessed Angels therefore desired to prie into the blessed consequents of the man Christ's ascending to give such openings of divine and spiritual mysteries and glories as never before were given to them or saints 1 Pet. 1. 11 12. John 7. 39. Rom. 16. 25 26. Ephes 3. 9 10. Thus have we the ground and reason why our spiritual Levi stood up from everlasting in the Loins of his great mystical Father and that in the two-fold spirit of the Branch invisible and visible as a twofold natural and spiritual Womb and Parent to blessed Angels and Saints As natural or spiritual Children then to him are they to pay the like Tithes due from them to him even the spoiles of all in their own nature by death and sacrifice that the mystical Levi in his person paid to his spiritual Aaron his Root He requires from his Children all the glory due from the descent of his great creature-building to the ascent or top thereof as also from both to the divinity of the Mediatour and through his conjunctive divine and creature being to God most high and absolute in his single or uncompounded divinity For vvithout controversie the less is blessed of the greater Heb. 7. 7. And in the due observation of this rule every part of the Mediatour's person is preserved in an absolute unity to the praise and glory of God most high and Head of all In the great and compleat mystery of Godliness then we find a threefold Headship The first Of God in the simple unity of his divine Essence soveraign Head to the Mediatour's whole divine and creature-being The second is The headship of the first and invisible conjunction of divine and creature-nature in the Mediatour to the twofold spirit of his humanity in which properly the Branch Thirdly This Branch also in his twofold humane capacity is found in an immortal natural and everlasting spiritual headship over blessed angels and saints having in all things a preheminence above them all next under his divine Lord and creature-root as exalted into personal union with both Next then consider the distinct testimonies given by every of these head-ships to the present truth the certain visibility of the Kingdom of Christ declaring all povver in Heaven and Earth given to and visibly to be exercised by the man Christ Jesus who as in our glorified nature shall be seen and acknowledged as by God and his Father made the only Potentate King of Kings and Lord of Lords 1 Tim. 6. 15. and Rev. 19. 16. Yet will not the man Christ take the honour of exercising this power
2. This Bovvl or Top of the great creature-building in the Mediatour is the fitted immediate reception of the divine mind in order to the execution of it by his inferiour creature-capacity signified by the golden Candlestick This inferiour part as living in personal union with the superiour and through that with the divinity it self in the Mediatour is said to be God's equal or fellovv who thus found in the form of God accounts it no robbery or presumption to be equal vvith God even in our soveraignly exalted nature as therein fitted to declare and execute the whole will of his divine and creature-lord Zech. 13. 7. Phil. 2. 6. This inferiour creature-capacity of the Mediatour is the second reception of the divine will and power which was first received by and treasured up in his creature-root and by that transmitted to its Son and Branch to exercise and execute the same as fitted thereunto From the creature-root does the branch receive the power of creating the worlds Heb. 1. 2. as also the essentials of all Rule and Government For all these undertakes does the Son and Branch become abundantly qualified through personal conjunction with his creature-root and divine Lord even to create all things and make Laws whereby clearly to state conserve the absolute headship of the single divinity and the Supream Prerogative of the first conjunction of divine and creature-creature-spirits in the Mediatour The Man Christ as Son and Branch declares the deriving all his power from the two headships over him and his exercise thereof in a visible rule over this world in perfect subjection to them according to the righteous Laws of his own making And he allowes unto Angels and Men all such priviledges as are essential to their spiritual rational and sensual Principles in the life and exercise of their intellectual beings So does he render them according to their creature-liberty free Agents as well as immortal spirits Thus deep is the foundation laid for the Rule and Power of the Kingdom of Christ as visibly to be exercised by him in our glorified nature And this power does he ascribe to his conjunctive divine Lord and creature-root and in harmony therewith to God's absolute divine unity as above all and head to all Thus does Jesus Christ as subjected Lord over all under the said twofold headship over him ascribe and bring the glory to God most high in his single divinity the great and high Father of all So through the happy union of divine and twofold creature-nature in the Mediatour may we behold the Government of Peace under which blessed Saints and Angels are to live everlastingly as shining forth betvveen them both Zec. 6. 13. to wit both his creature-capacities In the higher he is the immediate receiver of the divine mind in the lower the executour of the divine will in all things This twofold office of the mediatour is excellently figured out in the essential parts of man's make and the distinct usefulnesses thereof by which fitted for the compleat exercise of his whole being Yea the whole person of the mediatour in all the essentials of his constitution may fitly be represented by what is found in man For as a shadow of the divinity his spirit or intellectual part is the conceiver of its own will Then his Soul as figure of the mediatour's creature-root is the fitted reception of the said will and mind of the spirit And thirdly the will thus conceived by the Spirit and received by the Soul must be brought into visible exercise and execution by the third essential part in man the body 1 Thes 5. 23. figure of the inferiour part or capacity in the mediatour's creature-nature as visible branch to his invisible creature-root in vvhom the god-head also dvvells bodily and so becomes visible to Angels and Saints Thus by owning every distinct part in the mediatour and in man and accordingly assigning to them their proper offices the usefulnes of the whole both in type and substance is compleated as also their respective personalities And as the body is put for the whole man as that by which the invisible Soul and Spirit are rendred visible in the exercise thereof which dignity belongs to it through its personal union with its invisible Soul and spirit it bears the Title and denomination of the whole man in the figure after the same manner as in the substance the person of the Mediatour Hence every distinct Name of the Mediatour is applyed to Christ the Branch as in our nature glorified For therein the fulness of the Godhead dvvels bodily and in personal union therewith shines forth visibly to Angels and Men. In the lowest essential part of the Mediatour in Christ the Man-child that 's to be manifested in the glory of his Father put upon our exalted nature in him And so is the Government of his divine and creature-lord put upon his Shoulders Hence is he called by his Father's wonderful Names The vvonderful Counsellour the mighty God the everlasting Father and Prince of Peace Isa 9. 6. This is a full significant Prophecy of Christ the Branch in our nature glorified as the body and visibility of the Mediatour by which his other superiour essential parts his divine spirit and creature-soul are brought to light and rendred visible to his creatures So is the Man Christ Jesus the one Mediatour betvveen God and Men 1 Tim. 2. 5. Yet does not the Mediatour hereby lose either his divine or creature-name in the first conjunction thereof but on the contrary that divine Light and original Creature-immortality which was inaccessible invisible and incommunicable to creatures is made visible in the Man Christ as glorified and exalted on the Throne of David in personal union with his divine and creature-lord Of the encrease of vvhose Government through the said union there shall be no end vers 7. For hereby is this happy Prince of peace abundantly qualified to execute and fulfill the whole divine and creature-will And so through the perfect subjection of the visible body our exalted nature in him to the invisible creature-soul and divine spirit is the will of God and of the whole person of the mediatour declared and fulfilled The will of all is manifested and done by the actual setting up of the kingdom over which Christ is to reign as son and branch in the glory of his divine Lord and creature-father This is significantly figured out by Hilkiam the Father and Eliakim the Son holding forth this relation of our mystical Eliakim the branch bearing the same date with his spiritual root and father Hilkiam in his invisible angelical life that he had in his root from everlasting And in his appointed time must all the glory of his Fathers house be visibly put upon our nature in him on earth as invisibly inherited and possessed by him in Heaven So comes he to be clothed with the twofold Robes of mystical Hilkiam his root and father when this son and branch shall appear in
