Therefore the School-men say of the sending giving powring forth the coming of the Spirit to us to be in us That it is only Novus modus apparendi A new manner of appearing The Holy Spirit the third Person in the Trinity from whom the other two Persons are ever undivided God blessed for ever is ever in every Creature in every Spirit He only changeth his Appearances and Effulgencies there By the change of his Appearance he changeth and formeth each Creature each Spirit in all its Changes Thus he turneth to himself the Heavens and the Earth as the Clay to the Seal according to the Language in the Book of Job How divinely pure and pleasant a prospect or living Picture is now the nature of things while God himself according to the distinct Idea or eternal exemplar of each Creature cometh forth and appeareth together with it as Twin-brothers as Twin-Loves 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one the reflection of the other while a Third Love breaks from both these in which they are blest and made perfect with a mutual Union and the fruition of each other The ever-glorious and eternally-joyous Trinity of the highest and first Love seems to multiply and figure it self in each Creature All Creatures now seem to be in a lively and living Beauty represented by the two Breasts of the heavenly Spouse Like two Twin-Roes of a lovely kind two Twin-Loves the Births of their heavenly Mother the Universal and Divine Image in the Person of Christ feeding among the Lillies the Ideal eternal Lights and Beauties of her soft and shining Bosome But all this is to be understood of simple Nature abstracted from the Corruption by Sin with which in the midst of the pure peaceful pleasant Varieties the charming Harmonies the golden Calms and Gardens of Divine Love cometh in a scene of War and Death of tempestuous Seas fields of Blood Contrariety and Enmity God willing to shew the Power of his Wrath. That God who is the God of Love that Will which is Love it self All Love in the beloved Soul to the beloved Soul here in its faln state puts on this strange person of an Enemy Under this dark Disguise and horrid Vizat he hideth all his Beauties and Sweetnesses he acts a part of Wrath. But this it self at last appears to the beloved Soul to be a most delightful Love-part While by it the Variety is made more full being extended to the greatest Contrariety and utmost extreams While in the reconciling of these the Divine Harmony is more full and ravishing The Divine Love heightned to an excess of Sweetness and triumphant Joys The Wisdome of the Design more admird and adored in its rich and glorious Depths All expectations of Men and Angels are suspended most happily deceived and in the end infinitely transcended But how have I wandred and delightfully lost my self by drinking in eagerly this Wine of Angels and glorified Saints the Sweetness of this Divine Light and Love I will now pass from this second Distinction to the third for the illustration of the Divine presence in the soul. 3. Distinction God is one with the Soul not formally but transcendently God is not one with the Soul formally as the formal and proper Essence of the Soul or of any created Spirit much less as a Constitutive part of its Essence This would make God and that Spirit essentially one The Essence of that Spirit would reciprocally be the Essence of God That Spirit would be essentially God Is not this the utmost heighth of Ignorance Profaneness Impiety Blasphemy Giant-like Lucifer-like to war with God for the Throne of his Godhead Besides all this evil how great were the loss to every Spirit of Angels and Men Their Sun which makes the eternal Day and Spring were now set in an hopeless Night of Clouds and Confusions All their Loves Hopes and Joys aspiring to an infiniteness above themselves would now all droop and die in their own Bosome The beginning the end of them all is taken away That distinction of things which is the Mother of all Lives Loves Beauties and Pleasures as Unity is the Father of them would now sink into a rude undistinguished Darkness the first and the fountain of all Distinctions being taken away in taking away the Distinction of the Divine Nature from the created form of things How unpleasant were it to the Eye below to be perswaded that there were no Sun besides it self above it self Now the joy in beholding the face of the Sun and of Heaven the taking in of the sweet Light of Heaven and the Sun the charming Delights in the Varieties of Lights and Shades of Colours and Pictures in the Light and the Sun-shine were no more 2. God is transcendently one with the Soul as he is with all things by the transcendency of his Unity and his Infiniteness He comprehendeth all things in one in Himself after a manner altogether incomprehensible As he is the first the Universal Cause the most immediate the most intimate the inseparable the Ideal Cause of all things He is the Unity of every Unity the Being of Beings the Essence of every Essence not formally but transcendently not after a finite but an infinite manner Cusanus saith God is the Sun in the Sun not formally finitely but after a transcendent infinite manner He is so the Sun in the Sun that he is all things with the fulness of the Divine Nature and eternity in that form 4. Distinction God is present with and in the natural form of the Soul as in an earthly and shadowy Image He is present according to his heavenly his eternal form in this shadow as vailed and hidden beneath it As Jesus Christ at his Incarnation so the first man by his Creation was made under the Law the Law the Glory of the created Image improved and heightned The Holy Spirit saith of the Law That it is a shadow of good things to come not the very Image It is commonly said That the Law is the Gospel vailed the Gospel the Law unvailed Jesus Christ as he is the essential Image the brightness of the Glory of God is the first Adam vailed beneath a shadowy Image He is there as the Truth the Original the Root of this shadow bringing it forth bearing it in himself comprehending it He is in it as the Spirit and beautiful form of a Plant in the Seed ready to spring forth through it to transfigure it into the similitude of its own Beauties to fill it so transfigured with its own Divine Life Virtues and Fruits in the proper season St. Paul makes the first man in his pure State and in his Fall a Type or Figure of Him who is to come Jesus Christ Rom. 5. God in the Light of his Glory Jesus Christ according to his heavenly Image hidden in God The Soul according to its Divine Life in the state of Grace are all present vailed in the natural man as in their
come now to the third Reason I am to answer Reason 3 The Language of the Scripture in the whole current of it seemeth generally to run along upon this ground of an undetermined freedom of the Will of Man The Divine Will is cleared from the evils of Sin and Suffering The Will of Man is charged with them Agreeable to this are the Divine Precepts Prohibitions Promises Threatnings Admonitions Reproofs Complaints Expostulations which compose a great part of the sacred Writings Answ. I answer by a distinction This manner of Language As I live I desire not the death of a Sinner Why will ye die O house of Israel with all expressions like to these are either 1. Proper and plain 2. Figurative and mysterious 1. If they be proper and plain two great Difficulties arise 1. The true and living God thus represented appears like Homers Gods and the Gods of the Poets Weak querulous passible ever in contentions and combates 2. While the Divine Will in that on which it fixeth it self with so great truth and intention is capable of being opposed and defeated it appears destitute of Wisdom Power and Blessedness 2. If they be figurative and mysterious The figures first are to be determined and the mystery vailed beneath the figure to be discovered before we can establish any certain or clear sense upon them 1. The figure made use of in this manner of Language is by the consent of Divines complicated of an Anthropopathy and a Metonymy 2. The Anthropopathy is then when passions proper to man are attributed to God 2. The Metonymy is of the cause set for the effect and the things signified in the place of the sign So those changeable passions in created Spirits which bring forth and express themselves by changes of good or evil the effects and signs of those passions are applied to the unchangeable God when he bringeth forth the like changes in his Work So the Jews say That the holy Scriptures speak with the Tongue and in the Language of a Man But all such figurative expressions concerning God are to be understood with this Caution Every thing indeed in the Creature is a figure which hath its Original pattern answering to it in the Divine Nature But all imperfections attending the figure are to be removed All perfections in their utmost heights and most absolute fulness are to be attributed to the Original pattern when by the shadowy figure in the Creature you look to the exemplar and primitive truth in God So by these changeable and diverse passions in man you are to represent to your selves in God a Goodness a Power an unsearchable Riches of Variety and manifoldly various Wisdom and all these apart and together with the most absolute simplicity and highest Unity in the Divine Essence producing all diversities of accidents all changes of good and evil in the Divine Design which cometh forth at once as one piece divinely Rich in all Varieties from him and as one entire Image filled with the riches of all distinct Beauties of him who is unchangeable and most perfectly one 2. Having thus determined of the Figure Let us try to lift up the Vail and discover the Divine Mystery beneath this Figure I shall endeavour to take a Prospect of this Divine Secret and hidden Glory by several steps or degrees 1. The letter of the Scripture in the general â—…ream and current of it is the Ministry of the Law So St. Paul in divers places distinguisheth the Law and the Gospel or the Covenant of Works and the Covenant of Grace 2 Cor. 3. 6. Who hath made us able speaking of God Ministers of the New Testament or the New Covenant not of the Letter but of the Spirit for the Letter killeth but the Spirit giveth life In the following verse the engraving of the Law in Tables of Stone and Moses are mentioned Again in prosecution of the same Discourse Moses with his Vail is brought in To this are opposed in the 17. and 18. verses The Spirit of the Lord the liberty of the Spirit the sight of the Glory of the Lord with an unvailed Face the tranfiguration of the Soul into the same Image from glory to glory and all this by the Lord the Spirit These things laid together seem to make it clear that in the sense of the holy Apostle the letter the proposal and pressing of any truth or goodness upon us in a literal and moral way only whether outward or inward amounteth to no more then the old Covenant the Ministery of the Law on the other side the new Covenant the Gospel is the Spirit himself ministring himself through the letter to us taking off the Vail which lies upon the letter and upon our hearts bringing us forth into the Liberty the open Light and the Divine Life of the Spirit giving us a naked view of the Face of Christ in his spiritual and heavenly Glory and by this view transforming us into living Images of the same Glory springing up and encreasing in us unto the perfect day of eternity Suitable to this is that of St. Paul Rom. 10. 5. Moses describeth the Righteousness which is of the Law That the man which doth these things shall live by them Whatever imposeth upon us any thing to be done by us as an antecedent condition to any consequent good is the Law opposed to the Gospel The Law maketh Precepts the ground of Promises He that doth these things shall live by them But the Gospel maketh Promises the sure the sweet the precious pleasant ground of Precepts So St. Peter 2 Pet. 1. teacheth us That by the Glory and Virtue of the Godhead calling us to it self most great and precious Promises are given us that by these we may be made partakers of the Divine Nature So St. Paul engrafts Evangelical Precepts upon Evangelical Communications of the Divine Nature through Evangelical Promises Work out saith he your salvation with fear and trembling for it is God that worketh in you both to will and to do Phil. 2. 2. The proper end of the Law in the design or effect is not Love Righteousness Life and Blessedness but Condemnation Death and Wrath 2 Cor. 3. 7. It is called the ministry of Death At the ninth verse The ministry of Condemnation St. Paul in another place speaketh plainly That if there had been a Law which could have given Life Righteousness should have been by the Law St. Paul instructeth us in two eminent essential differences between the Law and the Gospel First The Law by Descriptions Commands Allurements Terrors setteth Righteousness before us but infuseth not a new Nature a new Life into us which may of its own accord bring forth Righteousness as Plants spâ—…ing up out of the ground and out of their proper root Secondly the Law not giving Christ himself to us to be a quickning Spirit in us to be our Life to be one Life with us cannot give us Righteousness either to the acceptation of our
