Lord. For he Cometh He Cometh to Judg the World The Lord Reigneth let the Earth rejoyce and let the many Isles be glad The Heavens declare his Righteousness and all the People see his Glory Which in the next Psalm is All the ends of the Earth have seen the Salvation of God As in Luke also All flesh shall see the salvation of God Which in Esay is Thus The Glory of God shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together And in the same Prophet Sing O Heavens for the Lord hath done it Shout O lower parts of the Earth break forth into singing ye Mountains O Forrest and every Tree therein And again Look unto me and be saved All the ends of the Earth For I am God and there is None else I have sworn by my self for there is No Greater that to me every Knee shall bow and every Tongue shall swear and pray and praise and confess to the Glory of God and my Father who said Ask of me and I will give thee the utmost ends of the Earth And while our Saviour lived on Earth he travelled to Aegypt and to other places about the Holy Land As taking possession of them Blessing them also by his blessed presence For the time was coming yea and Then come when not only at That or other Mountains of that Holy Land but in All places men should Worship God in Spirit and in Truth For the Father Seeketh such to worship him Yea and Those Lands also that had so afflicted and oppressed the People of God in all Ages even Aegypt and Assyria must come to sharers with the Land of Israel it self in the greatest Blessings For in that day shall Israel be a Third and but a Third with Aegypt and Assyria even a Blessing in the midst of the Earth whom the Lord of Hosts himself shall bless saying Blessed be Aegypt my People and Assyria the work of my hands as we read in the Prophet Esay to be compared with other places And the Reason given in the very Law of Redemption speaketh This because the Land was Gods Land and they were but Gods Tenants in it though in the Best and freest Fee for it was given to Abraham and his seed for Ever who was Heir of the World as the Apostle speaks And yet So that they must still acknowledg God to be their Lord Paramount their Grand Landlord And They might never give or sell or aliene no nor forfeit it which is very comfortable but so that it still must and should and shall be Redeemed again by the Tenant himself or his Kinsman Or however which was still to be observed it must go out Free wholly Free at the great Year of Jubilee of which more ere long And the Reason was This Because the Land was Gods Land and He would still retain his Right to it and in it and would still dispose it as he pleased whatever the present Tenant did And doth not the same Reason hold for All the Earth Yea did it not hold from the very first Fall of Adam and Man-kind in him Was not Then also the Earth even the whole Earth the same Landlords Had he not as much Right to it as to This Land of Canaan Would he so easily quit his Right in it Though Man a weak and vain and foolish Creature made a Forfeiture of His Possession or His Right shall it not then be as it was divers times with this Land of Canaan that when he shall have purged out the filth thereof by the spirit of Judgment and of Burning That which remaineth shall be Holy And why may it not be Thus also with our bodies and our flesh which hath so long been As the accursed Earth Yea as Babylon it self an Habitation of unclean spirits and a Cage of all unclean birds Why may it not also become the blessed Land of Promise and the Land of Rest Yea the Holy Place and Temple of the Lord of all the Earth Which is a Phrase very much to be marked As a name in which the Lord himself seemeth to glory being also the same Lord that is stiled the God of the Spirits of All flesh Which may be the Foundation of That Prayer and That Promise also that All flesh may and shall be brought to praise and bless the Lord as also that All the Earth must be full of the Glory of God For the place of his very Feet must be Glorious And what Glory Then will be upon This Earth when the Curtains or Canopy of the Heavens shall be drawn and the Glory of God shall appear and will the Earth as his chiefest Residence Will he not Then Give the Greatest Honour to the Weaker Vessel and the more abundant honor to the most uncomly parts or That which lacked most before It might be added also that the very City Jerusalem was not only Accursed as the rest but longer than other parts of the Land Trodden down by the accursed Jebusites which had their very name from Tredding down as the Revelation also seemeth to allude and These Jebusites grew up to be so Odious that before he conquered them 't is said His Soul even Davids Soul that is Love it self Hated them Even Them who possessed That very Fort which was afterwards his Darling and the dearly beloved of his Soul Yea That which God Chose-above all the Gates or Cities of Judah Yet in it self besides its accursed possessors it was but a dry barren Rock and so called Zion Drought or a Dry barren place And Morijah also where the Temple stood was but the Threshing place of one of these accursed Jebusites though as a Liberal Prince to David himself And though in Hebrew it may signifie the Lords Teaching yet others bring it up to Myrrh or Bitterness and in Greek it signifieth Foolishness to which also the Apostle may allude in several places And by This time I may conclude this Discourse of Turning accursed places or unholy into Blessed and Holy with That solemn saying of our Saviour The last shall be first and the first last Which he repeated so that I often think it might intimate a greater Mystery than I am yet sensible of As if All the Course of Gods Providence were as a Wheel in constant Motion pulling down the high Spoaks and bringing up the low ones Which Moses also long before described in his Psalm of Nature Grace and Glory Thou turnest man about as grinding him with the upper and the lower Milstone of Grief and Pain to clay or dust and Then thou sayest Return again Again ye Sons of Man Return again O Lord How long and let it repent thee concerning thy servants That is Make them Turn and Repent as we find it plain enough in the 80. Psalm and divers other places that Gods Effects In Man are expressed as His Affections To Man O satisfie us with thy Free Grace in the morning when our Night of pain and sorrow is past For Though sorrow
in case of Pure Chance Meadling and for no stroak or stabbing or any other kind of That now called Man-slaughter which I doubt may lie very heavily upon some Nations might have Refuge to the Cities of Refuge and be There preserved by the Judges in the Gates from the Kinsman or Avenger of Blood Till the Death of Him that represented our great High Priest And the 3 Cities of Refuge on the Right side of Jordan were Higher than the 3 on the Left which were also out of Canaan the Land of Rest. But we saw before How Jacob Crossed his Hands in Blessing the Sons of Joseph who lift up his Fathers hand to remove it but could not and afterwards put his Hand upon his Fathers Eyes which we may consider again With Eglon the Calf or Beast destroyed by Ehud a man of Benjamin or of the Right Hand but Turned Left handed and Sodom also set at Judahs Right Hana when her Captivity is Turned in Ezekiel Though she be There also called the Younger sister As Ephraim was the Younger Brother and yet as most or all younger Children in all the Bible to be preferred before the Elder And God owneth it also saying in the Prophets Ephraim is my First Born And so the Lost son also among the Millions of Ephraim who must make the Fulness of the Gentiles must have the Best Robe and the Fatted Calf and be Preferred before his Elder Brother In a word the First shall be Last and the Last First and you know not what you ask when you speak of sitting at his Right Hand or his Left Shall I add that although the Right Hand was generally Best with the Jews Yet with the Romans directly contrary in This also the Left hand Thunders and other Auguries were judged Better than at Right Hand Was it because Their Left hand was neerest or opposite to Heavens Right Hand or God giving them all their Blessings Or shall we say that After the Temple God himself seemed to Turn his Face Westward As Christ on the Cross and so That was now at his Right Hand which before at his Left and That Now before him which was formerly behind him It is True we read That Expression of Gods Turning But in the 80 Psalm and many other places it speaketh His Turning of Us. Yet in a Right sence As we cannot Love Him till He Love us so we cannot Turn To Him Till he Turn To Us or be Turned As the Phrase is of the Great Mystery of God in Christ Turning himself Toward us and us to Him Reconciled to us Did the ancient Christians also that prayed Towards the East do it in opposition to the Jews still Bowing to the West as we touched before Or Believing God or Christ on the Cross was now Turned quite contrary to the Posture He was in before Or supposing Christ the Mercy Seat of the Divine Presence to be still over the Mount of Olives where he went up into Heaven and There sitteth at the Right Hand of God till All his Enemies are made his Foot-stool But if This were All That Posture or Bowing Eastward becometh None but Those only which are in the Western Corner of the World For They that are more Eastern than Jerusalem must on that account Turn Westward and the Southern Christians Northward and the Northern Southward O but when shall we come to believe and know that Our Blessed Savior is In us as his great Prayer and Promise was As his Father is in Him and yet when Here on Earth he lifted up his Eyes and Hands to Heaven as his Fathers chiefest Residence And so we also Even Then when it shall please God to reveal Him in us As in Paul and to make him In us the Hope or Evidence of Glory All the Elders bowed to the Lamb with all their Vials full of Odours which are the Prayers of Saints as we read in That Blessed Book which Blesseth All that Read and understand it But in our little Body we have Hot and Cold Moist and Dry Muscles pulling up and down drawing in and out and yet All Those All other contrarieties make excellent Harmony So in His great Body the Church of his First Born and the World also much greater contrarieties than we can well express are reconciled and accepted also by Him who hath purposed in himself to Reconcile All things Even All things To Himself in and by and Through our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ and by the Blood of his Cross. Who is God over All Blessed for Ever Amen And to All that are called to be Saints or in Any place for it will be in All places call upon Jesus of Nazareth Their Lord and Ours I am bold to say because God hath said it and written it also Let Him that standeth Take heed lest he fall And there is No Temptation on you to you but what is common to man But God is Faithful who will not suffer you to be Tempted above your ability but with the Temptation will also make a way to escape that you may not run away but be able to Bear it However God may bear it from you or bear it with you and upon you Wherefore my Dearly Beloved flee from Idolatry I speak as to wise men Judg what I say And How comes in This Wherefore unless the Temptations to Idolatry be of All the Greatest and most dangerous And of All Idolatries That of our own Fancy or vain Imagination that is Image-making of our own Hearts more dangerous and more provoking God to Jealousie than All other Idols As we touched before in the second Command But who art Thou O man that judgest another or settest at naught Thy Brother If in any thing we differ God shall reveal This also Yet a little while and we must stand before His Throne who said This is my Commandement and yet again My New Commandement that you Love One another and Take Heed you fall not out by the way and by This shall all men know you are my Disciples if you love one another And it must be also Even as He hath loved us And by This we have boldness and confidence to pray and hope and believe he heareth us and loveth us when we love one another And to Brotherly kindness Add Love And that your Love abound and increase to One another and to All men To All men Yea and Honor All men And the Time is coming and already come he said that ye shall worship the Father neither at This Mountain nor at Jerusalem but in every place True Worshipers shall Worship the Father in Spirit and in Truth For the Father Seeketh such to worship him and such he will Finde O Thou that Hearest Prayer unto Thee shall All Flesh come and to Thee shall the Vow be performed Praise waiteth for Thee O God who dost both possess and inherit All the Praises of Israel in silence For so the Phrase speaketh and so the Jews
will not forsake his People for his great Names sake because it hath pleased the Lord to make you his People Moreover as for me God forbid that I should sin against the Lord in ceasing to pray for you but I will Teach you the good and the Right way Onely fear the Lord and serve him in Truth with all your Heart as Davids Dying words to Solomon and Christ also God is a Spirit and they that worship him must do it in Spirit as here with All the Heart and Truth also For Such the Father Seeketh to worship Him And such he will finde For consider How great things he hath done for you But if you will still do wickedly you shall be consumed both you and your King There is yet much more in That History of Nahash of Ammon of Lot the Veyl which must be separate from the face of all people As at first from Abraham as we saw before from Esay and divers places And now Here also he would not onely cover their Eyes but put them quite out or at least their Right Eyes and that also must be A Reproach for All Israel Though This was onely at Jabesh-Gilead the Reliques of that woful business at Gibeah which did not onely cut off Benjamin but Jabesh-Gilead also by 12000 chosen men of Israel as the first Fruits to God and the Lamb as we may see in Judges 21. Where also both Gilead and Mispeh lead us to the Watch and Stones of Witness we saw before in Jacob their Father and Laban when Rachel was going to her long home at Bethlehem Ephrata with this Benjamin the youngest of her sons for whom she wept so much and so long because They were not Joseph was not and Ephraim was not see 1 Chron. 7. 21. and now they Take Benjamin also All these things are against her And yet little Benjamin that had so ruined Jabesh-Gilead must now save it by Saul the first King of that Tribe coming up because of Nahash besieging Jabesh-Gilead And the men of Jabesh-Gilead said Forbear us 7 Dayes and if none can save us we will come out to thee Then came Messengers to Gibeah of Saul That very Gibeah which had caused all the mischief both to Benjamin and Jabesh-Gilead also Then the people wept and Saul yearneth over their Tears so good it is to go or be with a Mourning weeping people of God For who can tell but their tender Eyes may affect and soften our hard Heart and Then the Spirit of God came upon him and remembring that All the mischief came by hewing a woman into pieces He now slayeth the Beast and heweth it into 12 pieces and by Those summons the 12 Tribes as One man with one consent or as the Prophet speaks with One Sechem He had now 300000 of Israel and 30000 of Judah a bad Omen that they should be so Divided and they must be Parted into 3 Bands and by Night also as Abraham his 300 and Gideon his 300 and Jacob his at Mahanaim and Joshuah his at Gibeon and David his for Ziglag and again As Jacob at Mahanaim and in the Morning Watch as before in the Red Sea and Barak or Gideon against the Midnight Midianites who though so near akin to Abraham and Isaak and Moses yet had been the Buyers of Joseph in the Pit and Sellers to Aegypt so that Moses must not dye before he had avenged God on Midian and recovered such a spoyl as possibly may help us to number all the Times and Numbers in their Bondage ever after Now is Nahash defeated and his Ammonites scattered so that two remained not together while Israel was as One man the onely way to destroy the Serpent and to break his Head And when also They shall be As a Beacon on an Hill the Lord will Wait that he may be Gracious to them and Therefore be exalted Therefore That he may have mercy on them and on All that wait for him For the Lord is a God of judgement Blessed are All They that wait for him As we read in the 30th of Esay How Jabesh-Gilead remembred and requited This of Saul even to his Dead body we observed before How David also blessed them for it when he shewed the kindness of God to the House of Saul Dead Saul And which is yet stranger even to this very Nahash or his Son or Namesake King of Ammon also Till they so abused his Embassadors An History that may be more considered And the people said to Samuel Who is he that said shall Saul Reign over us Bring the men that we may put them to death But Saul said There shall not a man be put to death this day for to day the Lord hath wrought salvation in Israel And David also in his sweet Return after his Banishment from his Kingdom would not slay Cursing Shimei because he knew he was That day King of Israel As we saw before with divers circumstances Then said Samuel to the People Come and let us go to Gilgal and Renue the Kingdom There Even There where God in Joshuah Rouled away the shame of Israel And now They rouled away This shame also of Nahash the Serpent on All Israel Though I add not here again how Circumcision it self was a Type or Pledge of their cutting off Nahash or the Serpents Head in every Age and World and Region also of the little World as we saw before How David or any other of the Kings cut off this Serpent or Nahash also in that remarkable History 2 Sam. 10. we leave for another season as God shall please And though Solomon had but One War as we saw before with Hamath Zoba the Wrath of an Army or fighting Rage or Fury Yet These also as All within the River Euphrates became his Servants or his Tributaries Even to the River of Aegypt whence he married his Queen as we saw before Of Solomons Temple I have little to add to Those Excellent Books lately written by English men also of Both Temples with That of a very Learned man before the Great Bible there also published That may never dyâ— Or Those that did or yet do labour to perfect it But I suppose Many if not All the Numbers we have spoken of may be in those Temples also with the Tabernacle and Noahs Ark in proportion to a mans body with its Three Regions also 30 Cubits High and 50 Broad and 6 times as Long. 300 by 50 is 15000 and the Waters prevailed 15 Cubits Upwards and that by 30 is 450000 filled up with 8 Persons and Beasts Unclean also with their Food and Ayre and other requisites of which again as God shall help us The Tabernacle 30 long and 10 broad that is 300 as the Ark and 10 high 3000. And its Court 100 long and 50 broad 5000. As we touched before in the 5000 fed by our Saviour as after by Peter Ranked by 100 and 50. Solomons Temple Double to the Tabernacle 60 long and 20