the visible exercise of all power in heaven and earth essentially belonging to the Throne of his Fathers glory And then will his father visibly place this his son on the said Throne as clothed vvith his Robes and strengthned vvith his girdle to exercise his whole Government put into his hands As the distinct Testimonies of the Mediatour in his invisible divine and creature-natures will he visibly set his creature-son and branch on his holy Hill of Sion committing to him the exercise of all his own rule and power in a visible dominion over that House of Juda and Israel that comprehends the whole heavenly and glorified earthly family of Christ The season for this hath yet been by God kept in reserve figured by the clothing of litteral Eliakim in which Christ our mystical Eliakim as son to the mediatour his invisible father is to have all the distinct glories of that mystical fellowship and unity that his divine and invisible creature-nature live in so hung upon him as to be visibly seen and acknowledged by the whole world Their distinct testimonies will be known and owned at that second comming of Christ in our glorified nature in which he will cause to shine forth his invisible conjunction of divine and creature-nature And so also by the man Christ shall be Administred and given forth the distinct and differing measures of his fathers divine glory as the everlasting Portions of blessed Angels and Saints according to their respective receptivities as vessels of greater or less capacity even from Cups to Flagons And in this universal Kingdom of his Father shall the Man Christ be established as a Nail in a sure Place for evermore And by him shall blessed Angels and Saints ascribe the glory due to the purely divine nature and the invisible conjunction of divine and creature-nature The Son and Branch acknowledges all his Power to be from his God and Father in personal union with him He declared that of himself in our single fleshly nature he could do nothing and that he receives all his ruling power as exalted into personal union with his God and Father therein Thus comes the Son and Branch to be possessed of all the strength and power of the Mediatours whole person And so is enabled not only to see but do all things Whatever the Father doth that doth the Son also For all the Power of the Father through personal union becomes the Son 's The same Will lives in both But this Will as living in the Father cannot be declared to or received by creatures but as descending to and manifested by the Son On this ground Christ himself declares The Father judgeth no man but hath committed all Judgement to the Son So the whole will of the Father is executed by the Son Hence in obedience to the Father All must honour the Son as they honour the Father Thus does Christ shew how all that power which originally is his Fathers comes to be his and that all which is his thus again becomes his Father's and he exercises the same in perfect subjection to his Father Yet is the new creature-will of the son distinct from the divine will though one with it through personal union with the divine In this union and absolute subjection will Christ as son and branch rule his spiritual kingdom as declarer and doer of the divine mind which could no otherwise be known or done Christ would not put any weight on himself in the will of our single fleshly nature Yet is he one that beares a distinct record or vvitness to himself and will by the command of his Father give it unto him as exalted into personal union with God and as so the truth he told the Jews worthy of their belief For in our exalted nature is he the only immediate object of faith to Angels and men and the only way and means for their knowing or comming to the father Christ justified his bearing vvitness to himself as thus considered to the Jews on their offence at his owning himself in this union with the father as knovving vvhence he came and vvhether be vvas to go He knew he was to return by way of resurrection into that life whence he descended as spirit of the branch into our fleshly nature in which he enjoyed the divine glory of his father through union with his root before the foundation of the World and this for the compleating his mediatourship So is there a threefold distinct will in the mediatour in perfect unity This was figured by the tvvo or three vvitnesses under the Law whose joynt testimony was sufficient to pronounce sentence of Life or Death on any one For so will that will of the mediatour be which shall be pronounced by Christ in our glorified nature as the mouth and visible declarer of the united wills in his whole person His glorified humane will though the lowest through perfect union with the higher and highest becomes equally authentick with them in its distinct witness So over the kingdom that descends to him by the gift of his father will he exercise a visible rule in his new-creation life and glory at his second comming Christ's own testimony to this his spiritual kingdom at his second appearance did cost him the life of his first And thereby did he finish his vvork on earth even in his single earthly humanity that he had long before perfected in his invisible angelical state The visible repetition thereof he was neither afraid nor ashamed of before the evil powers of this world For when by the Jews brought before Pilate he positively asserted he had a kingdom but of a spiritual nature and not of this World to be brought to light by the death of our earthly nature in him The joy of his spiritual life state and kingdom set before him made him-willingly take the bitter Cup of death to his natural spirit as the only way and passage to the said spiritual life and kingdom wherein to exercise the whole of the divine and creature-power of the mediatour Having then seen the distinct testimonies to this visible spiritual kingdom of the man Christ from the threefold will of divine and twofold creature-nature in the mediatour we are next to consider the distinct testimony given to the same by the true spirit of saintship in all Ages In order to this enquiry consider first what is the spirit of true saintship that has from generation to generation given testimony to the visible spiritual reign and kingdom of Christ This spirit of saintship is at a great distance from the divinity yea perfectly distinct from the first immediate conjunction of the divine and creature-names or natures of the mediatour on the one hand and from the single first-creation name nature or spirit on the other The true spirit of saintship in the members of Christ's Heavenly or Earthly glorified body is found allwayes in a true subjection to the man Christ as their new-creature Lord and Head And
yet in their subjected places under him are they joyned with him in a headship over the whole natural first-creation state which is the Woman that in the saints as well as in Christ must own the new-creation spirit or man in both for head Yet the saint thus joyned in a state of spiritual headship with his head is in a state of subjection to the Prerogative headship belonging to every part of the mediatours being divine or creaturely The highest Saint in his most heavenly exaltation into new-creation glory remains for ever in a single creaturality as his distinguishing make from the glorious person of the mediatour But as the saint must not assume the peculiar twofold divine and creature-name of Christ so must he not be denied a new-creation name through participation of and union with the new-creature spirit of Christ in which highly exalted above his own first-creation life name or nature as far as heaven is above the earth For the spirit of man at highest in first-covenant life is but earth or of the earth earthy Though it be in dignity and power placed over all things below it self Psal 8. 6. yet is it inferiour to what is spiritual and heavenly He cannot so much as discern things spiritual 'T is as impossible for it to go beyond the sphere and bounds of its natural activity as for the brute Beast to exceed his bounds and Judge of things rational Nothing below the spirit of man wanting his intellectual and rational faculties can discern the proper things of man So nor can man's intellectual or rationall powers exercised only in a natural or first-covenant light judg of or comprehend the things of that spiritual new-creation state which is superiour to it This is the peculiar essential priviledg of the true saint in new-creation life This capacitates him not onely to know all things below it self and all its own spiritual heavenly things but to search out find and see the most deep and hidden things of the very infinite divinity 1 Cor. 2. 9-15 This great priviledge coms saints to by partaking of the new-creature spirit of Christ which God has promised in his new and everlasting covenant made on their behalf with their mistical father Abraham Christ himself to set up in them This new-covenant spirit is perfectly distinct in the nature of it from the first This is spiritual that natural This heavenly that earthly In the pure natural earthly first-covenant spirit Christ was a husband to Angels and man in innocency before the fall of either But in this mystical Land of pure nature did all men in and with the first and many Angels fall off from Christ and so lost their first-covenant spousal relation to him No such apostacy or chang is incident to the second covenant gift The relation of God and creatures founded in that can never be forfeited or lost When God by way of distinction from the first-creation spirit in which first-covenant communion with and relation to him is founded sayes he vvill vvrite or put his nevv-covenant Lavv or spirit in his Peoples hearts they shall never depart from him nor vvill he from them Then are they his People for ever and can never again become no People as his first-covenant People do after all communications from him and communion with him therein Jer. 31. 31-33 and 32 40. By the fresh gift of his first-covenant spirit he brought them out of the house of bondage the corrupt spirit or state of nature Typed by Egypt But this his covenant they brake though he vvas a Husband to them therein This evidenced the changable nature and life of that spirit in which this covenant was founded and undertaken to be managed on mans part But the new-creature or second covenant spirit in the true saint is a principle of everlasting righteousness and infallible truth This fit 's man for personal union with the fountain thereof in the man Christ and so for everlasting obedience with the same spirit in him to the divinity it self The whole divine will or law is written out in this spirit the true saint is of and in unchangable union with The life of this spirit then in saints enables them to read know and do the divine Law and will as the said spirit in Christ himself In this spirit as a mystical table is the divine Law so powerfully written out as to cause immutable obedience thereto in all the partakers thereof It never sins nor can sin in Christ or saint any born thereof that live and vvalk therein 1 Jo. 3. 9. The saint in this spirit that is of a spiritual heavenly nature is no more a servant as in the former natural changable earthly first-covenant or first-creation state life spirit in which it is impossible to know his Lords spiritual mind things and secrets but with Abraham a friend of God enabled to know not only the secret things of his heavenly spiritual creature-mind but divine also the deep things the vvhole counsel of God about the salvation of men Christ promises to reveal to such friends all that the father has made knovvn to him Jo. 15. 