our Hope our End comprehending all the Objects of our Hope all our blessedness in himself This Christ thus coming to us forming a Divine Nature a Divine Light a Divine Eye a Divine Understanding in us shining forth in the midst of us setting all things good and desirable in an invisible and eternal Glory in their heavenly truth and substance before us open and manifest in the midst of us with their naked shining flowing Beauties and Sweetnesses to be possessed to be enjoyed by us to become one Spirit with us to form themselves upon us to transform and to translate us into one Spirit and Image with themselves in the fore-tasts and first-fruits as the earnest and pledge of our hopes springing up to a full fruition This is our most holy and most precious Faith the Faith of the Gospel opposed to the Works of the Law This coming of the Faith in this verse is expressed before verse 9. by the coming of the seed why then was the Law It was added because of Transgressions until the Seed came The Law then is a Prison In this Pâ—…ison all men are kept bound in Chains shut up with Locks and Bolts and Bars which no force can break until the Seed which is Christ come This heavenly Seed alone springing up into a new Nature a new Creature a new Person into an heavenly Image and a Son of God in him alone brings him forth into the Liberty of the Glory of the Sons of God Now before this Jesus thus springing up and shining forth in him the Prison of the Law is dissolved and vanisheth like an enchantment The place in which it stood is known no more for all is covered and filled with the Light Liberty and Love of the eternal Spirit over-flowing and encompassing this Son and Heir of God this fellow-heir with Christ. So saith St. Paul to Timothy 2 Tim. 1. The appearance of Christ in the Gospel abolisheth death and bringeth life and immortality to light 2. The end of the Law is to be a shadow of Christ and a Vail upon Christ. In the Epistle to the Hebrews we read That the Law had a shadow only of good things to come not the very Image Chap. 10. vers 1. Jesus Christ the Image of the invisible God is the very Image of all good things to come in the Spirit and in eternity The Law had a shadow of this Jesus with these good things contained in him The Law was also a Vail upon this Jesus who with all these invisible eternal beauties and blessednesses lay hid and lived after an hidden manner in these shadows and figures of the Law as beneath a Vail You may see this 2 Cor. 3. 15 16. St. Paul saith of the Jews While Moses is read the Vail lieth upon their hearts But when there is a turning to the Lord the Vail is taken away He goeth on But the Lord is that Spirit where the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty that is freedom from the Vail There is a beholding with open face the Glory of the Lord Jesus a transforming of the Soul into the same Image with an encreasing Glory by the Lord this Spirit Thus Jesus with all his Glories was vailed in the Law By the removal of the Vail the Law becometh Gospel The naked Glories of our Jesus flow forth upon us and form us into one Glory with themselves St. Paul teacheth us 1 Cor. 1. 10. That the Fathers were all baptized into Moses in the same Cloud and in the same Sea eat of the same spiritual Bread drank of the same spiritual Rock that followed them and that Rock was Christ. Upon the same account that Bread that Sea that Cloud was Christ. Christ was shadowed upon all these and vailed beneath all these The Clouds Thunders Fires Tremblings and Earth-quakes at Mount Sinai were shadows of Christ and vails upon Christ in his most glorious Person suffering and dying The top of Mount Sinai where God and Moses conversed familiarly with Faces shining mutually one upon another being mutual Feasts one to another was a shadow of Christ and a Vail upon him in his Resurrection and Ascension Divines teach us That the Law is the Gospel vailed and the Gospel the Law unvailed The Jews say That the Ten Commandments are founded upon the Name of God The Name is the Image of the thing Christ who is the very Image is the true Name of God and of all true things comprehended in God The Moral Law with all the Precepts and Duties of it is Christ in his heavenly and Divine Nature in us but vailed with the Letter with the darkness of the Letter yet in that darkness doth the heavenly Image figure it self making the darkness it self a shadow of its Glory How rich and how sweet is our Jesus and the mystery of God in him through all his works The Law it self hath no Darkness no Death no Fire so full of Dread Horror and Destruction which looked upon with a right eye is not unexpressibly beautified and sweetned by this that Jesus Christ with all the treasures of eternal Love Beauty and Joy is shadowed upon it and vailed beneath it The Fathers under the Law acquainted with this mystery conversed with Christ saw his day grew up into him through this shadow beneath this Vail seeing and embracing him shadowed also in their own persons and lying hid as under a Vail in their Hearts and Loins in their Flesh and Spirit 3. The Law prepared the way of Christ. John the Baptist who came to restore all things to their Primitive purity in the Ministry of the Law is represented as an Angel sent before the Face of the Lord to prepare his way The Law is a three-fold preparation for Christ. 1. By Conviction Condemnation and Death which all discover a necessity of Christ make him precious make him the desire of all Nations make all wait for him as the only blessed One and their only Blessedness Crying Blessed is he blessed is the Messias the Christ blessed is Jesus who alone comes in the Name of the Lord in the Form Power and Glory of the Godhead 2. The Law is a preparation for Christ by the Righteousness of Morality and of the Letter 3. By setting Christ before us in a shadow and under a Vail So the Law fills up the Vallies and makes the Mountains plain It humbleth and bringeth down every high thing it raiseth up every dejected and dispairing spirit It turneth all reliance or glory in our own Righteousness or Strength in our own Reason or Will into shame It takes away our distrust and despair turning that into hope and a joyous expectation It first burieth all the beauty strength excellency and life of the Creature in a grave of Sin Death and Wrath as deep as the nethermost parts of the Earth as the nethermost Hell Then it shadoweth Christ upon this Grave and sheweth him hidden beneath it as under a Vail and as a Seed of
which composeth the Harmony and is the Soul of Harmony Variety it self being a singular name is an Unity Things absolutely divided and separate one from another make not a Variety This ariseth from the Unity in which they agree in which they are bound up together like Flowers in a Posie and presented in one Form in one view to the eye or to the mind A part of the Variety then which by its independancy upon the whole breaketh the Unity dividing it self from it destroyeth both the end and the essence it self of the Variety which are the Harmony and the Unity 3. Nature is the Law of Being Variety is Being varied Is not this a contradiction in the terms that the Law of Being that Being varied should call for as its Perfection a Being independant upon Being it self the first the universal Being that is should call for a Non-ens a not Being Such doth that VVill seem clearly to be in its essence motions and actions which in these in any moment and point of these in any circumstance is absolute in it self independant upon the first and Universal Cause the Fountain of Being Being thus cast into the bosom of the Divine Variety in which Nature and Grace the Fall and the Exaltation of things things visible and invisible of the Creature and the Creator lie and spring together as in their Garden-Bed Here with this Variety we will close our Discourse and in this Bosom take up our rest Jesus Christ in his Discourse to Nicodemus representeth the spiritual Birth by this similitude Joh. 3. 8. The wind bloweth where it listeth and thou hearest the sound thereof but thou knowest not whence it cometh nor whither it goeth so is every one that is born of the Spirit St. John saith 1 Epist. 2. Chap. 10. vers He that hateth his Brother is in darkness and walks in darkness and knows not whither he goes O that all the Lord's people O that all Mankind were enlightned with the heavenly brightness and splendor of the Divine Love anointing their Spirits with the heavenly perfume of the same love to their Brethren that is to every other Person or Spirit as St. Paul explains it Rom. 13. 8. He that loves another fulfils the Law That which the other Scriptures call a Neighbour a Brother is here Another every other person This Love would be an anointing of light upon the eyes of our mind giving us a clear and sweet prospect round about us in which we should not only hear a sound or a voice but see whence we came whither we go where we are the truth of all this and the way By the practice of this Divine Command To love one another we should as by a shining hand from Heaven dropping Mirth upon our Spirits be lead to the reason and the root of this Love which is the Divine Variety now mentioned the Jerusalem above the Mother of us all free and unconfined This is to love another according to the heavenly Command and to love another as my Neighbour my Brother to love every other person and thing as a fellow Branch with me in this Variety But if we will see the sweet and glorious Light of this heavenly Love we must not take the Variety alone but joyn to it the Unity and the Union of both these which are integral essential and primary parts of the Variety which are every way equal to the Variety and distinctly essentially comprehend it in themselves Thrice happy is that Spirit which by the Initiations Sanctisications and Anointings of the eternal Spirit hath been admitted to this Sacred and Supream Mystery To behold this Trinity the Variety in its first highest and unbounded form The Unity most absolute entire and undivided The Union of both these every way mutual and perfect O what Joys what Glories how pure how high how universal filling all in all transcending all things and thoughts open themselves to this Spirit who now sees himself a Variety of the same joy and glory in these joys and glories who now sees himself one eternal Joy and Glory with all these Joys and Glories in their Divine Unity What an eternal Marriage-day doth this Spirit now enjoy while at once by the bond of this Divine Union it seeth it self a distinct beauty and blessedness in the midst of all these innumerable glories equally distinct from him and one from another with the first the highest the most full distinction which is the perfection the compleatness the life of the Variety and yet in the same Scene in the same appearance and person one with them all as they all are one in the first and highest Unity This Spirit now seeth those Divine beauties and truths shining upon it with a most ravishing amiableness which we have toucht in our former discourse as the Divine ground on which the determination of the Will is built from which spring up those great and Sacred mysteries of the Gospel and the Law together with all the several Seeds or Forms of Light and Darkness Life and Death Nature Sin Grace and Glory comprehended in them The Seed of God which is the Seed of the Divine Unity and by St. Paul called one Spirit 1 Cor. 6. Hath been first before the world was in the Bosom of the Father in the Arms of Christ. So saith Jesus to his Father Thine they were and thou gavest them me This Divine Seed is brought down into a shadowy Image as a sleep and a dream in a sleep It still descends lower by the Fall not only to the remotest distance from the Purity Pleasantness and Glory of its Original but to the greatest estrangedness from it and opposition to it as a tragical dream of some excellent Person or Prince in a troubled sleep God several times mentioneth it with several senses and applications as a Sacred and Divine mystery That he calleth his Son out of Egypt It is his own Seed his own Son which first descended into Egypt the House of Bondage a Land of darkness and of Devils where almost every Creature was an Idol-god and so a Devil By an heavenly and Divine Call as by the returning of the Sun in the Spring to the Plants This Seed of Glory and Eternity sown and sunk so low by degrees comes up and returns again through all the beautiful the various the encreasing Forms of Light and Love springing up out of Darkness and Wrath. So at length it arriveth at its first habitation of Glory and Delights in the Arms of Christ in the Bosom of the Father It now flourisheth in the prime in the full blown Beauties and Joys of that life which it had at first which it ever hath had hidden with Christ in God the Life of eternity Thus is the Variety compleat thus is the whole Variety fully displayed in the heavenly Seed being carried along through all distinctions diversities contrarieties of forms and states of Good and of Evil. Thus is the Seed it self preserved pure through
