not look then like a piece of irreligious rudeness which is truly a kinde of Prophaneness to expect that Almighty God and his Son Jesus Christ should give us the meeting in squalid and sordid places even then when we pretend most to shew our Reverence and Devotion to him For though we may make bold one with another to meet where we please yet we making our approaches to God in those places and he thereby making his special approaches to us for in a Philosophical sense he is every where alike questionless it cannot but be an expression of our Reverence unto him to have the Structure of the place proportionably capacious well and fairly built and handsomely adorned and as properly and significantly of our Religion and devotional homages we owe to our crucified Saviour as can be without suspicion of Idolatry or any scandalous Superstition For it is true from the very light of Nature which the knowledge of Christ does not extinguish but direct and perfect That Houses of Publick worship ought to have some Stateliness and Splendour in them expressive of the Reverence we bear to the Godhead we do adore And therefore the Christian Magistrate for the honour of his Saviour who suffered so much shame for him as also for making Christian Religion more recommendable to them that are without for Religion will not seem Religion to any without Publick worship nor a desirable Religion unless this Publick worship be performed with inoffensive Splendour and Decency ought to assist and abett such good practices as these 3. It is beyond the limits of my present Discourse to make any curious inquisition or determination concerning the particularities of this Publick Worship though I cannot abstain from giving some general hints concerning the due managements of the chief matters thereof such as are most obvious to think of and most useful to consider And such are the Enquiries into the nature of the Place of this Publick worship and the Holiness thereof and our Demeanour therein and especially of those chief performances of Preaching Praying Receiving the Sacrament of Baptisme also and of Holy-days To which we may adde those accessory helps of Devotion as some account them Musick and Pictures Concerning which I shall rather simply declare my sense of things then solicitously endeavour to demonstrate my Conclusions by over-operose Reasonings which will but raise a dust and provoke the Polemical Rabble 4. Concerning therefore this House of Publick Worship the Christians meet in I conceive there is no need to phansie it a Temple nay rather it seems fit to look upon it as no Temple the use of that Ceremony being antiquated by the excellency and supereminency of our Religion For the famed Iehovah is not now a Topical Deity nor Christ confined to this or that City or People but is the declared Worship of the whole Earth and is not contained within the wals of any Temple but has his personal Residence in Heaven whither our Devotions are to be directed and our Mindes suspended and lifted up thitherward not debased nor defixed to the corners of any earthly Edifice into which when a man looks he findes nothing worthy of adoration To which Truth both Stephen and Paul give their suffrage the one declaring to the Iews the other to the Areopagites That the most High who is Lord of Heaven and Earth dwelleth not in Temples made with hands And our Saviour himself to the Samaritan woman who was solicitous which of those Temples that of Samaria or that of Ierusalem was the right place of Worship he tels her plainly that such Topical or Figurative worshipping of God was shortly to cease That the hour was coming and then was when the true Worshippers shall worship the Father in Spirit and in truth For the Father seeketh such to worship him God is a Spirit and they that worship him must worship him in Spirit and in truth that is by the inward Sanctity of their Souls and with the true service of Prayers and Praises and Alms-deeds of which Incense and Sacrifices were but the figures and shadows Let my prayer be set forth before thee as Incense and the lifting up of my hands as the Evening Sacrifice To do good and to communicate forget not for with such Sacrifices God is well pleased And lastly S. Iohn in his Apocalyps describing the condition of the New Ierusalem which is the Church of Christ in her best state I saw saith he no Temple there for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the Temple of it That is their worship is directed immediatly towards God and Christ not to any place as the Jews ever worshipped toward the Temple of Ierusalem 5. But though the nature and name of a Temple does not belong to this House of Publick worship according to the sense of Scripture which made also the Primitive Christians carefully abstain from that nomination yet I do not see any ground at all why some of our phanciful Sects should take offence at the name of Church applied thereto For the Church being an house wherein we meet to serve the Lord whether God the Father or Christ his Son both which are called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 this house is naturally there from denominated 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Greek whence is our English word Church as every trivial Grammarian can tell them 6. But now it being thus plain that it is an house for Divine worship and therefore has a special relation to God though it be not dedicated in such a solemn manner as Solomon's Temple yet it does necessarily contract a kinde of Holiness hereby and by this Holiness some measure of respect namely that it should be kept in handsome repair and be carefully defended from all foulness and nastiness both within and without And because Custome has appropriated it to the service of God unless very great necessity urge it is not to be made use of to any other purposes Those that are otherwise affected in this matter may justly seem guilty of a kinde of Incivility against God as I may so call it and hazard the being accounted Clowns in the sight of the Court of Heaven and all the holy Angels As that also might be reputed a piece of unskilfulness and obsolete Courtship to complement any one part of this House as if there were the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 there and the Ark of the Covenant For this would be to turn the Church of Christ into a Temple Wherefore those that at their entrance into the Congregation either kneel down or standing do their private devotion and continue bare-headed before Divine Service begin they mean not this Devotion to the Edifice but testifie only with what fear and reverence they make their approaches to God and their Hearts being in preparation to a nearer approach shew their sense of his coming nearer to them by this reverential observance For Veneration is done at the coming of great
as with the Ocean who changes his name according to the Coasts he beats upon 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Dionysius notes in his Geographicall Poem 6. And if they took into their Religious consideration the worship of the Genii or Spirits whether such as whole appearance was so horrid and terrible that it caused affrightment or such as whose benign aspect was accompanied with a more pleasing wonderment and joy these they look'd upon also as eminent manifestations of that One Eternal Deity which runs through all things giving life and Being to all whom therefore they called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whom though they make three viz. Iupiter coelestis Iupiter marinus and Iupiter infernalis the latter two whereof they also call Neptune and Pluto yet it is one Eternal Spirit say they which we worship in these Three whose Kingdome and Dominion is over all though the administration thereof differ according to the nature and merit of them that are Governed The same Apology we may make for that Honour we do to the deceased Heroes whose noble persons and refined Spirits the Divine excellencies more illustriously shone through then ordinary For in truth we do not so much worship them as God shining through them as he that bows to the Sun or Moon through a glass-window intends not his obeisance to the glass but to those Celestial Luminaries nor do we bow our body to those Luminaries but to God who to us appears through all things CHAP. IV. 1. The Heathens Festivals Temples and Images 2. Their Apology for Images 3. The Significancy of the Images of Jupiter and Aeolus 4. Of Ceres 5. Of Apollo 6. Their Plea from the significancy of their Images that their use in Divine worship is no more Idolatrous then that of Books in all Religions as also from the use of Images in the Nation of the Iews 7. Their Answer to those that object the Impossibleness of representing God by any outward Image 8. That we are not to envy the Heathen if they hit upon any thing more weighty in their Apologies for their Religion and why 1. NOW according to the various appearances of This One Divinity that puts forth it self every where our Ancestors instituted various Religious Rites and Ceremonies appointed sundry sorts of Festivals and Sacrifices built Temples set up Altars with several inscriptions and erected Images proper and significative of that or this Divine Power which at set times and places they were to worship To which Religious Customes under which we were born we submitted our selves without being obnoxious as we conceive to any just imputation of Idolatry 2. For we worshipped not those Images which were thus erected no more then any other Nation does the Holy Volumes of their Law or Religion when either they pray out of them have them read or use them in the administring of an Oath For that reverence that is done is not done to the Book but to him whose Word it is said to be to him whom they pray to or swear by and those Images to us are not unlike the Religious Books of others they being very expressive of the circumstances of the exertion of that Divine Power which we at any time adore As you may see in the Images of Iupiter Aeolus Ceres Apollo and the rest 3. For Iupiter who was their God of Thunder as he bore in his left hand a royal Scepter his right hand was charg'd with Thunder according to that of the Poet Cui dextra trisulcis Ignibus armata est Aeolus the God of the Winds he was made standing at the Mouth of a Cave having a linnen garment girt about him and a Smiths bellows under his feet at his right hand stood Iuno covered with a cloud putting a Crown upon his head as having given her Kingdome to him and on his left hand stood a Nymph up to the middle in Water which Iuno gave him to wife Which Image is very significative of the Nature and Causes of the Windes and so intelligible if we do but take notice that Iuno is the Aire that it wants no further explication 4. Ceres was made in the figure of a country-woman sitting upon an Oxe having in her right hand a Plough-share and a basket of Seeds hanging from her arme in her left hand a sickle and a flayle Iuno the Goddess of the Aire and of the Clouds was on one side and Apollo or the Sun on the other intimating how the warmth of the Sun and kindly showrs are to second the labour of the Husbandman or else nothing will prosper 5. The figure of Apollo or the Sun was thus His Image had a Youthful countenance in his right hand he held a Quiver of arrows and a Bow in his left an Harp under his feet was a terrible Monster in the form of a Serpent having three heads viz. of a Wolf of a Lion and of a fawning Dog on the Top of his head was a golden Trivet and about his temples a Crown of Twelve precious stones The meaning whereof though it may seem abstruse at first sight yet if you consider it a while it very fitly sets out the nature of the Sun and of Time whose knowledge depends on him and of Knowledge which depends on Time His Bow and Arrows signify nothing but the darting of his Beams from so far a distance whence he is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by the Poets and his youthful countenance nothing but his unfading vigour which Age seems not at all to diminish His Harp signifies the dance of the Planets about him as if he sate and played to them or at least according to the other Hypothesis as if he led the dance himself playing on his Harp and the rest of the Planets followed him The twelve precious stones signifie the twelve signes of the Zodiack with which he is incircled and the three-headed Serpent deciphers Time in the threefold notion of it Past Present and to come The time past as Macrobius notes like a ravenous Wolfe devouring the memory of things the time present being urgent and raging like a Lion through its instant actuosity and the time to come flattering us with hopes like a fawning Dog And lastly the golden Trivet or Tripod denotes the Threefold object of Knowledge which Time affords them that are wise such as Homer makes Calchas the Priest of Apollo to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Who knew what was what is and what 's to come So that it is apparent how strange soever the use of these Images may seem that it was no other then that of Books they raising our minds and it may be with a greater advantage of devotion and admiration into the sense and consideration of that Divine Power which we were to adore 6. Wherefore that imputation is very unjust that would charge us with Idolatry properly so called as if we did worship the Idols themselves But to use Images in Divine worship there being