15. The new creature-spirit partaken of from Christ becomes in the quickened up seed thereof a new spiritual life light nature name wisdom righteousness in saints By it are they fitted to take in the visions of the divine glory For this spirit in Christ is in personal union with the divine In him it receives the whole divine glory which from him descends and is let down to all his spiritual members By this blessed medium his new-creature-spirit by which they are made lively Stones in his new-creature City and Temple must they for ever receive the vision of the divine glory A portion of this spirit in them is the nevv Ear or intellect by which they are enabled to hear and understand that voice of their spiritual King that gives forth the divine and new-creature will of their Lord in one sound and to feed on that vision of the divine glory which is the Manna hid from all natural understanding the most excellent thing any creature can receive So though the saints name be not the result of divine and creature-nature in one person Christs peculiar prerogative yet is it a partaking of that new-creature name or nature of Christ which even in him is preserved in a distinction from his divine though in personal union with it Though highest saints may not pretend to the priviledg of the lowest part of the mediatours creature-nature or name to wit personal union with the divinity yet are they partakers of the higher part of his creature-nature as well as lower yea all spiritual saints do partake of the twofold or single new-creature spirit of their head as their peculiar names of saint-ship received and derived from him to and in vvhich chosen and blessed before the foundation of the vvorld Eph. 1. 3 4. By virtue of the fathers choice and the sons peculiar work-manship
time the spirit in them did signifie vvhen it testified before hand the suffering of Christ and glory that should follovv 1 Pet. 1. 11. And it vvas revealed to them that not unto themselves but us under the gospel-dispensation witnesses both of his comming in flesh and state of grace or resurrection-life which was to follow they did minister such things The Apostles and other Saints in the gospel-day received that spirit not before given Jo. 7. 39. by which the mystery of Godliness became opened even through Christs being manifested in flesh justified in spirit and in our nature exalted into heaven All this visibly accomplished in Christ's person is the sum and substance of the gospel-testimony The resurrection-state is now no longer a land of distances very far off but brought neer and set open in Christ's glorified humanity Hence is the gospel-dispensation much more spiritual then that of the Law the object of faith being now brought into sight though spiritual saints under both these dispensations found a like acceptation with God The elders and worthies under the Law vvere through their powerful faith pleasing to God Heb. 11. 39. as well as spiritual-saints under the gospel They obtained a good report by faith They willingly and cheerfully confessed themselves strangers on earth or as to their natural state and principle though not actually possessed of the spiritual and heavenly This better thing vvas kept in reserve as neither given to nor received by them in such manner as after Christs comming for the compleating of their blessedness and finishing of that faith he was authour of before But the whole seed of faith spiritual saints before and under Law and Gospel agree in their witness to Christ's resurrection-state as that new name and life vvherein alone any ever were or can be saved or receive the vision of the divine glory And though the gospel-ministration be more glorious then that of the Lavv as a ballance to this priviledg of saints under the gospel those under the Lavv vvere made the first-fruits unto Christ in his resurrection-state in our nature For to their imprisoned spirits shut up in the faith of what was to be revealed Christ appeared and in the first degree of his resurrection-life preached it to them or bestowed it on them rendring the state of those just spirits a paradise by entring among them in his resurrection-life and glory And after this he poured forth his glorified spirit on saints in the body which rendred them powerful experimental witnesses of his resurrection-life and new name Thus the whole generation of faith whether as prophetical messengers before Christs comming in flesh or declarers of him after come have all most harmoniously agreed in their testimony to the spiritual nature and visibility of Christ's kingdom here treated on And thus having seen the testimony of the divine nature itself and the infallible creature-testimony of Christ and his saints to this truth as a secondary general confirmation of it we may observe the various types and figures in Gods providential workings for strengthning his Peoples faith in this important truth Even before the fall every voice of God to man was to point out this spiritual State of Rest he was to look after But all this counsel of God was neglected by him Yet did God even after the fall and before the giving of the Law warn Noah of this his twofold great design to wit of taking down the old or first creation-World and setting up that new one in which to establish this visible kingdom of Christ As a token hereof vvas he commanded to build an Ark and by his obedience to God therein did he condemn that sinful World which wilfully neglected the voice of God therein But Noah by faith saw Christ in that resurrection or kingdom-state figured by the Ark as a spiritual Rock of safety to himself and whole spiritual seed from that destruction figured out by the floud which all Angels and men that obstinately fix themselves in the old World or first-creation state against God and the second bring upon themselves And this deluge or destruction of man-kind by water points out the far greater destruction by fire in that day of the Lord wherein he will destroy the very heavens and earth on purpose reserved for the exercise of Gods long-suffering For their abuse of all will ripen them for a final consumption by the fire of God's wrath 2 Pet. 3. 7. Then even amidst those flames will he most certainly set up that spiritual kingdom in which shall be a like visible protection and safty to his saints as Noahs litteral Ark was to him and his family The next remarkable type of this spiritual truth before the giving of the Law was Abrahams conquest of the four Kings as figuring out not only the corrupt but righteous principles of nature in men and Angels which as singly naturall are all in a combined interest against the spiritual seed of faith and Christ their head These are signified in Abrahams person and his followers And their victory was a type fthe compleat and final conquest our spiritual Lord Abraham with all his saints will obtain over all that come against them to oppose the setting up of his spiritual kingdom visibly in the world After this have we another signal figure hereof in Gods remarkable dealing with the Egyptians as his enemies on behalf of the Israelites his friends in his marvellous wayes of punishing the one and delivering the other by his own right hand and out-stretched arm Both were types of that irresistable power in which Christ in these last dayes of greatest bondage and oppression to his people will give them a more remarkable deliverance then ever In these last and worst of times will be a combination in religious and civil principles against them figured by the Egyptian powers and the Magicians by the latter counterfeiting and by the former persecuting the new-creation spirit and power they both hate which Christ is ready to break forth in and thereby to bestow on his spiritual Israelites an absolute deliverance out of all their litteral and mystical captivities And by the same power will he so judge and deal with his enemies of all sorts as never to suffer them to rise up more against him or his spiritual Israelites Moses his whole government with the sanctuary and other things in his ministration were speaking figures and significant voices of this universal kingdom of Christ No circumstance in the civil or religious constitution of that government but remarkably signified the present truth And by signal sounds of his providence under every dispensation has the Lord been declaring and setting this truth before the faith of his People The sanctuary or tabernacle was not to be fixed as in its resting-place till his People were possessed of their resting-place the typical Land of promise Next this was Solomon's Temple on various accounts a signal type of Christ and of what he was to do
has God cursed this earthly state or first-creation life at best and in the most excellent part thereof that if saints in their love are found running out after the same they meet with nothing but mystical Briars and Thorns therein For this cause till the work of patience or suffering be accomplished on the whole body of saints Christ is content to remain passive and silent though in his own person possessed of that irresistible power in heaven his far countre in which he sits laughing all his enemies to scorn looking dovvn in a holy contempt upon them from his heavenly place And he over-rules all along this world all opposition of visible or invisible enemies in a direct contrariety to their own designs to make them instrumental to his by removing out of his Saints what let 's and hinders the setting up of his Kingdom in and with them visibly on the earth Christ makes all that enemies do against him and his saints in his passive and the enemies active season a preparative to his and his saints active season in his visible kingdom and to the dreadful passive season of all their enemies for evermore Hence is it that the passive season of Christ and active power of the Devil and World in perverted first-creation Principles whilst in a perfect contrariety as to design hold exact proportion as to time begining and ending together And at the time of the end will be manifested Christ's wonder-working power that all along the said active season of world and devil and passive season of Christ and Saints has made serviceable to his own designs the most opposite purposes and actings of implacable enemies rendring all exactly conducible to the setting up of his spiritual kingdom over all in a resurrection life and glory never to be done avvay By his visibility herein will he period the active power of the Devil This then may serve for answer to the present question as cleerly demonstrating the reason of Christ's so long deferring his second coming and active season And hence is there no ground from such delay to doubt the certainty of his visible spiritual comming For all along has Christ kept closs to the wise and holy orders by God appointed at first for giving a day of manifestation first to that which is natural reserving that which is spiritual to the last The Devils best time is first his worst last and that for ever And though permitted to make a seeming interruption to Christs exercise of his reigning power all along this world Yet so far has he been thereby from disappointing the designs of God for revealing his spiritual and everlasting state of truth and so for the setting up Christs visible kingdom therein that all his opposition to the same has been made serviceable thereunto even to the active reigning power and kingdom of Christ and his saints The Praise of all is to be ascribed to the marveilous and unsearchable wisdom of God which has made the most contrary appearances universally serviceable hereunto And in these mysterious workings has the wisdom of God not been altogether undiscerned by spiritual saints under every dispensation This has quieted and supported them in the blackest hours of opposition from World and Devil They have seen all by the over-ruling influences of Christ useful for the carying on of his designs of grace and peace to them But the discerning and testimony had and given by saints before and under the Law as to the visibility of Christ's spiritual kingdom at his second comming was greatly strengthened and heightened as given in Christ's own person because till then the spirit of Truth vvas not by actual participation given till our nature in him vvas glorified Joh. 7. 