much dearness and esteem upon my heart He came to a City filled with Reproaches cast upon him I saith he spake not one word to clear my self I received gladly the Humiliation Now gentle Reader I will seal up my Epistle to thee with that golden Sentence of St. Paul Let all your things be done to all in Charity or in Divine Love Let me add this one short Direction as a gloss upon it bear always clearly and deeply engraven upon thy Soul these and the like Precepts Love all Men Honour all men Love your Enemies Love another as thy self Study to know God as he is the Pattern and the Perfection of the Divine Perfection included in these Precepts Be you perfect saith Jesus Christ as your heavenly Father is perfect So he setteth before his Disciples the rich ground out of which these Precepts Spring as Plants of Paradise Study the Reason and the Equity of these Precepts The Precepts of God are true saith David and righteous altogether Every Divine Precept is founded in a Divine Truth The only reason of Love is loveliness Thus shalt thou be every where led into a Paradise and into Heaven while thou shalt now understand that God is Love a Godhead of Love That while thou livest and movest and hast thy Being in God thou livest and movest and hast thy Being in Love it self That while God works all in all fills all in all all within thee all without thee is a work of Love is full of Love Thus these Precepts in the reason of them which will shine out upon thee more and more as thou growest in the practice of them shall be an anointing upon thine eyes by virtue of which thou shalt see in all things every where which way soever thou turnest thy self a Divine Loveliness presenting it self to thee continually entertaining enflaming thine heart with a Divine Love crowning thy thoughts with a Divine Peace and Joy Gentle Reader There were in the Temple Vessels made of Wood but these were over-laid with pure and massy Gold This Treatise is no Temple thou wilt certainly meet with many things of wood and perhaps of the lowest sort of wood worthless the subject of Frailty and Corruption Let it be thy part and glory to over-lay it with the Gold of the Temple above Divine Love which covereth all Sin So my humble Prayer is That thou mayest be together with my self yea so shall we both be if we abide in the Divine Love Priests consecrated by an heavenly Blood and an heavenly Unction to minister to the God of all Loving kindnesses by day and by night in the Temple of Love Here now death is no more here from our Death-beds as from the golden Altar like the sweet and costly Incense we shall ascend in a pure and glorious flame of heavenly Love kindled from the Face and Heart of God above unto the Throne of God the Throne of Grace and Love to be ever in the circuit of that Throne where the eternal Spirit like a Rain-bow shall encompass us round as the seal and band of eternal Love shining with all innumerable beauties and pleasantuesses ever full ever fresh and flourishing Perhaps some one will say Who is this that thus preacheth Love to the World Is he himself a Dove washt in Milk Far is he from pretending to the praise and perfections of that Spirit the Bride of the heavenly Bridegroom which sitteth in the Garden of Divine Purities Sweetnesses and Light making her Beloved and his Companions to hear her Voice while they return their esteem affections and admiration in Songs saying to her Thy Voice is pleasant thy Face thy Person is lovely No the only Character here is that of a Voice in the Wilderness a Wilderness of many Deformities and Distractions within as well as without Crying Prepare ye the way of Divine Love make streight paths for it by bringing down every Mountain of Vanity and Pride by filling up the Vallies of low dejected lost dispairing Spirits He who thus cries to you too frequently too deeply hath â—…erc'd the side of this Love yet still from the woundâ—… heart through the wounds water and blood flow to wash off the stains of this blood upon him and by this blood as a Balsom as a Cordial as a Spring of Life all at once to heal his Wounds to infuse new vigour and joy into his Spirits to renew life in his heart even out of Death it self unto Immortality This is the Innocency and Wisdome which maketh them blessed who aspire to it who as often as they fail in their duty of loving every other person as themselves are sensible of the guilt of breaking the whole Law which is summed up in these two great Commandments and maketh them inseparable as the substance and the shadow in the Sun-shine or as the Fountain and the stream the Sun and the similitude of the Sun in the light surrounding it To love God with all our selves and To love our Neighbour as our selves A DISCOURSE OF THE Freedome of the Will The FIRST PART CONTAINING The Definition of the Free-will in question and the Arguments opposed to it Libertas est facultas ejus quod cuique facere libet ut Romani definiunt faith Grotius upon Genesis This is liberty to do that which we like to do Liking is from likeness Nihil est quod ad se rem ullam tam alliciat tam attrahat quà m ad amicitiam similitudo saith Cicero Nothing so allures and so attracts as similitude and likeness doth to liking and to love Liking then is founded in the nature and harmony of each essence Every thing moves and rests freely at liberty when it moves and rests according to its own nature according to the harmony of its own essence Zeno defines liberty to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a power of self-acting The Philosopher defines nature to be the principle of motion and rest there where it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by it self and not by accident Our nature is our true-self Then have we the power of self-acting when we move and rest according to our own natures being acted in them by our own natural and essential Principles We meet with this Rule often in Aquinas Vnumquodque operatur prout est Every thing acts as it is The being or nature of each thing is the Root and the Rule of its operation By these things which I have spoken two marks present themselves to us to guide us in our judgment of liberty 1. Liberty is a relation or harmony between the essence or nature of each thing and its operations 2. According to the Orders and Degrees of Being are the Orders and Degrees of Liberty According to these two Marks we shall find a two-fold measure of Liberty 1. The Principle 2. The Sphere of Activity I shall then upon this ground distinguish liberty into a four-fold Order 1. The freedome of the Elements and Coelestial
Head its inward Principle 3. The Soul of man in its Restitution by Christ hath Jesus Christ as a quickning Spirit in him as the principle of its Life as its life it self I saith Christ am the Resurrection and the Life I saith St. Paul by the Law am dead to the Law I am crucified with Christ and now I live yet not I but Christ liveth in me He saith St. Paul that is joyned to the Lord is one Spirit Man is now become the heavenly Image of God and one Spirit with Jesus Christ in Glory As he hath now the Understanding of Christ according to St. Paul so hath he also the Will of Christ. This heavenly Bridegroom and heavenly Bride are one Divine Spirit bear one Divine Image have one Life one Righteousness one Glory one Understanding one Will and dwell together in one Light as God is Light in one Love as God is Love in one immortal Joy unspeakable and glorious The Soul now is a chast and spotless Bride which bringeth forth all the rich and heavenly fruits of her Spirit her Understanding her Will her whole Life inward and outward by her own heavenly Husband alone by the sweet force of her Union with him and the Divine Virtue of his embraces that they may be fruits to God that is Divine Fruits having the life virtue and sweetness of the Divine Nature in them the form and beauty of the Divine Nature upon them for a feast of Joys and Glory to God himself to feast both his Eyes and his Heart If then the Soul restored be one Spirit with Christ as in the Spirit of Christ so in the Spirit of a Saint the most pleasant liberty and most potent necessity meet in one The Divine Harmony of the supream and universal good is at once the spacious and blissful Field of this Paradisical freedom and the golden Chain of this most grateful and most glorious necessity The Spirit of Christ is eternity it self which as it spreads it self beyond and above all consinements to a Variety endlesly fresh and flourishing is the sweetest Liberty As it comprehends all things in a most entire undivided Unity the supream Crown and Circle of all true Life and Glory is the highest necessity Eternity hath nothing past or to come in respect to it self being far above all Changes all Beginnings and Ends of things It is the supream Power which rules them all and the supream Wisdom which measures them The Soul then now become one Spirit with Christ is in that Spirit together with Christ seated upon the Throne of Eternity by its Union with this Spirit it reigns upon this Throne over all things by having this Spirit in it self by being one Spirit with this Spirit it hath in it self that soveraign Power and supream Wisdom it is one with that soveraign Power and supream Wisdom which rules and measures all things Thus the glorious Bride of Eternity having her heavenly Bridegroom in her embraces cloathed and crowned with the same heavenly Image being now in the true state of her own proper person in her sirst and last state in her own proper unvailed Substance and Original here with her Bridegroom is her own rule and measure in this heavenly Image which is her true substantial self her Eternity She is also a rule and measure to her self in the earthly and shadowy Image and in all her Pilgrimage through the Regions of time below whether they be the sweeter shadows of the Light above or the melancholy shades of a deeper Darkness This is the true Liberty of Man and the freedom of his Will which is as the liberty and freedom of the true eternal good diffusing it self into all the unsearchable riches of its manifoldly various Varieties varying setting off sweetning and heightning it self by all the ravishing excesses of Harmony of Light of Love by all the extreams of Darkness Discord Contrariety and hate reducing and binding up these also into a most ravishing Harmony by the excesses by the victories and triumphs of the Divine Light and Love So keeping together with this sportful Liberty the golden the firm Adamantine necessity of being it self still through all that is good the true and eternal good This Divine Liberty of the spiritual Bride which is her Kingdom in her self over all is divinely expressed by the blessed Bridegroom himself in that most mysterious Song of himself and his Love composed by himself in the Person of Solomon He there in one place chargeth the Daughters of Jerusalem that is all the holy Angels and spotless Spirits by which the affairs of the whole Creation are administred By the Roes and Hindes of the field that is by all those Pleasures Loves and Lovelinesses with which he sports himself in the midst of them in the Paradise above who alone is the lovely Roe and the lovely Hind That they awake not nor stir up his Love until he please Cant. 2. 7. Thus it is manifestly in the Hebrew although our Translators have changed the Feminine into the Masculine and set the Bridegroom in the place of the Bride But the sense which the words grammatically import is this That as the heavenly Bride is one Spirit with her Bridegroom she sits above together with him upon his Throne in eternity from thence together w th him gives to all the heavenly Ministers their Commissions that nothing moves in her own person or round about her here below as she is in her shadowy disguise and pilgrimage but as it is ordered by her self above in the bosome of her Bridegroom And according to that order executed by the heavenly attendance which wait continually round about the Throne of her Bridegroom 2. Reason If the Will of Man be not free and do not freely determine it self in all moral Actions being undetermined in its own Principles or by any superior Causes what entrance doth sin find How doth any thing of a stain or guilt lie upon the Soul How is God just in the effects of his Wrath upon those that sin if they sin by an inevitable necessity of Nature and a predetermination by the connexion of Causes or by the immediate and intimate operation of the first and universal Cause I shall give my Answer by several steps 1. Sin hath no positive being if it hath God who is the first and universal Being the Fountain of Being is directly by himself and not by accident only the Author of Sin in its formality as Sin Otherwise we must with Manes set two Gods upon two distinct Thrones one of Light or Good the other of Darkness or Evil. Or we shall be forced with some Heathen Philosophers to establish two first Beings equally Uncreated and eternal One God the Agent The other Matter the Patient So where the Agent subdues the matter to it self all Forms of Goodness Beauty Life and Joy spring forth where the matter invincibly resisteth the power of the Agent there are the Regions of all Evil Darkness Death