Prophets and our Saviour also that God would never deal worse with any then with that Nation And the Prophet Ieremiah saith he that believeth shall never cease from giving fruit and the Psalmist that his leaves shall never quite fall off and Christ saith that he which beareth any fruit in him shall be purged that he may bear more In him is all our fruit found and in him we go in and out and still find fresh pasture and he that once drinketh of His living waters never thirsteth more or is quite dry but still findeth a fountain in him flowing up to Eternal Life And St. Paul saith If thou shalt confesse with thy mouth the Lord Jesus and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the Dead thou shalt be saved For which also he citeth two great Prophets Isaiah and Joel which is cited also by St. Peter in his first publique Sermon For whosoever shall call upon the Name of the Lord shall be saved For this Jesus is Lord of All even Davids Lord also and Rich unto All that call upon him And Paul also saith that no man can say that Jesus is the Lord but by the Holy Ghost Which was oft no little stay to one I sometime knew in great anguish fearing the good Spirit had forsaken him And to all that so acknowledge Christ for their Lord and as their Lord worship him as the Psalms bid us and call upon him the same Apostle saith that no temptation comes but common unto man And that God is faithful and will not suffer them to be Templed above their strength but with the Temptation will provide an Issue that they may be able to bear it Which is also the last Petition in Our Lords Prayer and so sure to be granted And to All so acknowledging Christ St. John saith If we confess our sins He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousnesse And to All such he saith If any man sin we have an Advocate with the Father even Jesus Christ the Righteous and he is the Propitiation for our sin and not for ours onely but for the sins of the whole World which are some of the sweetest places in the Bible and belonging to All that call on Jesus of Nazareth which I see you do And to All such and therefore to you also St. Paul the great Teacher of the Gentiles writeth as from God in Heaven and his Son Jesus the Judge of all men and Angels also that if we judge our selves as I see you do we shall not be judged by him which is one of the greatest and highest Prerogatives or Royalties a mortal man can be capable of The Jews speak of it as one of the first things delivered by God to Moses and by him to Joshua and so down through all their Elders and Wise men in all ages to be Slow to judge or very slow in judging and it is one of the greatest and most difficult things in the world to be a righteous Judge in any matters of concernment more of our selves and yet more in matters of another world and yet most of all for all eternity so far above our sence and reason also that we know not how to guess about it but by Revelation The great thing foretold of Christ in the Psalms and Prophets is That he was to be the great and most supream Judge of all Persons in all Causes Which we might track through all the Bible up as high as Enoch Behold the Lord cometh with ten thousand of his Saints to execute judgement upon all c and for this he received a most solemn Commission and was fitted and filled also with the spirit of Wisdom Knowledge Understanding Councell Power and Fear of-the Lord yea to make him very quick or tender in the Fear of God that he might judge righteous judgement And this was one great reason of his being made Man that he might be our Peer and an equal daies-man between God and us that should not make us afraid with his Terror when he judged us it being so consonant to Reason and to Scripture also that the Power Legislative Judiciall and Executive should be in distinct persons and run in distinct Channels God would have it so in himself also and came out in the person of the Father giving the Law though indeed the Free persons that receive and submit even the Law-takers are the great Law-makers But the Sonne is the Judge and the Spirit executes his judgements For the Father judgeth no man but hath committed all judgement to the Son that all men should honour the Son even as they honour the Father For as the Father hath life in himself so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself and the Son quickneth whom he will and hath given him authority to execute judgement also because he is the Son of man Jesus Christ therefore being the great and only Judge having all judgement committed to him no man may pre sume to make himself a Judge or take it on him but when Christ committeth it and then onely As he commandeth and directeth Let me therefore first desire you to consider that you run not on a Premunire or be Anti-christian or a Traitor against the main office of Christ while you judge your self or any other for who hath made you a Judge or a divider If you say Christ hath bid you judge your self you must be sure of your Commission that you have it and can read and understand it also For his own general rule out of his own mouth was Judge not that ye be not judged And he that taketh upon him to judge and condemn another or so much as to think evil of his neighbour and t' is worse of a stranger whom he knoweth not speaketh evill of the Law and judgeth or condemneth the Law yea and it may be the Law-maker also And though Christ did promise first to his twelve Apostles Judas also it seems being among them that they having followed him in the Regeneration should sit on twelve Thrones judging the twelve Tribes of Israel And afterwards even after his last supper before his death he said to them Yee are they which have continued with me in my Temptations and I appoint you a Kingdom as my Father hath appointed unto me that you may eat and drink at my table in my Kingdom and sit on Thrones judging the twelve Tribes of Israel there being then also it seems twelve with him and so Judas also though Saint John saith he went out immedately after the sop Yet this was not to be till he himself was to receive his Kingdom and As he did receive it at his Fathers hand and appointment which was not till after Death and Resurrection and Ascention to his glory Then he received gifts for men and for the Rebel also Then and not till then he gave out the Spirit which was not to be
read in the Psalmes and Epistle to the Hebrews with the four Watches or Watchers and the four and twenty Elders of which again when we shew all measures borrowed from the twelve hours of darknesse or the twelve sons of Ishmael and the twelve sons of Light or of Israel they all fall down and Worship Praying and singing Praises to the Lamb also even as cloathed with flesh as well as to him that sat on the Throne which yet was Christ also as is clear from many passages but Christ in more Majesty and Glory of the Deity then onely as a Lamb slain For it was the Lamb exalted and set down in Glory even in his Fathers Throne As of old the 24. courses of Priests and of Levites and of Porters or Watchers or Singers and other Officers so ordered by David who was also the 24th from Noah as the number of his Name in Hebrew and the 14th from Abraham as also his Name when written without a jod as frequently it is and signifieth love and a Fathers Brother or a very neer kindsman so in the Revelation those 24. Elders did fall down in Adoration to the Lamb even to the Lamb that was slain they had Harps it s said and golden Vials full of Odours which are the praiers of Saints Which may intimate that as our great High Priest over all the Houshold in Heaven and Earth The great Angel of the Covenant offers up his own Incence with the Prayers of all Saints to his Father So these Intercessors also to the Lamb even the Elders of Churches offer up their Churches yea and other Saints Prayers to the Lamb. For the whole Bride and the Spirit acting the Bride also do not onely converse with Christ as her Husband but Worship him also as Her Lord as Sarah called Abraham and she is so commanded in the Psalmes both to Kisse him and to Worship him And she so practiseth in the Canticles and the Revelation also crying to the last come even come and so come Even come Lord Iesus come quickly It may also be easie to shew very many if not most or all of the Prayers and praises in the Psalmes are plainly directed to Christ and many commands and encouragements to call upon him there also As He arken unto my cry my King and my God for unto Thee will I Pray my voice shall thou hear in the morning O Lord in the morning will I direct my prayers to Thee and will look up And again they that know Thy Name will trust in Thee for Thou Lord hast not forsaken them that seek Thee And again Lord thou hast heard the desire of the humble Thou wilt prepare their heart and thou wilt cause their ear to hear And again Blessed be my Rock and blessed be the God of my Rock and my Saviour clense me from my secret sins and keep me that presumptuous sins prevail not over me and let the words of my Mouth and the Meditations of my Heart be acceptable in Thy sight O Lord my Rock and my Redeemer And again Thy Throne O God is for ever and ever and ride on prosperously because of Truth and Meeknesse of Righteousnesse And to the Spouse of Christ He is thy Lord Worship thou him And again Be still and know that I am God Clap hands all People sing unto God with Triumph He shall speak the people under us He shall chuse our Inheritance for us even the Excellency of Jacob whom he loved and his blessing prevailed over all the blessings of his Ancestors And again gather my Saints together and I will speak and then declares the forme of the great Judgement both to the good and evil And concludes call upon me in the day of thy trouble I will deliver thee and thou shalt glorifie me plainly spoken by Christ and repeated by the Psalmist afterwards Saying In the day of my trouble I will call upon Thee for Thou wilt answer me And in an other Psalm Thou calledst in trouble and I did deliver thee and answered thee in the secret place of Thunder And what time I am afraid I will trust in Thee And again Trust in him at all times ye People and power out your Souls before him And again Praise waiteth in silence for thee And to thee shall the Vow be performed O thou that hearest prayer unto thee shall all flesh come Iniquity prevaileth over me but thou hast made Atonement for our transgressions O our Jesus or our Salvation The hope of the ends of the Earth and them that are a far off in the Seas And again my lips shall ever praise Thee and and in thy Name will I lift up my hands when I pray And again Thou hast ascended up on High Thou hast led Captivity Captive Thou hast received gifts for men even for the Rebbels also that God may dwell among them And thy God hath commanded thy strength Strengthen O God that thou hast wrought c. And again In the day of my trouble I will call upon Thee for Thou wilt answer me and Thou Lord art good and ready to forgive and plenteous in Mercy to all that call upon Thee Or as St. Paul to the Romans Lord of All and Rich unto all that call upon him plainly spoken of Christ. As that also of the Lord speaking unto my Lord Sit at my right hand c. And then the Psalmist speaketh to him the Lord at Thy hand shall smite through Thy enemies and Thy people shall be a willing people in the day of thy power and the Lord hath sworn and will not repent Thou art a Priest for ever cited so remarkably in the New Testament by the Apostles and by Christ also asking the Jews who it was there or how David called him Lord. And the 102. Psalm being entituled a prayer of one afflicted when his soul is overwhelmed in him and poureth out his sighing before the Lord is plainly spoken to Christ as we see by divers verses cited in the Epistle to the Hebrews as spoken to Him and proving Him to be the Son of God and so are many other like passages cited in the New Testament and applyed to Christ. As also the context will shew speaking somewhat that belongeth properly to Christ and not to God but as he is in Christ and the Humane Nature and so he hath eyes ears heart and hands and passions also and affections which are else improperly given to God or supposed to be in him and so he descends to earth ascends on high Returning also to judge the World Which is oft spoken by David to Him he calleth Lord and King and Judge of All. But the Father judgeth no man but hath committed alâ— judgement to the Son and authority also to execute judgement because he is the son of man And often doth the Psalmist speak to a Lord or King or Judge as Job also saying I will make supplication to my Judge and my Redeemer liveth a phrase also frequently