39. Then did he poure down of his glorified humane spirit on saints Act. 2. which distinguished them from spiritual believers under the Law He was pointed out in his resurrection-life to them under the Law in types and figures as to be revealed in the very thing it self under another succeeding dispensation Yet from a powerful spiritual faith therein were saints under the Law not only clear and strong in their testimony to the said spiritual state and visible kingdom of Christ therein but by that faith received a satisfying demonstration of the certainty thereof and embraced the substance of those things they waited for They had the undoubted evidence of things then unseen as to actual manifestation They saw and knew they should actually partake of the same Resurrection-Spirit and Life of Christ at the apointed time for the pouring out thereof from our glorified Nature in Christ's person And their Spiritual Faith herein had a powerful transforming operation upon their natural Man in that Law-day and before Yet is the difference of the Law from the Gospel-Ministration very great For by the latter have we the glad tydings of the visible gifts of that Spirit which was waited for and by Faith only laid hold upon under the former And this begets a new and more excellent sort of Spiritual Faith or discerning in Gospel-Saints through Christ's actually setting up in them his revealed and communicated Resurrection-Life and Glory which former Saints waited for Believers under the Gospel-ministration receive the very end of that Faith under the Law even the Spirit of Adoption whereby they cry Abba Father The first heavenly rain or shower of Christ's new-creature Spirit we find an account of Act. 2. on the Apostles and other primitive Saints of the Gospel-day as the accomplishing of that Promise of the Father which between his Resurrection and Ascension he commanded them to wait for from him Luk. 24. 49. Act. 1. 4. By this first pouring forth of the Holy Ghost or new-creature Spirit of Christ upon them did he institute the Gospel-dispenpensation in distinction from that of the Law And hereby were the Saints of that day much more eminently then ever before qualified to give a clear and full witness to this Spiritual State of Truth as actual partakers of that glorified Spirit of Christ which till then had never bin so given or received So the dispensation under which given must be more Spiritual than any former Saints were under The least under this dispensation is greater and under higher priviledges than the greatest under the Law-ministration The first Gospel-shower gave the World a signal taste of this great mercy by which to expect the latter rain of the same Spirit which will be far greater and more general on the Spiritual Seed in all Nations as the fore-running dispensation to Christ's second personal coming in the full blessing of the everlasting Gospel the joyful news of Christ's near approaching Spiritual Kingdom which shall be preached to all the World and then comes the end Mat. 24. 14. The very Apostles while Christ was with them in the Flesh and after his Resurrection also when speaking to them of this great thing the incorruptible Seed of Spiritual Life not yet quickned up in them were
oppose them The powerful presence of the risen Spirit of Christ fitted them for the marvellous conversion of believers and stopping the mouth 's of gainsayers None were able to withstand the power and wisdom of that Spirit they came forth in Act. 6. 10. Three thousand were converted by Peters first Sermon in it Act. 2. 41. They could also find out diseases of body and mind and discern whether they were mortal and incurable or not and accordingly declare or pronounce Sentence Ananias and Saphira pretended a compliance with the believers of that day for selling all their possessions and bringing the price thereof for the good of the community Peter in the power of the Spirit of Christ found out their secret crafty agreement for keeping back part of the price And he was able in such an irresistible convincing manner to detect and set home the guilt thereof upon their hearts and consciences as became an immediate execution as well as sentence of death upon them Act. 5. 1 10. From the severity of the punishment for suffering their hearts to be fill'd with Satan the Father of Lies so as to lye to the Holy Ghost or infallible Spirit of truth may it appear they were guilty of the same Sin spiritually as well as litterally understood The litteral was a type of the Spiritual even of that which is an unpardonable fault in any the keeping back any part of the mystical riches and life of the natural Spirit at best For this is a lying against the convincing discoveries of the Holy Ghost that declares and requires all to be surrendred to Death in sacrifice to God as his due and their duty And they under pretence of all bring but a part and lay it down at Christ's Feet as the whole This rendred them and so any others found in the like practice guilty of the like witchcraft and rebellion with Saul in laying down only the refuse-things and lusts of the corrupt spirit of nature for sacrifice but keeping the best the righteous first-covenant-life with the riches fruitfulness and glory thereof as therein fitted Priests to offer Sacrifice to God All this they know God requires in sacrifice as Saul acknowledg'd in letter 1 Sam. 15. 21. The spiritual Law of the Cross requires the best things in nature for sacrifice All is to be laid at Christ's feet the true Melchisedec and Priest of the most high God and in the death not life thereof to be offered up in sacrifice to God When any clearly convinced of their duty as to the whole-burnt-offering which their natural Spirit in the utmost first-covenant righteousness wisdom life and glory is to be do bring but a part and pretend that to be the whole sacrifice God requires of them they do wilfully and knowingly lye against the Holy Ghost and are found in a wilful conspiracy with the Father of Lies who has filled their heart In this Sin shall hypocritical Sinners in Sion pretenders only to Gospel and Spiritual Saintship be discerned and thereupon detected and sentenced to death by the Spirit of Christ in his Saints in the latter days much more eminently and frequently than in the primitive Gospel-times The declaring of this sort of spiritual guilt will so powerfully stir up and awaken the condemning conviction thereof as to cause a spiritual death on all such wilful Lyars against the Holy Ghost By the convincing light of it are they at once shewed the fading nature of all their first-creation-life and treasure and the unchangeable nature and excellency of the second After all this to prefer the former in hatred and despiteful opposition to the latter is unexcusable and unpardonable Such blaspheming the Holy Ghost or thinking and speaking evilly and contemptibly of it as a wicked Spirit a Devil as the righteous first-covenant Jews call'd it in Christ's person is a Sin not to be prayed for Nor Christ nor Saints will intercede on behalf of such as are known guilty thereof 1 Joh. 5. 16. God will not have any pray for what he will never grant the pardon of what he will never pardon The Jews called that creature-spirit of Christ that lives in unchangeable union with the divine the Devil Saints instead of praying for such were impowred in the primitive Gospel-Church in harmony of mind with God himself to pronounce a just sentence of death upon them Such signal honour was conferred upon them in the first institution of the Gospel-ministry And this was a spiritual and eternal excommunication of them the Anathema Maran-atha 1 Cor. 16. 22. according to the mortal and incureable nature of their disease and guilt Where the spiritual disease was not mortal but cureable the excommunication was but temporary for their cure by destruction of their Flesh or natural Spirit in order to their Salvation in Christ's Spirit of everlasting righteousness and truth So 1 Cor. 5. 5. The Incest with his Father's Wife spiritually understood was a temporary joining through the strength of temptation and his own weakness with the evil angelical nature which in the innocency thereof was the highest natural first-covenant spouse of Christ the Parent of Angels and Men Father of Spirits in a superiority to humane nature in first-creation life at best The Evil Angels did at first practise lewdness among themselves in that first-covenant-state against Christ in the second And men from their first sin and fall have been committing the like spiritual Fornication under their conduct and by their example Spiritual Saints could in the alsearching spirit of Christ find out such spiritual diseases and judg whether mortal and incurable or not so accordingly dealt with those that were guilty The Gospel Church assembled in the new-creation name or Spirit of Christ did in that power of the Lord Jesus pronounce such an excommunication on that incestuous person a member of their Church as was called a delivering of him up to Satan Yet was this but a temporary punishment exposing him to the furious buffetings of the Devil as a means to procure his recovery and lasting health For by the power of this new name of Jesus put forth upon him was he recovered as a brand out of the Fire by the powerful consuming his natural desire through the operation of the Cross in which Satan himself was made use of as in Job's and other Saints cases After this wonderful manner were the first Gospel-Ministers fitted to discharge their Office in all respects towards that flock over which the Holy Ghost had made them overseers both for ministring spiritual nourishment to them and healing spiritual as well as litteral diseases in them A power had they suitable to these great ends Paul in the practise of the ordinance of Baptism did in the power of Christ's new name and Spirit baptize with the Holy Ghost certain Disciples at Ephesus who as yet knew not whether there were a Holy Ghost or such a dispensation of the Spirit of Christ distinct from the wash'd renew'd natural Spirit