tell you of them Sing unto the Lord a new song and his praise from the end of the earth ye that go down to the sea and all that is therein the Isles and the inhabitants thereof Let the Wilderness and the cities thereof lift up their voice the villages that Kedar doth inhabit Let the inhabitants of the rock sing let them shout from the top of the mountains let them give glory unto the Lord and declare his praise in the islands The Lord shall goe forth as a mighty man he shall stir up jealousie like a man of war he shall cry yea roar he shall prevail against his enemies I have long time holden my peace I have been still and refrained my self now will I cry like a travailing woman I will destroy and devour at once I will make wast mountains and hills and dry up all their hearbs I will make the rivers Islands and I will dry up the pools And I will bring the blind by a way that they know not I will lead them in paths that they have not known I will make darkness light before them and crooked things straight These things will I doe unto them and not forsake them 4. It is a very high representation of that mighty power of God from above that assists his Church and how Christ by the dispensation of the Gospel does set us free from the bondage of sin how he opens the understandings of the ignorant and procures liberty for those that were shut up in the dungeon of a dark conscience and held in captivity under sin how those that are dry and barren like the wilderness and the tops of rocks shall be watered with springs of living water and how the villages that Kedar possesses that is those that are overshadowed with sorrow and darkness a light shall spring up unto them and how they shall give glory unto the Lord for that he himself will be their champion he shall fight their battels and by the power of his Spirit and by that fire wherewith he will plead with all flesh wither the top and flower of their pride and dry up their restagnant lusts and lighten their paths before them and lead them forth into the land of Righteousness These are the true Warfares and Victories of the Church of Christ as those that have the veil taken off from their eyes and hearts can easily discover And surely with any other usefull sense then this cannot we ordinarily read the like descriptions of the Churches triumphs by Christ over her enemies or by those that have been Types of him as David was an eminent one And therefore if I would read the 18 Psalm I will love thee O Lord my strength c. I should hope for very small edifying thereby but in such a Mystical sense as this is that is by supposing that in me which partakes of Christ that is my inward Mind or Spirit raising war against Saul which is the power of the Flesh the craving pit of Hell that sin that lodges in this mortal body whose vain desires have no bottom nor end 5. I might abound with these allegations out of the Prophets and Psalms but I have given a Key into the hand of the judicious and he may unlock those treasures himself if he desires to have his Faith enriched and strengthened by those plentiful Promises of this assistance we speak of made to them that are serious professors of the Gospel I shall only adde one testimony more which in my apprehension is very express and that is Isa. 35. Strengthen the weak hands and confirm the feeble knees Say to them that are of a fearfull heart Be strong fear not behold your God will come with vengeance even God with a recompence he will come and save you Then shall the eyes of the blinde be opened and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped Then shall the lame man leap as an Hart and the tongue of the dumb shall sing For in the wilderness shall waters break out and streams in the desart And the parched ground shall become a pool and the thirsty land Springs of water In the habitations of dragons in the places where they lay shall be grass with reeds and rushes And an high-way shall be there and a way and it shall be called a way of holiness the unclean shall not passe over it but he shall walk in the way with them and the simple shall not erre No Lion shall be there nor any ravenous beast shall go up thereon it shall not be found there but the redeemed shall walk there And the ransomed of the Lord shall return and come to Sion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads they shall obtain joy and gladnesse and sorrow and sighing shall flee away CHAP. IX 1. The great use of the belief of The Promise of the Spirit 2. The eating the flesh of Christ and drinking his bloud what it is 3. Further proof of the Promise of the Spirit 4. That we cannot oblige God by way of Merit 5. Other Testimonies of Scripture tending to the former purpose 1. THese places which we have recited out of the Old Testament cannot but warm and encourage him that reads them by reason of the loftinesse of their Prophetical style provided that he have in himself a facility of mystically applying of things to the great purpose they drive at But what we shall adde out of the New though they will not strike the phansy with so high language yet they will it may be reach ones Reason more surely and extort assent more powerfully even from them that are loth to finde it true That there is such a mighty supernatural assistance afforded from God viz. the Cooperation of his holy Spirit in our conflicts against sin Which perswasion is of great consequence to make us resolute in resisting all Temptations and to gain the victory in every assault and therefore we will produce sufficient evidences of the truth thereof 2. And the first that occurs to my minde is that of our blessed Saviour Luke 11.13 If ye being evil know how to give good gifts to your Children how much more shall your Heavenly Father give the holy Spirit to them that ask him And that this Dispensation of the Spirit of Sanctification is a common gift to all Christians appears out of what we have already recited out of S. Matthew where Iohn professes himself only able to baptize with water unto repentance but that the Baptisme of Christ should be with the holy Ghost and with fire that is with the power of the Spirit that will melt and purifie us as silver is purified in the fire Also from Ioh. 6. where Christ styleth himself the Manna that came down from Heaven and declareth that he that eateth his flesh and drinketh his bloud hath eternal life with other expressions of the like nature Wherefore his Disciples began to be scandalized at it but Jesus answered and
Solomon in defining her to be the true Mother that could not endure that the Child should be divided and killed And whatever Church is cruell and remorsless in either Temporall persecution or the Eternall damnation of such men as believe in Christ according to the plain and easie meaning of the Scripture and live accordingly she may approve her self to be an imperious Harlot but no discerning spirit will ever take her for the true Mother that new Ierusalem which is the Spouse of Christ or Wife of the Lamb. Wherefore those are very weak Christians that are so low-belled by this terror as to be taken up and captivated by the Church of Rome and acknowledge her the mother-Church by force of that Argument that demonstrates the contrary to say nothing of their disingenuous abuse of the Charity of the Reformed Churches But for my own part I confess that for sureness I had rather exercise my Charity in wishing them Converts from Popery then express any great confidence of their being safe in that Religion Not that it is possible for me who cannot infallibly demonstrate to my self that all that lived under Paganisme are certainly damned to imagine that all that have gone under the name of Papists have tumbled down into Hell But the case is much like that in Shipwrack on the sea or Pestilence in a City where we will suppose not a house free no man can pronounce that it is impossible that such or such a person should escape nor that any of them are in any tolerable safety The danger is alike to them that adhere to the Apostate Church for though there be a possibility of some mens being saved by an extraordinary or miraculous Providence they breaking through all those impediments and snares that are laid in their way and attaining to a Dispensation above the Church they live in as haply some under Paganisme did yet it cannot be denied but that the Oeconomie of that Church naturally tends to the betraying of Souls to Eternall destruction that falling out which our Saviour said of old of the Pharisees They compass sea and land to make one profelyte and when he is made he becomes twofold more the child of the devil then themselves For he will not stint his Hypocrisie in Religion by the measure of their gain that invented the forme and submit to it for their End but for his own namely that he may excuse himself from all reall holiness by keeping to the observation and profession of their vain inventions And thus are the Commandements of God made of none effect by their Traditions In brief the whole frame of that Church is fashioned out so near to the ancient guise of Idolatrous Paganisme or else to the liveless and ineffectual forme of Judaisme both which Christ appeared on purpose to destroy as either contrary or ineffectuall to Salvation and does explicitly recommend to the world a pure and spirituall worship that we should worship the Father in Spirit and in truth or lastly is so full of Contradictions and Impossibilities in their feigned Stories and imperiously-obtruded Opinions that the natural result of being born under such a Religion or of turning to it is either to become a besotted Superstitionist to believe or do any thing that others will have him to do which is a sign the Spirit of Regeneration has not yet passed upon him and that there is no life nor light in him or else which is too frequent to turn down-right Atheist it being so grosly discernable that the Tenents of their Church are impossible and their Practices fraudulent fitted chiefly for filthy lucre and their Ceremonies useless thankless and ridiculous And therefore if any be saved in the Church of Rome they are such as are not truely of it but above it and fend for themselves as well as they may by some pardonable sleights of Prudence accompanied with an impregnable innocency of Spirit and readiness of doing all possible good they can they sparing their own lives and liberties upon no other account then that and out of a perswasion that he that commanded them to be wise as Serpents as well as innocent as Doves has given them no commission inconsiderately and to no purpose to betray themselves into the power of his usurping Enemy But for others that are perfect Papists and swallow down all that Church proposes to them without chewing or distasting any thing it is a Demonstration there is no Principle of life in them but that they are like dead earthen pitchers which receive poison and wholesome liquors with a like admittance And if there be no principle of life there is no seed of Salvation in a man For it is most certainly true and the Scripture it self doth witness to it That unless a man be born from above he cannot see the kingdome of God That which is born of the flesh is flesh and that which is born of the Spirit is Spirit This is the new Creature that is created in wisdome righteousness and true holiness The first of which the Church of Rome expunges in that it gives no leave to a man never so regenerate to judge for himself but he must say as the Church sayes right or wrong and for the other two all their superstitious Ceremonies put together adde nothing to them but rather stifle and sufflaminate them Again S. John tell us That he that hates his brother is in the dark and walketh in the dark and knows no whither he goes But others may know it as appears by another saying of the same Apostle Every one that hates his brother is a murderer and no murderer hath eternall life abiding in him But on the contrary he affirms That Love is of God and that he that loveth is born of God and knowes God Now to apply the Case to these Rules If Love be an essential Character of a Regenerate soul and Hatred of Errour Darkness and Eternal Death or to come yet closer If Hatred it self be Murder what will Murder it self be added thereunto And if any thing be Murder I demand whether this be not namely to take away the life of a member of Iesus Christ who does fully and freely profess the Ancient and Apostolick Faith according to the Letter or History of the New Testament and does seriously compose his life according to the Precepts therein contained and does onely declare against and reject the Contradictious Opinions and Idolatrous Practices that have no ground at all in Scripture nor Reason but are quite contrary to both I say if this be no Murder there is no Murder in the world and how guilty the Church of Rome is of this Crime all the world knowes Wherefore this being one of the Principles of that bloudy Church and he that is a perfect Papist being of one mind and suffrage with his Church in all things for she will be held no less then Infallible 't is apparent that no through-paced Papist can ever go to
True and Certain that it may win firm Assent and lastly very Usefull and Effectual for the perfecting of the Souls of men and restoring them to that Happiness which they anciently had faln from that so near a Concernment may as well gain upon their Affections as the Evidence of Truth engage their Understandings and so the whole man may be carried on to a devout embracement of what is exhibited unto him by the knowledge of his Religion 7. What we have thus Generally proposed we shall now applie more Particularly and more fully prosecute those Four primary Properties in that Grand Mystery of Godliness which we call Christianity distributing our Discourse into these Four main Parts The First whereof shall insist somewhat upon the Abstruseness and Obscurity of our Religion the Second upon the Intelligibleness of it the Third upon the Certainty of it and the Fourth on the great concerning Usefulness thereof To which we shall add what Considerations we think fittest concerning the Secondary Properties which emerge out of these Primary ones CHAP. II. 1. That it is fit that the Mystery of Christianity should be in some measure Obscure to exclude the Sensuall and Worldly 2. As also to defeat disobedient Learning and Industry 3. And for the pleasure and improvement of the godly and obedient 4. The high Gratifications of the Speculative Soul from the Obscurity of the Scriptures 1. THat there is a considerable Obscurity and Abstrusenesse in Christian Religion is easily made evident as well from the Cause as the Effects of this Obscurity For besides that from the common nature of a Mystery Christianity ought to be competently Obscure and Abstruse that it may thereby become more Venerable and more safely removed out of all danger of contempt we cannot but see what a speciall Congruity there is in the matter it self to have so holy and so highly-concerning a Mystery as our Religion is Abstruse and Obscure For that Divine wisdome that orders all things justly ought not to communicate those precious Truths in so plain a manner that the Unworthy may as easily apprehend them as the Worthy but does most righteously neglect the Sensuall and Careless permitting every man to carry home wares proportionable to the price he would pay in the open market for them And when they can bestow so great industry upon things of little moment will not spare to punish their undervaluing this inestimable Pearle by the perpetual losse of it For what a palpable piece of Hypocrisie is it for a man to excuse himself from the study of Piety by complaining against the Intricacies and Difficulties of the Mystery thereof whenas he never yet laid out upon it the tenth part of that pains and affection that he does upon the ordinary trivial things of this world 2. Thus are the careless voluptuous Epicure and over-careful Worldling justly met with But not they alone For the Obscurity of this Mystery we speak of is such that all the knowledge of Nature and Geometry can never reach the Depth of it or rellish the Excellency of it nor all the skill of Tongues rightly interpret it unless that true Interpreter and great Mystagogus the Spirit of God himself vouchsafe the opening of it unto us and set it on so home in our Understandings that it begets Faith in our Hearts so that our Hearts misgive us not in the profession of what we would acknowledge as True For as for the outward Letter it self of the Holy Scriptures God has not so plainly delivered himself therein that he has given the staff out of his own hands but does still direct the humble and single-hearted while he suffers the proud searcher to lose himself in this Obscure field of Truth Wherefore disobedient both Learning and Industry are turned off from obtaining any certain and satisfactory Knowledge of this Divine Mystery as well as Worldliness and Voluptuousness According as our Blessed Saviour has pronounced in that devout Doxology I thank thee O Father Lord of heaven and earth because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent and hast revealed them unto babes Even so Father for so it seemed good in thy sight 3. Nor are the Wicked onely disappointed but the Godly very much gratified by the Intricacy of this sacred Mystery For the Spirit of man being so naturally given to search after Knowledge and his Understanding being one of the chiefest and choicest Faculties in him it cannot be but a very high delight to him to employ his noblest endowments upon the divinest Objects and very congruous and decorous they should be so employ'd Besides the present Doubtfulness of Truth makes the holy Soul more devout and dependant on God the onely true and safe guide thereunto From whence we should be so far from murmuring against Divine Providence for the Obscurity and Ambiguity of the Holy Scriptures that we should rather magnifie his Wisdome therein We having discovered so many and so weighty Reasons why those Divine Oracles should be Obscure The wicked thereby being excluded the due Reverence of the Mystery maintained and the worthy partakers thereof much advantaged and highly gratified 4. For what can indeed more highly gratifie a man whose very Nature is Reason and special Prerogative Speech then by his skill in Arts and Languages by the Sagacity of his Understanding and industrious comparing of one place of those Sacred pages with another to work out or at least to clear up some Divine Truth out of the Scripture to the unexpected satisfaction of himself and general service of the Church the dearest Faculty of his Soul and greatest glory of his Nature acting then with the fullest commission and to so good an end that it need know no bounds but Joy and Triumph may be unlimited the Heart exulting in that in which we cannot exceed viz. the Honor of God and the Good of his people All which gratulations of the Soul in her successful pursuits of Divine Truth would be utterly lost or prevented if the Holy Scriptures set down all things so fully plainly and methodically that our reading and understanding would every where keep equal pace together Wherefore that the Mind of man may be worthily employ'd and taken up with a kind of Spiritual husbandry God has not made the Scriptures like an artificial Garden wherein the Walks are plain and regular the Plants sorted and set in order the Fruits ripe and the Flowers blown and all things fully exposed to our view but rather like an uncultivated field where indeed we have the ground and hidden seeds of all precious things but nothing can be brought to any great beauty order fulness or maturity without our own industry nor indeed with it unless the dew of His grace descend upon it without whose blessing this Spiritual Culture will thrive as little as the labour of the husbandman without showres of rain CHAP. III. 1. The Obscurity of the Christian Mystery argued from the Effect as from the Iews