and clean contrary to our words As when we say O well done perhaps they know we mean Ill done and when we say now fall or go do so or so they understand we mean they should not fall or do so and many other things we speak by way of tempting or of Irony or otherwise directly contrary to our words It being Thus also in the Scriptures where oft times the sence might be gathered by accents stops or pauses with the signs of questions parenthesis and Ironies with many other things which are now very hard to understand especially in the old Testament This is one of the many reasons why we cannot pretend to the full or True sence and meaning of the Scriptures without That Spirit which did make them and interpret them as Christ pleased to give out through all the several Ages of his Church Which yet possibly might differ as the sence and understanding of an Infant or Minor differs much from That of a Man a Wise Man who now sees another sence and meaning of his Fathers words spoken or written long since than he once did or could do by many readings And this differing sence and understanding even in Principles may somtimes occasion or cause different Practice also among good men and children of the same Father in the same or several Ages Which we might observe from the difference of Judgment and Practice that I say not Affection found among the Apostles themselves and the most primitive Christians about the good Will of God to the Gentiles and about the Law and Circumcision that I say nothing of the Nature and Office of the Holy Ghost or of Christ himself in Person Natures Offices the manner and the Vertue of his Death and Resurrection with the Form of his Government and Kingdom with his Coming again and Judgment which are so cleerly written in the old Testament and yet so little understood by Them or Us either even to This day And as the Spirit of God in Christ doth say and do all that Christ saieth prayeth worketh so also doth the Spirit of Christ in his Members so that every one of them may truly say I cannot speak or pray or do any one thing pleasing to God or my self if I know my self but what the Spirit of Christ my Head and Father also as my Spouse saieth prayeth doeth in me I do nothing of my self and I say nothing of my self but what my Fathers Spirit worketh speaketh in me What and How he saith in me I say and what he doth I do My Father worketh hitherto and I work but my Father worketh what I work And This takes me off from solicitous Care what to say or do as well as what to eat and drink because it is given in that hour by our Fathers Spirit For Without me saith Christ you can do nothing and by Him we may both do and bear and suffer All things All our Fruit is found in Him whose Dew is as the dew of Herbs As the Dew of the morning from the Womb of Eternity Now as the spirit of God never comes on us or speaks in us or to us Immediately as from the Father to his Onely begotten Son but only mediately through Christ who is the Mouth and Word of God which may be one character to try the spirit in some these dayes that pretend to immediate voices from the Father concerning His Son Jesus whereas God speaketh not to us but through his son Jesus So when we speak to God we do not may not yet speak to him Immediately but through Christ and to Christ that He may speak it unto God his Father Even as God speaks to Christ and sent him a new Revelation after his Ascension that he might speak and give it to his Members As I cannot speak Immediately to the soul or spirit of a man though he be with me but through his ear or eye or somewhat of his outward man or body So I yet cannot may not speak to God but through his outward man if I may so speak of Jesus Christ and yet I speak to a mans ear or eye or outer man that it may reach also to his heart and soul or spirit and may affect that also And so I speak to Christ also as the Outward Man of God that yet it may affect his heart the very heart of God his Father who is in him And I tell him that I do no so worship him or pray to him or trust in him as a Man only or mainly for I am forbidden to put my trust in any man or in the Son of Man himself as Man onely but as he hath God in him and the Heart of God in his heart Yea is One with God his Father and so One that there is no other God besides him as himself often speaketh in the Prophets where he also calleth himself the first and the last as in the Revelation and the onely True God and so he is called the Onely Wise God our Saviour He is so perfectly One with the Father that when we see him we see the Father also and we pray to the Father when we pray to him who is the everlasting Father or the Father of Eternitie or World to come as some translate the Prophet Isay. So that we may say to him Our Father let Thy Name be glorified and Thy Kingdom come for it is the Fathers also And it may be marked that Our Saviour taught that Prayer Twice first to the Multitude in his sermon on the Mount and 't is no little comfort for them All to see their leave or Right to cry Our heavenly Father Afterwards alone and praying some or one of his Disciples came and said Lord teach us to pray for Thou hast Told us a Prayer before but now we pray thee Teach us to pray even as John taught his Disciples Then he said When you pray say Our Father c. much as before but then he said After this manner therefore pray ye and 't is there Forgive us as we forgive our Debtors but in Luke to his Disciples in private it is Forgive us for we also forgive all our Debtors Which is better rendred so then some that read it Those that Trespasse against us But it seems plainly to allude to that Law and custom of remitting debts to all their Debtors as the Law required in the Jubile and other sabboth years and so they might speak it more sensibly then it may be we or I now can if we should render it Forgive us as we forgive all that trespasse against us Yet I have sometimes thought that Christ even drives us to Himself when we dare not speak those words to the Father Yet to speak freely the spirit of Christ in a Christian is or will be very free and 't is hardly at Any time much lesse at All times tied up to a form of words or kept in rank and file of any One mans Method but as God leads
God promiseth to bring back the Captivity of Ammon as of Sodom also in Ezechiel and of Moab in the latter dayes or Time of Messiah as the Jews use to expound that Phrase of the latter Dayes And in the Tenth Generation They also may enter into the Church of God though it was threatned They should Never enter And as David was the fourteenth Generation and the fourteenth seventy Years from Abraham so was Boas the Tenth or eleventh who married Ruth a Moabite who might be the Tenth from Lot who by a former Man of Iudah was Daughter to Naomy Beauty Wife to Elimelech who had two Sons Mahlon weaknesse and Chilion consumption or perfection or Espousal who had Orpha stiffneckednesse who left her Mother The other Ruth who choosing her Mothers people and God is led to a field of Boaz and is bid stick close to his Maidens O tell me where thou feedest and restest at Noon for why should I stray and at length is bid to lie at his feet and say Thou art my Kinsman as Solomon bids us say to Wisdome Thou art my Sister And Christ is both Iachin and Boaz the Wisdom and Strength of God and so very near a kin to Elimelech my God the King see the third of Esay compared with the 7 8 17. 22. of the 23. chap. and see the Women of Moab and Ammon married to Kings of Israel and Judah And David in his straits carried his Parents to the King of Moab saying Let my Father and Mother be with you till I know what God will do for me Or as Esay Let my Out-casts dwell with Thee Moab be thou a Covert to them And in Mercy shall the Throne be established as we found before in the Psalms and Proverbs and he shall sit upon it in Truth in the Tabernacle of David judging and seeking judgement and Hasting Righteousnesse And my Heart shall Cry for Moab O the Tender Heart of God! Let his Fugitives flee to Zoar. As his Father Lot did from Sodom to Zoar which seemeth therefore to have stood in Moab on the East of Iordan and not on the West as the Tables place it And again send ye the Lamb to the Ruler of the People to the mount of the Daughter of Zion as alluding to the King of Moabs paying Lambs for Tribute to the King of Israel But about Ahabs Death Moab and Edom also brake their yoak and freed themselves from Iaacob under Iehoram the high Lord in the dayes of Elisha or God Iesus as the Name implies who had a double portion of the Spirit of Elijah the Lord my God And shall a Man be able to give a Double portion of his Spirit and That at his Parting and going away and shall not He that hath the Residue of the spirit in opposition to shear Baser the Residue of the Flesh which is so many times in Scripture Language for near Kindred or He that hath the Spirit without Limits or not by measure shall not He be able and willing also to give His Holy Spirit unto all that ask it and a Double Portion unto All his First Born Who saw and yet see him ascending and cry to him my Father my Father the Charriot of Israel and the Horsemen thereof And it may be That remarkable promise of the Spirit unto all that ask it may allude to This very History of Elijah giving his Spirit to Elisha crying my Father my Father As in Luke it is not as some read it your Heavenly Father But Your Father who is Out of Heaven or came out of Heaven And he took the Mantle of Elijah and smote the Waters saying as we may now say Here indeed is the Mantle of Elijah O but Where is the Lord God and the Spirit of Elijah and the Waters parted Hither and Thither Though I do not yet say when they so parted as before at Josuahs coming over Jordan there began an Other Generation or a New Age of the World As at first dividing the Waters by the Firmament of Heaven with the Waters above the Heavens of which in the Psalms and divers other places that I speak not of Esdras Ecclesasticus or Wisdom of Solomon And the Sons of the Prophets said the Spirit of Elijah resteth on Elisha and they bowed down or Worshipped him and afterwards he enlarged their Colledge and it may be their Spirit also The Hebrew Word Saul used in That History puts me in mind How Saul cut off the Lords Priests and How he fell and How the Jews say He was Recovered aand saved though I dare not say by the Mediation of Elias or Elisha Who they say must come and loose all knots or as our Saviour saith He must Restore All Things yea and that after John the Baptist was beheaded And some other words in That History put me also in mind How Elijah destroyed the false prophets of Baal and Jezabel and how Elisha did encourage and enlarge the True Prophets and at length by one of the young prophets annointeth Jehu which yet was given in charge to Elijah himself One of the best Texts I know for Deputations And Jehu destroyeth Jezabel who had not onely Destroyed and Corrupted the Lords Prophets and driven away Elijah and Elisha but had even quite stifled the very Spirit of Prophecy in the Seed of God as the Hebrew words Naboth in Jezreel may import Which may be compared with That of Jezabel opposed by the Bright morning Star breaking and scattering the Dark Clouds and bringing in the Morning and Our Rising and cloathing with White and fresh Linnen in fourth and fifth Churches and thâ—slaying of the two Witnesses with the Spirit of Prophecy in the Revelation And the sixth Church of Philadelphia or Brotherly Love is plainly the New Jerusalem as Christ himself expresseth in his Epistle to that Church before the General Iudgement of the People or Laodicea as the Word signifies Which may also be compared with the latter part of the eleventh and also the four last Chapters of the Revelation Where the great Judgement also is Described which the Prophets place in the Valley of Jehoshaphat whose very Name implies the Lords Judgement Which was also called the valley of Beraca or Blessing When they had troden down Moab and Ammon and Edom. Which we find also cited in the Prophets as foretelling somewhat yet to be done in the Revelation And had it not been for Jehoshaphat Elisha said he would not have seen the other two Kings met against Moab also saying Nay but hath God gathered these Kings and their people also together to Destroy them But as Jehoshaphat smarted sorely for joyning with Ahab and his Sons so They Got by His good Company In which we may see God pitying a Wicked man and Hearing his Cry and Prayer as most remarkably after he did the Prayer of Jehoahaz 2 Kings 13. 4 5 6. 23. How the Waters came at the morning Sacrifice and How he multiplyed the VViddows Oyl that was like to
And Moadim the Months or Moments of the Witnesses Which in Heaven may be Sun and Moon But As on Earth Josuah and Caleb Jerusalem and Jericho Moses and Aaron Elijah and Elisha Or many other things or persons Which through divers Types or Shadows in Light and Darknesse Day and Night Summer and Winter Man and Woman with many other things which we hinted before in the Temple and the Land of Promise and the Body of Man and the Ark and Tabernacle of Witness also at length All come to be resolved into the Times of Christ and his Church or Churches his Two Witnesses The Dove and the young Pidgeon As Adam had his Lilith they say and then his Eve or Evening that is Lilith also Drest in Night-cloathes And Abraham had his Hagar and Sara and Ketura Jacob his Rachel and Leah David his Abigail and Ahinoam carried captive from Ziglag As Dead Three dayes and an half All which may be Types or shadows of the Church and the World the Jew and the Gentile under such and such Changes of the Moon as it were with Eclipses also or whatever else God please to shew us in his Baths 3 Seas in Heaven above the Earth beneath and waters under the Earth also Which yet may be but As New-moon and Full or Shegell and Sheleg of which again with other forms and motions of those Heavenly bodies which are All measured on Earth plainer then perhaps we think by such and such Moeds Times of Witnessing or Witnesses Which may be Houres or Dayes or Weeks or Moneths or Years or Sabbaths in Dayes in Years in Jubilees and what else we find of Time in Scripture wch is generally very much measured by Three an half As If we take it for Hours it may shew us how long the Moon or the Earth may be kept from the Light of the Sun which we call an Eclipse But a Shadow of that Dark Horror which our Savior and his Church in him felt upon the Cross. We find it in Heathen Records also another Help to fix Chronology And His Eli Eli as in Greek speaketh somwhat of the Sun also For God is a Shield and Sun also He will give both Grace and Glory Blessed are They that Trust in Him Though they go through Baca Bokim weeping and pass from one Hell to another for the Phrase is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Hil Hel or Chel by which the Gentiles and Unclean were kept from the Temple So that they may not enter Moriahs Temple Yet they shall see God in Zion Give ear O God of poor flying trembling halting Jacob Look upon the Face of thy Messiah in his Pangs on the Cross. That Psalm as the 15th and 24th is of This Feast of Tabernacles And beginneth O! How Amiable are thy Tabernacles O! How Jedidoth alluding both to David and Solomon Jedidiah Keeping This Feast in such Glory as should be touched again in Samuel Kings and Chronicles The unclean Sparrow are not many sold for a farthing the Swallow Black but Comely O ye Daughters of Jerusalem the very Swallow but in Summer She may make her Nest and lay her Young ones in thy very Altans both of Sacrifice and Incense also O thou God of many feminine Hoasts 499. My God and my King This leads us to the Harvest also For we saw before that Our Savior never called himself a King Till the End of the World which he calleth Harvest And the Son of man shall send His Angels They are the Reapers and till that Time he calleth them Holy Angels and his Fathers Angels Now his own Angels and They shall gather out of His Kingdom All things that offend and Those that Do Iniquity And then the King shall say to Them at his Right Hand A Phrase often used in the Psalms At Thy Right Hand the Queen doth stand in Gold of Ophyr And Look at the Right Hand and see for so is the Text Resuge faileth me And at Thy Right Hand are Pleasures for Evermore And yet That very Psalm sheweth that He was not afraid of His Worst or Left Hand neither No more than she or They that begged to sit at his Left Hand also And so David is Placed There Is it because He was Father to our Saviour the Branch and Root of David and of Jessi my Essence that he placeth himself at the Left Hand and Châ—ist at His Right Hand Mimini Bimini Limini Even as Legatus a Latere is sent a Limine And when Satan is set at Judas Right Hand to accuse him as at Josuahs Right Hand also to Resist him with the Heaviest Curses in the Bible He concludeth Christ shall stand at the Right Hand also to save the Poor at His Left Hand from Him that would judg or condemn his Soul his precious Soul Fury is not in me But if he wil set thorns against me I will eonsume them Or let him lay hold of my strength to make peace And He also shall make Peace with me Esay 27 4 5. And the next Psalm crieth My Judgment shall come from Thy Face Thine Ein will behold or consider Equities which to Justice in Scripture often is As The Chancery to Rigour of Law O shew the Wonders of thy tender Mercies in the Plural O thou saving those that Trust or hope in thy Mercy From or Before them that raise themselves or are raised at Thy Right Hand That which followeth will reach our Times also It should be considered with its Misteries A word There used for Secrets and All the Scriptures speaking of Jemini my Right Hand both in Saul and Shimei Cursing David and Both again in Mordecay from Shimei Kish and Jemini As we read in Ester the Mistriss of so many Great Misteries written in the Revelation and upon the Old Crown or Myter yet to be seen perhaps in Rome as at This day And as Mister is a plain Hebrew word for Hidden as Olam or a Mystery So Mistris Hester also with their usual Article as Hadam That Adam and so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 maketh beyond dispute exactly 666. of which again when we find The Mysterious Woman sitting on the Beast in Hebrew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 703 in the Wilderness where first the Woman was Hidden Alma Mater for a Time and Times and Half a Time as in our Prophet Daniel also The very next Psalm of deliverance from All his Enemies and Saul or Sheol also both Grave and Hell so oft repeated crieth The Pangs of Death and Kables of Sheol caught me But verse 35 The Shield of Jesus and Thy Jemine shall uphold me And thy Gentleness shall make me Great As Psal. 45. Ride on prosperously because of Truth and Meekness or Gentleness of Righteousness And thy Jemine shall teach thee wonders For Ever and Aed Thy Throne O God and yet This God hath a Father and a God For God Even thy God hath made thee Messiah and hath given thee His Spirit