Conquerors The way of their Conquest was by suffering This is the mystical Weapon by which the Lord and Servant were both to fight this spiritual battel By steddily enduring all sorts of oppositions and sufferings they became triumphant overcomers All the persecutions primitive Gospel-Saints met with in and for their witnessing service tended only to the working out those marks of the dying of the Lord Jesus in their mortal Flesh that were matter of rejoycing to their immortal Spirits All the sorrow of their natural man outward or inward was soon forgotten for joy the spiritual Man-Child was born in them This man-child-spirit was the mystical Reed like a Rod given John to distinguish the inner from the outer Court and accordingly to measure the Temple of God the Altar and them that worship therein This work could be done by no other Reed save the glorified Spirit of Jesus fitted for discerning or judging in harmony with the divine and new-creature mind of Christ between the first and second creation-spirit as also between the twofold distinct branches of the new-creature-spirit or building in Christ and of the differing ranks and orders of Saints belonging thereunto who will find their respective places and portions in the vision and enjoyment of the divine Glory This high priviledg through the spiritual mind and judgment of the Lord thus set up in the Saint Paul esteemed of so inestimable a value as in comparison thereof to make no account of his own or others natural judgment in the highest and most accurate exercise of it 1 Cor. 4. 3. The new-creature-building or spiritual life in Christ's person and glorified manhood consists of two parts or principles heavenly and earthly glorified The full asserting these renders any one Saint or more Christ's twofold or two witnesses as declaring the comprehensive fulness of his new-creature-Spirit Though Abraham as a figure of Christ was the Parent of a twofold seed or first and second covenant Jew he was also in a farther sense a figure of him as Parent of a twofold spiritual new-creature seed his heavenly and earthly glorified members experimental witnesses of the twofold principles of his new-creature building This mystery was frequently represented by types and shadows to the faith of spiritual Saints under the Law but the distinction and inseparable union of these two parts of Christ's comprehensive creature-nature received their first visibility in Christ's glorified humanity By this the before invisible temple of God was opened and the first shower of his risen Spirit sent down on Gospel-Believers which qualified them by a single or double portion in the twofold parts of the new-creation-building to be his two witnesses Such are assigned their distinct witnessing-work according to John's vision Rev. 11. as members of his heavenly or earthly glorified body These two sorts of witnesses of Christ's spiritual life as all joined together declare and make up the fulness of his creature-building as members of his mystical spiritual body This twofold new-creature principle in Christ and Saints was lively figured out in the request for the two Sons of Zebedee by their Mother who was a figure of Christ our spiritual Parent in his desire to his Father to wit that his two sorts of witnessing Sons or Saints may sit on his right and left hand in an everlasting fruition of his divine glory And these are the two spiritual anointed ones Olive-trees or Sons of Oil placed on each side of Christ the Lord of the whole Earth Zech. 4. 3. 14. Rev. 11. 4. John also saw a Sack-cloath-state these two witnesses would be brought into notwithstanding their first eminent visibility in the power and under the strong and clear Sunshine of the spiritual presence of Christ amongst them And this dark season of their Sack-cloath prophecy must in faith and patience be passed thorow by them and the visibility of their spiritual state be taken or withdrawn from them All this seems figured out to John by that Woman clothed with the Sun having the Moon under her Feet Rev. 12. 1. Hereby is represented First the birth of the conquering man-child spirit in Christ's person Secondly the powerful witness of it in and by his spiritual members Then John saw this man-child caught up from the Woman or Church to God and to his Throne And on the withdrawing this man-child-spirit from the Woman or crucified members of Christ is she commanded into the Wilderness as the prepared place for her where to remain by God's appointment 1260 days or years the allotted time for their sack-cloth prophecy During this sack-cloth state of his Church on Earth Christ takes care for the nourishing their inward Man by invisibly feeding that from his own Spirit with his hidden spiritual Manna through such angelical visits as their own natural understanding may be little sensible of This Wilderness-state and Sack-cloth prophecy therein is a peculiar dispensation of the Cross suited to the time of the man-child-spirits absence as to any visibility thereof During this season the Woman spiritual Saints in their crucified natural man is shut up as in a secret Chamber or Wilderness in which secured from any dangerous or hurtful assaults by World or Devil and is therein by Faith chastly and quietly to wait for the return of her spiritual Lord and Husband in the visible glory of his man-child spiritual life and state Then John saw also the means by which this mystical Woman or Spouse of Christ was to be carried into the Wilderness as her prepared place or state of safety Two wings of a great Eagle were given her by which to flee into the said Wilderness-state out of the reach of any hurt by the utmost expressions of her inward or outward enemies malice which would certainly be sent after her as a flood ver 14 15. The great Eagle by whose wings she is carried into this place of security is the person of Christ as head to his new-creature Saints by making his own natural spirit or state under the cross that dead carkass to which they are gathered Mat. 24. 24. in a conformity to him by the like death of nature in them in order to receive his invisible spiritual new-creation-life This by a fixed faith in the two distinct principles of his new-creature-Spirit the two wings of that spiritual Eagle by which they are safely carried and guided into the wilderness-state of their crucified natural man under the Cross By these wings is the inward man of Christ's mystical dead body protected kept in perfect safety and invisibly nourish'd for a time times and half a time from the hurtful fury of the Serpent The sack-cloth prophecy then is dated from the Woman 's actual flight into the Wilderness which was at the withdrawing and absence of the man-child Spirit from her as to such visibility thereof in true signs and wonders as was afforded and for a season continued in and to the primitive Gospel-Church So her proper cloathing became sack-cloth in which
Ravens by whom Saints received that new-creation-food that sustained and nourished them unto eternal life By their angelical representations was Christ the head-Angel of God's covenant revealed to the Patriarks before and to Prophets and Saints after the giving of the Law They appeared on all occasions as employed by Christ in all the messages of God's will to them They opened Heaven to Ezekiel who through a powerful faith was enabled to see take in those wonderful visions of the very divine glory through the new-creature-nature of Christ his head so as to hear the voice of the almighty divinity They were the hand that oft lifted him and others up beyond and above the sight and motion of the natural spirit and body whilst yet in the same By the hand or power of their new-creature Lord did they carry him to them of the captivity by the river Chebar Ezek. 3. 14 15. And by the same hand was he led into the valley of dry bones declared by them to signify the whole spiritual Israel They likewise shewed him that new-creation spirit of prophecy by which the dry bones or slain twofold witnesses in the last and worst of times were to be quickned and made live again Ezek. 37. 1 14. The Scripture abounds with instances of this kind Christ the true Michael sent his ministring Angel or Messenger Gabriel to reveal to beloved Daniel those visions that were to remain a sealed book as to their full accomplishment till the time shewed him for the twofold witnesses to be slain as also how by the peculiar work of the good Angels in a preparitory ministration to Christ's second coming they should be raised into the same life and spirit which the Angel shewed Daniel his lot was fallen in so long before his actual possession of And as Angels were Christ's messengers in giving forth this resurrecton-life through a spirit of faith under the Law before Christ's first coming so were they the first actual dispensers and declarers of the said life and glory under the gospel They first preached the glad gospel tydings of Christ's resurrection in our nature This honourable service Christ employed them in as a just recompence of their being his first followers out of the changeable first-creation into that unchangeable resurrection-land or state of life without ever sinning against Law or Gospel Ezek. 1. 12 20. 10. 11. Hereby did they preserve to themselves in this first-resurrection-state that precedency in place and nature God gave them in their first creation And now as additional to that are they chosen by Christ to be his highest-Officers therein for giving the first report of the said resurrection-state of our nature in Christ's person He is not here but is risen Luk. 24. 