and what he utters concerning the Spirit chap. 16.14 He shall glorifie me for he shall receive of mine and shew it unto you Wherefore I say the Fathers being every way so fairly invited to bring the Platonick Notion of the Trinity into the Church assuredly if themselves had been Platonists and had fetched the Mystery from that School they would not have failed to have done it 7. Secondly Admit that the ancient Fathers were Platonists and brought the Mystery of the Trinity into the Church of the Christians it does not straight follow That it is therefore a Pagan or Heathenish Mystery Pythagoras and Plato having not received it from Pagans or Heathens but from the learned of the Iews as sundry Authors assert the Iews themselves in long succession having received it as a Divine Tradition and such is Platonisme acknowledged to be by Iamblichus who sayes it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And assuredly if there had not been some very great reason for it men so wise and profoundly knowing as Pythagoras Plato Plotinus and others would never have made so much adoe about it 8. Thirdly and lastly I say it is not only impious but vain and foolish to asperse that Mystery with the reproch of Paganisme that is so plainly to them that be not prejudiced set down and held forth in the Holy Scripture For the very Forme of Baptisme prescribed by our Saviour evidently enough denotes Three Divine Hypostases Of the Father there is no question Concerning the Divinity of the Sonne we shall speak more fully in the Second point we proposed That the Holy Ghost is not a mere Power Property or Attribute of God but an Hypostasis one free enough from being swai'd by Tradition or Authority of any Church and as himself conceits a very close and safe adherer to Scripture does grosly enough acknowledge while he makes it some created Angel that bears the sacred Title of the Holy Ghost and undergoes those Divine functions that are attributed to him But we need not maintain Truth by any mans Error it being sufficiently able to support it self and therefore we will make use of no advantage but what Scripture it self offers us And this Forme of Baptisme affords us something to the evincing that the Holy Ghost is not an Attribute but an Hypostasis For sith that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is to give up a mans self to the Discipline Government and Authority of this or that Person it is the most natural sense to conceive that all Three mentioned in the Forme are Persons we being so well assured that two of them are But there are other passages of Scripture that will make the point more clear Rom. 15.13 The God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing that ye may abound in hope through the power of the Holy Ghost Now if the Holy Ghost were but a Power not a Person what a ridiculous Tautology would it be for the sense would be through the power of the holy power Again John 16.13 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are very ill Syntax were it not that there is a Personality in the Holy Spirit which by what follows is most undeniably evident For he shall not speak of himself but whatsoever he shall hear that shall he speak To receive of one and communicate to others by way of hearing and speaking what can that belong to but a Person or Hypostasis To this you may adde also Mark 13.11 Whatsoever shall be given you in that hour that speak ye for it is not you that speak but the Holy Ghost Now that this Hypostasis is not a created Angel amongst other Reasons the Conception of Christ may well argue it being more congruous That that spirit that moved upon the waters and created the world should form that holy Foetus in the womb of the Virgin then that any created Angel should apply himself to that work for he had not then been the Son of God but of an Angel as in reference to his birth in time 9. Besides this one Individual Spirit in Scripture in represented as every where ready to sanctify to regenerate to distribute various gifts and graces to the Church to have spoke by the mouth of the Prophets to be a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or a discerner of the thoughts of the heart Baptisme also and Benedictions are imparted in his name he is also called to witness which is a piece of Divine worship all which seems more naturally to be understood of him whom we properly call the Spirit of God then of any particular created Angel whatsoever 10. We shall onely adde one place more which will put all out of doubt to them that do not doubt of the Text it self 1 John 5.7 There are three witnesses in Heaven the Father the Word and the Spirit and these three are One What can be writ more plain for the proof of the Triunity of the Godhead But for those that suspect the Clause to be supposititious I shall not trouble my self to confute them that task being performed so solidly and judiciously by a late Interpreter that nothing but Prejudice and Wilfulness can make a man depart unsatisfied with so clear a demonstration Wherefore secure of this Point Concerning the Trinity we go on to the next concerning The Divinity of Christ. CHAP. V. 1. That the natural sense of the First of S. Iohn does evidently witness the Divinity of Christ. 2. A more particular urging of the circumstances of that Chapter 3. That S. Iohn used the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Iewish or Cabbalistical notion 4. The Trinity and the Divinity of Christ argued from Divine worship due to him and from his being a Sacrifice for sin 5. That to deny the Trinity and Divinity of Christ or to make the Union of our selves with the Godhead of the same nature with that of Christ's subverts Christianity 6. The uselesness and sauciness of the pretended Deification of Enthusiasts and how destructive it is of Christian Religion 7. The Providence of God in preparing of the Nations by Platonisme for the easier reception of Christianity 1. THat Christ is not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or a mere Creature but a divine Hypostasis or truly really and Physically not Allegorically and Morally joyn'd with that Divine Hypostasis which is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 if men would not bring their own sturdy preconceptions but listen to the easy and natural aire of the Text the Beginning of S. Iohns Gospel would put out of all controversy For I 'le appeal to any supposing the Union of Christ's Humanity with the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be true in what fitter more significant or better-becoming way could it be expressed then already it is in the Beginning of that Gospel Wherefore to interpret it in any other sense is to delude themselves and to abuse the Scripture through the prepossessions of their
Adversaries term it of the Soul 's being able to act after the death of the Body from the Philosophy of Plato it had been even impossible for them to forgoe the latter part concerning the Pre-existent life of the Soul before she comes into these Bodies which is the thing I have all this while driven at CHAP. IX 1. Proofs out of Scripture That the Soul does not sleep after death as 1 Peter 3. with the explication thereof 2. The Authors Paraphrase compared with Calvin's Interpretation 3. That Calvin needed not to suppose the Apostle to have writ false Greek 4. Two waies of interpreting the Apostle so as both Grammatical Soloecisme and Purgatory may be declined 5. The second way of Interpretation 6. A second proof out of Scripture 7. A third of like nature with the former 8. A further enforcement and explication thereof 9. A fourth place 10. A fifth from Hebr. 12. where God is called the Father of Spirits c. 11. A sixth testimony from our Saviours words Matth. 20.28 1. BUT that this so Usefull and Comfortable a Doctrine of the Soul 's living and subsisting after the shipwrack of this Body may be firmly established I shall further adde what plain Evidences there are in Scripture for the proof thereof For as for those of Reason I shall refer you again to my above-named Treatise Book 2. ch 16 17 and 18. And I conceive that of 1 Pet. 3. v. 18 19 20. is none of the meanest if Prejudice and Violence wrest it not out of its genuine sense which any man may easily apprehend to be this For Christ also has once suffered for sins the just for the unjust that he might bring us to God being put to death as to his Body or Flesh but yet safe and alive as to his Soul and Spirit By which also he went and preached unto the separated Souls and Spirits in prison which sometimes were disobedient viz. in the days of Noe. 2. That solid interpreter of Scripture Iohn Calvin expounds it in the main according to this Paraphrase only for being alive as to his Soul or Spirit he reads it vivificatus Spiritu meaning by Spirit the Spirit of God But it is plain that the Antithesis is more patt and punctual as we have rendred it and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is as warrantably interpreted to be alive as to be made alive as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is to be grave not to be made grave Beside 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as well as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Greek Septuagint signifies not only to revive one dead but to save alive according to which sense we have translated 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 There is also another slight difference betwixt us in that he had rather have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 translated a watch-tower then a prison Which we should easily admit who alledge this place against the Sleep of the Soul but he acknowledging also that the other sense is good we have not varied from the common Translation The greatest discrepancy is that he conceives that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is put for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Dative for a Genitive absolute but I leave him there to compound that controversie with the Grammarians The truth is the learned and pious Interpreter thought it more tolerable to admit that the Apostle writ false Syntax then unsound Doctrine the fond opinion of the Papistical Purgatory being a worse Soloecisme in Religion then to Latinize in Greek or put a false Case is in Grammar 3. But this being too loose a Principle wholy unsatisfactory to our Adversaries to phansie the Holy Writers to soloecize in their language when we do not like the sense he had better have taken some other course more allowable to save us from the peril of Purgatory and in my judgment there are two either of which will suffice to fence us from the Assaults of the Romanists 4. The first is By observing a latitude of sense in the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For as Aristotle notes in his Metaphys lib. 4. cap. 12. the particle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in composition does not only signifie perfect privation but also 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from whence we may well translate 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 who in times past were not so obedient or so believing as they should be and who were so bad that they might be punished in their bodies and perish in the Deluge but yet so good that at length they must attain to an higher degree of eternal life by Christ's preaching to the dead as is also intimated in the following chapter of this Epistle ver 6. Wherefore acknowledging but Two states viz. of either Hell or Paradise we say that these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 were in the very lowest degree of Paradise in which they were kept as in an inferior Mansion which was as a kind of prison or close custody unto them their desires aspiring higher till there was made a great accession unto their happiness upon Christ's appearing and preaching unto them And this is the very sense that Calvin aims at in his Commentarie upon this place 5. But there is yet another Interpretation which we will propound in the second place as free from the fear of any Purgatory as the former and requires no immutation at all in our foregoing Paraphrase We 'll admit therefore that these Disobedient Souls were in Hell not in the lowest Region but in the more tolerable parts thereof It does not at all from hence follow because Christ in his Spirit exhibited himself to these preached to them and prepared them by the glad tidings of the Gospel after carryed them to Heaven with him in Triumph as a glorious spoil taken out of the jaws of the Devil that there is any Redemption out of Hell now much less any Purgatorie For there were two notable occasions for this such as will never happen again For it respects the Souls of them that were suddenly swept away in the Deluge and the Solemnity of our Saviours Crucifixion and Ascension He even in the midst of Death undermining the Prince of Death and at his Ascension victoriously carrying away these First-fruits of his Suffering and presenting them to his Father in the highest Heaven But to expect from this that there should be still continued a daily or yearly releasment out of Hell or Purgatory is as groundlesly concluded as if because at the solemn Coronation of some great Prince all the prison-doors in some City were flung open Malefactors should infer that they will ever stand open all his whole Reign Thus we see how safe also the easy and obvious sense of this place is which I thought fit to rescue from the torture of other more learned and curious Expositors that it might be able to give its free suffrage for the Confirmation of a Point so usefull as this we have in hand For it is plain that if Christ preached to the dead they
