do wonder how any man can make it to be capable of any torment when as it is well known it came immediately from God and is no other but of God and if I may say further without offence it is God for that which is of God is God because God cannot be divided All men grant it is immortall and came from God pure and undefiled And how then it should be impure I know not for this I really see that though it was infused into the body yet I am sure it was not of the body nor could the flesh be capable of such a thing as we call union with the spirit and so the soule is in the body but is not of the body or the body but really distinct and so it is in flesh but not flesh and so it is God manifest in flesh But not in union or conjunction with flesh but hath a distinct and formall difference both here and hereafter the one returning to nothing the other living to all Eternity And further how this soule as men speak of should be impure and sinfull I know not for how flesh should defile a spirit I cannot Imagine being that I am sure and as every man will grant That no effect can be produced beyond its cause but every effect hath its rise and originall from its proper cause And so hath God laid in nature the body proper to the seed and to every seed it s own body And a man may as well gather Grapes of Thornes and Figs of Thistles as to conceive it can be that a visible or fleshly substance can corrupt a spirituall and invisible substance But then you will say where is the sin all this while you will say then sin is nothing or that there is no sin To which I have partly answered in the foregoing Subject spoken of which because it is so faln in my way I shall speak a little further in answer to you First I shall grant and I think it is no lesse then blasphemy to affirm otherwise that God is not the Authour of sin or that any sin can be in him he being light and in him is no darkness at all and so the soule being of him it must needes be pure and holy not admitting any mixture of flesh or that which we call corrupted nature And yet againe Secondly I cannot conceive there should be sin untill God was pleased to let out himself in flesh But for before he lived in himself and so there could be no sin there being nothing but God Thirdly Inasmuch as this flesh is a vaile or covering wherein this soule or divine Being lives this God soule or divine nature call it what you will the glory and beauty the purity and excellency thereof being darkened and obscured there is the sin For whatever men conceive of things this I really apprehend That that which we call the soule that is as men generally make it The understanding reason judgement will and affections are not positively or actually infected with sin but onely are obscured and cannot be so gloriously manifested by reason of the flesh or fleshly Being and so God tooke flesh upon him and through the vaile that is the flesh did destroy and doth condemn sin in the flesh So that whosoever prays or prophesies with a vaile or covering upon his head Christ which is God in the Spirit such a one dishonoureth his head which is Christ because he suffers something to come betwixt God and him So that by this time I suppose you see what I conceive of sin and where it lies and what I conceive of that we call soul and of the body or fleshly part of man wherein I have been forced to make a little digression because things are mysterious And to come to the point in hand concerning a Hell hereafter what it should be or what should be tormented in it I do not as yet apprehend for the soul came pure and is of the essence of God could not be corrupted and the body not capable of any impressions of God and returns to its first principle of earth so that unlesse you will imagine a Hell in God which you would account Blasphemy to speak I cannot fancy or imagine any such Hell hereafter as men dreame off The truth is there is nothing lives to all eternity but God every thing below God perisheth and comes to nothing and as all things had their subsistance and Being in God before they were ever manifested in the world or Creatures so in the end whatsoever is of God or God in the world at the end of it they shall all be rapt up into God againe And so as God from all eternity lived in himself and all things in him so when he shall cease to live in flesh and creatures he will then live in himself unto all eternity and will gloriously triumph over Sin Hell and death and all Creatures shall give up their Power and Glory unto God backe againe from whence it Originally came and so God shall be All. However if any man can imagine that there will be any dark appearance of God hereafter or unto all eternity then may he conclude a Hell for as sin is the dark appearance of God so is Hell an inseperable companion of it but to imagine the one or the other hereafter or to all eternity would render me in my owne apprehension one of those whose property it is to believe every thing but I know whom I have believed Thus have I done with that part of my discourse which I call the dark side of God which I divide into three parts which we call Devill Sin and Hell In all which I have indeavoured to clear God and to make the Devill and sin as vile as I can but am far short of the one or the other wanting words to express my self in either onely what was upon my spirit thou hast in the Letter Concerning the Resurrection NOw let us come to deliver our selves about that which we call Resurrection and to express it as it is in me I see it also to be spirituall and inward and is also of that which is the inward man For though I know the inward man which is God or the divine Being admits of no degrees either is more or lesse but yet in as much as this God is more gloriously manifested at one time more then another in man Hence it is that we give this Title of resurrection of the Creature after this life is ended But truly for my part I am fully satisfied in my own spirit with those words of Christ where he saith I am the Resurrection and the life and I see it fully made out in me that Christ spiritually is that resurrection which I thought should be of the creature And I cannot tell what in the creature should rise or be capable of such glory and happinesse beside God and so I see that which I did expect to enjoy hereafter onely