6. And as in the two days under Law and Gospel Angels under Christ were the first preachers of the resurrection-state unto men so much more powerfully yet will they be in the third and last day By their powerful sounding the new-creation trumpet or preaching the everlasting gospel-life will the dead witnesses be raised and the elect gathered together from one end of Heaven to the other Mat. 24. 31. They will come forth in such power of the new-creation-spirit of prophecy as to cause it to enter into and build up every part of their crucified nature into the life thereof and compleat union with their angelical helpers and Christ himself therein Ezek. 37. 4 -10. And herein shall they be found the twofold united witnesses of Christ in his heavenly and earthly glorified spirit signified to Ezekiel by the two sticks he was to write upon for Judah and for Joseph with their companions Ezek. 37. 15 22. All this done by the holy Angels in the preparatory dispensation amounts not to the Saint's glorified body For that change will be the immediate fruit of Christ's personal coming and presence But these angelical reapers are to gather together the first-born Church written on the heavenly stick sharers in Christ's heavenly and most excellent new-creature-life mark'd with their Father's name on their foreheads and fitted for the marriage-bed of their heavenly Husband And then are they to gather all those whose names are written on the earthly glorified stick also even an innumerable multitude in the white robes of Christ's spiritual everlasting righteousness Rev. 7. 9. Both these are the Angels to gather by preaching the everlasting Gospel to them By their preaching the Gospel of the Kingdom to all the World in the third and last day before the full end come will be fulfilled Mat. 29. 14. They will powerfully waken up the spiritual seed of the Kingdom in all nations and all that are ripe in the life thereof shall be immediately joyned with them even with Christ's heavenly host of Angels for the work and service of that day And at the same time will they raise up other spiritual Saints into a land of light a spiritual Goshen and pour forth the full vials of Plagues on the hardned enemies of God and them God by his holy Angels will lead Saints out of all captivities as Moses Israel out of Egypt raising out of their great and last grave the whole mystical dead body of Christ Of this preparatory angelical ministration was Christ's transfiguration in his unchang'd body before his death a figure He caused the transforming power of his new-creature-life in which Son of man in Heaven to shine so strongly on his inward man or spirit that his very outward also was made to shine His face or spirit shined as the Sun and his raiment or outward man was white as the light So the crucified spirit dead body or natural man of the two witnesses shall by the Angels powerful preaching the everlasting Gospel be so raised into the powerful exercise of Spiritual life as to make their unchang'd fleshly bodies shine as a high degree of redemption from the bondage of their whole corruptible first-creation-life Such Saints with holy Angels shall shine as Stars through a more signal partaking of Christ's risen Spirit the bright morning Star from whom they all receive their distinct measures of new-creation-light and life In this season and dispensation will Christ make good to his Saints what he long before promised to Joshua as associated with Angels under him his joint powerful instruments for the great work of this preparatory day Of this priviledg was Moses also a signal type as through faith taken into such angelical converse and thereby admitted so near access to Christ the head of Angels as will qualify them to receive the lively oracles of Christ's own mind and become his mouth for declaring the same to others This honour will be put on Saints in the preparatory dispensation to Christ's second coming And thus have we seen by what means or hand the last generation of Saints are to be slain and by what to be raised again and their high priviledg and honour thereupon This by the angelical ministration for this very
given to a faithful witness-bearing in his spirit of true freedom for which they have suffered all along Satan's reign This shall in its place be more fully spoken to And then will be declared God's most wise and holy grounds why the injuries done to the Souls under the Altar slain for the testimony of Jesus have lain so long unaccounted for Under this preparatory dispensation shall the murderers of Jesus and his spiritual Martyrs be punished according to their works All these judgments and mercies are to be opened by the seven new-creation Trumpets sounded by seven Angels on the opening of the seventh and last Seal Rev. 8. 1 2. On the sounding of these Trumpets the judgments sealed up for foes amongst the treasures of mercy for friends Deut. 32. 34 35. will be executed by the pouring forth of the seven Vials All this as the performance of God's promise on behalf of the two slain witnesses Rev. 11. for raising them up into an association with spiritual Angels for the powerful preaching of Christ's everlasting Gospel-life For this will they have power to shut and open the blessings and judgments of Heaven in perfect harmony with the spirit and will of Christ distributing both in love or wrath to the inhabitants of the whole World This is implied in the command given them over that mystical Fire by which the wrath of that day is to be executed and in their power also to give or withhold the heavenly rain of Christ's risen-Spirit and likewise for turning the Waters of the cleansed natural state as turned into enmity against the same into blood from the just wrath and displeasure of God By all ways literal and mystical will the sealed-up judgments of God be opened to smite the accursed Earth in such a successive pouring forth of wrath upon it figured by the plagues on Pharaoh and Egypt by the hands of Saints and Angels in this fore-running dispensation on this side the glorified body of Saints as was figured in Eliah subject to like passions with other Saints in the unchang'd body Jam. 5. 17. Saints in this dispensation will not only have power over the material Heaven so as by the spirit of true faith and prayer to withhold or give the rain thereof but in a like command with Elias to cause the angelical fire to come down on their Enemies for their destruction as he did on the Captains with their Fifties that came in opposition to the new-creature spirit of prophecy by the powerful workings whereof in him he was seen to be a man of God Wilful enmity to this spirit God will come forth in signal displeasure against Now if this power literally and spiritually was thus manifested in Eliah by a union of Faith only with Christ in his new-creature-spirit before the former Gospel-rain thereof Act. 2. what will be impossible to the power of it in Saints on the latter rain thereof for the ripening of Angels and Saints therein to a full harvest fitting them to do all things needful to make way for their Lord's second coming And having thus considered what is meant by the opening of the Seals and pouring forth of the Vials in the preparatory day to Christ's second coming by Angels and Saints we are next to enquire how and in what manner and measure they are then to be poured forth and upon whom For this it is observable that every Vial hath and that from the beginning bin suited to the more or less criminal nature of the several wilful Offences which now shall be laid open however before hid and sealed up This is implied by the distinct places or parts of the accursed first-creation-Earth each Vial is to be poured upon John hears a voice out of Christ's new-creation Temple into which the good Angels were first brought as the first faithful obedient followers of their Head Lord and Master thereinto They are sent out of this Temple with the seven-fold new-creation Trumpet given them by the Lamb for his service as ministring spirits and first sounders forth of this his new-creation-voice to his Saints who thereby become qualified with them to preach the everlasting Gospel of the Kingdom or declare the glad tydings of their Lord 's coming in the seven-fold glory of his resurrection-state to the whole Earth And not only so but they are also fitted to be joined with the holy Angels for pouring forth the Vials of God's wrath on the fixed inhabitants of the Earth who are enemies to his spiritual heavenly appearance and Kingdom Thus we find the first Vial poured forth upon the Earth Rev. 16. 2. the second on the Sea the third on the Rivers and Fountains of Water the fourth on the Sun the fifth on the seat of the Beast the sixth on the great River Euphrates the seventh on the Air. In these distinct vials and places are held forth the particular assigned judgments according to the sealed up wrath of God for every part of the sinful first-creation-Earth The first Vial is poured out upon the Earth not the corrupt but restored Earth repaired by Christ as to their loss by the fall of Adam and so capacitated to answer Christ's heavenly call He hath therein afforded them clear convictions of his new-creation-life for their everlasting blessedness But through wilful refusal of this and despite thereunto are they sound guilty of worshipping the Beast and receiving his mark which is the peculiar Sin for which punished They voluntarily pay that homage to the wicked Angel that 's due to God who hath by his own act made himself the mystical Beast here meant in his self-chosen earthly sensual spirit by a fixed unchangeable enmity to God and his heavenly creature-spirit rendred devilish The same fixed in by Man with its wisdom and all its first-creation excellencies is devilish also Jam. 3. 15. This renders a Man a Devil Christ called Judas so One of you is a Devil Joh. 6. 70. The changeably evil spirit of Man baptiz'd and transform'd by the unchangeably evil spirit of the Devil into unchangeable union with him in enmity to God renders man a Devil If baptiz'd into the unchangeably righteous spirit of Christ man becomes with Abraham the unchangeable friend lover and beloved of God The cleansed mystical house or enlightned righteous natural man receiving the evil angelical spirit is thereby fixed in enmity to God In this case Christ found and asserted the professing righteous Jews with their teachers to be Ye are of your Father the Devil so far were they from being the true spiritual seed and Children of Abraham or of God as they flattered and asserted themselves to be This end or last state is worse than their first in the corrupt nature as born dead in Sin but not unchangeably so as now they are Mat. 12. 43 -45. Joh. 8. 38 -44. Such incorrigible wilful Sinners against the Holy Ghost and its convincing spiritual light set up in their consciences will fall under the sad effects of the