were not asleep at so concerning a Sermon 6. Again 2 Cor. 5. v. 8. We are confident I say and willing rather to be absent from the Body and to be present with the Lord. Here 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 plainly intimates a going out of this Mortal Body not a change of it into an Immortal one therefore we may safely conclude that this courage and willingness of the Apostle to die implies an enjoyment of the presence of Christ after death before the general Resurrection Else why should he rather desire to die then to live but that he expects that Faith should be presently perfected by Sight as he insinuates in the foregoing verse But assuredly better is that enjoyment which is onely by Faith then to have no enjoyment at all as it must be if the Soul cannot operate out of this Body 7. A like Proof to this and further Confirmation of the Truth is that of Philipp 1.21 22 23 24. where the Apostle again professing his courage and forwardness to magnifie Christ in his body whether by life or by death uses the like Argument as before For to me to live is Christ and to die is gain But if I live in the flesh it will be worth my labour yet what I should chuse I wote not For I am in a strife betwixt two having a desire to depart and to be with Christ which is far better Nevertheless to abide in the flesh is more needfull for you 8. The genuine sense of which Place is questionless this That while he lived his life was like Christ's upon Earth innocent but encumbred with much hardship and affliction bearing about in his body the marks of the Lord Jesus but if he died he should then once for all seal to the Truth of his Martyrdome and not onely scape all future troubles which yet the love of Christ his Assistance and Hope of Reward did ever sustain him in but which was his great gain and advantage arrive to an higher fruition of him after whom he had so longing a desire But if to be with Christ were to sleep in his bosome and not so much as to be sensible he is there it were impossible the Apostles affections should be carried so strongly to that state or his judgement should determine it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so exceedingly much better especially his stay in the flesh being so necessary to the Philippians and the rest of the Church and what he suffered and might further suffer in his life no less a Testimony to the Truth then Death it self 9. Fourthly Those phrases of S. Peter 2 Pet. 1.13 Yea I think it meet so long as I am in this Tabernacle to stir you up and put you in remembrance Knowing that I must shortly put off this Tabernacle c. And so vers 15. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in all likelyhood alludes to the same as if his Soul went out of the Body as out of a Tabernacle All these Phrases I say seem to me manifestly to indicate that there is no such necessary Union betwixt the Soul and the Body but she may act as freely out of it as in it as men are nothing the more dull sleepy or senseless by putting off their cloaths and going out of the house but rather more awakened active and sensible 10. Fifthly Hebr. 12. There God is called the Father of Spirits the Corrector and Chastiser of our Souls in contradistinction to our Flesh or Bodies and then vers 22. lifting us up quite above the consideration of our Corporeal condition he brings us to the Mystical mount Sion the City of the living God the Heavenly Jerusalem and to an innumerable company of Angels to the Universal assembly and Church of the first-born which are inrolled in heaven and to God the Iudge of all and to the Spirits of just men made perfect Now I demand what Perfection can be in the Spirits of these just men to be overwhelmed in a senseless Sleep or what a disproportionable and unsutable representation is it of this throng Theatre in Heaven made up of Saints and Angels that so great a part of them as the Souls of the Holy men deceased should be found drooping or quite drown'd in an unactive Lethargie Certainly as it is incongruous in it self so it is altogether inconsistent with the magnificency of the representation which this Author intends in this place 11. Sixthly Matth. 10.28 The life of the Soul separate from the Body is there plainly asserted by our Saviour Fear not them that kill the Body but are not able to kill the Soul but rather fear him who is able to destroy both Body and Soul in Hell i. e. able if he will to destroy the life both of Body and Soul in Hell-fire according to the conceit of those whose opinions I have recited in my Treatise Of the Immortality of the Soul Book 3. chap. 18. or else miserably to punish or afflict both Body and Soul in Hell the torments whereof are worse then Death it self For as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and perire signifie to be excessively miserable so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and perdere may very well signifie to make excessively miserable But now for the former part of the verse but are not able to kill the Soul it is evident that they were able if the Soul could not live separate from the Body For killing of the Body what is it but depriving it of life wherefore if the Soul by the death of the Body be also deprived of life it is manifest that she can be killed which is contrary to our Saviour's Assertion CHAP. X. 1. A pregnant Argument from the State of the Soul of Christ and of the Thief after death 2. Grotius his explication of Christ's promise to the Thief 3. The meaning of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 4. How Christ with the Thief could be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and in Paradise at once 5. That the Parables of Dives and Lazarus and of the unjust Steward implie That the Soul hath life and sense immediately after death 1. WE have yet one more notable Testimony against our Adversaries Our Saviour Christ's Soul and the Thief 's upon the Cross did subsist and live immediately upon the death of the Body as appears from Luke 23.42 43. And he said unto Iesus Lord remember me when thou comest into thy Kingdome And Iesus said unto him Verily I say unto thee This day shalt thou be with me in Paradise As if he should thus answer Thou indeed beggest of me that I would be mindfull of thee when I come into my Kingdome but I will not deferre thee so long onely distrust not the unexpected riches of my goodness to thee For verily I say unto thee That this very day shalt thou be with me in Paradise And there is no evasion from this Interpretation the Syriack as Grotius noteth interpointing betwixt I say unto thee and Today and all the Greek copies as Beza affirmes joyning
believe any other Service or Information but what is administered by the Elders in the house of the Love enjoins them to give up their Understandings wholy to the Eldest of the Family and to give ear to none else but the Teachers of his own Sect. Nay he will not so much as suffer them to appeal to the Light that is within them nor to judge themselves nor be judged by their own Consciences but only by the Elders of the house of the Love concerning whom they must not have the least suspicion of Errour or Unfaithfulness Which is the greatest Tyranny and Slavery upon the Soul of man that can be devised and a shrewd Indication that those Elders will approve and advise things against express Scripture Reason and Conscience And thus is many a poor simple Lamb catched out of the Fold of Christ and carried quite away without recovery into the thickest and remotest Woods and darkest Caverns or Dens to be devoured by this white Wolf who by his gracious speeches heart-melting insinuations soft-soothing language that is oiled and perfumed with nothing but Love first intices the little ones after whom his mouth most of all waters to a great esteem of himself and then utterly extinguishes in them to their Eternal Destruction all that Faith they had in the Person and Promises of our ever-blessed Saviour Which he does by intercepting all aid that the use of Reason and the Knowledge of the Scripture could administer giving them such hard language as we have above recited the civilest aspersion he bestows being the Imagination of the Knowledge but magnifying himself and his Service of the Love that is his own Doctrine above whatever yet appear'd to the sons of men as you shall now hear 4. For he sets himself above Abraham Moses David and all the Prophets above Iohn the Baptist yea above the Person of Christ himself For indeed he will allow that the service of the Fathers in the Covenant of Circumcision until Moses was the Forefront of the true Tabernacle and that Moses in figures and shadows set out the true being of the true sanctuary of God in the Spirit and that to David and the Prophets was shewn the true Being in the Spirit of their sight That Iohn the Baptist was a Preparation by Repentance to an entrance into the Holy of the true Tabernacle and that this Holy of the true Tabernacle is the Service of Christ in the Belief But the Holy of Holies or the Most Holy this he reserves to himself and his Service of the Love Wherein as he boasts is the Perfection of Life the Completion of all Prophecies from the beginning of the World the righteous Judgment of God the Throne of Christ before which all things must needs be manifested the perfect Being of the Godhead and the true Rest of the chosen of God He calls also this his Service of the Love the Last Day and the Perfection and Conclusion of all the works of God Whereby he would intimate it to be an everlasting Seventh day or Sabbath And yet he will have it also the Eighth Day as if he affected an holy-day beyond that of God himself and a time beyond Eternity 5. Again in his Prophecie of the Spirit of Love he sets himself highest in the enumeration of the Three principal Services namely the Service of the Law under God the Father the Service of the Belief under Christ the Saviour and the Service of the Love under the Holy Ghost The affectation of which office he learnt of his master David George as is noted by them that have wrote of these Enthusiasts I omit to speak of lesser Encomiums of his doctrine as That it is the last Trump that sure word of Prophecie that his day of the Love is that new day that the Lord has made abundant in clearness and full of Eternal joy the new Ierusalem descending from Heaven and the Inheritance of the Right-perfection We will conclude all with what he writes in his Revelation of God Behold presently in this day is the Kingdome of the God of Heaven and his Righteousness the godly Majesty and his Glory as also the salvation of Christ and the eternal life appeared in perfect Clearness with great Triumph and Ioy The Resurrection also of the dead the cleansing of the Earth the blessing of all Generations the righteous Iudgment of God the Glorious coming of Christ with all the thousands of Saints and the everlasting Condemnation of all ungodly in the hellish Fire What therefore can you expect more then is accomplished in his Service of the Love and what greater Person can there be then he who sets so glorious a Dispensation on foot on the earth Let us therefore take notice what he makes himself in the midst of this Glory and Pomp which he sets out 6. As if it were a small thing for him to be raised from the dead and to be anointed with the holy Ghost he boasteth further that God has sealed in him the Dwelling of his Glory and of his Holy Name and elsewhere that he is Godded with God and consubstantiated with the Deity and expresly in his Evangely Chap. 34. he declares how God has manned himself with him and Godded him with his Godhead to a living Tabernacle a House for his dwelling and to a seat of his Christ the seed of David and how the Judgment-seat of Christ is revealed out of Heaven from the right hand of God and that on the same Judgment-seat of Christ there sitteth one meaning himself in the Habitation of David which judgeth uprightly thinketh upon equity and requireth righteousness and that through him God will judge the compass of the Earth This in his Introduction to the Glass of Righteousness is the right Messias the high Priest for ever in the most holy the noble King of Israel and Iuda that possesses the seat of his Father an everlasting peaceable Prince over the house of Iacob according to the promises But you 'l say this cannot be understood of H. Nicolas but of Christ according as he has wrote elsewhere that there is in his Communialty of the Love a true Iudge Iesus Christ our Lord and King which executes the right Iudgment of his Father according to the truth But we are also to understand that This Christ that sits on the throne of his Father David is the eldest Father of the Family of Love as appears out of his Evangelium Cap. 31. sect 14. and 16. Which places compared with what has been recited it is clear that H. Nicolas is this Christ on the seat of David for his life-time and which is still worse and the seed of endless Madness and Blasphemie that this wild Presumption of the eldest in the Family being the very Christ from Heaven returned to judge the World with equity will be entailed upon their Successors for ever And that the appearance of this Christ may be the more glorious
that are so transported and overcome with those Allusions and Allegorical Reflexions as such high Attainments that they think themselves illuminated above the capacities of all other Mortals being more pleased with the gaudy colours of the Rainbow then with the pure light which is reflected thence Which yet all true Christians plainly see and feel in the simplicity of its own nature without any such cloudy refractions and know that the rest is not the dictate of the Spirit but the mere service of Phansy lending its aid to the setting forth of divine Perceptions And yet this slight sallad is the chief food this pretended Prophet feeds his followers withall and the greatest demonstration of his being extraordinarily called and inspired 5. For as for Miracles he never did any as you may see in that Book of his Life entituled Mirabilia Dei where nothing miraculous is recorded unless a certain Prophetical Dream wherein he seemed to be frighted together with some devotional expressions after he awakened out of it as also a lucky escape out of the hands of his Persecutors who haply being not so vigilant as they might be the phrase of the story makes them struck with blindness and lastly his witty questions and answers to the Priest or Confessor when he was a child wherein he does so fully utter the chief of his Doctrine that he seems as wise at eight years old as ever he was since though he lived to a very considerable Age. But any one that has any insight in things may easily discern that the Discourse was never intended for a true History but a spiritual Romance So that as petty businesses as these are they have no assurance of their truth 6. Now for his Pretensions of being the most eminent Preacher of Perfection it is a mere Boast For whether he means by Perfection Love which is the perfection of the Law it cannot be more clearly and advantageously preached then it is in the New Testament by Christ and his Apostles And what Comparison is there betwixt such a Teacher of Love who being the declared Son of God by Signes and Miracles gave his life out of dear compassion to mankind and a soft Fellow that onely talks fine phrases to the World Or whether he pretend to a more general Perfection in the divine Graces or holy Life whose Root is true Faith in God and his Promises through Christ and the branches Charity Humility and Purity it shall appear anon that as for true Faith he is perfectly fallen from it and that he is as a dead tree pulled up from the root And for the present it is evident also out of his own writings not to charge him with accusations out of others that he is far from being perfect either in Charity Humility or Purity For what greater sign of Uncharitableness then to charge all men that are not of his Communialty to be of the Synagogue of Satan and children of the