Apostle scattered throughout this place fall into a most beautiful Harmony St. Paul here setteth himself in the place of all Mankind in Paradise He describeth to us as in a figure the nativity of sin its esssential form or life if we may have leave so to speak of a privation the occasion and manner of its first appearance and taking life I have now finished my Discourse upon the ends of the Law which are of the first sort proper and immediate which are called by Logicians the ends of the work I pass now to the remote and Ultimate ends which are stiled the ends of the Workman I shall make my transition by this consideration A Poetical History or work framed by an excellent Spirit for a pattern of Wisdom and Worth and Happiness hath this as a chief rule for the contrivance of it upon which all its Graces and Beauties depend That persons and things be carried to the utmost extremity into a state where they seem altogether uncapable of any return to Beauty or Bliss That then by just degrees of harmonious proportions they be raised again to a state of highest loy and Glory You have examples of this in the Divine pieces of those Divine Spirits as they are esteemed and stiled Homer Virgil Tassâ—… our English Spencer with some few others like to these The Works of these persons are called Poems So is the Work of God in Creation and contrivance from the beginning to the end named 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God's Poem It is an elegant and judicious Observation of a learned and holy Divine That the Works of Poets in the excellencies of their imaginations and contrivances were imitations drawn from those Original Poems the Divine works and contrivances of the eternal Spirit We may by the fairest Lights of Reason and Religion thus judge That excellent Poets in the heighths of their fancies and spirits were touched and warmed with a Divine Ray through which the supream Wisdom formed upon them and so upon their work some weak impression and obscure Image of it self Thus it seemeth to be altogether Divine That that work shineth in our eyes with the greatest Beauties infuseth into our Spirits the sweetest delights transporteth us most out of our selves unto the kindest and most ravishing touches and senses of the Divinity which diffusing it self through the amplest Variety and so to the remotest Distances and most opposed Contrarieties bindeth up all with an harmonious Order into an exact Unity which conveyeth things down by a gradual descent to the lowest Depths and deepest Darknesses then bringeth them up again to the highest point of all most flourishing Felicities opening the beginning in the end espousing the end to the beginning This is that which Aristotle in his Discourse of Poetry commendeth to us as the most artful and surprising untying of the knot 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or by a discovery This is that which Jesus Christ pointeth at in himself who is the Wisdom of God The manifold Wisdom of God in whom all the Treasures of Wisdom and Knowledge lie hid in whom all the Divine contrivances are formed and perfected What will you say when you shall see the Son of Man return there where he was at first In this God himself seemeth to place the highest Beauties the sweetest Graces the richest Glories of his whole contrivance and work in bringing things down by the Ministry of the Law to the last point to the lowest state to the most lost condition to the nethermost part of the Earth to the nethermost Hell And in ways unexpected by uncomprehensible to Men Angels to raise things again by the Gospel to that first supreamGlory which was their Original Patern in eternity The Law was brought in that sin might abound That where sin had abounded grace might superabound So the Wisdom of the Heathen and of the Scripture both instructeth us That God entertaineth himself universally and divinely with this great and pleasant Work of making high things low great things little of making little things great and low things high He sendeth the rich empty away and filleth the hungry with good things He grindeth man through pain to dâ—…st and then he saith return again ye Sons of Men. But I have made a long transition I come now from these proper ends of the Law which were the deepest descents which comprehended the reign of sin by the Law unto Death an Universal Death the most killing death a spiritual never-dying death of immortal Spirits as well the natural death of Bodies separate from their Spirits to the Ultimate ends of the Law in which some glimmering lights begin to dawn of the most desired and delightful day shining from this black and hellish night All these Ultimate ends of the Law are generally comprehended in Christ the Ultimate end of the Law The end of the Artificer and of the Agent of the eternal Spirit in the Law is Christ. So saith the Spirit in the Scriptures The end of the Law is Christ Rom. 10. 4. He may well be the end of the Law who is the end of all things for whom all things are made The Law was given by Moses but Grace and Truth were by Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ came full of Grace and Truth saith St. John in the same Chapter Joh. 1. 14 17. Grace is the Divine Love opposed to the ministry of wrath by the Law Truth is the naked Face and Beauty of the Godhead the Light the brightness of the Glory of God in the Face of Jesus Christ as he is opposed to the Vails and shadows of the Law Thus Christ that is God in the nakedness and simplicity of the Divine Essence as he is Love as he is Light the Light of Immortality and Glory in which there is no darkness is the end of all the darknings dividings and destructions of all the shadows and severities of the Law But this general end is to be subdivided into its several steps or degrees 1. The end of the Law is to be a prison for faln man till Christ comes This is the language of St. Paul Gal. 3. 28. But before the Faith came we were kept in custody under the Law being shut up unto the Faith to be revealed Faith is the evidence of things not seen and the substance of things hoped for The Divine Faith is a Divine evidence of Divine things divinely invisible from an excess of Divine Light and Glory too great for every natural eye or understanding The Divine Faith is the Divine substance of Divine things the objects of a Divine hope Christ is said by St. Paul to be the hope of Glory and the end of the Faith of all the Saints He also is the Light and the Life This then is the Faith and the Revelation of the Faith of the Gospel in the Saints Christ the Light of the Glory of God eternal Life the quickning Spirit the fountain of Life the heavenly eternal truth and substance of all Good
eternal life sown in it 4. The Law is an heightning to the sweetness and beauty of Christ. The Law came in that sin might abound That where sin had abounded Grace might super abound The Law is a three-fold heightning to the sweetness and beauty of Christ in the Gospel 1. The Law heightens the Glory of Christ by an Antiperistasis As in hard Frosts the Lights of Heaven shine brightest and look with sweetest Glories upon us As in the coldest season the Fire burns brightest and refeshes our Spirits with the liveliest warmth and heat So Darkness Death and Wrath in the Ministry of the Law by their opposition being carried to the greatest extremity excite and stir up the Godhead to pour forth it self from all its richest and unconfined Depths in the most full the overflowing Seas of all his sweetest richest most exalted Loves and Glories 2. The Law heightens the sweetness and beauty of Christ by being a soil to it There is more joy in Heaven over one Sinner that repenteth than over ten righteous persons continuing in their Righteousness The Father of the Prodigal in the Parable giveth this reason for the excess of Joy the unwonted Triumphs with all the heightnings of Feasts and of Musick This our Son which was lost is found which was dead is alive The Violets and Roses of the Spring are the sweeter and more beautiful for the Winter going before them How sweet and amiable is the light of life arising upon those who sit in darkness and under the shadow of death As a foil beneath a Diamond so do the darknesses and deformities of Sin the hateful stains and insupportable guilt of Sin the terrors the horrors the torments of Death and the Divine Wrath under the Law make the freedom and fulness of the Divine Grace the Righteousness the Life and Glory of God in the Person of the Lord Jesus appearing to a lost forelorn Soul in the midst of these black shades unvaluably precious infinitely amiable pleasant far surpassing all the sweetness and beauties of the loveliest Morning all the Lights and Glories of the purest Sun arising out of the darknesses of the most melancholy and tempestuous night 3. The Law heightens the brightness and delightfulness of Christ in the Day of the Gospel as fewel to that heavenly and blessed flame of Divine Love As Sin hath reigned unto Death saith St. Paul so Grace reigns through Righteousness unto eternal Life by Jesus Christ our Lord. Sin exalted its black and fiery Throne by subduing to it self the first man in all his Primitive powers and purities The first Paradise with its sweet peace and pleasantness the first Creation in the whole Compass of its Divine Glories sprung forth from and resembling the Divine World in eternity How great and deep is that darkness bottomless as Hell it self How bitter is that death as the poyson of Asps as the poyson of the old Serpent the Dragon himself which hath extinguished the light of so much Beauty which hath corrupted so much Sweetness which hath devoured and swallowed up into the black and bottomless Abyss of a first and second death an unsearchable depth of confusion and woe such a world of so Divine Sweetnesses and Beauties with all their amiable light and life But now what Tongue can express what Heart can conceive the unmeasurable heightnings of that Divine Grace and Love the unparalleled unbounded Beauties and Glories of that Righteousness the infinite purities pleasures powers perpetuities of that life the inestimable incomprehensible Sweetnesses Beauties Virtues and force of that Person our Jesus in whom all these united who by all these uniteth in his own Person reigneth over these devouring Powers of darkness and death subduing them all unto himself and carrying this whole captivity captive into the Kingdom of Light and Love unto which he himself returneth as he ascends The fire at once encreaseth its own force and flame by the great quantity of fewel on which it feeds and converts the dead fewel into one glorious spreading ascending flame with it self Shadows seen alone have little grace in them but skilfully mixt with the bright colours in a Picture and presenting themselves to the eye in one view together with them encrease the beauty of the Picture are themselves a sweet part of the Beauty and a rich Variety in it Discordant touches upon a Lute offend the Ear but in a Lesson of Musick they are themselves harmonious and enrich the Harmony of the whole Lesson Thus the first Adam who was only an earthly Image a shadowy similitude of the Divinity and made under the Law the Fall the whole reign of sin unto death by the Ministry of the Law with all its Clouds and Storms of shame terror and torment are in themselves a melancholy Image filling us with the afflicting Forms of deformity confusion desolation and woe But when these in the Gospel become fewel to that pure potent and pleasant fire of the Divine Love the eternal Spirit the Spirit of Grace and Glory now they enlarge and heighten this beautiful and blessed flame now themselves are become spiritual immortal flames of highest sweetness and beauty in this Divine flame Now these discordant notes these dark lines and stroaks in the Evangelical melody of the eternal Word in the unvailed Face of the heavenly Bridegroom the Lord Jesus in the Musick of the eternal Love in the beauty of the Righteousness the unvailed Glory of the Godhead in the Person of Christ become themselves most rich heightnings most pleasant and beautiful parts most dear and delightful Varieties in the eternal Melody and unfading Beauty of the Divine Loveliness and Love I have now finished my Reply to this Reason for Free-will in man taken from the Language of the Scripture In which Reply I have endeavoured to set before you in their clear distinctions the difference between the vail of the Letter and the mystery of the Spirit hid beneath this Vail I shall now conclude this Discourse by offering humbly to you three Rules for the right understanding of those expressions in the Scripture which are most of all pressed and pressing in this Point 1. God planteth and establisheth man upon natural Principles of rectitude in the Divine Image he leaveth him to the force and to the trial of these Principles he ministreth to him outwardly inwardly all moral assistances for the strengthning actuating and heightning of these Principles to their utmost perfections Thus God who properly hath no Will nor any thing common to the Creature or proportionable to the Creature But as a Will with other faculties and forms proper to the Creature are given to him by a fit figure and according to the manner of the Creature saith of himself I will not the death of a Sinner but rather that he return and live 2. When God appeareth unvailed in the Face of Christ who is the brightness of his Glory Righteousness Love Life Immortality Joy and Glory attend upon and
Epithete of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a large Gallery or Porch in Athens painted at the cost and order of Pericles by the most skilful Artists with the most exquisite skill and with that which is the most heightned point in this skill for life and delight the greatest Variety was called from this peculiar excellency the Variety in the Pictures 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Our Jesus is replenished and adorned with the richest Variety of Divine Forms which that Divine Painter Naetura Naturans the eternal Nature the eternal Spirit is capable of bringing forth Thus is our Jesus become not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Porch or Gallery of Divine Variety for God himself and all his holy Ones to walk in Here do they contemplate themselves the Ideas of their own Spirits all their Works in their liveliest and sweetest Figures Ah! how is the King how are all his glorious train tyed eternally in this Gallery But thus much for the first excellency in this Mediatory Person of Christ. 