and undeniably assert and demonstrate his right to the universal monarchy of the whole Earth And having thus seen in a parallel to Moses his day how all the materials of Christ's visible Kingdom are to be provided the mystical Stones hewed squared and polished for compleating the new-building we are next to consider by way of parallel also the view that from an angelical hand and glory is to be given of the Throne and heavenly Temple of Christ as was of Moses his Tabernacle by the rearing thereof before fixed in the Land of Canaan Through the angelical light of the preparatory day shall the new-creation Temple of Christ be opened and rendred much more perspicuous than ever it hath yet been And this as a needful qualifying of the new Earth for so great a glory as will shine forth upon it by Christ's personal coming to set up and establish his visible and everlasting Kingdom In order to this work let us yet more particularly examine the type in which Moses in every thing relating to it received exact direction from God and was also shewed the original patern of the typical Tabernacle in that holy Mount the same with this angelical ministration that 's to reveal Christ the original and substance of all According to this angelical sight through faith given to Moses was he to provide every Pin and Board belonging to the Tabernacle and answerable to the pattern joyn and linke every part of the whole together And so became it a lively figure of the compleat new-creature-building in Christ and his comprehensive body head and members who must all be exactly and inseparably joyn'd together in a spirit of faith and love by that supply to each other which must be made by every joint and member according to the effectual working of the distinct measure of the new-creature-spirit of the head in every part to the increase and perfecting of the whole body in love Eph. 4. 16. Of this compleat creature-building in the invisible existing state of the new-creature-seed in their head before Angels or Men personally and individually were and also as to be brought forth in his spiritual life and inseparably therein joyn'd to Christ their Head and Parent in their distinct subjected places as lively spiritual Stones in his new-creation-Temple 1 Pet. 2. 5. was the literal Tabernacle an appointed type The foundation of Christ's visible Kingdom is laid in this preparatory dispensation giving Pisgah-sights and views of the glory of Christ and his true spiritual Land of Promise before his actual appearance This will yet be more evident from the spiritual meaning of all things belonging to Moses his Tabernacle the type both of Christ's invisible Being and visible Kingdom Exod. 40. There was first the Tabernacle itself then the tent of the Tabernacle and thirdly the cover of the tent each a cover to the other This done in the truth and substance makes the new-creature-house in Christ a fitted reception for the divine inhabitant and to blessed Saints and Angels also This was also figured out by the covering Mercy-seat Ark and Testimony the holy things put within the Tabernacle So in the figure is a compleat view given of the original patern or creature-building in the Mediator of which it was the appointed representation as to be acknowledg'd in root and branch fitly figured by the threefold distinct covers on the infinite divinity which the Tabernacle consisted of The single fleshly humanity of Christ was the outermost cover put upon the twofold immutable being of his creature-nature his heavenly and earthly glorified spirit fitly represented by the Tabernacle and tent thereof and as so the fitted receptacle to the most choice high and holy things his eternal power and divinity and then also to those things of his eternal Power and God-head to wit his original creature-being or root the immediate workmanship of his own divinity In this twofold respect may he not unfitly be represented by the Ark and covering merey-seat The divine and creature-nature of the Mediatour in this first and invisible fellowship or conjunction are the things as in type preserv'd in such an invisibility as not to be immediately look'd upon or seen by any Therefore on purpose did they lodg and seat themselves in that mystical Tabernacle the body or visibility of the Mediatour provided also by himself as the new-creature-Temple and Sanctuary pitch'd by God not Man in which his invisible holy divine and creature-nature or things are laid up out of the immediate sight of any But they are to shine forth through the said blessed Tabernacle with safety and to the comfort of every worshipper and attendant about the said Tabernacle according to the lesser or greater distance in which placed The true Tabernacle in the capacity of branch exalted into personal union with the Mediatour as his divine head and creature-root is become that Temple of God in Heaven that by the setting up of Christ's visible Kingdom is to be open'd on Earth Rev. 11. 19. And so will the compleat personality of the Mediatour be beheld in his divine and twofold creature-being Thus by considering the spiritual meaning of the Type have we the reason why the literal Tabernacle was to consist of so many covers and also for the invisibility of the holy things with which furnish'd to wit as the significant types of the great original that is the invisibility of the divine and also creature-nature in its first conjunction with divine and so also of the fulness and variety of his new-creature-nature For it was needful his divine and creature-nature in their first and invisible conjunction should wrap up themselves in Christ the branch as in a threefold cover or Tabernacle and this as the only means to give the vision of his divine-nature and creature-root to Angels and Men. And having thus considered the distinct parts of the Tabernacle and holy things wherewith furnished consider next the form and manner in which set up to wit in a four-square shape God assigning the distinct places of every Attendant about it from highest to lowest At East or upper-end were placed Moses Aaron and his Sons At each side and West or lower-end were the other Levit's placed according to their respective charges as chosen into the room of the First-born Israelit's for the service of the Tabernacle in a subjected service of love to the high-Priest's office preparing and slaying the Sacrifices but not permitted immediately to draw nigh to God by offering the Sacrifices or touching the Ark and holy things therein Thus Moses Aaron and his high-Priest Sons together with the whole Tribe of Levi were the first Attendants in their higher and lower places round about the literal Tabernacle Then about the same and Court thereof at a greater distance were the whole Congregation of Israel placed in their several Tribes with a Prince and Head to every Tribe and other inferiour Rulers appointed according to Jethro's advice approved by God over thousands
faithful in their service to Christ therein Thus through a union of love between Angels and heavenly Saints are the Angels under Christ instrumental to the bringing the whole Church of first-born David's into those places in Christ's Kingdom wherein to be for ever far superiour to themselves And till seated there do they exercise the utmost of their power to protect the said Davids from the malice of their invsible enemies Devils typed out by Jonathan's faithful informing David of all Saul's mischeivous and malicious intendments discovered towards him and protecting him from them While these Princes or most heavenly Seed of Saints are in their unchanged bodies walking on foot on the Earth or in the single earthly spirit and mind this foot or earthly principle is kept by them from any such wilful dashing against or stumbling at the mystical stone Christ's new-creature-spirit as excludes from the true rest therein only attainable In a like practice with Jonathan in letter they discover all the secret and subtile contrivances of mystical Saul's malice against these spiritual Davids that they may escape him They thus protect them from the evil Angel and on the other hand inform them of Christ's spiritual Kingdom by communicating their visions thereof In both these distinct works of love to Saints will they appear more visibly than ever in their dispensation immediately preparatory to Christ's second coming And herein as owned by Christ so ought they by Saints Rev. 22. 16. I Jesus have sent mine Angel to testify these things to the Churches the things of the new Jerusalem-Kingdom of Christ which will suddenly be made visible and not only so but to testify of me also that I am the bright morning-Star or in my exalted humanity head of these angelical Stars in that resurrection-glory wherein they shall shine forth in their preparatory morning-ministration so as to be signally owned by me in their faithful service to me This is implied ver 6. These sayings are faithful and true For the Lord God of his holy Prophets hath sent his Angel to give them the fore-running sights of things that as to publick and general manifestation are yet to come but now at hand and therefore no longer to be sealed up but open'd by Angels to them in Christ's preparatory day And so also are the sealed up judgments by them then to be opened and visibly poured forth upon the enemies of his approach and Kingdom This honour have the blessed Angels even of being chief instruments in setting up the Kingdom of Christ by communicating their sights thereof to Saints belonging to the upper or lower new Jerusalem or spiritual Kingdom in their distinct relations thereunto as the heavenly or but earthly glorified seed And this ought by them both and all to be thankfully acknowledged When the Angel shew'd John the Lamb and his Bride clothed with her wedding robe her Husband 's heavenly spirit he fell at the Angel's feet to worship him But the Angel said see thou do it not for though in this dispensation I am above thee yet am I but thy fellow-Servant under our great Master to minister to thee who wilt in conclusion be exalted far above me And then also must we both as holding of Jesus our head in the true new-creation spirit of prophecy worship God alone The heavenly seed of Saints that receive the first revelations or visions of the glory of Christ's Kingdom from Angels will be found to have an interest superiour to theirs therein when they take their places about the exalted Throne of Christ set up in the third Heaven Then will the Angels give up their guardianship over them as no longer needing it being exalted above them Yea then will the Angels of God rejoyce to receive instruction from them to whom they before gave it Then shall the marvellous and manifold wisdom of God appear in causing the Church of his first-born-Saints when exalted into their heavenly places to make a suitable return to the good Angels for all their faithful service of love to them in communicating their higher visions of God in such measure as they are capable of receiving than ever yet was attained by them They will under Christ reveal to them that manifold-grace of God that 's the blessed portion of second-resurrection-Saints received by them immediately from Christ and from him by them let down and revealed to Angels Thus makes he his blessed creatures Angels and Saints in the beauty and harmony of his dispensations towards them useful to one another and so to remain for ever in their higher and lower places and offices in Christ's body-mystical as is figuratively signified 1 Cor. 12. 