Devil and what greater Pride then to prefer himself before Abraham Moses and Christ and make as if he were God himself come to judge the World with his thousands of Saints and Seraphims And lastly what greater Symptoms of Lust Impurity then to be sunk down from all sense and presage of a life to come To say nothing of his complaints in his Glasse of Righteousness of such as came in to spy out their liberty and his lusty animations against Shamefacedness and Modesty in men and women and their shiness to such acts as ordinary Bashfulness is loath to name Which in my apprehension are very foul spots in that Glasse of his as if it had been breathed upon by the mouth of a menstruous Woman 7. But there is also a more subtil Uncleanness from which who is not free if he knew his own weakness he would be ashamed to profess himself perfect and that is the Impurity of the Astral Spirit in which is the Seat and Dominion of unruly Imagination Hence are our Sidereal or Planet-strucken Preachers and Prophets who being first blasted themselves blast all others that labour with the like impurity by their Fanatick Contagion Those in whom Mortification has not had its full work nor refined the Inmost of their natural Complexions are subject to be smitten and overcome by such Enthusiastick storms till a more perfect Purification commit them to the safe custody of the Intellectual Powers Wherefore let this pretended Prophet boast as much as he will of his glorious Resurrection from the dead it is manifest to the more perfect that he has not yet so much as passed through that Death that should have led him to the unshaken Kingdome of Truth and letten him in to the immovable Calmness and serene stilness of the Intellectual World where the Blasts and Blusters of the Astral Spirit cease and the Violence of Phansy perverts not the faithful representations of Eternal Reason For God is not in these fanatick Herricanoes no more then he was in the tempestuous Wind Earthquake or Fire that passed before the Prophet Elias But the Divine Truth is to be found in that still small voice which is the Echo of the Eternal Word not urg'd upon us by that furious Impulse of complexionall Imagination but descending from the Father of lights with whom there is no shadow of change This was an Attainment out of this Boasters reach of which he had not the least sense or presage and therefore was wholy given up to the hot scalding Impressions of misguided Phansy in his Astral Spirit Which being strangely raised and exalted in this false light has a power by words or writings to fire others and to intoxicate them with the same heat and noise in their enravished Imagination whereby that still and small voice of Incomplexionate Reason cannot be heard CHAP. XIV 1. That neither H. Nicolas nor his Doctrine was prophesied of in Holy Scripture That of the Angel preaching the Everlasting Gospel groundlesly applied to him 2. As also that place Iohn 1.21 of being That Prophet 3. His own mad Application of Acts 17. v. 31. to himself 4. Their Misapplication of 1 Cor. 13. v. 9 10. and Hebr. 6. v. 1 2. to the Doctrine of this new Prophet 5. Their arguing for the authority of the Service of the Love from the Series of Times and Dispensations with the Answer thereunto 6. That the Oeconomie of the Family of Love is quite contrary to the Reign of the Spirit 7. That the Author is not against the Regnum Spiritûs the Cabbalists also speak of but onely affirms that this Dispensation takes not away the Personal Offices of Christ nor the External comeliness of Divine Worship 8. That if this Regnum Spiritûs is to be promoted by the Ministry of some one Person more especially it follows not that it is H. Nicolas he being a mere mistaken Enthusiast or worse 1. AND therefore being blinded with the wind and dust of this Fanatick Tempest they are carried on
the Immortality of the Soul the main Branches of the ancient Cabbala was also communicated But it is no where said nor can be conceived That God the Father distinctly from the Son and Holy Ghost gave the Law to Moses but it was an act as all acts ad extra are of the entire Godhead Nor is the Father nor the Holy Spirit excluded in the oeconomie of the Gospel but their Glory is acknowledged coequal and their Majesty coeternal Nor again can the Church ever cease to be under the Belief of Iesus Christ so as that any other God-service should justle that out by its succession For the Belief of the Promises of Christs coming again visibly to Judgement and Crowning his true members with Eternal Life and Glory must of necessity continue till the Promises themselves be fulfilled Which are but phantastically conceived to be fulfilled in the Service of the Love 6. Moreover how can that Dispensation pretend to be the Ministry of the Spirit where men are kept off from believing the inward manifestations of their own Mind where alone they can be properly said to be taught of God and urged to give up all their Light and Consciences to be rul'd at the pleasure of the Elders of his Family This is not to be inspired by God but to be taught merely by men and to be carved and shaped out like a piece of dead Marble by the hand of the Statuary So wholy unlike the Dispensation of the Spirit is this Oeconomie of the Service of the Love Beside that it is a piece of Rapine and Robbery to appropriate that to their Family which is the Peculiar of every true Believer in Christ who assuredly have the assistance of the Holy Spirit as I have proved at large in the following parts of my Discourse 7. But if any one will adventure to affirme That after this dead Forme of Religion and external flattery of the Person of Christ which has continued too-many Ages there will succeed a more general Reign of the Spirit of Life and experimental knowledge of his Sceptre and Power in us subduing all his enemies there under his feet and renewing the World in true Righteousness and Holiness it is that which I in no wise oppose nay I must confess I have a fatal and unalterable propension to think it to be true and that this may be that Regnum Spiritús which the Cabbalists of old did presage and does begin with the Reviving of the Witnesses in the Apocalypse of S. Iohn Of which things I have already spoke But in the mean time this is not the special work of any one man but like the Vision of Ezekiel where Breath comes from the four Winds of Heaven upon the bones already covered with sinews flesh and skin and behold they lived and stood upon their feet an exceeding great Army an orderly Company such as the Church of Christ ought to be For this Internal power of the Spirit will not annul or destroy the External Frame of Christian Religion as it referrs to the Offices of the Person of Christ the Head of his Church as these Satanical Impostors would pretend but rectifie and corroborate it and make it more irreprehensibly and enravishingly beautifull as there was more lustre in those raised Bodies after the Spirit of life had entred into them then when they were mere dead carkasses 8. Besides if we did conceive that this Dispensation of Christ in the Spirit was to be in a more special manner promoted by the Ministry of some one Person it does not at all follow that H. Nicolas is the man and not onely so but I am confident I shall make it manifest that it is impossible that it should be he Which I shall have sufficiently performed when I have demonstrated that he is nothing at all of that which he pretends to be but only a mere mistaken Enthusiast if not worse which was the last part of my Purpose And this I conceive is fully evinced by proving him to have laid aside all the Offices of the Person of Christ as he is Man and intercepted all the hopes of his Visible Return to Judgement in the clouds of Heaven and of rewarding all true Believers with that glorious Crown of Life in an Heavenly Body at the last day Which things are so clear in Scripture that the Scripture it self must loose its authority if these things once loose their belief as is manifest by what we have said already in this present Treatise And therefore he that denies these things it is plain he is not inspired of God but is a Minister and Factor for the Devil CHAP. XV. 1. That the Personal Offices of Christ are not to be laid aside That he is a Priest for ever demonstrated out of sundry places of Holy Writ 2. That the Office of being a Iudge is also affixed to his Humane Person proved from several Testimonies of Scripture 3. Places alledged for the excluding Christ's Humanity with Answers thereto 4. The last and most plausible place they do alledge with an Answer to the same 1. NOW that the Humane person of Christ as I may so call it is not to be laide aside is evident not to repeat what I have elsewhere alledged from the whole Epistle of the Author to the Hebrews For he that there is said to be an high Priest for ever is that very man who was crucified on the Cross at Ierusalem who was said to be like unto his brethren in all things that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things appertaining to God to make reconciliation for the sins of the people For in that he himself hath suffered being tempted he is able to succour them that tempted And it is further clear that it is this very man we speak of in that he is said to be born not of the Tribe of Levi but of the Tribe of Iuda chap. 7.14 and yet he is there declared a Priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec Read the whole Chapter nothing can be more clearly asserted then the Everlasting high-Priesthood of this man who sanctifying the People with his bloud suffered without the gate Which are such particularities as must needs affix the Eternal high-Priesthood to the Humane person of Christ. Again in that he is said to suffer but once it is apparent that it is to be literally understood of his Humane person And every priest standeth dayly ministring and offering oftentimes the same Sacrifices which can never take away sins But this man after he had offered one Sacrifice for sins for ever sate down at the right hand of God c. And yet more fully in the foregoing Chapter For Christ is not entred into the holy places made with hands which are the figures of the true but into Heaven it self now to appear in the presence of God for us Nor yet that he should offer himself often as the high priest entreth into
his Church cannot cease himself not ceasing to be but he is a Priest and King for ever according to the Prophecies CHAP. IV. 1. Our Saviour's strict injunction of Purity from whence it is also plain that the Love he commends is not in any sort fleshly but Divine 2. Several places out of the Apostles urging the same duty 3. Two more places to the same purpose 4. The groundless presumption of those that abuse Christianity to a liberty of sinning 5. That this Errour attempted the Church betimes and is too taking at this very day 6. Whence appears the necessity of opposing it which he promises to doe taking the rise of his Discourse from 1 Iohn 3.7 1. THE third Branch of the Divine Life is Purity In the urging whereof both Christ and his Apostles being so earnest it is plain that that Love which they recommend to the World can be no suspected affection like that which the canting language of the Enthusiasts may justly be thought to favour but that it is that pure and holy Love indeed which deservedly we have styled Divine And how severely this Purity we speak of is required I shall give you some few but very sufficient instances Matth. 5.27 Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time Thou shalt not commit adultery But I say unto you that whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery already with her in his heart And if thy right eye offend thee pluck it out and cast it from thee for it is better for thee that one of thy members should perish then that thy whole body should be cast into Hell And if thy right hand offend thee cut it off and cast it from thee c. What more serious and earnest monition can there be made to Continence and Abstinence from sensual pleasures then this of our Saviour who upon no less penaltie then the torments of Hell interdicts us all looseness and uncleanness forbidding us all preludious preparations to the foul acts of Lust and not permitting so much as an imaginary scene of illicit transactions to which our will could really assent if opportunity were offered 2. And we shall find the Apostles insisting in the footsteps of their Master in this matter 2. Corinth 6. Wherefore come out from among them and be ye separated saith the Lord and touch not the unclean thing and I will receive you And I will be a Father unto you and ye shall be my sons and daughters saith the Lord Almighty Having therefore these promises dearly beloved let us cleanse our selves from all filthiness of flesh and spirit perfecting holiness in the fear of God And 1 Thessalon 5. The God of peace sanctifie you wholy and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Iesus Christ. And in the former chapter ver 3. For this is the will of God even your sanctification that ye should abstain from fornication That every one of you should know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honour not in the lust of concupiscence as the Gentiles that know not God And 1 Corinth 6. ver 13. Now the bodie is not for fornication but the Lord and the Lord for the bodie And God hath both raised up the Lord and will also quicken us by his own power Know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ shall I then take the members of Christ and make them the members of an harlot God forbid And a little after Flee fornication Every sin that a man doth is without the body but he that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body What know ye not that your Body is the Temple of the Holy Ghost in you which ye have of God and ye are not your own For ye are bought with a price therefore glorifie God in your bodie and in your Spirit which are God's Also Coloss. 3.5 Mortifie therefore your members which are upon the earth Fornication Uncleanness immoderate affection evil Concupiscence and Covetousness which is Idolatry For which things sake the wrath of God cometh upon the children of disobedience Parallel to which is that Ephes. 5.3 Walk in love as Christ also hath loved us but fornication and all uncleanness and covetousness let it not be so much as once named amongst you as becomes saints Neither filthiness nor foolish talking which are not convenient but rather giving of thanks For this ye know that no whoremonger nor unclean person nor covetous man who is an Idolater hath any inheritance in the kingdome of Christ and of God Let no man deceive you with vain words for because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience Be not you therefore partakers with them And 1 Corinth 6.9 Know ye not the unrighteous shall not inherit the Kingdome of God Be not deceived neither fornicatours nor idolaters nor adulterers nor effeminate nor abusers of themselves with mankind nor thieves nor covetous nor drunkards nor revilers nor extortioners shall inherit the kingdome of God 3. I have made a more ample collection of the enforcements of this duty of Purity and Sanctity then I intended and yet I cannot abstain from adding of two more the one out of S. Peter 1 Epist. ch 2. Dearly beloved I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims to abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the soul. The other out of him which I have already so often cited Rom. 13.12 The night is far spent and the day is at hand let us therefore cast off the works of darkness and put on the armour of light Let us walk honestly as in the day not in rioting and drunkenness not in chambring and wantonness not in strife and envying But put ye on the Lord Iesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh to fulfill the lusts thereof 4. I have now abundantly shewn how plainly and explicitly Christ and his Apostles urge all men that are hearers of the Gospel to be carefull and conscionable doers of the same that they should be holy even as Christ was holy in all manner of conversation that they are bound to endeavour and aspire after the participation of the Divine life and all the Branches thereof Humility Love and Purity hating even the garment spotted by the flesh as the Apostle Iude speaks And how this Holiness and Righteousness is required of them with no less seriousness and earnestness then upon the forfeiture of their eternal Salvation if they do not act according to those Precepts Insomuch that I stand amazed while I consider with my self that hellish and abominable gloss that some have put upon the Gospel as if it were a mere school of loosness and that the end of Christs coming into the world was but to bring down a commission to the sons of men whereby they might be enabled to sin with authority I am sure with all desirable security and impunity nothing