2. The second is the Harmonious Order of all the Parts These are five 1. Divine Love in its eternal Original or the Divine Unity at its full heighth This is Jesus Christ in his Godhead as he is the essential Image of the Godhead One with the Father as he is the Head the Root the Bridegroom To himself in his created Image sprung forth from subsisting in the Bosom of the essential Image and Glory All Forms in the heighth and exactness of their several Distinctions in their first their fullest Variety are here at the heighth in the absoluteness of the Divine Unity which is most heightned purity the perfection of Light and of Love 2. Divine Love descending into an Image of Light or the supream Unity in a clear and sweet Union with Diversity This is properly our Jesus in his Middle-state in his Mediatory Image Here are all forms of things with all their Distinctions at once in the most perfect Unity and in a Diversity with a subordination Yet is this a clear and shining Diversity a Diversity without distance or division every where full of the Divine Unity 3. The third Part in this Glory of Christ is the Divine Love declining into a shadowy Image or the Divine Unity shaded with the Diversity yet sweetly figuring it self upon the Diversity and subsisting with all its Glories beneath it This is the Divine Love in a sweet sleep fill'd with a pleasant dream where all the Divine Forms vailed with the shading Diversity seem to act a Divine Masque to the Divine Musick of eternal Love seeming to sound at a great distance thorow these shades In the first of Genesis a deep darkness is the ground of the whole Creation This is exprest by Bohu and Tohu Bohu He is in it Tohu the last bound ultima linea rerum This is the Chaos the ground of the first Creation a Divine shadow which the Divine Glory casteth from it self with which it surrounds and vails it self in which himself with all Divine Forms doth lie as the glories of a Plant in its seed under the Earth or as Man with all his Intellectual Angelical Divine Powers Notions Glories in a deep sleep This the Jews call the darkness round about the Throne of God and apply to this the black Locks like a Raven upon the Bridegrooms head of fine Gold in the Canticles This is the Philosopher's Materia prima Metaphysica first Metaphysical Matter out of which Angels Coelestial Bodies Elementary Forms sprung as Flowers out of the ground of Paradise Out of this Darkness God called the Light of the first Day the Primitive Light of the Creation which by varying it self with the Diversity of shades from this ground of the Divine Darkness springs forth into all the several Lives Forms and Motions thorow the whole Nature of things This is not the true Light which hath no darkness in it but the shadowy Image of that Light The Darkness out of which and in the midst of which this Light shineth is the sweet sleep of the eternal Love The Light is the pleasant dream in this Divine sleep Thus Man the Diapason or full Musick of the whole Creation composed of all the several Forms as several Notes is said to be made Betzelem in a shadowy Image of God The same word is used by the Psalmist where man is said to walk in a vain show In which respect the Holy Spirit pronounceth the purest Beauties and Joys of the earthly Paradise to be Vanity Dreams and no more the shadows or figures of things in a Dream Man in his best state is altogether Vanity I beg thy leave Christian Reader here to make use of that History if not in an Allegorical yet an accommodated or Allusive sense God cast Adam into a deep sleep and then divided Eve from him and brought them together again no more as one person but two Before the Spirit had said God made man Male and Female made he him As if Man had been then like the Angels which neither marry nor give in marriage but comprehend both Sexes with all their Progeny as a full Quire in one Person in one Spirit For thus they say of Angels Every one is both Male and Female in himself a God-like Unity diffusing it self within it self into all Variety with a Divine amplitude without division or distance But thus our Jesus first is both Bridegroom and Bride within himself he comprehendeth the Divine Nature the Universal Image of the whole Creation in one Divine Person Spirit Life Image Joy and Glory But then by the Law of the eternal Harmony in the Divine Nature in its essential Image he falls into a sweet and deep sleep In this sleep as in a Divine dream is the Bride divided from her Bridegroom Now they with their Race of Divine Forms meet in diverse Persons as shadows of themselves Yet do they in their Peâ—…sons in all their Motions bear the Divine Impressions and amiable Figures of their eternal Ideas in the Love and Light of eternity These eternal Ideas while they sleep in these shadows yet awake beneath them above them to act them to shadow forth their own Sweetnesses and Beauties upon them These shadows of this dream are indeed shadowy compared with the eternal Glories yet have they a real Being a real existency in theiâ—… own place and order But we will now pass to the fourth part of this Divine Piece 4. This is the Divine Unity opening it self in the shadowy Image into a Contrariety the utmost point of its Variety This is the Divine Love in a storm in its dream and sleep The Divine Love is here in a disguise God who is Love calleth the Work of Wrath his strange Work The ministry of the Law and the Letter which casts a Vail upon the Face of God is the same in the Language of the Scriptures We read in the Revelations Of the Wrath of the Lamb. Wrath is the
that Tabernacle and particularly often Heb. 9. Jesus Christ saith to the Jews Destroy this Temple and in three days I will build it up The Spirit addeth there expresly That he spake of his Body in St. John The Humane Nature of Christ in the Flesh was a moveable Tabernacle to be taken down and so figured by the Tabernacle in the Wilderness The Humanity of Christ in the Resurrection in the Spirit was the true Temple immoveable immutable eternal in the Heavens answering to Solomon's Temple on Mount Sion or Mount Moriah In the Tabernacle under the Law there was a three-fold Perfection 1. All things there were exact Figures of the Pattern upon the Mount 2. These Figures were taken immediately from the Pattern it self formed wrought and ordered by the same Spirit in Bezaleel Aholiab Moses Aron the Priests and the Levites 3. The Pattern it self in its Glory dwelt in the Tabernacle The Scriptures laid together seem to demonstrate Jesus Christ to be this Pattern upon the Mount The Law is said to have the shadow of good things to come 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not the very Image of the thing Heb. 1. 1. This very Image can be no other than the first the principal the substantial Image the Pattern it self upon the Mount This word is applied to Jesus Christ Col. 1. 15. He is said to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Image of the invisible God And that the very Image the Original Image is understood appears by that which is added The first-born of every Creature The Jewish Rabbins teach us That the Tabernacle was a model of the whole Creation of the Divine World as it is the Head of the Creation and at the Head of the Creation appears in a created Figure of the Angelical and of the visible World These were represented by the Holy of Holies the holy place and the outward Court Thus far they were right but in this they fell short that they looked not to the beginning and end of these The Messias in in his own Mediatory Glory and in his Fathers Glory as he was the Pattern of these upon the Mount and as these stood originally in him But according to this Type in the Tabernacle in his Flesh and in his Life on Earth he fulfilled all Righteousness the Righteousness of the Creature the Law and the Letter the Righteousness of God and of the Gospel Jesus Christ saith of himself What I see my Father do that do I The words that I speak are not mine but my Fathers he doth the Works The Humane Nature of Christ in Flesh his Motions his Rest all his Words and his Works answered to the Pattern upon the Mount his own heavenly Image in the Glory of God and were formed from that Pattern by the same Spirit forming his Humane Nature subsisting in it and acting it The Father saith he hath sent me and I live by the Father The mission of the Father and his living by the Father were his springing forth from the Father according to the eternal Image of things in the Father by the Spirit of the Father in his Birth Life and Death Thus he fulfilleth all Righteousness according to the Law as it was at first engraven on the heart of man as it was afterwards renewed on Tables of Stone in the Moral Ceremonial and Judiciary parts of it The Pattern it self also the heavenly and Divine Image with the Original Righteousness and Glory dwelt in this Flesh of Christ in all his Motions and Rests filling the figures with the substance Thus it is said of him The Word was made Flesh and dwelt among us full of Grace and Truth Joh. 1. 14. It is said again vers 17. The Law was given by Moses but Grace and Truth came by Jesus Christ. Grace is eternal Love the naked Face of God as it shines and smiles with all pleasantness in it opposed to the Law as it is a Ministry of Wrath and a Vail upon the Divine Nature Truth is the very Image the Pattern the everlasting Righteousness the Original and eternal Glory of God opposed to the shadows the fading Righteousness the vanishing Glory of the Law Thus this Tabernacle of Flesh in the Unity of Christ's Person was full of Grace and Truth The everlasting Love and everlasting Righteousness with their Sweetnesses Strengths and Glories which never fade nor pass away at once formed filled and rested upon their own perfect and spotless figures in the flesh of Christ. So he fulfilled the first part of his Mediation and our Redemption while as an universal Person comprehending all Mankind and the whole Creation in himself He presents himself in his Birth in his Life unto God in the place of all and all in himself as a perfect Figure of the Divine Righteousness and Glory as in an exact Harmony so in an inseparable immediate Union with its Pattern 2. The second Part of Christ's Mediatory Work in our Redemption comprehendeth the Sufferings and Death of the Lord Jesus The Sufferings of Christ are to be considered in the manner and the merit of them The manner of the Sufferings of Christs are set forth in diverse Scriptures Isa. 53. 6. God laid the Iniquity of us all upon him And vers 10. He made his Soul an offering for Sin St. Paul seems to relate to these Prophesies when he saith 2 Cor. 5. ult Him who knew no sin hath God made sin for us It is frequent in the Hebrew Language and Idiom to express Sin and metanomically the Sacrifice for sin the panishment of sin by the same word Gal. 3. 13. Christ hath purchased us from the Curse of the Law being made a Curse for us A cursed Person is a Person charged with all guilt and filth and universal abomination and detestation to God to Angels and Men. A Person devoted to Divine Vengeance and Wrath excluded from all things holy and good exposed to the opposition and enmity of all things holy and good set apart to be cut off and quite taken away in the shamefulest dreadfulest and direfulest manner Thus God personally in our flesh suffered Our Jesus takes away our Sins the Sins of the whole World Joh. 1. by taking them upon himself He stands in the place and person of all Sinners He beareth the Sins of the whole World upon himself Behold the Lamb of God which takes away the sins of the World Joh. 1. The Greek word comprehendeth both senses to take up and to take away He is set as the abominable execrable detestable thing in the Eyes of God and of all the Creatures He is devoted by the most solemn most sacred Curses to bear the weight of all Guilt to satisfie the Divine Justice to sustain the Divine Wrath to the utmost As the Sin-Offering was all consumed by fire and was burnt without the Camp so went Jesus out of the City separated from the Society of all in Heaven and on Earth bearing his shame and to endure the pain The
Spirit and Person in heavenly unexpressible sweetnesses This is my first Request to you 2. Study and practise that great Command of Love as the Lesson of thy whole Life with which alone thou art to entertain thy self and all the heavenly Company both here and in eternity This is the first and great Command That thou love God with thy whole self and then That thou love thy Neighbour as thy self which is a second Law a second Love like unto the first Indeed it is so like that it is one with it Be thou thy self in thy whole Person the Sacrifice of a whole Burnt-Offering ascending in a Sacred flame of heavenly love to God the only and eternal Beauty As the zeal of the House of God which is Love flaming did eat up David and Christ so let this heavenly Love of the Divine Beauty which is the Beauty it self descending in a pure and sweet flame upon thee by consuming thee convert thee into one spiritual flame with it self Now live thou no where but where thou lovest in thy Beloved Let thy Beloved alone now live in thee when thou hast thus lost thy self by an heavenly Love in thy Beloved in thy God when thou hast thus by the Sacred and sweet mystery of this Love found thy Beloved thy God in the place of thy self Then love thy Neighbour as thy self Love thy Neighbour in thy Jesus thy God Love thy Jesus thy God in thy Neighbour Let this Neighbourhood of Divine Love be as large as the God of Love himself is Let every other Person and Spirit which lives and moves and hath its being in God within the encompassing upon the Ground and Root of the Divine Being be thy Neighbour thy Brother another self as thy self to thy self the Object to thee of an heavenly and incorruptible Love Upon this Commandment saith Jesus Christ hang all the Law and the Prophets This Love is the Centre and the Circle of all the Works of God of all Motions and Rests of all mysteries in Nature and Grace in Time and Eternity Plato saith That three sorts of Persons are led to God The Musician by Harmony the Philosopher by the beam of Truth the Lover by the light of Beauty All these Conductors to the supream Being meet in this Love of which we speak the first and only true Beauty being the first Birth the first Effulgency the essential Image of the supream Goodness is also the first the supream the only Truth the Original the measure the end of all Truth which by its amiable attractive Light conducteth all Understandings in the search of Truth and giveth them rest only in its transparent and blissful Bosom This also is the first the only the universal Harmony the Mufick of all things in Heaven and on Earth the Musick in which all things of Earth and of Heaven meet to make one melodious Consort While the holy Lover then pursues the tracts of this Beauty through all the works and ways of God he is encompassed with the Light of Divine Truth shining through him and round