grosse and carnall conceit of God But I shall not enter upon any thing controvertall onely I shall give you what is made out in me and I conceive no other what the Scripture holds out in the letter and so it is true that there are three that bear record in Heaven and yet these three but one He doth not speak three persons but three and that thus as farre as I conceive The Father is God from all eternity who 's Being was in himself having all Beings wrapt up in himself This God letting himself and his Being in severall formes of flesh is God the Son For I do not apprehend that God was onely manifest in the flesh of Christ or the man called Christ but that he as really and substantially dwells in the flesh of other men and Creatures as well as in the man Christ though as the Scripture speaks he was the most express Image and that the fulnesse of the God-head dwelt bodily in him that is in respect of manifestation but otherwise I conceive that God who cannot admit of degrees can be said to dwell in him more then another and I might shew that his Being in spirit is much more glorious then his Being in flesh the one being but a shadow and Type of the other But I forbear because it may afford another discourse of it self and returne to what we have in hand and that is that God the Sonne is God manifest in flesh Now that we call Holy Ghost is God living in Spirit and all these are not three distinct Beings onely one Being made out in three severall tearmes To make it a little plainer the Scripture saith God is Love and yet it tells us of a threefold Love The first is Gods Love to us the second is our Love to God the third is our Love to one another Now it is plaine these are not three but one For by the same Love that God loves us by the same Love we love him we love him because he loves us and it is the same Love by which we love one another and therefore the Apostle saith He that loves not his brother loves not God And so we have communion with God when we have communion with one another So that Gods Love to us and our Love to him and to one another are not three loves but one so in like manner Love is the Father this Love manifested in Flesh is the Sonne this Love loving the loved is the Holy Ghost and these three are one The Father is God forming all things the Son is God who is formed and manifested in Flesh the Holy Ghost is God manifesting or revealing the manifested thus the Father Son and Holy Ghost are not three persons but one intire Being made out in severall expressions And thus I have done with this subject concerning God being willing to loose my self in the thoughts of him as knowing that he cannot be known and that all words or expressions of Scripture or man come short of Him and do but confound and darken the glory of that great Creator who hath done all things according to reason and is himself the reason and ground of all things for in him they live and move and have their Being and therefore to Him be the Glory for evermore Concerning Heaven NOw for that which we call Heaven I cannot conceive it any locall place because God is not confined or hath his Being 〈◊〉 station in our setled compasse and therefore I see that true which the Letter speakes The Kingdom of Heaven is within you and so I see Heaven to be there where God displaies his own glory and excellency For Heaven is nothing but God at large or God making out himself in Spirit and Glory And so I really see that then men are in Heaven or Heaven in men when God appeares in his glorious and pure manifestations of himself in Love and Grace in Peace and rest in the Spirit when God shewes himself to be all the happiness comfort and reward and so this Heaven is not outward or a place of any outward or carnall bodily happines as men dream of but it consists in righteousness joy peace in the Holy Ghost all which are spirituall and terminated in God alone I do not as I have carnally conceived that when Paul was rapt up into the third Heaven and heard and saw things unutterable that he was bodily taken up or heard God with an audible voice No but I rather conceive it some extraordinary appearance of God filling the Spirit with glorious amazements and admirations of its own excellency So that when God doth gloriously appeare to the silencing of flesh and over-powering the selfish Being in man and fils the spirit with its own glory then is God and his Heaven come in the spirit and such an estate some may be have bin sensible of that they have so felt the over-powering of God in their spirits that they could not tell whether they were in the body or out of the body as was Pauls condition And this Heaven the Land of Canaan was a lively Type of wherein God after he had by a strong hand brought the Children of Israel from the bondage of Egypt and through many dangers of the Wildernesse and red Sea God at last brought them to a Land of rest in which this is really made out to me that it is the over-ruling power of God in us that takes us from the Egyptian bondage of self and flesh and through the Wildernesse and Sea much toyling and tossing up and downe in selfe-Workes and hard duties outward and carnall services the Law still beating us to Workes of prayer humiliation making us to make Brick without Straw and setting hard and cruell Task-masters over us so that we may say through many tribulations we must enter into the Kingdom of Heaven but when Gods power is destroying these enemies of our Peace and brings us into that Land of rest that spirituall Canaan which we speak of then do we cease from these labours But truly this I speake from experience so long as men are under Moses they cannot enjoy neither must they come into this Land And therefore I do not wonder that the Scripture speaks Many shall seek to enter and not be able and straight and rarrow is the gate and few there be that finde it I would not speak to discourage any but I really apprehend the greatest pretenders to Heaven scarce know what it is or will ever enjoy it but shall with Moses onely see it a farre off God not being willing to do any great workes in their spirits because of their unbelief but what happyness and comfort they do enjoy to whom God appeares thus spiritually in none know but themselves This is that heavenly Jerusalem spoken of in the Hebrewes into which the souls of just men made perfect are come into The text doth not say we shall come to it hereafter but that we are come