mean The evidence that we are to be inwardly and really righteous and not only so but in an extraordinary manner are the two Powers of the Gospel that comprehend our great and ultimate duty of being holy as he that has called us is holy of becoming perfect as our Father which is in Heaven is perfect The following Gospel-Powers all of them are aids and helps to this design The first whereof is The Promise of the Spirit through Christ's Intercession the second The Example of Christ the third The Meditation on his Passion the fourth on his Resurrection and Ascension and the last on the last Iudgement These Powers are of such admirable efficacy if rightly applied that they are able to pul down every strong hold and to cast out all evil imaginations and every high thing that exalts it self against the knowledge of God and to bring into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ as the Apostle speaks No strength of habituated sin no violence of any lust shall be able to stand before them 3. The first of these Powers is The Promise of the Spirit I do not mean for the doing Miracles for that was but a transient business and accommodate only to the first Ages of the Church but for through-sanctification and cleansing us from all our sins and for our perfect growth in Righteousness and Holiness That this Power is a concomitant to the Dispensation of the Gospel in all true Believers is apparent both from the predictions of the Prophets and from the mouth of our Saviour and his blessed Apostles Esay 44. Hear now O Iacob my servant and Israel whom I have chosen Thus saith the Lord that made thee and framed thee from the womb and will help thee Fear not O Iacob my servant and thou Iesurun whom I have chosen For I will pour water upon him that is thirsty and floods upon the dry ground I will pour my Spirit upon thy seed and my blessing upon thy offspring And they shall spring up as among the grass and the willows by the water-courses Which Prophecie is most properly applicable to the Church of Christ who is the true seed of Iacob those wrastlers with God and strivers to get in at the narrow gate that leads to life they are the true Iesurun the upright of heart and sincere seekers after God those that truly hunger and thirst after righteousness and therefore God will satisfie them by the supernatural assistance of his blessed Spirit Again Ezekiel 36. ver 25. prefiguring the blessed dispensations of the Kingdome of Christ Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you and ye shall be clean from all your filthiness and from all your Idols will I cleanse you A new heart also will I give you and a new Spirit will I put within you and I will take the stony heart out of your flesh and I will give you an heart of flesh And I will put my Spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and ye shall keep my judgments and doe them Also Esay 41. v. 10. where certainly according to analogie of interpretations of Prophecie the seed of Abraham being a Type of the Spiritual Church of Christ and their warfare not carnal but spiritual nor the waters promised by Christ such liquors as run in Brooks and Rivers but emanations of the purifying and refreshing powers of the Spirit of God we may see with what close and faithfull assistance God is pleased to adhere to his true Israel in whom there is no guile but they are sincerely waging war and to the utmost resisting all the Temptations of the World the Flesh and the Devil But thou Israel my servant Iacob whom I have chosen the seed of Abraham my friend fear thou not for I am with thee be not dismaied for I am thy God I will strengthen thee yea I will help thee yea I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness Behold all they that were incensed against thee shall be ashamed and confounded they shall be as nothing and they that strive with thee shall perish Thou shalt seek them and shalt not find them even them that contended with thee they that war against thee shall be as nothing and as a thing of nought For I the Lord thy God will hold thy right hand saying unto thee Fear not I will help thee Fear not thou worm Iacob and ye men of Israel behold I will make thee a new sharp threshing-instrument having teeth thou shalt thresh the mountains and beat them small and shalt make the hills as chaffe Thou shalt fan them and the wind shall carry them away and the whirlwind shall scatter them and thou shalt rejoice in the Lord and shalt glory in the holy One of Israel When the poor and needy seek water and there is none and their tongue faileth for thirst I the Lord will hear them I the God of Israel will not forsake them I will open rivers in high places and fountains in the midst of the vallies I will make the wilderness a pool of water and the dry land springs of water This Prophecie is an exquisite description of those full and complete Victories the Church gets against Sin and Satan by the supernatural assistance of the Spirit of God Which Promise is again repeated in the following chapter which though it be larger then the former and part cited already to another purpose yet I cannot refrain from transcribing the whole it being so plain a Prophecie of Christ as appears from the fore-part thereof and of the power of his Kingdome through the Spirit for the vanquishing of all sin and wickedness in them that do truly believe Behold my servant whom I uphold mine elect in whom my soul delighteth I have put my spirit upon him he shall bring forth judgement to the Gentiles He shall not cry nor lift up nor cause his voice to be heard in the street A bruised reed shall he not break and smoaking flax shall he not quench he shall bring forth judgement unto truth He shall not fail nor be discouraged till he hath set judgement in the earth and the Isles shall wait for his Law Thus saith God the Lord he that created the Heavens and stretched them out he that spread forth the earth and that which cometh out of it he that giveth breath to the people upon it and spirit to those that dwell therein I the Lord have called thee in righteousness and will hold thine hand and will keep thee and give thee for a covenant of the people for a light of the Gentiles To open the blind eyes to bring out the prisoners from the prison and them that sit in darkness out of the prison-house I am the Lord that is my name and my glory will I not give to another neither my praise to graven images Behold the former things are come to pass and new things do I declare before they spring forth I
said Does this offend you What if you shall see the Son of man ascend up where he was before That will be a very strange and stupendious spectacle to you and such as will assure you of my Divinity but withall remove my body so far from you that you cannot then if you would mistake so grosly as to think I speak of this body and bloud I carry now about with me It is the Spirit that quickneth the flesh profiteth nothing The words that I speak unto you they are Spirit and they are life that is to say They are touching the spiritual body which is the inmost Temple of the holy Ghost and which you are in some measure to partake of here and which shall have its compleat refinement when I shall crown you with the perfection of Life Eternal at the last day Or They are simply concerning the Spirit and that Life which I my self am according to my Divinity viz. The Eternal Word in whom is the Life and that Life is the light of men This is that which you are to feed on and to drink into your Souls when you have not my particular bodily presence with you For this Word and Spirit is every where to be taken in by them that breath and thirst after this Heavenly sustenance of their Souls and so is that fulfilled which he declares v. 56. He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my bloud dwelleth in me and I in him For the eating of the flesh is in some measure partaking of the spiritual body and the drinking of the bloud the imbibing that life therewith that rayes out from the Eternal Word into all purged and purified hearts whereby Christ dwelleth in them and they in him and God in all 3. Again Iohn 7.37 In the last day that great day of the Feast Iesus stood and cryed saying If any man thirst let him come unto me and drink He that believes on me as the Scripture hath said out of his belly shall flow rivers of living waters Which he spake of the Spirit which they that believe on him should receive as the Text it self expounds it And therefore is a good ratification of the Mystical sense of those Prophecies we rehersed out of Esay But these things are spoken more plainly and without a Metaphor Ioh. 14.15 If ye love me keep my Commandements And I will pray the Father and he shall give you another Comforter that he may abide with you for ever Even the Spirit of truth whom the World cannot receive because it seeth him not neither knoweth him but ye know him for he dwelleth with you and shall be in you Which Precept and Promise is like that of Esay chap. 58. which is that if we seriously compose our mindes to do due acts of obedience to God he will pour out his Spirit upon us Then shall thy light break forth like the morning and thy health shall spring forth speedily and thy righteousness shall go before thee the glory of the Lord shall be thy rereward He shall guide thee continually and satisfie thy soul in drought and make fat thy bones and thou shalt be like a watered garden and like a spring of water whose waters fail not That is as any spiritual Christian would be apt to interpret the place If thou thirst after Righteousnesse and in the mean time to thy utmost power do the outward functions thereof in thy duties to God and man at length this Spirit of truth will break forth like the morning light within thee and the emanations of the holy Ghost will so throughly refresh thee and strengthen thee that with ease and pleasure thou shalt walk in all the wayes of God which shall be like the flowry Alleys of a Paradise to thee both to thine inward and outward man 4. Not that our endeavours or desires are any obligation to God by way of merit on our part but it is his mercy to the Soul that does in good earnest pant after him For till he has compleated his work in us all our works are worth nothing and whenever they are worth any thing they are not ours but his And to this sense speaks Paul to Titus chap. 3. But after that the kindnesse and love of God our Saviour toward man appeared Not by works of righteousnesse which we have done but according to his mercy he saved us by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the holy Ghost which he shed on us or poured out upon us as the Original has it abundantly through Iesus Christ our Saviour Like that of the Prophet Thou shalt be like a watered garden 5. Adde to these Ioh. 3.5 Iesus answered Verily verily I say unto thee Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit he can in no wise enter into the kingdom of God That which is born of the flesh is flesh and that which is born of the Spirit is Spirit And Rom. 8.9 But ye are not in the flesh but in the Spirit if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you Now if any man have not the Spirit of God he is none of his And vers 26. Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities for we know not what we should pray for as we ought but the Spirit it self maketh intercession for us with groanings that cannot be uttered And also 1 Cor. 3.16 Know ye not that ye are the Temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you And lastly Ephes. 3.14 For it were infinite to reckon up all places of Scripture that tend to this purpose For this cause I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Iesus Christ of whom the whole Family of Heaven and Earth is named That he would grant you according to the riches of his glory to be strengthned with might by his spirit in the inward man That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith that ye being rooted and grounded in love may be able to comprehend with all Saints what is the breadth and length and depth and height and to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge that ye may be filled with all the fulness of God who is able to do abundantly above all that we ask or think according to the power that worketh in us To him therefore be glory in the Church by Christ Iesus throughout all ages world without end Amen CHAP. X. 1. A Recapitulation of what has been set down hitherto concerning the Usefulnesse of the Gospel and the Necessity of undeceiving the world in those points that so nearly concern Christian Life 2. The ill condition of those that content themselves with Imaginary Righteousnesse figured out in the Fighters against Ariel and Mount Sion 3. A further demonstration of their fond conceit 4. That a true Christian cannot sin without pain and torture to himself 1. VVE have now abundantly proved out of places of Scripture The necessity of inward Sanctification and reall in-dwelling Righteousness