OLBIA THE NEW ILAND LATELY DISCOVERED With its Religion and Rites of Worship Laws Customs and Government Characters and Language With Education of their Children in their Sciences Arts and Manufactures with other things remarkable By a Christian Pilgrim driven by Tempest from Civita Vecchia or some other parts about Rome through the Straits into the ATLANTICK OCEAN The First Part. From the Original For Samuel Hartlib in Ax-yard Westminster and John Bartlet at the Guilt-Cup near Austins-Gate London and in Westminster-Hall 1660. The sum of this Discourse HAving lost his Father and other Relations about the great Sickness in Naples the Author becometh a sad disconsolate Pilgrim all alone by Land till unexpected dangers force him from Rome or there about to the Sea Where in a great Storm and Tempest he falleth into unexpressable Horror and Anguish of Minde till at length by Shipwrack losing all his Company he is cast on a scraggy Rock and There by a Religious Person as an Hermite entertained till recovering his Peace and strength with a quiet minde he also Learned the Religion Laws Customs Language and Characters of That New Iland fully described in the Books following this First Part. In which the Father discourseth the Danger of wrong Judgeing our selves or others with the way to a right understanding and Judgement the great Work of the Spirit promised to the World by Jesus Christ Who was sent to Redeem our souls from All Deceit and violence and to offer sacrifice for every one that Erreth and for him that is simple Cleered from Ezech. 45. 20. with Psal. 72. Of our Access and addresses to Him by Prayer As Saint Paul Learned from the first Martyr at his Death and thence made it the great Character of a Christian cleered from His Epistles and the Acts with the Revelation and other Scriptures in Harmony to the Psalms and Canticles Conversing with Christ and Praying to him From the 17. page to the 44. How Christ taught his Disciples and others to pray Our Father c. How He prayed to His Father and How a Christian to Christ and the Father in and through Christ. As Calebs Daughter to Her Father by her Husband and Her self Of Zelophehads Daughters and Edoms Widows and Orphans from Jer. 49. 11. from 44 page to 53. The great Arguments to be pressed on Christ as our Brother Born for a Day of sorrow made of a Woman made under the Law to Redeem them under the Law How the Law lay upon Christ as the great High Priest and Prophet promised to Moses to be raised from our Brethren and Like us in All things and so in the Law also And as our King to write out the Law by which he Ruled and to keep it all his Dayes that so he may do it and prolong his Dayes and Reign in the Heart of his People Where also the way to settle a perpetual Monarchy to a King and his Sons for Ever As God to Moses Joshuah David Solomon or others from 53. to 59. How the Suffering part of the Law lay upon Christ and sor whom but especially the Doing Part. How All was by himself summed up into Love and that but little if onely to Persons Lovely and Loving again How God Commended his Love to the worst of men to whom the Law it self saith I am the Lord Thy God and I have Redeemed Thee and therefore thou shalt Love me and worship me and Glorifie my Name and keep my Rest because I have provided it for Thee and Do and will both Love Honour and Glorifie Thee from 59. to 64. and 94. to 101. How Gods Jealousie speaketh his Love and all his Visiting from 64 to 70 How God Threatned Adam in Paradice and how he visits to fulfil those Threatnings on Him or others from 70 to 77. How much better for us that infinite Goodness and Riches now fill a Finite Nature that longeth to be sucked as a Breast ready to break with fulnes still flowing up still flowing over and a Drop that runneth over can Enrich our Souls and make us ever Bless him who hath said It is a more blessed thing to Give than to receive And He that hath received freely must give freely Of his having All Power in Heaven and Earth being the Wisdome and Power of God and Better for himself to use it for Edification rather than Destruction from 77 to 81. How Christ Loved the World and Prayed for the World how not from 81 to 86. 94 to 101. Of Gods Hating Cursing in order to a Change and how Places or Persons Hated or Cursed may be Recovered Blessed from 85 to 149. 161 308. Of the Earth cursed for Man but Washed or Baptised by the Flood And of Baptising Children how Holy things of old belonged to every one redeemed by the Priests or born in their Families 18 120 186 365. How cursed Canaan was blessed again 122 c. And cursed Jericho Recovered 128 129. And Gibbeon And Aye And Sodom Moab and Ammon Edom and Amaleck of Esau. Egypt and Assyria with the Philistines Of Death and Hell in Saul conquered by Love in David bound up for 1000 Years As coming loose again in Saul of the same Tribe struck down as with Lightning and Named Paul after Sergius Paulus that Prudent Roman Deputy Of Shimei Cursing David or other Shimeis and of Judas and Pauls rising in the House of Judas Of Aeneas Ananias and Saphira Tabitha Dorcas or others Recovered by the Apostles Of Christs Love to his Father and duty by the Law requiring him to propagate his Fathers Love with all his might and manifest his Name and True Worship to bring in all his Children servants sons of his handmaids Strangers and Cattle also to keep the Sabbath to Rest the Rest of God from 100 to 117. 141. Of the Law of Redemption Laid upon Christ as the Kinsman that is able and hath Power and Riches in his Hand and a Tender Heart and Eye when he doth but see the naked and miserable that hath No Helper though they cannot weep it out to him or do not see him who will not hide himself from his own flesh when their Land or Person but especially their pretious and immortal Soul is Sold or pawned or mortgaged or forfaited How he hath promised to draw All men to him and to make All things new 56. 107. 124. to 163. How a man may put himself out of Christs Neighbourhood by degenerating from a Man to a Beast and of Worshipping the Beast receiving the Name Character Image or Number of the Beast Serpent or Dragon and how all the World worship the Beast but those that are written in the Lambs Book of Life How God with all his goodness knoweth how to punish the wicked but especially those that walk in Lust of the flesh and speak Evil of Dignities the sin of Corah c. the crying sins of the last dayes and how there was no sacrifice for
wilful sinners Of the patience of Christ to a man turning into a Beast and how he deviseth Devises to prevent it or recover him How he fulfilled the Ceremonial Law also and how he was in all the Sacrifices as a Lamb for the Lambs and as a Goat for the Goats Of Benjamin the Son of the right hand with other Children of Rachel a sheep in Hebrew at his right Hand and of the Children of Leah or others at the Left Hand where also of Seir a Goat and of the Goats offered at the New Moons solemn Feasts c. and of the Rams of Ishmael accepted on the Holy Alter Of Gods face in Scripture toward the East and of Bowing to the East and of his Right Hand to the South and Left to the North and of Northern Judgments turned to Mercies and Blessings and of great and good things to come out of the North in the Latter times of the World as from Babylon at the return from Captivity How Christ came in the fulness of time Of Seven Ten the full Rich Numbers of their Powers Compounds for Ages Ever or eternity which yet in Scripture oft hath such or such an End or Revolution in such or such Generations How Christ came out in several Ages and Persons of Note in the Bible to do the Great things of Gods Power Wisdome and Goodness for Man To Man and in Man through all the Times and Seasons of the Scripture and in special the Times of the Witnesses In Heaven the Father and the Word Dabar Bar Bara Creating Heaven and Earth where also the Spirit of the Messiah as the old Jews call it on Gen. 1. 2. Mooving on the Waters an other Witness and parting them by A Dam and Adam of Adama dryed Red Earth akin to Dam in Hebrew Bload the other Witness John 5. and Acts 17. Of one Blood he made all Nations of men and determined the Times appointed and bounds of their Habitations which in parting the sons of Adam he bounded according to the Number of the Sons of Israel Deu. 32. which were 12. and to be measured by the 12 Hours of Day and Night Shadowed on the Tabernacle by the Cloud Pillar of Fire for Light that Beginning of the Creation and works of God and in its outer Court by the Laver of Water and Blood on the Alter of Witness as That called Ed a Witness by the waters also of Jordan where afterward the Baptist heard or saw all the Witnesses of Heaven and Earth to which he bare Record or was made a witness also as divers other in several Ages And All the 7 Washings or Sprinklings of Blood or Water so often required in the Law to represent the 7 Nights and 7 Dayes of the Week As the 7 Lamps in the inner Court or Holy Place as the visible Heavens with its Planets about the Sun in the midst as the greatest Lamp was in the middle of the other 6 or 3 on either side by the 12 Cakes of Shewbread changed every 7th or Sabbath day and made of 24 Omers out of 24 Seahs as the Jewes 24th of Leviticus for the 24 hours of Day and Night Made by the Sun mooving 2 of His Diameters the Moon 24 of Hers in each diurnal motion of 24 Hours parted into 4 great Watches as the 24 Elders in the Revelation had also 4 watchers with 6 wings a piece as in the Prophets And in the Temple also there were 24 courses of Priests and of Levites 24 of Porters and 24 of Singers and 24 courses of Standers or men of the Station representing all the People or 12 Tribes as in the 12 Cakes of 24 as 12 Sons of Jacob or 12 Hours of Light came after the 12 hours of Darkness or 12 Sons of Ishmael or Esau for the 24. Elders And as God gave 24 things to the Priests so they gave 24 to him in their dayly Minha of 12 Rouls at morning and 12 also at Evening And the Seventh in Hours also is very Signal as in Days and Moneths and years by the great Rest and Turn of Sun and Moon as Water and Blood also in the Sea and bodies of Animals after every six hours with Them and All that accounted Lilith that is Night the first Wife to Adam and do call her Eve or Even to the Day As it is to them that are about the Aequator and to All at either Aequinox when Time seemeth to begin And beginning at Sun-set as the Jewes and many other Nations did the First six Hours brought down the Sun to the Midnight Nadir and six more brought it up to the Morning Horizon and six more to the Noon or Zenith and six more to Setting again So that every seventh Hour made a Pauz and Turn And Sabbath is Both in Hebrew As if the watchers stood at the four Corners of Earth or quarters of the Heaven which are called Winds and Spirits also in the Scripture alluding perhaps to the four watching Spirits or Angels to Turn the Sun and Moon or Hour-glass of Waters or Clepsydra in the Seas c. After every six Hours of Day and Night the walks of the Sun and Moon but shadows of the good things within the Vaile or 3d Heaven where the 2 Cherubins of Glory shadowed the Mercy Seat or Heavenly Throne over the Earth or Ark of the Testimony also or Witnes with its 2 Tables or Testaments also For the 2d Covenant as in 29 of Deuteronomy was both Law and Gospel also written in the Ark of the Heart of Christ and all his Members after the first Tables of Stone were broken and disanulled being never put in the Ark or in our Hearts For know you not that your Bodies are the Temple of God As Paul speaketh to the Gentiles also Where our Heads as the Heavens above with two Eyes or Cherubins of Glory The Mercy seat or Throne of God and his Rainbow as in all the Scriptures like our Eye And our Heart Or Altar of Incense As the Earth beneath in the middle Court or 2d Region with its Pericardium of Water and Blood in the Pleura with twelve Ribs on either side and seven distinct from the other Nothi As also the seven Rackets of the neck with its spirit or spinal marrow from the Cerebellum As the Brain hath also seven spirits or pair of Nerves with Animal spirits Veyles and Ventricles which are shadowed in the Lower Regions both of the Earth below in the Heart and Waters under the Earth in our Bowels where the Duodenum and Ilea with all the Rest are but shadowes of things above As of the Laver or Molten sea or great Ocean with its Ebbings and flowings as the Earning of our Bowels and the Altar of Burnt-offerings in our Stomack with its heat or fire never quenched and the seven Planets with the Firmament of the Midrif parting between the Bowels or Waters under it and those above it as high as the Brain
witnesse Judges or Jury to Indict arreign condemn and execute this Malefactor but Himself and his own hands in his own bowels had not some over-ruling secret Power restrained him or prevented opportunities Which ere long yet might seem to be offered when he heard the sad doleful shreekings of his fellow passengers while All at once saw their hopes and ship broken together spliting on a scraggie Rock where they all bid adieu to themselves and Time Now lanching out as they all thought into the boundlesse Ocean of Eternity Wearied with expectance and pursuit of death which they feared and he wished as a little pauze to that Horror which he judged worse than Death rather then struggling for life he lay gasping on the top of a scrag somewhat higher then his fellows where those waves that had cast him up seemed to leave him a while as stepping back a little in regret rather then pitty that with greater and renewed force as he was like enough to fear they might return again to assault and afflict him In these hoping fears and strength enough to recollect so much of his bewildred reason as to think he yet lived though he knew not how or where a grave aged Person came or was rather sent from some higher power that had seen and pittied him it seems as having been a mournful spectator of that shipwreck After some real expressions of most cordial sympathy with his sad forlorn condition which came out in sighs and groans and Tears rather than words the grave Hermite for such he seemed carried rather then led him into his Cell which was hard by the place and in the same Rock where the proud swelling waves had been commanded so to leave him As he was preparing such repast as that distance from the World could afford he perceived such a meen and carriage with other characters in his wearied Guest as made him much guesse of his native Countrey and Education to which therefore he suited his Language as he judged likest to be understood by his Stranger Who yet replyed little but so many sighs and broken groans onely as with piercing looks might intimate he was very sensible of his goodnesse and compassion but that it could not avail him now since he was become the most wretched object of the Creators wrath and the whole Creations scorn and hatred There needed no more to melt the good Fathers heart and make his bowels yern over his Strangers soul and spirit more then before on his broken and distressed body Yet it was some comfort to discern such a sense of his sore and what it was For which also he was the better prepared by the like workings and sufferings in his own spirit which by many years experience of much affliction and sorrow had been taught to sympathize with all dejected spirits and to long much for their cure and healing To which therefore he now soon applied himself after some few questions onely to discover more clearly the breadth and depth of the wound that so he might more perfectly discern what Teincts Plaisters or other remedies were proper for his oure The poor Soul had very few words to answer any question not that he would not but he could not speak his grief and sorrows of a heart too full to vent it self in ought but Horror and amazement when a necessity of Breathing