proper and peculiar to God for I really see that after God is manifest in flesh and seen of Angels preached in the world and believed in that then he shall after all this be received up into glory and that flesh and bloud cannot inherit the Kingdome of God and that nothing lives to all eternity but pure Divine glory I cannot conceive any other resurrection then of carnall to be made spirituall and that is no other then the spirituall appearance of God so that when I would find out what the resurrection is I reflect upon my own spirit and trace the goings of God there and there I can find God rising from one degree of glory to another and changing me into his image by his spirit and so I see how he hath led me from one dispensation to another and from one ordinance to another till at last he appears so spiritually that he over-powers all flesh and formes which I admired in my carnall condition and appears to be that temple glory and light himselfe which I had thought to have had in a sensible and carnall enjoyment hereafter so that I am led to believe that there is no such outward felicity to be enjoyed in this resurrection but that it is God arising in the spirit and shining brighter and brighter till the perfect day making all the creature-apprehensions and knowledge of God to cease and this resurrection I clearly finde in my owne spirit that the most glorious and inlarged parts and abilities in prayer speaking or otherwise in which I have delighted and no question but I did enjoy God in them though in a darke and low estate these I say the glory and beauty of them are all withered and vanished before the bright and glorious appearances of God in the spirit for the Son in me having delivered up his Kingdome and those fleshly and formall manifestations and outward bodily worships ceasing God is all in all so that I can neither in Jerusalem or in the Mount or in any outward form or duty worship God knowing that he is only to be worshipped in spirit truth and that though God was with me in my former carnall and dark condition and did lead me in it gently yet all was but to raise up himselfe and to be that spiritually in me in another way then that which I expected and so of naturall he hath made me spirituall which is the spirituall resurrection that we are speaking of And further I really see that the flesh of man and of all other creatures differ not any thing in the nature of them indeed in respect of the kind and manner some flesh is of men some of Beasts and some of fishes but as flesh none of them are capable of any more glory then one another all being of the same mould and comming to the same end and though the spirit in them or whatsoever is God in them return to their originall which is God and so lives in him again yet the fleshly part returns to dust from whence it came and as the man dies so dies the beast as dies the wise man so dies the foole one end is to them all as Solomon speaks and whereas men imagine that there is a fleshly resurrection and that the same body flesh and bones shall rise and remain a corporall and visible substance how this should be I am sure they do not know themselves for however men speak that the corporall body shall be made a spirituall to me it is ridiculous because the Scripture saith That which is borne of flesh is flesh and can remaine in no other capacity And besides I hope no man will deny that a spirituall thing can be seen of a fleshly or that an externall organ of the body can see an internall and invisible thing the Apostle makes it plaine that the things which are seen are temporall and the things that are not seen are eternall Now how it can stand or consist with reason or Scripture Logick or Rhetorick that men should hold and maintaine that men should visibly see one another in heaven as they call it and know one another and see their visible shape as they lived in on the earth yet they maintaine on the other side this is a spirituall body I cannot see if this be divinity then I am not in the humanity but indeed I am willing to give way to their weaknesse because I have been as childish my selfe only I cannot but take notice of the Babell and confusion that men are in and yet thinke themselves the only Embassadours of peace and as if all knowledge and spirituall learning were confined to them but laying my hand gently on their sore I let them passe and go on to that in hand And whereas the Scripture speaks of a spirituall body I conceived that there is a spirituall body and that this body must be raised which spirituall body I apprehend to be nothing but the divine Being or God in spirit termed a Body for these two reasons as I conceive First because God is the body and substance of all things and so it is said that this God dwelt bodily or substantially in the man Christ he being that person in whose flesh God did more gloriously appear then in any other so he was the most expresse Image oâ— his Fathers person and in this respect God may be termed a spirituall Body though for my part I dare not imagine him to have either person or body Secondly God may be stiled a spirituall body because this body or divine Being is and hath its Being in many Members And so God is stiled the head of the body and Christ is the head of the Church which is his body wherein Ireally apprehend that all the apperances of God in the Saints as they are called all the manifestation of God in flesh or in any fleshly or outward dispensation or form they are but the Carkes and shadow of God who is the body or substance of them all and all these dying and vanishing as they shall God shall onely live and raise himself a spiritual body and therein live to all eternity so that it is spiritually true that the body which is fleshly shall perish and the spirituall body shall be raised as we shall have occasion in the sequel of the discourse to make out but because men are still poring upon a Scripture without them to prove a carnall Resurrection and will believe nothing but what they think the Scripture speaks in the letter though indeed they erre not knowing it or the power of God I shall a little condescend to their weakness in this kind though for my part if there were not a letter in all the Bible to strengthen me in my opinion of the Resurrection I should not much care nor need I the testimony of it as to my self for I have a surer word within to which I take heed yet I say for other mens sakes I shall