about him He is carried on in the Spirit by the force of the Divine Harmony He carrieth along this Harmony of things charming all things round about him as he passeth on So he seeth the God of Gods at last on Mount Sion the perfection of Beauty Harmony Truth and Goodness which all Center in the Divine Love the Divine Unity the band of perfection 3. Let no differences of Principles or Practices divide thee in thine affections from any person He who seems to me as a Samaritan to a Jew most worthy of contempt and hatred most apt to wound or kill me may hide under the shape of a Samaritan a generous affectionate Neighbour Brother and Friend When I lie wounded and dying neglected by those who are nearest to me most esteemed by me This person may pour Wine and Oyl into my Wounds with tender and constant care at his own expence bring me back to life and joy How evident hath it been in the History of all times that in Parties most remote one from the other most opposed one to the other Persons have been found of equal excellencies in all kinds of equal integrity to Truth and Goodness Our most Orthodox Divines who have been heated and heightned with the greatest zeal of Opposition to the Pope as the Antichrist yet have believed a Pope to have ascended from the Papal Chair to a Throne in Heaven Had my Education my Acquaintance the several Circumstances and Concurrances been the same to me as to this person from whom I now most of all dissent that which is now his sense and state might have been mine Have the same just equal tender respects and thoughts with the same allowances of another which thou requirest from him to thy self It is a Rule in Philosophy That there is the same reason of Contrarieties Two opposed Parties or Persons by reason of the opposition for the most part looking through the same disturbed and coloured Medium behold one another under the same uncomely form in the same displeasing Colours Hath there not been frequent experience of those who by being of differing Parties alienated exasperated having their fansies filled with strange Images of each other when they have been brought together by some intervening Providence have discovered such agreeable Beauties of Morality and Humanity such an harmonious agreement in essential in radical Principles of Divine Truth of the true and ever lasting good that they have conversed with highest delight they have departed with an higher esteem of each other their Souls have been inseparably united with Angelical kisses and embraces Some entertaining Strangers have entertained Angels Do thou so believe that in every encounter thou mayest meet under the disguise of an Enemy a Friend a Brother who when his Helmet shall be taken off may disclose a beautiful and a well known face which shall charm all thy Opposition into love and delight at the sight of it But now Reader I fall at thy feet I take hold of thy knees by all things moving and obliging I beseech thee If there be any Bowels or comforts of Love any Peace Pleasantness Strength Prosperity in Union any good in Unity that thou wouldst take deeply into thine Heart and treasure up safely there and frequently with fixed studious eyes contemplate this as I humbly conceive it most sure and reconciling Truth which I shall now as I am able represent to thee Often yea for the most part two opposed Parties have something on each side excellently good something exorbitantly evil although perhaps in unequal degrees Both mutually set after an unmoveable manner before their eyes their own good the evil on the other part Thus they blind their minds to all sense or belief of any good there Thus they lift up themselves above all sense of their own evil So they heighten themselves by self-justifications by mutual Condemnations unto an extinguishing of every beam
Give me leave to strengthen this twofold Request by presenting to thee thine own Interest after the highest manner contained in it after a two-fold form 1. This Divine Love at this heighth in this Latitude is all that is true in Religion all that is good in Man all that is acceptable with God all the hope of future Glory and of blessed immortality If I give all my Goods to the Poor and my Body to be burnt and have not Charity I am nothing Is there any Charity or Love to Man greater than this to give all my Goods to the Poor Is there any Charity or Love to God more Divine than this to give my Body to be burnt for him Yes there is a Charity a Love which transcends all this which if I want I may yet have all this and be nothing This is that Divine Love of which I speak which lifteth not it self up above any of the works of God but keepeth the Unity of the eternal Workman of his Divine Design and VVork in the golden band of an universal Peace and Divine Amity This is that Divine Love which behaveth not it self uncomely seeketh not its own things breaketh not the Harmony of the whole dividing it self from the whole by a particular self-love In the universal Beauty and Melody of the Divine Wisdom and Work it respecteth it self as a part and all parts as it self having one Beauty and Joy together in the Beauty Joy and harmonious Perfection of the Divine Figure in the whole piece This Love beareth all things believeth all things hopeth all things suffereth all things This we read of the Divine Love 1 Cor. 13. 7. The first expression in that verse is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which we render beareth all things I have three Reasons against this translation of it 1. It makes the last Clause of this verse a tautology a vain repetition It suffereth all things which is the same with the first 2. It is the remotest sense of the Greek word two senses being nearer 1. To cover 2. To contain or comprehend 3. These two nearer senses are more agreeable more full and Divine 1. The Divine Love covereth all things with the Divine loveliness and beauty of the universal Harmony which is the Righteousness of God in Christ the first the fairest Image of the invisible God in which every other Image of God standeth as in the Original the all-comprehending Glory This is that which Solomon saith Love covereth all sin And St. Paul of the Divine Workman of the Divine Love He putteth the highest comeliness that is the universal Comeliness of the Divine Image in its entireness and perfection upon every part even upon the most uncomely parts That there may be no schism or division in the Body that there may be one glory of all 2. The Divine Love in every Person or Spirit lives not in it self as a part but in the life of the whole in the Divine the Universal Spirit the Spirit of Love the Spirit of the whole I live not saith St. Paul but Christ liveth in me Again If you live in the Spirit walk in the Spirit Thus the Divine Love having its life in each person in the life of the whole the Universal Spirit being one Spirit with that Spirit which is the Unity of the whole comprehendeth all things with strictest tenderest imbraces in it self as one self with it self So faith the holy Apostle All things are yours you are Christs and Christ is Gods All things are yours as you are Christs as Christ is Gods that is in the Unity of the eternal Spirit which is Love it self Now from this covering Beauty and comprehensive Virtue in Divine Love these effects naturally flow To believe all things to hope all things We easily believe and hope that which we desire The Divine Love hath a complacency in all things as it comprehendeth them in their Divine Root It hath a good will to all things as they stand in the same Divine Root with it self From this Complacency this Desire this Divine Root it believeth it hopeth all things It believeth all things to be Divine Tabernacles like that in the Wilderness which though moving through Desâ—…ts through a Land of Graves through a Land of fiery Serpents yet answer to their Pattern on the top of the Mount though covered with a course Tent exposed to the fury of the Sun and tempests in the midst of Clouds of dust yet are all-glorious within composed of rich materials bearing a Divine Figure filled with the Divine Presence and Glory It hopeth all things light in the midst of darkness a flourishing Garden of Lillies and Roses in a ground covered and bound up with all the darknesses and rigours of the hardest Winter a treasure of Honey-Combs in the body of a Lion The Master of the Sentences hath such an high esteem of this Charity or Divine Love which is the subject of St. Pauls Discourse in this Chapter That he affirmeth it to be the holy Spirit himself the third Person in the Trinity which is the Love in the Divine Nature and so the Virtue the Power As the second Person the Lord Jesus is the Beauty the Wisdom St. James reasoneth after this manner Can the same Fountain bring forth sweet and bitter waters with the same mouth you bless God and curse man made after the Image of God If from the same heart thou bringest forth that Love to some men by which thou givest all thy Goods to them to supply their wants and ragest with wrath or hatred against others who as they have any making are made after the same Divine Image with the rest of Mankind Who as they have any Being have the same Divine Root are sealed with the same Divine Impression thou hast not Charity thou hast not Divine Love thou hast not the Spirit the universal the eternal Spirit thou art nothing If thou hast the gist of Prophesie if thou understandest all divine Mysteries if thou hast a divine Faith if with the same heart thou lovest God to so high a degree that thou givest thy Body to be burnt for him and yet burnest in rage against any man made after the Image of God All these Divine Gifts or Graces in which thou gloriest are nothing thou art nothing thou hast not Charity Thou hast not the Divine Love thou hast not the Spirit of Christ and of God which is the universal Spirit the Spring the Seal the Band of the Divine Unity Dear Reader follow after this Divine Love without which all that which thou hast is nothing which if thou hast it is the band of perfection never faileth never falleth short of the Glory of God but by the incorruptibleness of a meek spirit preserveth in it self a Divine Beauty and Sweetness which is ever perfect which never passeth away in the midst of all changes of Life in Death to Eternity This is thy first Interest in preserving the Divine Love entire in thy
of it beareth a part in it is Harmony in this Harmony Every nature and form of each thing in each kind and degree to the lowest divisions and least distinctions of things is expressed universally by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Greek by Ratio in Latin which both properly express Harmony A variety bound up in an Unity an Unity diffusing it self through a variety This is God the third Person in the Trinity Harmony it self The first Harmony most perfect most absolute diffusing it self through all things endlesly and unboundedly unfolding it self into all forms of things by its Divine force as the force as the fulnesses and streams of this Harmony in its own soft and spacious Bosome enfolding all forms of things in the same Bosome as Harmonies of this Harmony Harmonies in this Harmony in each of which the universal Harmony is new and complete Can there be now any one thing in the nature of things any one thing in the will of any Spirit any one essence form power act accident or circumstance which lies not in which flows not from this first and universal spring the Divine Unity Or shall we deny this Divine Unity to be the first Unity to be an entire Unity the fountain of the God-head the only fountain of all Is there any where in any Will any distinction of power or of act of an indeterminate power and determinate Is there any varying of the Will from power to act from an undetermined to a determined State Is there any distinction in the Will any distinct qualification modification of any kind or degree which lies not most distinctly most clearly most compleatly with all its variations in this Divine this first this universal and unconfined Variety which flows not from it Hath any Spirit any Being a Will Hath any Will any liberty any motion Hath any Spirit any will any liberty any motion Have all these either joyntly in relation to each other or each a part in it self rationem aliquam any form any agrecableness which is not enfolded and wrapt up in the Divine the sirst the universal unconfined Harmony which doth not arise from which doth not feel the force and flow in the course of this Harmony Then must the Divine Harmony it self be out of tune being in a discord to this that lies without it being stopt and checkt by it Then must this it self what ever it be have no Harmony no agreeableness with any thing no not so much as with it self then must it be a discord to all Being then must it be divided from all Being and so not be at all 3. Argument The Wisdom of God comes in the third place to oppose this Liberty of the Will in question The Divine Wisdom thus expresseth it self by the mouth of Solomon in his Proverbs I Wisdom dwell with Prudence and find out witty inventions The Philosopher seemeth to furnish us with a fair Comment upon this Text when he divideth the intellectual habits or perfections of the mind into these five 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The first is the eternal truth of things in their immediate Principles and Springs as they lie in the eternal mind and thence shine forth in the Understandings the superior parts of the inferior and created Spirits The second comprehends all forms of Knowledge as streams flowing from these springs running along together in the mind representing in one view in one entire Image the whole nature of things as a Copy of the Divine Nature and of the Original Image in the Divine mind The third Perfection in the account of the