sometimes forced out such sighs and groans as otherwise were unutterable In those breathing pawses when he had not strength enough to weep more his eyes and spirit rather then words expressed such an ingenuous willingnesse to speak his heart without any reserve or such shinesse as is usual to strangers that the Father had no need to presse him to Confession which he waved rather seeing his poor Guest ready enough to pour out his soul when ever he could and in some things which he thought not meet to hear much lesse to presse him to All particulars which might occasion such Horror as was like enough to overwhelme his soul and body both so that he thought it very requisite to apply Cordials as soon as he might seeing him ready to faint and swoon away in his spirit almost every moment Here the Authour craveth pardon if he be forced to be more confused then becomes so great a Subject But the poor soul being then in great sorrow and confusion of spirit could not keep method in asking questions or returning answers or be clear in stating their discourse It being written also some pretty time after so that he cannot be punctual in saying this was first and this next His intent being matter and substance much rather then Manner or circumstance Nor must the Reader wonder if he sometimes find a long discourse of many things added together which came out by degrees at several times and occasions as their mutual discourse or dialogue invited or lead rather then drew them although one part of the Dialogue Questions and Objections be omitted now He is also desired to consider All things are better much in their Original or native dresse and Language then they well can be in a Translation and from such a Language as constraineth the Translator to conjecture that I say not divine at the Authours meaning in some places Where haply also a broken line and points may hint the Original there imperfect or somewhat wanting Which yet possibly might be supplied from some other copy which is not yet found and the characters of this in some places also scarce Legible Yet All things material and of consequence are as faithfully represented and expressed as they well may be from such a discourse as sighs and great pangs of sorrow and perhaps also some other causes make abrupt and broken more then is usual especially in the first Book which is therefore presented by way of Abstract rather then a literal Translation and as the Ancients did their Parables To all the poor soul said against it self it was replyed to this purpose All this may arise very much from mistakes of God and your self and although you cannot have too great and high thoughts of God in any thing yet you may have too great thoughts of your self in every thing yea in your very sins God hath made all our hearts so much alike that there is perhaps no great difference in Temptations Thoughts or Actions but what is common unto men And to think our selves better or worse then other men may be from Ignorance of our own and other mens heart which is general and special is so desparately evil and deceitful above all things that it may be worst when we think it best and it may be best when we judge it worst Yea it may be great Pride and no Humility to judge one self a greater sinner then others from conceit of having greater Light or Love then our neighbours have Or if you think you have more abused these though not more of these then others yet in this also you may be
deceived and God needeth not your Lye for him or against your self in any thing And if you judge amisse of your self God is so Holy and Just that you never need fear that He will confirm or execute your wrong Judgement And if you judge rightly of your self you are not so miserable as you conceive your self but as you do that which is one of the Highest and Hardest Acts possible which is to judge ones self rightly so you have one of the Greatest Bbessings which God giveth to the Sons of men or to his own Son which is a right understanding of a right Judgement which was the Great Argument used by the greatest and best man that ever lived to prove that he was of God and had His Spirit and a Will also moulded into His Holy Will for else he saith he could not Judge Righteous Judgement And who ever doth this of himself and his own sins is in a special manner partaker of the Holy Ghost whose proper work is to convince us rightly of sin Righteousnesse and Judgement and who ever judgeth himself rightly shall not be judged of God Here he stopt and sweetly bowed and turned aside a little but returned soon again looking as cheerful as he could well force himself It being not very easie so to clear up his eyes and face but that it might be seen though he hid it that he had wept Which also pierced his Guest both to see the Fathers affection and his own misery Who was still so unhappy as he some way expressed to be a burthen to himself and all he conversed with supposing he had grieved or displeased him by some of his expressions But when the Good Father perceived those thoughts with a most sweet tender and melting look he replyed No my Dear Brother no you do not burthen me at all or in any thing displease me But as my general duty bids or helps me in some measure to mourn with every one that mourneth and to weep with every one that weepeth So my particular respect and affection now forceth me if at least it can be force upon a Fathers tender bowels to yearn over his son or a brother over his own dearly beloved brother Yet there is somewhat in You that maketh me melt in Joy rather then sorrow tho it may be unutterable for I cannot expresse it I saw you were my Neighbour at the first as a Man and so I found my self obliged This is Little and low both to Love and Honour you for that Image of God I ought to acknowledge in you and the great Law of Love that commands Brotherly kindenesse bids us adde Love also yea and to strangers also for the same chapter that bids us Love our Neighbour as our self bids us Love a stranger also as we love our selves And among divers reasons why we should love strangers it is sometimes added Because God loveth strangers Yea and we are bid to entertain them so As if they were or might be Angels seeing some had unawares so entertained Angels But now I see somewhat more in you not onely a Man and my Neighbour but a Christian also and my Dear and pretious Brother whom the Angels do attend and love and honour as a lively Image of their great Lord and Master Jesus Christ. And how is it that the Brother of my Lord thus cometh to visit me And you are so far from having committed that great sin against the Holy Ghost which you so much fear that you are still under the most gracious workings of that Holy Spirit Whose great work is to convince the world even the world and not onely the Apostles or Disciples but the World of Sin Righteousnesse and Judgement which is also promised to the World even to the World and is fulfilled in you who are thus under the convincing spirit of Promise And it will also comfort you for the same spirit that convinceth is also the Comforter and where it wounds it heals and when it hath convinced both of Sin Judgement and Righteousness which is there promised it will also comfort It being the promise or indeed the property and nature yea and heart of God to heal and quicken whom he wounds and kills which from Moses Song runs all along through the Psalms and Prophets Who tell us If he wound he will heal Yea though he kill for two dayes He wil revive and quicken on the Third For he will turn again and have compassion on us because he delighteth in mercy though he cause grief for a while and yet not willingly or from his heart afflicteth the children of men which is his Strange work But Mercy is his Child his Son and comes as naturally from him as a child from any father For he is the Father of Mercy yea of a multitude of mani-fold Mercies which are also One with the heart of Christ for He is the onely begotten of the Father and yet His Father is also the Father of Mercies so that Christ and Mercies lay together in one womb and indeed are the same for how else is Christ the Onely begotten of the Father And you are under the tender mercies of Christ even that Christ who is Mercy it self and this holy Spirit of Promise will certainly be your Comforter being already I see your Remembrancer to bring to mind his words one of his proper Works having also convinced you of Righteousnesse enough in him Everlasting Righteousnesse to satisfie God and sanctifie you And I hear you not onely acknowledge him to be the Son of God and sent of God to be the Saviour of the World but also you are convinced of sin because you have not believed on him the great promise of that Comforter and are made most truly and highly to value defire long and pray for him and To him which you could not but by the gracious workings of that Holy Spirit of promise whose great work was and still is to set up Christ as he set up his Father Which Character given by Christ of his own spirit is repeated also by the Apostles And St. John gives it as the Touch-stone whereby we should try the spirits saying Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus is come in the flesh is of God and again he that confesses that Jesus is the Son of God dwelleth in God and God in him and again whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God and again He that is born of God sinneth not that sin or worketh not sin which is a common phrase in the Language of the Law of Moses and other places of Scripture Doeth not sin So but that the seed of God still remaineth in him as the sap of an Oake or Teile when it casteth its leaves as the Prophet Isaiah in that most remarkable Chap. cited in the six first books of the New Testament For the Jews rejection and return again as an emblem of the whole Worlds Restoring or Resurrection it being plain in the
given while he was not glorified Or till he was exalted and set on the right hand of God and made a Prince and a Saviour for to Cive repentance and remission of sins Nay he never speaks of himself as a King or Judge till his second coming Being as himself said to go a great journey to receive a Kingdom and after a long time to come again and call his servants to account And if the wicked servant shall say in his heart My Lord delayeth his comming and shall begin so much as once begin to beat or strike his fellow-servants for the Lords servant must be gentle towards all and be no striker when he shall but begin to strike his Master will come when he looketh not for him and will cut him asunder and give him his portion with Hypocrites the Doom of Antichrist who thus took on him so before his time to sit and rule and judge before his master gave him power or leave or indeed was come to sit and reign and judge in his own Person Which was not till other Thrones be cast down or set as we read in Daniel and the Revelation For he must sit at his Fathers Right hand till all his enemies be put under him and then his Throne and Judgement shall sit and judgement shall be given to them also that shall sit with him who still called himself the Son of man and never a King or Prince or Judge till That Comming and That judgement And then he saith They shall see the Son of man come in the Clouds with great power and glory and when you see those things and that sign of the Son of Man comming in the Clouds Then know the kingdom of God is come even at the very doors Then and not till then it is come actually come and till that time but comming and he bids us pray and say Thy Kingdom come And then shal the Son of man send forth his Angels which before he called his Fathers Angels and the holy Angels now His Angels the Son of Man shall send forth His Angels and they shall gather out of His Kingdom which is Then his Kingdom all things which offend and them which do iniquity And then and not till then the Son of Man shall sit upon the Throne of glory and then the King shall say to them at his Right hand and again the King shall answer them But to the goats at his left hand He shal say he saith not the King shall say as if he were only a King to the sheep or they only were members of his Kingdom but to the goats he saith Depart from me ye cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the Devil and his Angels For as the Son of Man hath his Angels so the Devil hath his Angels also of which we read again in the Revelation Where as also in Pauls great charge to Timothy several other Texts of Scripture we read of his Kingdom joyned or annexed to his second comming or appearing again after his Ascention at which time he was asked If he then would restore the Kingdom unto Israel which he doth not deny but waveth only forbidding their curious prying into times and seasons which the Father yet had kept so secret that the Son then knew them not but had them afterwards it seems by Revelation Which God gave him also to shew unto his servants unto whom he saith it was given to know the secrets or the mysteries of that Kingdom and to search them out also by that Spirit which was given to make known the things which were freely given them of God yea and to search the hidden Depths or Baths of God as that Apostle saith who also tells us The natural man believeth not the things of God or of the Spirit of God nor can he know them being only discerned spiritually And no man can so much as see the Kingdom of God till horn again of that Spirit which the World as such neither knoweth nor receiveth but it is promised to the World also and to convince the world also and when a worldly carnal man is born again of the Spirit and so made Spiritual then he also judgeth all things but himself is judged of no man Nor may any man judge another man or any person whatsoever or can judge himself rightly till he be made spiritual and so fitted by Christ the great and only Judge of all Causes and of all Persons And to whom and in what cases Christ committeth this Prerogative of judging either themselves or others I know not any hath declared better then Saint Paul in divers places of the same Epistle But as Christ gave that general rule Judge not according to appearance and then surely we may not judge things that appear not or things of another world and for all Eternity Whereas the Wise man saith A man cannot know Love or Hatred and much less Eternal Love or Hatred by all before him or appertaining to him So Saint Paul giveth us that generall Rule Judge nothing even nothing at all before the time That is as himself addeth Till the Lord come For his comming is the time of judging and his Kingdom as we have seen from that Apostle and from many other scriptures And I would to God your time were come that you might judge and reign that we might reign also But the Kingdom of God and this judging also is not in word but in Power As our Lord taught us Thine is the Kingdom the Power and Glory And in the Revelation Now is salvation and strength the Kingdom of God and Power of his Christ for the Accuser of our Brethren is cast down For Christ also maketh the kingdom of God to be a Power to cast out Satan by the spirit or finger of God and when Judas was gone out as a Type of Satan or Antichrist he saith Now is the Son of man glorified and God glorified in him And so Christ said Some standing there should not taste of death till they saw the Kingdom of God come with Power Which another Evangelist expresseth by the Son of man comming in his Kingdom And S. Pet. One of the Eye-witnesses of that glorious Transfiguration which was an Emblem or preludium to his Kingdom calleth it The Power and coming of our Lord Jesus And himself being asked if he would restore the Kingdom bad them stay till they received Power from on High or the Power of the Holy Ghost coming on them which he also calleth the Promise of the Father For the Spirit of Promise which is to be given to all the Lord shall call yea to be poured out on all flesh is called by Esay the Spirit of Power and it is so observed of them that received it in the Acts that they were full of the Holy Ghost and Power And Saint Paul also calleth it a spirit of Power and Love and of a sound mind and saith he came with demonstration of the Spirit and of