mentioned they be proposed in the Scripture but in a more shady obscure and general way that being enough to serve the End they are proposed for And if any one be at a loss how to conceive the Mystery let him make it up with devout admiration and humble veneration Affections better becoming every holy man then a fierce and peremptory pursuit of his own conceited Reason and bold attempt to pry into those things that God has thought fit to hide from him Which is a saucy and clownish as forcibly to unveil or unmask some noble Matron or modest Virgin whether they will or no. 5. But that no fraud be done to Truth nor mankind left liable to all the incredible forgeries and fables of covetous Priests and Impostors we shall more carefully limit this our exaction of Reverence only to such Articles of Religion as are recommended to us not only upon account of Divine Revelation and Serviceableness to some laudable end but are also clear from contradiction and incompossibility For for my own part I am well assured That God who made our Faculties will never offer any thing to us to believe that upon close debate does plainly contradict them Else all Religions were alike credible and the Moons coming out of Mahomet's sleeve as passable as the History of Ionas his being three dayes and three nights in the Whales belly and afterwards coming out alive Which though it be miraculous is not at all impossible 6. And therefore I do with all confidence imaginable assert That the Divinity of Christ and the Triunity so far forth as the Scripture has de-declared it self in these points have nothing of contradiction nor impossibility in them Nay I will go one step further Athanasius his Creed which one would think is expresse enough concerning this Mystery if certain words in it be but varied in that latitude of sense which they are capable of and not only so but must of necessity have in the Creed there may be such an interpretation made of it as the most captious Reason can finde no cavil against CHAP. II. 1. That there is a latitude of Sense in the words of Athanasius his Creed and that One and Unity has not the same signification every where 2. The like in the terms God and Omnipotent 3. Of the word Equal and to what purpose so distinct a knowledge of the Deity was communicated to the Church 4. In what sense the Son and Holy Ghost are God That Divine adoration is their unquestionable right And that there is an intelligible sense of Athanasius his Creed and such as supposes neither Polytheisme Idolatry nor Impossibility 5. That there is no intricacy in the Divinity of Christ but what the Schools have brought in by their false notions of Suppositum and Union Hypostatical 6. That the Union of Christ with the Eternal Word implies no Contradiction and how warrantable an Object he is of Divine worship 7. The Application thereof to the Iews 8. The Union of Christ with God compared with that of the Angels that bore the Name Jehovah in the Old Testament 9. The reasonableness of our Saviours being united with the Eternal Word and how with that Hypostasis distinct from the others 1. NOw that there is necessarily understood this latitude of variety in the sense of several of the words of the Creed is apparent from the consent of those that do subtilize this Mystery to the utmost curiosity For it is impossible for them or any else to think that the Godhead of the whole Trinity is One in the same sense that the Father considered alone is One or the Son or Holy Ghost so considered For then there being no more Unity in the single Hypostases then in the whole Trinity every Hypostasis will be Triune which no man will assert Wherefore there is a latitude of sense in the word One or Unity allowable in the Creed 2. So when the Father is said to be Omnipotent the Son Omnipotent and the Holy Ghost Omnipotent it is evident that Omnipotent has not the same sense in all For the Father has the power of Eternal Generation of the Son and both Son and Father of an Eternal Emission of the Spirit but the Son does not proceed from the Spirit neither is the Father generated of the Son Yet the Spirit and the Son which are both from the Father how infinitely do they exceed the Creation of the World And the like may be said of the term God by which if you understand That which is first of all in such a sense as that all else is from him and he from none the Son and the Spirit cannot be said to be God in this signification because the Father is not from them but they from the Father 3. And therefore it is further manifest that the word Equal is not to be understood mathematically and absolutely but in an useful reference to us Which is a Key that will easily open the whole Mystery of the Creed which God did not communicate to the world to spin and weave unprofitable cobwebs out of but did thus explicitly impart the knowledg of his Divine glory that understanding the Distinctness of his Godhead in the Triunity thereof the Divinity of Christ might the better be conceived and how warrantable an Object he is of our worship Divine Adoration For it passing through the Titles of the Humanity to the Eternal Son of God there cannot be the least scruple or show of Idolatry in such Divine worship 4. For the Son is God and the Holy Ghost is God as well as the Father that is to say they are all Eternal Omnipresent Omniscient Omnicreant and therefore Divine Adoration is due without question to the whole Trinity from the Creatures And not upon this account onely but because they are so perfectly One and have the same indivisible Omnipresency and therefore are One entire Godhead One coequal Glory and Majesty coeternal I say then that this latitude of sense being once admitted which is necessarily implied the meaning of Athanasius his Creed may prove such as no imputation of either Polytheisme Idolatry or unconceivable Impossibility can be alledged against it and the end of this Mystery fully served in such an intelligible Interpretation But I shall not undertake any such Paraphrase in this place And what I have already ventured at is rather by way of Essay or invitation to others to make trial then peremptory assertion in so profound a point that deserves rather our humble admiration then curious disquisition It is sufficient that so far as Scripture has determined of this Article it is without exception or Contradiction 5. The Divinity of Christ in my apprehension is a more easie Object of belief being as intelligible as the Union of our Soul and Body For as they two make up one man so God and Man make one Christ as Athanasius himself has expressed it This the Schools call Hypostatical Union which has no intricacy
Libertinism as you may see more at large in that Chapter 5. Wherefore it appears out of what already has been said That there are Terms to be performed on out part in this New Covenant as well as there are Promises on God's part and that Christianity is no such loose remiss and inert Religion as some Deceivers would make it which we shall make still more plain from several other testimonies of Scripture Matth. 11. The Kingdome of Heaven suffereth violence and the violent take it by force Whence is plainly intimated that no lazy or careless endeavours will carry us on to the enjoiment of the Promises of the Covenant As elsewhere He that laies his hand to the plough and looks back is not fit for the Kingdome of God And Luke 13.24 Strive to enter in at the streight gate For I say unto you many shall seek to enter in and shall not be able Because streight is the gate and narrow is the way that leadeth unto life but wide is the gate and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction and many there be that goe in thereat As it is in the parallel place of S. Matthew Which plain places of Scripture one would think should awake those filthy dreamers out of their mischievous conceits opinions whereby they would make us believe the Evangelical dispensation is so soft and delicate a thing that there is no laying of the hand to the plough no crouding or striving but that we shall be carried to heaven on that easie featherbed of unactive Faith or fanatick Libertinism Whenas the Evangelical Oracles tell us that we are to work out our Salvation with fear and trembling that we are to run and to wrastle to fight and to resist even unto bloud 1 Cor. 9.24 Know ye not that they that run in a race run all but one receiveth the prize So run that ye may obtain And every one that strives for the victory is temperate in all things Now they doe it to obtain a corruptible crown but we an incorruptible I therefore so run not as uncertainly so fight I not as one that beateth the air But I keep under my body and bring it into subjection lest by any means when I have preached to others I my self should become a cast-away And yet S. Paul was as chosen a vessel as the choicest of these pieces that befool themselves so with self-flattery that they think they have found an easier way to Salvation then Paul himself knew that think they shall get the victory and the crown by not fighting against their own corruptions but by beating the Air with knackish forms of gracious speeches and vain grandiloquence that tends to nothing but the masking of their own Hypocrisie and unfaithfulness in the Covenant and to the seduction and ruine of others 6. But S. Paul however they would abuse some passages in him to the favouring of their ill cause is an utter disclaimer of such false doctrine and does yet more expresly tell us That the promises of the Gospel are conditional This is a faithfull saying saith he to Timothy 2 Epist. chap. 2. If we be dead with him we shall also live with him if we suffer we shall also reign with him if we deny him he will also deny us If we deal unfaithfully in the Covenant yet he is faithful and cannot deny himself He will stand to his Covenant in all the intents and purposes thereof whether to punishment or reward And Rom. 8. There is therefore now no condemnation to those that are in Christ Iesus but their qualification presently follows that walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit and ver 8. They that are in the flesh cannot please God But ye are not in the flesh but in the Spirit if so be the Spirit of God dwell in you and if this Spirit be in you the body is dead unto sin And again If ye live after the flesh ye shall die but if through the Spirit ye mortifie the deeds of the body ye shall live And ver 16. The Spirit it self bears witness with our spirits that we are the Children of God And if Children then Heirs heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ if so be we suffer with him that we may also glorified with him Which plainly implies that the Inheritance of Heaven or Kingdome of glory is a conditional Kingdome or Inheritance And not to speak of Kingdoms we shall not so much as have remission of sins but upon condition Matth. 6.14 15. For if ye forgive men their trespasses your Heavenly Father will also forgive you But if you forgive not men their trespasses neither will your Father forgive you your trespasses What can be more evident then this CHAP. IX 1. What it is really to enter into this New Covenant 2. That the entring into this Covenant supposes actual Repentance 3. That this New Covenanter is born of water and the Spirit 4. The necessity of the skilfull usage of these new-born Babes in Christ. 5. That some Teachers are mere Witches and Childe-Suckers 1. WE have therefore undeniably demonstrated That this New Gospel-Covenant is a conditional Covenant and but that Hypocrisie and Impietie has made mens souls so degenerate that Sense and Non-sense is alike to them they would from the very sound and signification of the word perceive that there are mutual Terms and Conditions implied or else it could be no Covenant This therefore being premised we shall the better understand what is that due affection and qualification of mind that is required of him that would enter into this Covenant or what it is whereby he has really entred into it For it is not a mere Historical Faith or Belief of those things that are in the New Testament and an acknowledgment that they all tend to the peace and salvation of man and that he is obliged to live up to the utmost of his power to those holy Precepts that are there conteined but further there is a love and liking of the said Precepts as well as a desire of the enjoiment of the promise of Eternal life and a sincere resolution of endeavoring to live as near as he can according to those Evangelical Rules and a chearfull expectation of Divine assistance that God will enable him by the cooperation of his Holy Spirit to make such due progresses in life and Godliness as shall become an unfeigned professour of Faith in Christ Jesus 2. He that upon the perusal of the Records of the Gospel as they are found in the New Testament or by what other way soever the substance thereof is communicated to him and so upon information of his errours and mistakes whether in opinion or practice is thus affected as we have declared it is manifest that he has already repented him of his sins and errours and is in a real mislike of his former Conversation so far forth as it was unconformable to the mind of Christ. So that the state
shun the breath of such a Seducer as of one that is infected with the pestilence and whose converse is death and the eternal ruin of our very Souls 2. The Second Principle that he is closely to keep to is That I had almost said Omnipotent Faith in God through Christ I mean the belief of the assistance of his holy Spirit to overcome all manner of sin in us For if we keep up duely to this nothing will be able to withstand us but by patience and perseverance we shall be able to beat out Satan out of his strongest holds According to thy faith so be it unto thee is true as well in Christs healing our Souls as in his curing the bodies of the sick when he was upon earth This is a prime branch of that saving Faith and the greatest strength and sustentation we have to keep us from sinking back into sin and from being drown'd and carried away with the flouds of ungodliness If we let this hold go all is gone For they that doe not believe that they have power to resist sin must of necessity give up themselves captives to it And this is that which makes S. Paul so affectionately devout in the behalf of the Ephesians that God would be pleased to give them this special gift of Faith for their strength and corroboration of the inward man chap. 3. For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Iesus Christ That he would grant you according to the riches of his glory to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man That Christ may dwell in your hearts by Faith that ye being rooted and grounded in love c. according as I have elswhere rehearsed And in the Doxologie immediately following this prayer of what unconceivable efficacy the operations of the Spirit are in us the Apostle again does intimate in a very high strain Now unto him that is able to doe exceeding abundantly above what we ask or think according to the power that worketh in us unto him be glory in the Church by Christ Iesus throughout all ages world without end Which words plainly imply that such is the inexhaustible richness of Grace and Assistance from the Spirit of God that the effect of its inward workings in us is for the present not imaginable much less expressible Wherefore our Faith cannot be too great in this supernatural Principle and the greater it is the greater courage and the more speedy and more absolute victory 3. And yet there is still another Principle that will further actuate our Faith and make us still more lively resolute and invincible and that is The Love of Christ which every young Christian is to warme himself with and inflame his courage more and more which he will best do by frequent Meditations upon Christs Passion what shame what sorrow and pain he underwent to gain the love of Souls and so to try them to himself in those sweet and inviolable bands of sincere love and friendship that by this golden chain he may pull them up after him from Earth to Heaven Let therefore our new-Covenanter as often as he reflects upon the exceeding great love of his Saviour and finds his heart begin to grow hot being touch'd with a ray from that celestial Flame that bright Sun of righteousness that now shines at the right hand of God let him be sure to remember what compensation he requires for all that dear affection he has shewn to us The lesson is but short and therefore must not be forgotten If you love me keep my Commandements CHAP. XI 1. The diligent search this new-Covenanter ought to make to finde out whatsoever is corrupt and sinful 2. That the truly regenerate cannot be quiet till all corruption be wrought out 3. The most importunate devotions of a living Christian. 4. The difference betwixt a Son of the Second Covenant and a Slave under the First 5. The Mystical completion of a Prophecy of Esay touching this state 1. THE young Christian being thus armed with Faith and Love and an unwavering sense of his duty in becoming holy even as he that called him is holy he will be then both willing and ready to look his enemies in the face and to seek them out if he cannot at first sight finde them and to pull them out of every hiding-place of Hypocrisy and bring them into the open light and slay them And if after diligent search he can finde none yet he will be so modest as to distrust the measure of his skill and will be earnest in Prayer to God to discover what inward hidden wickedness there may lurk yet in him to the end that the old Leven may be utterly cast out and that there may be nothing left that is contrary to the Scepter of Christ and the Kingdome of God in his heart 2. For indeed it is impossible that one is truely regenerate and has the seed of God and the life of his Spirit actually in him should be quiet till all that which is unholy and corrupt be wrought out But the case is much-what as in the natural body that is sick either death or health will in a competent time possess the body If the morbifick matter be not carried away by sweating purging or some evacuation or other Life it self will be carried away but if that which is contrary to life be remov'd Health must certainly take place 3. And so it is in the Divine life it self when it has taken root and growth whatever is contrary to it is burdensome to it like that tyrannick project of tying the living and the dead together Wherefore the true Christian can never be at ease and rest till he has cast off that heavy load the body of sin the old man that stinks earthily and unsavourly if he be perceived at all and indeed so unsufferably that the divine life and sense in a man cannot endure it Nor can endure to be in a condition so sensless that there should be any of that â—our Leven left and yet there be no perception of it And therefore the most importunate address to the throne of Grace in a living Christian is that God would be pleased to discover whatever ugliness or deformity there is in him in either practise or principle Which God of his mercy does by degrees not all at once that there may not arise overmuch distraction and confusion But if we be not wanting to our selves the work will be accomplish'd in due time and the Kingdom of heaven as well within as without will be as a grain of Mustard-seed The Crisis of the disease will be in a competent time as I said before and our whole man re-enlivened with the Spirit of God and restored to the state of righteousness peace and joy in the Holy Ghost 4. For verily to be quiet upon any other terms but these is not to be a Son of the Second Covenant but a careless