Philosopher is Wisdom which he describeth to be the union of both these foregoing Perfections in the same mind or spirit Prudence in the fourth place is the lustre or brightness of this Wisdom shining forth in our Manners in our moral Actions and Conversations This is the light of Wisdom flowing forth upon all the motions of our Will of our sensitive Appetite and Passions with their proper effects forming and figuring them according to in an harmony with the Divine Image in the universal nature of things and in its Original the Divine Nature it self as this Image shines forth in the mind Lastly That Art which compriseth all witty Inventions is composed of the emanations of this Wisdom as beams from the Sun by which Inferiour Spirits bring forth external effects works without themselves in the similitude and imitation of the Divine Work in the Divine Nature for the use of life in its necessities conveniencies and delights Thus Wisdom above and below dwells with Prudence and finds out knowledge of witty Inventions Agreeable to this is that Doctrine of another sort of Philosophers that as Wisdom is the perfection of the Understanding so the Understanding in its perfect state is the first seat and spring of Order Therefore they say where-ever there is Order where-ever there is Harmony or Beauty which consists in Order there is an Understanding The Understanding say they in its proper and native state is the immediate Son and Image of God beneath God himself the first and fullest effulgency of the God-head in its essential Image so it becomes Omniform being all forms in one with a richly heighthned Light and a Divine Order Here Order hath all its Springs and Measures here Judgment hath its Throne and Scepter comparing and measuring all forms of things according to the Order in which they lie here accordingly determining order and disorder in things below Moses in that sweet and dying Song of his where he representeth the Order and Beauty of the whole Work of God in the Nation of the Jews as a principal part of that Work and as a mysterious figure of the whole Work expresseth the whole force and form of the Divine Wisdom as the ground of his Song in the beginning of it He is the Rock his work is perfect for all his wayes are judgment Deut. 32. 4. Behold here the three parts of Wisdom the Rock the Judgment the perfection of the Work 1. The eternal truths of things in the Divine Mind the first principle and spring where they shine immediately immutably These are the Rock 2. The universal Image of things in all variety of Forms with a beautiful Order drawn forth from these springs joyned immediately to them exactly and most agreeably suited to them most harmoniously answering them in all mutual Comparisons and Relations within the Divine mind This is the Judgment 3. The production of the whole work in an apt correspondency with this inward Image that the whole answer the whole part answer part universally through the whole This is the perfection of the Work the perfection of Wisdom and Judgment in the work Thus the wayes of the Work-man in his work are Judgment If now any part of the work of God if a principal part of his work the will of intellectual Spirits in those motions in those moments which are as the hinge upon which the whole Work of God
them all by their names none of them is wanting every one shineth as a fixed Star in that supream Orb of Glory God hath made all things in number weight and measure Number is here interpreted to be the Character of the species or kinds of things according to their distinct essences The first and supream link in this Chain of essential forms is the Idea or the eternal Pattern or Spring of each Essence in the Mind of God The Pythagorean Philosophy foundeth its heighest mysteries of Divinity upon the nature of numbers as the most agreeable figures of it The Ideas or eternal Images of things in God so seem to shine forth most clearly with the sweetest and fullest beauties in abstracted numbers Our Lord saith That little Children have their Angels which alwayes behold the face of their Father in Heaven Behold here each single hair of our heads which is an excrement only how much more each part of our Bodies each motion of our Spirits each moment of our Lives or circumstance in our affairs hath its Idea its first Image and Truth its Original first true Being and Beauty eternal in the heart of God These at once are the Eyes of God which by day and by night circle round watch over and guide them the invisible Chambers and Treasures of God where they are laid up and kept safe as his Jewels Number hath been reputed the first seat and measure of proportion Harmony Musick and Beauty in every kind Number and Beauty or Harmony are both by Philosophers and Divines appropriated to Intellectual Spirits who alone are capable of them as their proper operations and objects Both agree in this definition which seemeth to comprehend not only the proper objects and operations but the Essence also of immortal Minds an Unity diffusing it self into Variety keeping it self undivided and entire through the whole Variety bounding the Variety with its self and binding it up within it self A great and learned Divine teacheth us That there is a vast difference as between the natures so between the numbers of the Humane the Angelical the Divine Understanding The numbers which men apply to corporeal and material Subjects divide break and lessen the subject In these numbers that holdeth true that the whole is greater than any single part The numbers with which the Angels number things retain through all the indivisibility of the Unity with diversity of forms Here each form or essence comprehendeth under its own undivided Unity all forms of things according to their proper and compleat amplitude agreeable to the Angelical State but under the Character of its own peculiar and distinct property But the Divine number transcending all divisibility and diversity joyneth in one the simplest Unity with the amplest and most distinct Variety Thus after a Divine manner by this Divine Art of Numeration are all the haiâ—… of our head numbred in the mind of God Thus every single hair there maketh up a Divine Harmony composed of a rich Variety of Divine Proportions according to the number of all the other hairs as in the whole so in the several parts and single unities Euery single hair is a center and a seat to the various proportions between it self and all the rest in particular as well as also to the Harmony of the whole I shall now give a brief answer to the Objections alledged against the Universality of the Divine Knowledge 1. No Object however low however base embaseth the Divine Understanding The figures of Mice and Emraulds formed in Gold lessen'd not the lustre or preciousness of the Gold neither did they detract any thing from the sacred Worth Majesty or Divinity of the Ark by being put into it This Ark was tâ—…e Figure of our Jesus the essential Image the Divine Mind Understanding and Wisdome of the Father Lazarus with his Rags his running Sores and the Dogs licking them represented to the life in an excellent Picture done by the hand of Vandike of Titian or some great Master is a worthy and most agreeable entertainment for the eye and fancy of any Princess a rich Ornament and rare Jewel for the Chamber or Cabinet of a Prince The Plague with all its loathsome and horrid attendance conceived in the mind formed to a most exact Image in Virgil's fancy from thence transferred into his inimitable Poems becomes worthy of the Ear the Fancy the Mind of that great and most polite Prince Augustus Caesar yea cloathed thus with this Image the mind and fancy of the Poet transfuse and present themselves to the spirit of that Prince as of all learned and judicious Readers with a heightned Beauty and kind of Divinity That is a certain Rule That every thing received is received according to the nature and manner of the Recipient The Divine Understanding cloathing it self with the Images and Forms of all Objects desormeth not it self but maketh them Divine To the Pure all things are pure but to the Unclean nothing is pure but even their minds the Angelical part their Consciences the Divine part of their Souls is desiled 2. Individuals and particulars together with Universals appear distinctly to the Eye of God at once in one view The Philosopher of old affirmed all things to be in all The shady blueness in the clear Heavens above us which seemeth to terminate our sight is said to be the deficiency of our sight which is uncapable either of extending it self to so remote an Object or of having any Commerce with a Body so pure so glorious and so near to the nature of a Spirit Thus the contraction the obscurity the materiality which seemeth to be the bound of our eye and sense when we look to individual things here below are in truth the weaknesses of our senses falling short of the glory shining in the nature of things The light of God which is alone the true Light having no darkness in it and so the measure of all Truth is stiled by St. Peter A marvailous Light This is one of the wonders in the Divine Light All things here are transparent each particular each part is seen distinctly in the whole and the whole compleatly in â—…h part The Psalmist singeth of this holy and high mystery That with God the Darkness and the Light are both alike Materiality and corporeity as they appear before him are spiritual and Divine forms In the face of each material individual object shineth the whole nature of things This is manifest upon a three-fold ground 1. All things in Heaven above and Earth beneath meet in the constitution of each individual In Jacob's Vision Angels were seen descending and ascending upon each step of the Ladder from the Throne of God Himself above down to the Earth below Thus by the Scale of Praedicaments in Logick and in Metaphysicks we are taught That universal and superior Beings even Being it self in its absolute and unlimited fulness descend into the essential constitution of each inferior Being In them also the
although I be not alwayes so happy as to find my Understanding tuned to a consort and harmony with his seemeth to me like a Prophet as well as a Poet to sing this mystery drawn forth from the sacred retreats of the divinest Philosophy in his Poems There he painteth out with liveliest colours the whole Universe as a great Soul and Spirit as a Contexture as a Quire or as a Dance of many Souls or Spirits where materiality and corporeity are seen not as distinct substances from the Soul but as figures wrought by the Soul her self in the lowest part of that Vestment with which spun forth from her self she is cloathed and comes forth upon this lower Stage As the lowest point of that beam whose head is in the bosome of the Sun So with him matter and body seem to be the lowest shade into which the Soul descends within her self and the various forms which she puts on in this shade That seemeth to be most pleasantly harmonious to this which the same Author hath in that pleasant piece of his Cabbala upon the beginning of Genesis There he figures out to us the Soul and the Body which he calls her Vehicle or Chariot that is the Image into which she descends and rides forth here below by the Male and Female or the Bridegroom and the Bride which are also Father and Daughter The Body thus appears as a beautiful Image of the Soul springing forth from the Soul abiding by a mystical marriage in the eye and bosome of the Soul In it as in a clear and chrystalline Glass the Soul with ravishing delights seeth her self in all her own beauties and sweetnesses Of it she saith This is life of my life beauty of my beauty my self springing forth from my self in a beautiful Image and so represented to my self Thus is the Soul tyed by irresistible Charms to its Body This way the Soul falls from her purity and the joys of her immortality while she sinks into and looseth her self in this shadowy Image as if this were her only true her only beautiful form She hath now drowned in a deep oblivion her Angelical her Divine Beauty and Being unto which she should have risen as to the Original Glory by those inferior and fading figures of her self in this shade On these Original Glories as her golden full-spread wings she should have descended into this shadowy Image and upon the same wings have carried up in her embraces this shadow into the eternal Light This divinely pleasant figure of Dr. More brings to my mind some thing of Plotâ—…nus in his Discourses upon the Soul not unsuitable to him and to our present purpose He teacheth us as from a sacred Oracle That every Soul cometh down into this World as a Caelestial Venus or an heavenly Beauty the beautiful Daughter and Image of the supream God attended with a Caelestial Cupid or an heavenly Love her own Birth ever with her ever before her her dear delight and glory By this Love the seed of the Divine and eternal Beauty in the Soul sprung up into a Child into a pleasant youthful growing Image upon his wings she springeth up and takes her flight abroad into all forms of things as so many scattred figures and births of the first Beauty until with her Love she return into the bosome of that Dr. Cudworth who by giving us a short relish of that rich treasure of Knowledge and Learning remote from the Vulgar causeth also a regret in us that he entertaineth us with no fuller a Feast when that Feast might be a Divine Feast Sacrifice and Marriage all in one enformeth us from the Jewish Doctors That all Souls come down from above in a married or Conjugal state This seemeth to make one entire piece with Plotinus and Dr. More The ever blessed Trinity is the first Marriage and glorious Prototype of all Marriages Here the Father is the Lover and Bridegroome the eternal Word or Wisdome is the Daughter and Bride