fulness of Christ. And concludes that Epistle Peace be to the Brethren and Love with faith from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ Grace be with All them that love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity Amen So to the Philippians every where Especially in that famous place of Bowing in the Name of Jesus paralel to that of the Psalm Early will I seek thee and ever will I bless thee and lift up my hands as here bow the knee in thy Name when I pray I will pray in thy Name and confesse to the glory of God which Christ challengeth to himself in the Prophet Isaiah and at conclusion The Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all Amen And in the Epistle to the Colossions For it pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell and having made Peace by the blood of his cross by him to reconcile All things unto Himself by Him whether they be things in Earth or things in Heaven Which to the Ephesians is according to the good pleasure of his will which he had purposed in himself that in the dispensation of the fulness of times he might gather All into One in Christ All things in Heaven or Earth even in him And to the Thessalonians Now God Himself and our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ direct our way to you and the Lord make you to increase and abound in Love to One another and to all men even as we to you that he may establish your hearts unblameable in holiness before God And again That the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ may be glorified in you and ye in Him according to the Grace of our God and the Lord Iesus Christ. And again Now our Lord Iesus Christ himself and God even our Father which hath loved us for the Father is Love and hath given us everlasting consolation and good hope through grace comfort your hearts and stablish you in every good word and work And the Lord direct your hearts into the love of God and patience of Christ. Now we command you brethren in the Name of our Lord Iesus Christ that you withdraw from every brother walking disorderly yet count him not an enemy but admonish him as a brother Now the God of Peace himself give you Peace alwayes by all means The Lord be with you All. The salutation of Paul with mine own hand which is the token in every Epistle so I write The Grace of our Lord Iesus Christ be with you all Amen And it may also be observed that what we read be with you might be read is with you and so it is not onely a prayer but a promise and assurance that the grace of Christ is with All calling on Christ and so believing on him for how can they call on him on whom they believe not And Timothy This is a faithful saying and worthy of All Acceâ—ation as much or more then all the Mazoreth or Kabâ— that Christ Jesus came into the World to save sinners of whom I am chief Now unto the King Immortal Eternal Invisible the onely wise God which Jude also calleth Our Saviour speaking in the language of this very Text be honour and glory for ever and ever Amen Which he subjoyns on this Great Cause I obtained Mercy that in me first Iesus Christ might shew forth all long-suffering for a patern to them even to all them that should hereafter believe on him to Eternal life So that Christ did not mainly mind Paul in shewing him that patience and kindnesse but did it to Him that he might be a patern unto others even unto all others that should ever after believe even to all Eternity And to the same Timothy he writeth Flee also fleshly lusts but follow Righteousness Faith Charity Peace with them that call on the Lord out of a pure heart And concludes the Lord Iesus Christ be with thy spirit Grace be with you Amen The great businesse of St. Peters Epistle is to presse forward in the knowledge of Jesus Christ and so he concludes Grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Iesus Christ to him be glory both now and for ever Amen Which also runs very much through the whole Epistle The Revelation of Jesus Christ wch God gave to him to shew to his servants is ful of prayers praises blessings of and from and to the same Jesus Who so plainly calling himself the first and the last which is and was and is to come the great Iehovah Lord God Almighty leads us plainly to the paralel places in the Prophet Isaiah where he saith the same of himself adding also that there is no other God or indeed no other True Being besides himself Representing himself in several species or Idea's For Plato was not the first that taught there was but One which yet was All. And yet again in the same chapter of that Prophet he saith Lo here I am and His spirit hath sent me even the Lord God and His Spirit though I am God and there is none besides me or none else but I and in me and One with me as the Root and every Branch is One with the Vine And in the same Prophet It is this One True God the First and the last and so All True Being which yet is sent by God and anointed by his Spirit and so the Messias or-Jesus Christ which plainly sweareth by Himself and therefore hath no greater that every knee shall bow or pray to Him and every tongue shall confess to Him which the Apostle citeth in that noted place of praying in the Name of Jesus and confessing to the glory of God even the Father also And may we add or may we not add what Christ of himself said If God be glorified in Him or in Them will not God also glorifie Him or Them with Himself Yea he will shortly do it nay he hath already done it before any other can glorifie Him for who can give him first or lend to him that it may be paid again To this also we might refer those passages of holding fast his Name and not denying his Name and confessing his Name as he will also confesse their names before his Father and the holy Angels both in the Gospels and Revelation and the call and Counsel of Christ as also the Fathers Drawing being that we come to Christ and learn of Him and buy of Him and open to Him that is still knocking to come in till his locks be wet with dew and his spirit be not onely abused but dispised and blasphemed argue much our speaking praying to him as well as hearing him who indeed is the end of the Fathers Teachings and Drawings so that he that hath heard and learned of the Father cometh wil come to Jesus Christ and converseth with him as a man with his friend whom he most loveth and honoureth also And the Angels of Heaven for they are all bid to worship him as we
solitary a while as if she had left her Husband and her heart also behind her when she came down from Heaven and her cry all along even to the very end of all the Revelation is Come Lord Iesus Come quickly As if Christ were not with her on earth But the greatest stresse of the Argument may seem to be in this thaâ— God speaks nothing to us now but in and through his Son Our Prayers Praises sighs and groans if right are but reflections back of somewhat spoken to us spoken in us Which must therefore be through Christ and to Christ Immediately by His Spirit in us Which or who for that is the Scripture Language as he knows the mind of Christ and so of God in him and brings it into us So he toucheth our heart and makes it warble as the Heart of Christ did when God spake to Him and in Him to us And he whose Spirit it is that helps us by sighs and groans unutterable knows the meaning of his own Spirit For it is he that maketh intercession for us Yea and in us also so that all our breathings out to God are but his breathings by his Spirit in us And in this sence we may and do pray to the Father as Christ in us the hope of Glory prayeth to the Father of Glory so he is called and the Father of mercies as he is the Father of Christ who therefore is both Grace and Glory as the Psalmist expresseth him and yet still the onely begotten of the Father Let me add also that the Spirit in us crying Abba Father is the Spirit of God made Flesh or in actual Union with Humanity For else it calls not God its Father and in us it speaks its own Natural Language for it speaketh in us Praying Crying Abba Father Our Father For Christs Spirit speaketh boweth prayeth in us Hollowed be Thy Name let Thy Kingdom come for it is ours also And if God be glorified in us He will also glorifie Us with himself Yea he will straight way gloryfie us Let thy will be done in our Earth as in thy Heaven Even in thy Highest Heaven For in this Petition it is in The Heaven but in the preface it is in the Heavens even all the Heavens For Thy will is ours also and not only wiser but better for us also then our own will is till fully moulded into thy Will And then a poor Soul dare say forgive us even as we forgive We and not I but we as all the members together with the Spirit of the Head also and in his Person too which hath often made me hope he meant and had promised also for our Prayers or His in us are good Promises also to forgive more of his Enemies then it may be I ever thought or believed Which I cannot much wonder at when All his enemies must come to be at peace with him as his wayes please the Lord. And when the spirit also shall come to Act His Kingdom which it shall do in the Heart of His Spouse for the spirit the Bride shal abide and Act and shal stil Live together as they cryed together here I hope it will also forgive more then it may be all men now believe or hope Yet as the Soul should generally say and pray to Christ as the Apostles did Lord shew us the Father which is also his great promise to us and his Father also in his solemn prayer John 17. I have declared Thy Name and I will declare it that the Love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them and I in them Yet there may be some seasons also in which a poor soul may think it self so great a stranger unto Christ or at such a distance from him that it may and doth cry to the Father Draw me to the Son shew me thy Son and acquaint me with thy Son for I am a stranger to him or at a losse in seeking Him And yet sure this is not very usual in a Woman or it may be handsom or civil for her to come to a strange man and say Pray Sir acquaint me with your Son that I may woe him But when the Good man hath first broken the matter in discourse to the Virgin soul and hath Invited and woed for the Son Then doth the Son come and is sent of the Father and woes the soul for himself and yet perhaps till the marriage be or at least the contract or betrothing It may sometimes not onely be fit but requisit to Treat with the Father also for settlement of state or other things But Then she goes and speaks and converseth with the Son when she is Married or at least betrothed which indeed is Most if not All that is yet done between Christ and our souls it may be the whole Church yet is no more but betrothed onely till the New Jerusalem Which yet in some measure doth come down and appear unto and in every poor soul betrothed unto Christ. For Jerusalem which is above is Mother to us all The good Sarah spouse to Abram The High Father as the name signifies before it was Abraham a Father of many rather then to Isack the Son who was not married till his Mother Sara was dead Though perhaps That was onely to the Gentile Church brought out of Syria a Gentile Land after Sara the Jewish Church was dead or gone But she must appear again and that out of Heaven also where the Woman first appeared as a great wonder in the person of the Wife of Jaacob as some think or Mother to the twelve Patriarchs presented there as in Josephs Dream also by twelve stars round about her But there is more in it seeing she was also in the Sun or clothed with His Light and Glory Having also the Moon at her Feet and a crown of twelve stars about her head of which we may speak more hereafter And when the Virgin is espoused then she begins to speak freely to Her spouse And I know not any more sure character of being so betrothed unto Christ then such a free converse with him as our friend our Brother Yea our neerer Relation And yet truly we do not receive His spirit but some glances onely through his eyes or mouth at a distance if we may so expresse it till we be actually married which is scarcely consummate in this Life though it may be also at the coming of the new Jerusalem So that all we speak or do of Praying or such manner of converse as is yet usual with Christ is in our way only Yet as betroathed rather than in our end or spiritual enjoyments of him in the marriage bed where only we shall fully receive his Spirit And those whom he sent as his Father sent him received it but as in his breath for he breathed on them saying Receive the Holy Ghost And afterwards also they received but the first fruits of the Spirit as themselves expressed it saying also it belonged
unto all the Lord should call For it was then but the Feast of Pentecost or fiftieth Day of first Fruits and that but of Barley O but now we wait and hope and expect the Feast of Tabernacles also and the latter Rain as the former little drops even the greatest Feast of Tabernacles which all Nations also must keep with Israel when they shall joy as at Harvest even at the end of full Harvest when all the fruits of the Earth shall be gathered in and all Nations also shall come flowing in as the fruits of all the Earth in that solemn Feast Which was acted also in a Type as we may say of somwhat to come when in the last and great day of the many Feasts of that great Feast of all the Feast of Tabernacles Christ stood out and cryed as the Gospel saith O every one that thirsteth come unto the Waters and he that believeth on me as the Scripture saith out of his belly shall flow Rivers of Living Water as alluding both to their custom of drawing and powring out Waters from Siloam with joy from the wells of Salvation and also to the most remarkable place in Zech where all Nations are invited to that Feast that they might have Water and the Rain of Heaven And it may be he that can rightly count the time between the Feast of Pentecost and Tabernacles may guess also when that latter Rain or fuller powring out of the Spirit shall be Which in general was in the seventh Month yet by another reckoning at the end of the yeer as the seventh Day was the end of the week Even as Gods appearings and Angels also were generally towards the end of the day or about the evening Sacrifice which is one of many Reasons why I think the Lords Supper was and now should also be at Supper or at Evening rather then Morning And to all yet said to perswade us in our prayers to direct our hearts and words to Christ and to God only as he is in Christ as of old in the Tabernacle between the Cherubims of Glory over-shadowing the Mercy Seat covering the Ark I may add That Prayer is a Dialogue between our Soul and God indited by the Spirit of Christ which differeth from the Spirit of God as being That cloathed with flesh and actually united to a Humane Spirit which the Spirit of God as God or of the Father as such is not Which distinction it may be St. John observeth by the Holy Ghost in Heaven One with the Word and Father and by the Spirit on Earth or in the fleshly Members of Christ. Now as Christ in the daies of his flesh did offer up strong sighs and groans and tears and prayers yea and himself also by his eternal Spirit unto him that was able to save him and was heard in all he feared or prayed So doth he now by the same Spirit in the hearts or flesh of his Members which are here on Earth Yet so as all those Members give up their Spirit to their Head As the Elders also in the Revelation present their Vials full of Prayers of Saints to the Lamb and he as the great Angel of the Covenant mingles them with his dayly Incense in his Temple and presents them all even all the Prayers of all Saints to his God and his Father and their Father in and through him They all being indeed but his own sighs and groans or motions of his own Spirit in his Members That we may yet more cleerly understand this let us first consider how Christ prayed to his Father and then how the Christian prayeth unto Christ or to his Father through Christ. As the Apostle saith God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself so in a right sence I may say God was in Christ Praying or speaking to himself even as our Soul communes with it self or as a man communes with his own Heart a Phrase we find in the Psalms or other places of Scripture and we may use it to illustrate This. For which also I may cite that notable passage of our Saviour which I somtime look upon as one of the Keys to open and discover the rich but hidden Cabinet of the Mysterious Scripture where he doth so plainly tell us that he never said one word of himself and yet he said all that was ever said by God for he is the only Word and Mouth of God and in the Prophet Esay he tells us plainly that he said all that was ever spoken and yet now he tells us that he never spake one word of that is From Himself or of his own but of and from his Father and what He said yea and As He spake it unto Him so he repeated it Being as it seems but Gods Holy Echo to repeat those Words and only Those his Father speaketh of himself and in himself and to himself As if Christ also compared with God were such an Infant that he could not speak one sentence word sillable or letter but as God sounded it before him and In him and To him and so He only Ecchoed back some little part it may be as the latter end or loudest part of that Infinite Discourse the Father had and hath to Him from all Eternity to al Eternity Thus when God saith in and to Christ My Son Give me thy Heart Christ then as it were ruminating or repeating in himself what the Father saith He Ecchoes back Give me Thy Heart And so it sounds as a Prayer To Bow down He cries Bow down To Seek my Face Seek my Face And at length his Spirit cries in his Members also Thy Face I will seek Lord Hide not thy Face from me So that the Head only properly speaketh in Prayer but His Members draw also by the spirit of the Head resting and sighing In Them Thus we have seen a tender Mother or a Father Teaching their children to speak and do and go by speaking To them in them as it were and going bowing kissing their hand and Doing All before them and as much as they can in them That they would have them to Do and say Bow down They say and kiss your Hand and say I am your servant or the like by doing and by saying what they mean their child should do or say And then he stammers after them and after many Essaies comes at length to stumble on that gesture posture carriage word or work the Parents have been often Teaching Him or speaking In him For one may speak his heart out to a child or other person who will never learn and Do till he have the Fathers or the Teachers spirit or his meaning and his Meen by accent gesture or some other way rather than by word only impressed on him So that we see our children and such as are acquainted with our spirit can discern and understand our minde by becks or nods or looks or otherwise somtimes without words and somtimes directly against our words and quite