21. Many who in their single unchang'd humanity Angels are the teachers of will be in a superiority to all Angels and in that sence said to judg even the holy Angels as in a higher sort of spiritual life and light judgment or discerning then they and so fit instructers of them 〈…〉 God to them as Christ's highest and chief Ministers These will make known to Christ's Angels and glorified earthly members the fellowship of that mystery which comparatively to the revelation as yet given thereof hath bin till then hid in God They shall fully reveal the whole mystery of divine and creature-fellowship in God the Mediatour from everlasting to everlasting and so the manifold divine and creature wisdom if God to their inferiour-fellow-creaturs which is in the compleat fulness thereof their continual vision and food But though when the first-born heavenly Church take their seats in glory Angels cease from the exercise of rule over them yet do they remain as door-keepers to the said heavenly City and Society They were placed from the beginning as Christ's spiritual Watchmen over this tree of Life or whole spiritual state And in the faithful discharge of that office have ever since with their flaming Swords or angelical weapons bin made use of by way of defence and service to the said state for directing the holy Seed to the right door of the blessed City and for the keeping any spiritually profane persons from entring thereat They are ready with their angelical flames to destroy all such And when the good seed even the first-born Church are all entred and have taken their places in a superiority to them will they still for ever hold the same place and station as door-keepers in the nearest relation to the said first-born Church To be such a door-keeper to the second-resurrection-state David saw was to be preferred above the highest glorified Saints in the first as nearest to the heavenly Citizens or first encompassers of the Throne Also under Christ and his heavenly Saints are the holy Angels Princes or chief Rulers in and over the first-resurrection-state the outward row of encompassers and therein to remain for ever And as now we have seen the good Angels business in the preparatory dispensation we may observe the approbation they will receive from their great Lord and
distruction of it Of this twofold burning for spiritual as well as literal Sodomy all defilement and unclean practices in Spirit as well as Body which the World in this last time will be more filled with than ever and so ripen'd for judgment we find the Sin and Punishment of literal Sodom a presaging type The sin and punishment in this last and most Sodomitish age of the World is pointed out Jude 7. Angels for mystical Sodomy in an unclean spiritual union together and literal Sodomites as also mystical among Men going after strange evil angelical Spirits as false Christ's and Gods as well as strange flesh suffered the twofold vengeance of eternal Fire or were made to feel the twofold operations of it outward and inward for a total and everlasting destruction of them So will the Fire on this Sodomitish world abounding in all sorts of iniquity spiritual and fleshly be inwardly kindled in every guilty conscience and seconded with an outward burning up of the corrupt World with the sinful fashions and constitutions of it civil or religious melting down and causing all to pass away as also the material parts thereof For the Vials in this dispensation of wrath are not only to be poured on the Earth Sea and Rivers c. mystically but also literally understood This will cause the Heaven and Earth in every consideration thereof as singly natural and of the first-creation sort to melt and pass away as not able any longer in the corrupt or righteous spirit and principles thereof to bear up or stand before the bright light and burning of this preparatory day of the Lord. The evil policies and practices with the forms of religious fashions of the first-creation Heaven or first-covenant Churches will render both fit fuel for the Fire of this day So every part of this old-creation Sodom shall be destroyed But before this as in the type will true Saints with Lot be secured by angelical hands as of the great family of Christ's heavenly or earthly glorified members The Angels that have the command of this twofold Fire in its inward and cutward operations shall in dispersing it fulfil the commands of Christ The seventh Angel pours out his Vial upon or into the Air Rev. 16. 17. Air is the first-creation-spirit in all the parts and branches thereof whereby the Devil from first to last has come forth in his several shapes and various ways to fight against the new-creation-spirit of Christ This Air as by him corrupted through his practice of all sorts of wickedness by word spirit and letter comes now in the comprehensive principle thereof to receive its appointed and prepared just and righteous judgment pronounced and poured forth by the seventh Angel Christ himself as head of Angels in his unvailed new-creation life and Spirit On this comes a loud and powerful voice from the heavenly temple and throne even the glorious new-creation-building the house and throne in and on which the Mediator's divinity dwells and sits In our exalted nature in which immediate head to Angels and Saints will he sound forth the very mind of his infinite divinity and new-creature temple as in personal union with both And from this eminent heighth will he pour forth this Vial of final wrath on the whole first-creation air or spirit or Angels and Men as fixed therein in unchangeable enmity to God and the second In the said almighty divine and irresistibly mighty new-creature-authority and power he says it is done Rev. 16. 17. that is the destruction of all his unchangeable enemies is finished This is implied in the effects and dreadful consequents of this voice upon them voices thunders lightnings and a great earthquake such as never was before seen or felt This is the voice that will once more shake not the Earth only but also Heaven Heb. 12. 26 27. so as to shake all earthly foundations and the most spiritualliz'd heavenly buildings set thereon This voice and the judgment therein pronounced and executed will leave nothing remaining of beauty and glory that 's but of a single changeable earthly nature The voice of Christ in and by the ministry of Angels in giving the Law declar'd its heavenly authority then by shaking the Earth But this concluding gospel-voice will discover and shake all first-creation-life in the most spiritual dress and counterfeit imitation of the second it can appear or come forth in irresistibly demonstrating the perishable nature thereof By this voice all counterfeit heavenly spiritual buildings whose foundations are found earthly and mutable will be tumbled down and the sandy foundation discovered Ezek. 13. 14. All disguises put upon earthly principles by the sinful transforming art skil and subtilty of Satan shall be taken off by this voice of Christ importing the clear naked manifestation of new-creation light and life in his own person For then will be voices thunders lightnings and such an universal Earthquake as will utterly over-turn all things that are but of a mutable nature and can be shaken however firm they have appeared to Men that those things that cannot be shaken even the rocky new-creation-building or spirit of Christ and things thereof may take place come into publick view and remain for ever The voice and appearance of Christ in this invincible new Jerusalem-spirit will be certain and everlasting destruction to all that fight against it Zech. 14. 12. This voice will rent asunder every part of the first-creation building however subtly and artificially set up by the workmanship of the Devil As the marvellous and amazing effects of the pouring forth of this seventh and concluding Vial of wrath on the said Air or first-creation-spirit kept up in enmity to God and the second by evil Angels and Men will it be taken to task and dealt with root and branch to the not only shaking but utter ruine and downfal of the whole Fabrick with all its sinful transformations into a counterfeit spirituality by which they have endeavoured to fortify and strengthen themselves to make the greatest and highest opposition against the new-creation-life and the second coming and Kingdom of Christ therein For this the three parts of the great City Babylon the Dragon Beast and false Prophet the Devil or whole evil angelical nature with humane worldly magistracies and ministries his serpentine seed amongst men these are by the just judgment of God divided or put into unspeakable confusion and discordancy through the terrible thundrings of Christ's new-creation voice and presence upon them all So are they made to bear a share in executing his judgments upon one another as all found in unchangeable enmity to him This was figured by Moab Ammon and mount Seir or Edomit's destroying each other in the valley of Jehoshaphat 2 Chron. 20. 22 -25. Thus the whole mystical Babylon will fall flat as the walls of Jerico under the weight of their just condemnation receiving the cup of the Wine of the fierceness of God's wrath Rev. 16. 19. This Babylon is