so long as I lived and looked upon the outward scripture outward commands and duties set times of humiliation prayer I know not what I was always tost to and fro like the waves of the sea But when God appeared and shewed me that there was no scripure God commands worships but what were spirituall like himselfe and within men and what he was the authour and end of and that all things else were but shadowes what sweer peace and comfort I then did and do now enjoy I might tell you if I could for the truth is they are unspeakable and so it is the spirituall discovery of God that is the Scripture I look upon and if so then I must needs inferre that those in whom Christ is spiritually discovered and that live in a spirituall enjoyment of him they must needs be best able to speak the language of the Scripture and to give the sense and meaning of it and are best acquainted with the originall for God being the Authour of it they in whom he is most spiritually discovered must needs know the mind of it and what Scripture is which may exclude all outward parts of learning arts and other qualifications which men boast of for though they may serve to speak scripture outwardly and help to expresse men to one another and to read it in the severall translations of it from one Nation to another yet they all come short of the spirituall discovery of God and so are not essential to the knowledge of him he being onely known and seen in his own light And which may likewise condemne the Romane Clergy I think the English Divines may take their part herein That having attain'd a little skil in the several languages of several countrys and received ordination as they call it they think themselves so invested with power above their brethren that none must be infallible or authentick in the interpretation of Scripture but themselves and men of their order and unlesse they will say themselves that private men as they call them cannot have the same or more spirituall discovery of God then themselves I do wonder that they should so advance themselves and undervalue or despise others But we shall let them passe and return to what we have in hand and we shall see both the Authority and end of Scripture laid down by the Apostle in the 2 of Tim. 3.16 where he saith all Scripture is given by inspiration of God and iâ— profitable to teach c. that the man of God may be made perfect where we see plainly what I have spoken all along That the inspiration which is spiritual and of God is the true proper ground why men are taught and no man can be taught but it must be by a spiritual inspiration or else it is not of God and so the Scripture is not of any private interpretation but holy men speak as they were inspired so that that which gives the rise ground of Scripture is Gods speaking in men or inspiring men and they best know what is Scripture in whom God most powerfully speaks And it is as true that God speaks spiritually in man and not in any audible voice or forme of words for I do not conceive he ever spoke so to any he being void of all shape and form or bodily Organs And when God so speakes that from naturall they are made spiritual then is it indeed they are spiritually taught And to this sweetly falls in that of David thou hast taught me truth in the secret parts then indeed men come to be convinced of their former weak and carnall condition when God spiritually discovers himself in them So that it is not the reading or perusing of the Scripture in the letter of it for so a man may read all his life-time and be never the better that teaches men spiritually But when the Scripture is spiritually made out and interpreted in them then they are taught And then it is that the man of God is made perfect then doth the inward fleshly Being or carnall man appeare dark and carnall and the spirituall or the man of God comes to be perfect and this spirituall man is able to judge all things as the Apostle saith then can he spiritually discern the Scripture in him and so can read it true in the outward letter For I really see that all the knowledge of the Scripture in the letter of it reaches no further but to a historicall and fleshly knowledge of God and indeed to this kind of knowledge which many do boast of the Scripture is very helpfull But he that knows no further then the outward letter knowes but Christ after the flesh And though so I have known Christ Scripture and God yet henceforth know I them so no more they being spirituall Again this I conceive that all the whole story and letter of the Scripture doth but set out and speak but of two estates and conditions of men or in men that is the fleshly Being and the Divine the naturall and the spirituall man And all these are presented to us in their several degrees and actings in each state and personated in severall persons from the beginning to the end of the Bible And so Gain and Abel Isaac and Ishmael Jacob and Esau David and Saul and so the good Kings and the bad the good Prophets and the wicked the true Apostles and the false they do but all expresse both Estates and are not so much to be lookt upon in their severall persons but are really fulfilled and appliable to every man in each Estate Degree and Condition whatsoever As to instance it tels us of the Man Christ who lived and died at Jerusalem and that he rose from the dead and ascended and past through all conditions But alas how farre is this from reaching the spirit a man may read it and believe it and yet be never the better do him no more good then any other History which we call prophane But the spirituality and Comfort and that which is spirit and life lies in this to see him found in the spirit to die in him and to rise with him to ascend and sit down with him in the heavenly places being made conformable to him in the spirit to have the everlasting Gospel preacht in the spirit All which the History and Person of Christ and the outward Gospel are but shadows the other is the sealed Book which none can read till God open himself to be the Scripture Then indeed can we understand what Scripture is and then are we guided by that inward life and spirit of truth more then by the outward letter and teachings in the World So that it is not the History of Scripture that is the Scripture or that is the word of God but it is the spiritual speaking of God which is the word of God and is spirit life But some may say doth not the word say Hear and your souls shall live and