it And our experience may shew us that some times we think to speak to God and we find our selves such strangers to him or at such a distance that we flie to Christ and cry Lord shew us the Father and Lord teach us to Pray as John taught his Disciples Yea and better too as Thou art a better Teacher At another time it may be we bow down and think to speak to Christ and then perhaps we find a damp upon our spirits unto him and some estrangement from him so that we flie to the Father and cry Good Father shew us Thy Son Draw us to thy Son yea draw us heartily that so we may know him more and better then ever for we are strangers to him And I have known some that usually began their prayers unto Christ or at least bowed their spirits silently to him before they spake to God and desired Christ both to help them expresse their own wants and then also present them to His Father Praying in them to His Father while they bowed in his spirit crying as he bad his children say Abba Father for all persons and for all things they ought or might pray for which perhaps are more then they are Tied to and so usually they concluded with the plainest sence rather than words of the Lords Prayer Which also seemeth to have been a more ancient custom in the Church than only of late when some discoursed only what they wanted or would beg of God Which yet I should not disallow if done with such an Heart and life and Power and Spirit as it may and yet I hope it will be done among the Churches of Christ. But I may sum up all in this the good Father by the Holy Ghost in his Ordinances first breaks the Match to the Virgin soul and shews her great want of an helper in her wretched and forlorn estate He tells her also he hath a Son who will use her kindly and tenderly if she will accept him Then he sends the Son a woer and till all be agreed for portion and joynture and other things the Treaty is much with the Father who also giveth assurance of his hearty consent to the match and to his making good all the Son shall promise and indeed is as it were his Sons surety to the poor soul. And when the Son is admitted yea and contracted he still useth his Fathers Name and bids the spouse be confident of all his Father ever promised And if there do arise any doubt or scruple in the matter or manner of contract dowrie or the like the soul hath not onely leave but most great encouragement to go and speak to the Father as also to reconcile any difference or strangenesse that at any time shall rise or seem to be between the parties But when they be married or espoused the Son useth her so sweetly and kindly that she never hath occasion much lesse cause to complain to the Father which yet she might freely do upon any cause but she is so wholly taken up with the spouses affection and most hearty love that her main converse and solace of her life is with Him Though she often ask her Father Blessing and very often bow to him with most child-like Reverence and dutiful Love rather then fear which if servile or slavish is exceeding much displeasing unto God and Jesus Christ and to the true genius of a Christian established with a free Noble Royal spirit Have we not a Type and Emblem of this or somewhat more in Caleb and his son and daughter Achsa Caleb As the Heart it signifies and may shadow out the Heart of God whom he wholly followed with an honest plain upright which in scripture Language is a perfect heart He saith who ever conquers Kiriath Sepher which may note the book of scripture which was also called Dehir that is the Oracle shall have my Daughter and my blessing with her Othniel conquers it and afterwards is made a Judge and saves his people from the cruel Tyrant and he getteth Calebs Daughter Who first moveth her Husband to ask a field of her Father and afterwards freeing her self from her Asse or bestial nature she boweth her self to her Father and asks him in her own person saying O my Father Thou hast given me a piece of Earth O but give me thy Blessing with it and a spring of Water So he gave her both the Upper and the Lower Springs An History so repeated in the Bible that I have often thought some great matter is in it Besides that it cleerly shews us the Heart of God such an infinite Fountain still flowing up and flowing over that he is so far from being drawn dry by our sucking or from being displeased at our Asking and Begging of him that he expects rather that all we have received from him even by his Sons Asking should but encourage us yet to ask more and more still as we receive more from him And when he hath given us a Field or a piece of Earth He expects we should ask his Blessing even the rather and the Springs of Water Even as our Father Abraham when God came to him after his great deliverance from the four great Kings which may be Types as their names import of the four great Monarchies that should captive his people and the good men of the world also till He should bring back their Captivity and the Captivity of Sodom also to be paralel'd with the 16. of Ezekiel just before the appearing of Melchizedech resembling Christ in his second Coming Pursuing them to Dan even to the great Judgment as the place imports And when God might so justly expect that Abraham should have been bowing down in great Thankfulness for That deliverance Abraham saies not a word of That but is Begging a new boon O the mans confidence and cries Lord God what wilt thou give me as if he had received nothing yet or at least very little in comparison of That he knew the Infinite Heart of God still had for him and was straitned till it was more drawn and sucked And the Mothers Breast is somtimes so full that she is glad of a strangers child to suck that which her own child cannot master And when it might have been expected of the Daughters of Zelophehad that the modesty of their Sex should have kept them silent or the shame or sorrow which they should have born for their father being cut off in the Wilderness and dying in his sin and they left Orphans and Virgins Yet they sue for their Inheritance And the Lord heard it and it pleased him so that upon this occasion he Enacted a new Law very beneficial to Women who had therefore much cause to remember and bless the memory of these Daughters And God was so far from upbraiding them or their father that he answers They have well done or well said and rightly too in what they say in that they do not judg themselves unworthy
All in the Epistle to the Hebrews with so many repetitions as God spake it several times to Joshua That which destroyed Israel was observing the Laws of Omry or other Kings among them and leaving the Law of God which was so good and just and wise that all Nations also should say they were a wise people that had such a Law Which indeed made them the people of God and so owned by him so long as they accepted and owned his Law for their Rule And he never cast them off till they chose a stranger for their King and a New Law to govern them Yea the great badg of Antichrist which we should hate may be to place himself above the Law and think to change the Law which God hath promised to magnifie among all Nations And although it be exceeding sweet to see and know that he was made under the Suffering part of the Law In all its heavy Threatnings and its Curses also so that all the Waves of God and all his Billows rowled over him and all his Arrows did stick fast in Him and in Job David Heman Jonah but as Types of Christ and partakers of his Spirit and acting some part of his Sufferings and when God had so powred out his Anger his Soul rested his Spirit was quiet and he will be no more angry as he often speaketh as an angry person that hath vented his heat and is quiet So was he in Christ when he had born his Wrath the Fathers Soul Rested in him and his Spirit is quiet so that he can be no more angry But we may come to him as the Psalmist Lord Thou hast turned from the fierceness of thine anger and hast put away all thy wrath even All thy Wrath in Christ Why then should it lie on us thy poor Worms O Turn us therefore as thou hast turned thy self and Reconcile us also seeing Thou art Reconciled and art in Christ also Reconciling the World to thy self and not imputing sin Yet because this hath occasioned so many disputes How far and for Whom or How many he so bare the Curses of the Law I shall therefore Now rather consider the Doing part of the Law and what it required of Man to Man as well as to God There being no doubt at all that I know but that he was made under this to All and for All the Law required it So that now look what ever was required of man either to God or to man Christ was surely made and put himself under all that as his Duty to God also whose Law lay upon him and was written in his Heart also as his Pleasure Honor Joy Delight and Happiness as to be made and kept in the Image of God Though also the Suffering part would soon be cleerer to us if we did consider That the Infinite God could have no other fit and full Object of his Infinite Power and Justice or could shew the strength of his Almighty Arm the Power of his Wrath or its heavy weight in no other But himself only or his own Match and his Fellow which surely no meer finite Beeing was or could be If we therefore may imagine God could be any more Angry in Time then he was from all Eternity before the fall or sin of any Creature which sure he could not be in himself but to manifestation and as he maketh us afraid we judg him Angry Or that he had a mind or saw it requisite to shew his mighty Strength and Justice with the Power of his wrath to the uttermost yet sure he would not chuse a little Worm to shew it on or such as are much less than the dust of the Ballance or a drop of a Bucket even nothing less than nothing When he had his full Match and Fellow which his Sword might challenge when it most would wake and shew it self in all its sharpness hardness with all power and strength of that mighty Arm that held and drew and brandished that flaming Sword Which therefore none have cause to fear or strength to feel as Christ but such only as are high and strong and stout to think themselves Gods fellows or his match and so challenge him As He or she that sits as God even in the Throne of God and Temple who must therefore look to feel the Sword of God and all that take that Character which All will take whose names are not written in the Lambs Book of Life even before the Foundation of the World And yet These also shall not feel the Sword of his Hand or Arm as Christ felt it but only the Sword of his Mouth a bright two edged blessed Sword which shall scatter and pierce them so that as the Psalms and Prophets speak in several places He will speak them under him for so the Phrase is and may be so translated rather than he shall destroy or subdue them under him or under us Which Phrase of Speaking them under him even then when they have most cause to expect destruction makes me remember a notable place in the 3. of Zephany Which the Jews also have marked as one of the most especial places in all the Scripture having in one verse every letter of their Alphabet and those also that are only final as they call them with other things observable Which it may be also bids us often read and meditate upon it as One of the most notable descriptions of the mind and purpose of God even in his greatest Judgments or in that we use to call the great or last Judgment Which perhaps is There also hinted While he speaketh Thus Therefore wait upon me saith the Lord to the Day of my Rising up to Eternity which some read to the Prey for my Judgment is to gather the Nations that I may assemble the Kingdoms to powr upon them my Indignation all my fierce Anger for by the fire of my Jealousie All the Earth shall be devoured For though it seem a strange For Then I will turn to the Peoples it is plural in the Original a pure Lip or Language Is not this a Blessed Speaking of them under him That all of them may call upon the Name of the Lord with one consent or with one shoulder Or one Sechem For That is the word in the Hebrew Text being the very same with His Name that circumcised himself and All the men of his City Sechem for the Love of Dinah which also signifies Judgment and may perhaps lead us to the great or last Judgment which may circumcise more men than may be is expected and be a sore surprize or ravishment to those that think to ravish it Which should also be compared with the Judgment on Sechem in Judges But I will come rather to the plain things of the Gospel cleerly comprehended in the Doing Part of the Law Which I am therefore made to study that I may see not only my Duty to God or man but Christs Duty unto me a poor Worm sprauling