to him and from his being a Sacrifice for sin 5. That to deny the Trinity and Divinity of Christ or to make the Union of our selves with the Godhead of the same nature with that of Christ's subverts Christianity 6. The uselesness and sauciness of the pretended Deification of Enthusiasts and how destructive it is of Christian Religion 7. The Providence of God in preparing of the Nations by Platonisme for the easier reception of Christianity 11 CAAP. VI. 1. The danger and disconsolateness of the Opinion of the Psychopannychites 2. What they alledge out of 1 Cor. 15. set down 3. A Preparation to an Answer advertising First of the nature of Prophetick Schemes of speech 4. Secondly of the various vibration of an inspired Phansie 5. Thirdly of the ambiguity of words in Scripture and particularly of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 6. And lastly of the Corinthians being sunk into an Unbelief of any Reward after this life 7. The Answer out of the last and foregoing Premisse 8. A further Answer out of the first 9. As also out of the second and third where their Objection from verse 32. is fully satisfied 10. Their Argument answered which they urge from our Saviours citation to the Sadducees I am the God of Abraham c. 15 CHAP. VII 1. A General Answer to the last sort of places they alledge that imply no enjoyment before the Resurrection 2. A Particular Answer to that of 2 Cor 5. out of Hugo Grotius 3. A preparation to an Answer of the Author 's own by explaining what the Greek word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 may signifie 4. His Paraphrase of the six first Verses of the forecited Chapter 5. A further confirmation of his Paraphrase 6. The weakness of the Reasons of the Psychopannychites noted 19 CHAP. VIII 1. That the Opinion of the Soul 's living and acting immediately after Death was not fetched out of Plato by the Fathers because they left out Preexistence an Opinion very rational in it self 2. And such as seems plausible from sundry places of Scripture as those alledged by Menasseh Ben Israel out of Deuteronomy Jeremy and Job 3. As also God's resting on the seventh day 4. That their proclivity to think that the Angel that appeared to the Patriarchs so often was Christ might have been a further inducement 5. Other places of the New Testament which seem to imply the Preexistence of Christ's Soul 6. More of the same kinde out of S. John 7. Force added to the last proofs from the opinion of the Socinians 8. That our Saviour did admit or at least not disapprove the opinion of Preexistence 9. The main scope intended from the preceding allegations namely That the Soul 's living and acting after death is no Pagan opinion out of Plato but a Christian Truth evidenced out of the Scriptures 21 CHAP. IX 1. Proofs out of Scripture That the Soul does not sleep after death as 1 Peter 3. with the explication thereof 2. The Authors Paraphrase compared with Calvin's Interpretation 3. That Calvin needed not to suppose the Apostle to have writ false Greek 4. Two waies of interpreting the Apostle so as both Grammatical Soloecisme and Purgatory may be declined 5. The Second way of Interpretation 6. A second proof out of Scripture 7. A third of like nature with the former 8. A further enforcement and explication thereof 9. A fourth place 10. A fifth from Hebr. 12. where God is called the Father of Spirits c. 11. A sixth testimony from our Saviours words Matth. 20.28 25 CHAP. X. 1. A pregnant Argument from the State of the Soul of Christ and of the Thief after death 2. Grotius his explication of Christ's promise to the Thief 3. The meaning of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 4. How Christ with the Thief could be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and in Paradise at once 5. That the Parables of Dives and Lazarus and of the unjust Steward imply That the Soul hath life and sense immediately after death 28 BOOK II. CHAP. I. HE passes to the more Intelligible parts of Christianity for the understanding whereof certain preparative Propositions are to be laid down 2. As That there is a God 3. A brief account of the Assertion from his Idea 4. A further Confirmation from its ordinary concatenation with the Rational account of all other Beings as first of the Existence of the disjoynt and independent particles of Matter 31 CHAP. II. 1. That the wise contrivances in the works of Nature prove the Being of a God 2. And have extorted an acknowledgement of a General Providence even from irreligious Naturalists 3. That there is a Particular Providence or Inspection of God upon every individual person Which is his Second Assertion 32 CHAP. III. 1. His Third Assertion That there are Particular Spirits or Immaterial Substances and of their Kinds 2. The Proof of their Existence and especially of theirs which in a more large sense be called Souls 3. The Difference betwixt the Souls or Spirits of Men and Angels and how that Pagan Idolatry and the Ceremonies of Witches prove the Existence of Devils 4. And that the Existence of Devils proves the Existence of Good Angels 34 CHAP. IV. 1. His Fourth Assertion That the Fall of the Angels was their giving up themselves to the Animal Life and forsaking the Divine 2. The Fifth That this fall of theirs changed their purest Vehicles into more gross and feculent 3. The Sixth That the change of their Vehicles was no extinction of life 4. The Seventh That the Souls of Men are immortal and act and live after death The inducements to which belief are the Activity of fallen Angels 5. The Homogeneity of the inmost Organ of Perception 6. The scope and meaning of External Organs of Sense in this Earthly Body 7. The Soul's power of Organizing her Vehicle 8. And lastly The accuracy of Divine Providence 35 CHAP. V. 1. The Eighth Assertion That there is a Polity amongst the Angels and Souls separate both Good and Bad and therefore Two distinct Kingdomes one of Light and the other of Darkness 2. And a perpetual fewd and conflict betwixt them 3. The Ninth That there are infinite swarms of Atheistical Spirits as well Aereal as Terrestrial in an utter ignorance or hatred of all true Religion 37 CHAP. VI. 1. His Tenth Assertion That there will be a final Overthrow of the Dark Kingdome and that in a supernatural manner and upon their external persons 2. The Eleventh That the Generations of men had a beginning and will also have an end 3. To which also the Conflagration of the world gives witness 39 CHAP. VII 1. His Twelfth Assertion That there will be a Visible and Supernatural deliverance of the Children of the Kingdome of Light at the Conflagration of the World 2. The Reason of the Assertion 3. His Thirteenth Assertion That the last vengeance and deliverance shall be so contrived as may be best fit for the Triumph of the
of Pythagoras and Plato and inserted into the doctrine of the Church by the ancient Fathers who most of them were Platonists But to this I answer That it is very highly improbable that the Fathers borrowed the Mystery of the Trinity from the School of Plato which you shall easily understand when we have so far as serves to our purpose explained the doctrine of the Platonical Triad which is briefly thus 2. There are Three Hypostases say they in the Deity namely 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is The Good or First self-originated Goodness Intellect or the Eternal Mind and lastly Soul or Spirit Their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is also their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and they distinguish all Three after this manner 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Good Intellect Soul 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The First One. One All. One and All. If we would ease our Apprehension here by the help of our Phansy we might compare the First to Simple and pure Light the Second to Light variegated into Colours as in the Rainbow the Third to those Rayes of light for all is Light that receive and carry down these Colours to the ground and impress them and reflect them from some standing pool or plash of water Again the First Hypostasis is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Essentially the Good Causally the Intellect The Second is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Essentially Intellect Causally Soul Participatively the Good The Third is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Essentially Soul that is Love and Operation Causally Matter and the World Participatively the Good and Intellect 3. Now for the Union of the Three Hypostases we shall understand the accuracy thereof by degrees As first That the proper life and energie as I may so say of each Hypostasis is not contein'd within it self but like a vocal and audible Sound in a still silent Night perpetually re-ecchoes through the whole Deity Or as when a Song of Three parts is sung each Musician enjoys the harmony of the whole But this I must confess looks more properly like Communion then perfect Union we step therefore a degree further and affirme That as Body and Soul is conceived to make up one man and this Individual Body and this Individual Soul to make up this Individual man so these Three Hypostases to make up one Individual Deity their Union and Actuation one of another being infinitely and unspeakably more perfect then in any other Being imaginable And as the Motions of the Body are perceptible to the Soul of man and the Impressions of the Soul upon the Body would be perceptible to it if it had of it self a Faculty of Perception So likewise by this ineffable close Union and mutual Actuation of the Three Hypostases all their proper Energies become fully perceptible to one another And the Life of the first so infinitely and unexpressibly gratifying the Second and Both the Third by an immutable necessity and congruity of nature it is evident they can have but One Will which is as it were the Heart the Centre or Root of the Deity the Eternal Self-originated Good But thirdly and lastly These three Hypostases are not One onely by this actuating Union which may seem to admit of a real separability but there is also a real Unity or Identity in them the distinction among them being as Tatianus speaks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 like the Rayes of the Sun in respect of the Sun or if you will as the Centre Rayes and Surface of a Globe which implyes a Contradiction to be conceived without them or as the Faculties of the Soul are to the Soul which are as inseparable from her as she is from her self The Union therefore of them all and the Emanation of the Second and Third from the First being so Necessary Natural and Inevitable For the First can be no more without the Second or the Second without the Third then the Sun can be without his Rayes or the Soul without her Faculties there is no scruple say they but we may call all this the Godhead or Deity the Second and Third coming so unavoidably out of the First Root and being so inseparable from it And therefore there is nothing here properly Creature Creation being a free act and if not Creature what can it be but God 4. And since from these Three are all things that are made and in their hands is the guidance of all things Nothing less then Divine Adoration can of right belong unto them For though there may be some allay of Excellency in their descent from the First yet they being all our Creators and Governors none ought to fall short of Divine worship 5. This is a brief Summe of the Platonists Doctrine concerning the Triunity of the Godhead Which as it seems in it self Rational enough so it is not obnoxious to several bold cavils that over-daring Wits make against the Sacred Mystery of the Trinity alledging against Distinction of Persons without difference of Essence That there are only Three Logical Notions attributed to one single and individual nature and against Three Essences of the same Nature That it looks like an unnecessary and groundless repetition and That that great Chasma betwixt God and Matter will be as wide as before That it is unconceivable but the Last being of the same nature with the First that it should be also Prolifical and so in infinitum That these Three must of necessity be Three Gods if any of them be God because they are all exquisitly of the same Kind whenas in the Platonick Triad the First is only the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as some have also ventured to affirm in the Christian Trinity Now I say all being so easy and unexceptionable in the Platonical speculation of this Mystery it seems almost impossible but that if the Fathers had borrowed this Notion of the Trinity from the Platonists they would have explain'd it in this more facile and plausible way 6. But you 'l object That though it may seem more Rational in it self yet it might not be so happily applied to Places of Scripture and that 's the reason why the Fathers though they took the Mystery from Plato in the gross yet did not particularly explain it after the way of the Platonists But without doubt there is not only no place of Scripture that plainly clashes with the above-described Mystery but sundry Places that may be very speciously alledged for it It is plain that as the Second Hypostasis in Platonisme is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so it is in Christianity called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as if Wisdome and Intellect were acknowledged his proper Character in both They might also plausibly enough draw to their sense what Christ speaks John 14.28 My Father is greater then I