here in dust or thick clay And yet his Wisdom and the Best in him being now united to Flesh will not must not say to the Foot I have no need of Thee yea must not disdain to say to this Worm Thou art my Brother or my Sister and Corruption is my Mother or my neer kindred And while others talk of Doing the Law and performing it to others I am mainly bent to see and hope believe and pray that Christ will Do it and perform it unto me and so by working in me teach me and help me also so to Act to others in some measure As he doth to me What is the Law which hath so long kept us in awe As if it had or could disanul the free Grace of God and Covenant thereof which was made with our Fathers and with us in them also so many hundred years before the Law rose up As also the Goodness and Pities of God were from everlasting to everlasting and so much longer and stronger than his wrath which we use to call his Justice which is not in him but as a stranger coming cross his way or calling on him and at most was but of yester day when some poor creature had sinned Is not the Law the very mind and Heart of God even That God which is Light and Love and perfect goodness Is it not summed up by Christ himself into Love All the Law nothing but Love Thou shalt Love the Lord thy God with all thy mind and heart and might and the other is like unto this Like unto This For Man also is like unto God and thou must Love yea and honor Man too But Like as thou dost God Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thy self But how can I possibly Love God or my Neighbor before God Love me yea and some way manifest his Love to me Can I first give unto God or lend him that it may be paid again Is it Probable or Possible that I say not noble generous or Ingenuous for my God to ask and expect my Heart and Hearts Love to him before he had given his Heart and Hearts Love to me What shall we say then Having loved Man once he loved him still being his own in his own Image which he yet owns still in him after the Fast and after the Flood too Thou shalt not shed Mans blood for in the Image of God He is created Nay St. Paul is so bold as to call man not only the Image of God but also his Glory the Image and Glory of God And yet he speaks of Man as Man and of every man saying also that Christ is the Head of every man and that Man is the Image and Glory of God And Wisdom which is Christ plainly saith His delights were not only with Man but with the Sons of men or Man-kind And there were no Sons of men till after the Fall and when man had sinned And Gods Philanthropy or Love to Man-kind so much spoken of by St. Paul and others in the New Testament is also observed by Moses himself who beginning to bless the twelve Tribes of Israel plainly saith God loveth the Peoples also for the word is Plural and may take in all the Gentile Nations also in the Earth yea he carries them all in his bosom as the word he there useth may import Though he have also some especial to them that sit at his Feet and receive the Law at his Mouth which he there giveth for a sure Character of Gods especial Love even his Giving and their Receiving of his Law the Good and Royal Law of Love And God so loved the World even the World that he gave his Son for the world not to condemn the World but to save it for God even the Father himself is Love and hath sent forth his Son in Love and hath also promised his Spirit to convince the world even the World of Sin and to powr it out on all flesh that All may see the Glory of God Yea every eye may see his Salvation And hath therefore given his Law to the World even to the worst of men as St. Paul argues to Timothy that by it he may convince them and draw them to Christ. Having so shut them all up in unbelief and conclude them All under sin and breach of the Law that he might have Mercy on them Which indeed and properly speaking could not be shewed till there was an Object for it and there was no Misery which is the Object of Mercy till Sin was in the world And doth not This very Law this Holy perfect Royal Law of Love express and speak this Heart and Love of God to every man that it speaketh to and that is the worst of men living Doth it not say Thou shalt love me because I love thee Doth it not begin to every Man to whom it speaks and say I am the Lord thy God even Thy Lord and Thy God! and Therefore Thou shalt have No other God because I am Thy God And therefore thou shalt not bow to Images but Worship me only because I only am the Lord Thy God And therefore thou shalt honor my Name and not abuse my Love or take my Name or Goodness in vain or turn it into Wantonness because I am the Lord thy God And wilt thou not both love and honor That is Reverence that great and Reverend Name The Lordthy God Not a Terrible Name but a Reverend Name and therefore to be loved and greatly honored or Reverenced as God bids us Reverence his Sanctuary and a Woman must Reverence her Husband and the time is coming that we shall not call our God Baali that is My Lord or hard Master But Ishi my Husband And yet we shall then most Love and Reverence him with Godly Sonly Fear and Reverence And because this Name of the Lord my God is so great and holy and reverend Therefore I am bid to reverence it and hallow it even as the first Petition of our Lords Prayer teacheth us to pray and by no means to take it in vain For they that name it must depart from Iniquity And although the words added of not holding him guiltlesse that takes his Holy Name in vain ought still to keep me in great aufull Reverence yet they ought not to make me have any hard thoughts of God as if he were an Hard Master which our Saviour shewed as the Root of all miscarriage And those words may seem to speak a selfish person and so hard to please and so unexorable when displeased that do little suit the sweet and Gracious Heart of God which is Pure and Peaceful hardly provoked and Gentle easie to be entreated Slow to anger and without fury which rest onely in the bosome of Fools Delighting in Mercy and abounding in Goodnesse The Father of Mercies pardoning Iniquity Transgression and Sin And when he is provoked to visit and chasten yet he doth it Gently and Slowly and by degrees not at once
he had Blessed him He appeared to Abraham by the Name Elshaddai God Almighty and Abrahams believing but This Power was imputed for Righteousnesse But afterwards by the Name Jehovah which speaketh his Will also And I will be what I will be or what I can be As the Words are and not as some read them I am what I am which the lowest Creature may be said to be And at the Close of the Baptists Testimony of Christ in the third of John This is made the very Ground work of our Faith and Hope in Christ and coming to him because the Father hath loved him and given All things into his hand And so doth himself also make it several times in That very Gospel For the Father Loveth the Son and sheweth him all he doth and will shew him greater things then these that you may Marvel For as the Father quickens the dead even so the Son quickeneth whom he will For the Father judgeth no man but hath commited all judgement to the Son that all men should Honour the Son even as they Honour the Father For as the Father hath Life in himself so hath he given the Son also to have Life in himself and hath given him Authority to execute Judgement also because he is the Son of Man And again the Hour is come that the Son of Man should be Glorisied But as a Corn of Wheat he must first die that so he may be made a quickening Spirit and then he shall bring forth much Fruit for he will not die as a Fool dyeth But will improve his death to the utmost and do as much good as he Can and will Work while he may VVork Least the Night come and then he cannot VVork He will therefore do what is in his Hand and Power to do and will do it with all his Might Remembering him that said withhold not thy hand while it is in thy Power to Work Say not to thy Neighbour goe and come again to Morrow When it is now in thy Power to do him Good And now shall the Prince of this World be cast out And I if I be lifted up from the earth will draw All men unto me and Him that cometh to me will I in no wise I will not I will not cast him off or cast him out But walk while you have the Light least Darknesse come upon you These things he spake and did Hide himself from them But he came and Cryed again He that seeth me seeth him that sent me I am come a Light unto the World and he lighteth every one that cometh into the World that whosoever believeth should not abide in Darknesse If any Man hear my Words and believe not I judge him not for I came not to judge the World but to Save the World and these things I say that you might be Saved And again Jesus knowing that the Father had given All things into his hands and that he was come from God and went to God he riseth from Supper and took a Towel and girded himself and washed his Disciples feet O see his Heart when he hath Power for all this is because the Father had given All things into His Hands And when Judas was gone out immediately after the Sop though St Luke seem to make him present at the Sacrament and one of the twelve of whom or to whom he spake of twelve Thrones and Judging the twelve Tribes of Israel he saith Now is the Son of Man glorified and God is glorified in him and if God be glorified in him God shall also glorifie him in himself and shall straightway glorifie him And shall not All bow to him and to the Glory of God also And if God be glorified in them God will glorifie them with himself or where is the stress of our Saviors Argument And again It is expedient that I go for else the Comforter will not come and when he comes he shall convince the World of sin For so God loved the World that he sent his Son not to condemn the world or Judg it but to save the world by That which he will give for the Life of the World And again which he shall give unto you for Him hath God the Father sealed And again I have many things to say unto you but you cannot bear them now Howbeit when the Spirit of Truth is come he will guide you into all Truth for he shall glorifie me and shall receive of mine and shew it unto you All things that the Father hath are mine therefore I said that he shall take of mine and shew It unto you And again Father Glorifie thy Son that thy Son also may glorifie Thee a Good Comment on the Lords Prayer for who can first give to God that it may be given or can lend that it may be paid again As thou hast given him Power over All flesh that he should not onely may but should give Eternal Life to as many as thou hast given him And if That be not yet plain enough before in That very chapter he repeats it again saying I pray for them I pray not for the world but for them which thou hast given me For they are Thine And all Mine are Thine and Thine are Mine and I am glorified in them And his saying here I pray not for the world stands as much alone without a Fellow or any like it as most words in all the Bible And how can we build any great matter of Faith upon That which hath not two or three Witnesses to confirm it Yet if it were said I Will not pray for the world Is it more or more obliging or concluding than That in Hosea Call her Lo-ruhamah I will no more have mercy upon the House of Israel and I will not have mercy on her children and I will not be their God And yet he did turn again and had pity on them because he delighted in Mercy and where it was said You are not my People There it shall be said You are the Sons of the Living God So also Thy Name shall be no more called Jaacob but Israel And yet God himself often called him Jaacob after This. So also I will have Mercy and not Sacrifice And I did not command your Fathers or speak to them concerning Sacrifice And in the same Prophet They shall teach no more saying Know the Lord. And You murmur not against us but God And they have not rejected Thee but Me. As in the Gospel I came not to Judg the world nor will I Judg you And again I do not or I will not call you Servants And You shall ask me Nothing And when thou makest a Feast Thou shalt not invite thy Friends In all which and divers other places sure we do not believe any absolute Negative but Comparative Or at least not so definitive but such as may be reversed And why should that saying I will not Pray for the world if he had said so oblige Christ
but in three or four Generations as it may be born least the spirit that he hath made should fail before him And when he afflicteth He will not do it for ever For he doth it not willingly or from his Heart but he will Turn again and shew compassion because he delighteth in Goodnesse and his pitties and compassions never fail and his tender Mercies are over all his works yea all his works shall praise him the earth and all that is in it and the Sea also is full of his Goodnesse He openeth his Handwide and filleth all things with Good and giveth the desire of every living thing Every Tree in the Forest shall clap hands and sing and rejoyce the very Dragons shall praise him the Owls shall answer one another in his Praises Every thing that hath breath shall praise him All flesh shall see his glory and every eye shall see his Salvation For what is Glory in some places speaking thus is Salvation in others and so in the Gospel also Citing it out of the Prophets In a word there is nothing in that Threatning or in any other in this Law and why then should we fear the Gospel but what speaks Gods tender Love and Gratious Pities and Compassions Even his very Jealousie which yet is made the Foundation of all his visitting springeth from Love It is so in man much more in God who is love its self and when he means to shew his greatest Love to his poor people in recovering them from all captivity and sorrow he expresseth it by being Jealous over them and for them with a great Jealousie And St. Paul calleth his tender bowels to the poor Saints a Godly Jealousie or a Godlike Jealousie Lest a stranger should attempt to get away their heart which he had like God the Father Espoused to his dear Son Jesus And when the Lord resolves both effectually and speedily to recover his back-sliding people he promiseth to move them to Jealousie also as himself is moved with Jealousie for them lest another get their heart from him which would never trouble him if he did not very much love them and very tenderly And although Jealousie in Christ for it is proper to an Husband may seem as the Wrath of a man that will not spare or pardon in his day of visitation as the wise man expresseth it Yet even That very phrase of Not sparing or Not pardoning which yet is one of the hardest or harshest expressions in the whole Scriptures is no other than the very same Solomon doth not only observe and commend but require and commanâ—â—so in a tender hearted Father to the Son of his own bowels whom yet he must Chasten and not spare or pardon 't is that very phrase Which yet sure cannot mean that he shall be alwaies angry and never reconciled but that he sorely chasten and correct in earnest and as an Ordinance of God and not for lust or dalliance or so as may occasion sin or harden in the sin so visited May it not be possible also that the dearest children of God even Moses may commit such a Failor in his Generation work as may in such a sense be never forgiven that is Sorely chastened as David was and be still remaining as a Spot for that Generation work though they may and shall be saved May They also or only commit such Unpardonable sins And such a visitation may be threatned in the second Command as was promised rather than threatned to Davids children Who yet had the everlasting Covenant and the sure Mercies or as the Acts expresseth it the sure Holy things of David which are also promised to every Believer or every one that Thirsteth and thirsting cometh to the Waters even to them and their seed for ever So that if his children break the Law and shal despise his Statutes Then will I visit their Transgression with the Rod and their Iniquity with stripes He will chasten them with Rods and as Ezekiel expresseth it cause them to pass under the Rod and Bond of the Covenant So that Rods are a part of the Cevenant and its Bond. But he will not take away his Everlasting Kindness Yet as he speaketh of Solomon perhaps one of the greatest sinners ever living for this I will afflict or chasten the House of David but not for Ever Not for ever I will not retain my Anger for Ever which is expressly forbidden Man in general And so Christ also in the very Law that saith Thou shalt not avenge thy self or reserve thine Anger No not till the Sun go down For so this Law is pressed upon us and why not so upon every one made under that Law also and by consequence on Christ himself Nor shalt thou bear any grudg or thought in thy heart against the Children of thy People for my Covenant is with them and their childrens children also for evermore Therefore thou shalt bear no grudg against them or any of their Children But thou shalt love thy Neighbor as thy self Which our Savior and the Apostles so much the sum of the whole Law And to this very place and the phrase here used of not reserving Anger or not retaining ought in heart he very many times alludeth when he saith of himself I will not retain for ever or I will not reserve my Anger or I will not be alwaies Wroth or I will not contend for ever and the like expressions which himself and all the Scripture affirms of him divers times as one of the first and chiefest things we ought to believe os him Which is also a most comfortable acknowledgment that He also takes himself to be obliged with the following words of the same verse which he citeth also several times Thou shalt love thy Neighbor as thou lovest thy self Very sweet as Lying on Man to Man but yet much sweeter as it lieth on Christ the Son of Man to Man Man-kind every Man As I hope will be fully cleered anon Nor do I find any thing in any of the Commandements contrary to this No not That of Gods Jealousie which we touched before and his visiting the Iniquity of the Fathers on their children Even when he seeth so much Iniquity in the Father that by his general Laws of Justice Truth Equity and Mercy too for they go all together he must visit yet he is so slow to anger and so loth to afflict that he will do it by degrees and by steps and not so that may make the Father so miserable as he deserves and might very justly be But so that he may have some part of the rod as David had and his children also some other part of it so as may bring them to see and know and acknowledg the Iniquities of their Fathers also Which God promised rather than threatned to Moses on Mount Sinai also as we read in the 26. of Leviticus so much cited and confessed sor their Fathers also in the ninth chapters of Daniel Ezra and Nehemiah