his essential Image in which his own glories and sweetnesses offer themselves to his Divine View and embraces The Holy Spirit is the Love which springeth forth from these two which is the Fountain of the Divine Birth and Generation between these two which uniteth them in eternal embraces in a Divine fruitfulness by which they Spring up within this Marriage-bed into innumerable Births and Images of themselves in this their Love-Union Souls as they are the Birth so do they bear the Image of this Trinity and Marriage The Soul bringeth forth within her self this sensitive Image which is her Daughter and her Bride The love which unites these two in a Conjugal state which springs mutually from both as they are living Images each of other as they are one self or substance in two distinct forms which is the same in both is the Spirit of life and motion This makes the sweetness of life and of all vital motions That Love is their Spring and their Spirit From this Love as from the Marriage-bed doth the Soul by her own proper Bride which is its Body bring forth it self into all sensitive and corporeal forms which furnish and fill this visible World Thus Souls come down in a Conjugal state while each Soul brings down its Bride and Body in its bosome out of which it springs as Eve sprung forth out of the side of Adam his fair and flourishing Image while he flourished in his pure and Primitive Beauties I confine not that sentence of the Jewish Rabbies to this sense which yet seemeth to me although perhaps not the only sense as proper in it self as it is pertinent to our Discourse If these grounds be good and firm clear will it be That there is nothing vile or mean in the nature of things rightly seen when as all things are Spirits or Souls in their married state that is heavenly Beauties and heavenly Loves in various forms and postures where all their motions are the loves of these Souls in their lovely flights Some one may think this to be understood and confirmed by that of the Psalmist cited in the Epistle to the Hebrews He hath made his Ministers Spirits or Winds his Angels a flame of fire The Fire the Air all the Elements in their various composition the Coelestial Bodies are Spirits in their proper Vestments Vehicles or Chariots with their proper Brides These heavenly Beauties and Loves may be cast into a deep sleep here yet are they still sleeping Beauties and sleeping Loves beautiful and lovely in their sleep Although like Abraham they may have disorderly deformed distracting Dreams in their sleep In these Dreams an horrible darkness may fall upon them strange Visions may be presented to them They may see dreadful fires in the midst of this darkness themselves their dear Bride the sensitive Image like Doves lying dead and divided one from another like innocent Beasts of Sacrifice slain and cut into several pieces with the brands of fire or burning Lamps passing
latter being the shadow of the former Then he adds The Light shined in Darkness but the Darkness comprehended it not This seemeth to be a clear allusion to the work of the first day when God called Light out of Darkness dividing at the same time between the Light and the Darkness The Light now shined in the midst of the Darkness enlightning the Darkness so that it still remaineth incomprehensible to the Darkness as that abode in its own natural form divided from the Light All generally agree that Moses comprehended the History of the whole Creation in this Chapter And under the Covert and Vail of the visible part as a figure divinely describeth the Intellectual Angelical and more Divine part as the immediate Original and Life of this Figure We have an Image of this in the Body of Heaven with the Sun-shining in it by day or the Moon and Stars by night when they present themselves to our eyes by plain figures of themselves formed in a flowing stream here below The Jews therefore say That a man of Flesh and Blood cannot understand the first Chapter of Genesis St. Paul affirmeth That the invisible things are perceived being understood by the things that are made By these words he seemeth plainly to signifie that while Moses painteth out to us the visible world and framing of it his design is to set before us a lively Picture of the invisible part of things which is as the heavenly Person whose Picture is drawn on this Table The Light then which is the work of the first day being not only Sensitive but Intellectual is the first Creature the first and most immediate effulgency irradiation or out-shining of the Godhead the beginning of the Creation of God St. Paul saith That which makes manisest is Light Then the first Light is the first the most eminent the amplest the clearest the compleatest manifestation of God and so of the whole Creation as its golden Head The first day according to the Hebrew Idiom is the one day which Idiom hath this mystery wrapt up in it That the Unity the Fountain of numbers is the first in order from which we begin to number This Light which is the first Creature the work of the first day is the first procession of the Divine Unity without it self It retains therefore the highest Image of this Unity and partakes of it in the highest degree that any created Nature is capable of This is the Unity of the Divine Person or subsistency in a distinct created Essence or Form Thus you have in this lovely Form of the purest the sweetest of all created Lights the Person of Jesus Christ as he is the first Creature divinely subsisting in the Godhead This is that Light which while it shineth with a derived brightness in the midst of that darkness which is the first matter of every Creature it remaineth in the Unity and Divinity of its Person and subsistence vailed to the highest and most glorious of all Creatures For even in this blessed Person the darkness is a dividing Vail between the Nature and the Godhead in which that Nature subsists The Jewish Masters by a two-fold tradition seem to seal up this mystery for Posterity First they number the Soul of the Messias among those sacred and sublime Glories which were before the world Secondly They mysteriously affirm the Light of the first day to be a Light in which the whole work of Creation in all the parts of it with all its Revolutions from its first beginning to its last end are clearly and distinctly seen But say they at the fall of man by Sin this Light was hid beneath the Throne of God until the days of the Messias Can any thing more plainly express our Jesus as He is the first and universal Creature the first the fairest the clearest draught of the whole Creation in the whole course and conduct of it pre-existent to every Creature comprehending all the works of God from the first line to the last finishing of it in one most delightful View in one most agreeable Prospect in one Spirit and Form of purest sweetest life more than Angelical only less then Divine yet subsisting in a Divine Person If the will of man with its motions be seen and pre-exist here are they not here predetermined But I have said before that I would neither insist long upon this Point nor lay any thing of the weight of this Cause upon it being it self by few received or understood I divided my discourse of the Mediatorship into three Heads 1. Christ as he is the ground of all the Works of God in which also lies the ground of his Mediatorship 2. Christ as he is the Way 3. Christ as he is the End of the whole Work of God There are two parts in the way 1. Christ as he is the beginning of the Works of God the first Creature 2. Christ as the coming forth and the conduct of every Creature from the beginning to the end is in him and by him This I am now to take in hand Christ is Mediator as he is the way of the coming forth and the conduct of the Work of God in the whole and every part of it As in a Plant the seminal Spirit hath treasured up in it the seminal Reasons the whole Harmony all the proportions of the Plant in the whole Plant and in every part of it as this seminal Spirit hath in it self the formative power of the Plant according to the proportion as this Spirit putteth forth it self into every part of the Plant springeth up together with it gives it its proper measures and proportions suited to the Harmony of the whole Plant appears in each part as a living Image of that particular proportion or harmony which with an invisible Beauty flourisheth within it self resides on every part of the Plant with the full harmony of the whole being one and the same altogether undivided in the whole Plant and in all its parts Thus is Christ after a more eminent and divine manner the seminal Spirit of the whole Creation I have before represented him from clear Scriptures as the Wisdome and Power of God by virtue of which he is clearly a Spirit containing in himself the seminal Reasons and the formative Power by which every Creature is formed universally in its production and in its conduct Jesus Christ is frequently known in the Scriptures by that Name of the Seed which though it relates eminently to the state of Grace and Glory where it cometh up into its ripe fruit and entire form yet doth it relate to the state of Nature For by virtue of this Seed Adam was the Son of God By this Seed and in it were all things made as Plants springing forth from it although the Seed were yet come up in them only into the green Leaf or smiling Blossoms at the best That Name given in Greek to Jesus which is translated the Word signifieth as properly Reason Jesus
Spirits of Divine Love and Beauty in the bosome in the Unity of the eternal Spirit the heavenly King and Bridegroom of all Spirits These Doves are the lovely Eyes with which this Spirit is all over thick set like the wings of the Seraphims full of eyes within and without These Doves are washing themselves in Milk So the Hebrew hath it as a present perpetual Act. They lie washing and bathing eternally in the springs of Divine Light and Beauty in the softnesses sweetnesses and walks of the Divine Love These are the Milk of the Godhead and of blessed Spirits These Eyes are full set For each of these Ideal Original forms in Christ comprehendeth in it self under the character or property of its own distinct Variety the whole Divine World and all Worlds in their first forms These first eternal Images of things in Christ are his Eyes the sweetly shining Springs of all Light Life Love and Joy For he ever beholds all things with these in these By these as he looks forth with them he guides all things In these is he as the supream Spirit of truth and beauty seen in his liveliest and loveliest appearances These Eyes are Doves being each of them one Spirit comprehending all things in its Unity a Spirit of purest Light and Sweetness the chast and beloved Mate of the eternal Spirit eternally springing up lying eternally in the Bosome and Unity of it These Doves in the Firmament of Divine Glory spreading their Wings flying every where to and fro over the water of this Creation figure themselves and their motions in shadowy Images upon them Thus are all things here formed and mov'd as the face in the Glass by the living Face This similitude hath in it a signal difference from the Truth represented by it The living Eye or Face sendeth forth its Image But this Image hath its reception and subsistence in another substance the glass or the water But the Creation hath no ground to bear it up but that alone which bringeth it forth These Divine Eyes of which we speak at once send forth and support these Images of themselves They are the clear Springs from which they stream and the Christal Looking-Glasses in which they appear In this eternal Spirit in this living Light all things as varied shadows of this Light as shadowy forms of this Life live move have their being and appearance Not as accidents in their subject but after a manner far more eminent aâ—…d altogether transcendent to any resemblance in the Creature This is the Universal Nature of the Creature How pleasant how Divine a Spectacle is this All things in their primitive purity are spotles Doves Coelestial Loves virgin-Virgin-Spirits like Angels clothed in white Eyes that are Springs of purest light and sweetness looking up from a Divine Light vailed with a Divine shade to their Life their immortal Mates their Divine Originals those Doves those Eyes above which looking down meet themselves here beneath in shadowy figures in sweetest reflections of themselves from the midst of loveliest shades upon a ground of eternal Light It is time now to close this Argument All the Creatures are shadowy Images both Men and Angels As are they so is their Liberty so are all their motions shadowy as figures they are all formed and determined by the Life in eternity I pass now to the second Argument under this Head 2. Every Creature is an emanation or stream from the Divine Essence the emanation of a moment This is a truth generally establisht upon all the clearest the firmest Principles of truth in Philosophy or Divinity by the most universal consent and harmony in the spirits of learned men in the nature of things â—…sse Creaturae est emanare The Being of the Creature is the beaming sorth from God like light from the Sun The preservation and continuance of things is a continued Creation The whole Creation with every Creature comprehended in it thorow all the moments of time to the end of time riseth up immediately entirely out of God as in the first moment of its Being at the beginning of time The white sheet full of all living Creatures was let down out of Heaven thrice in the sight of St. Peter The World is a Divine Light with all forms of things Angelical or Humane visible invisible appearing in it let down out of the Heaven of the Godhead as often as there are moments in its duration Thus are all things a new World a new Creation each twinkling of an Eye brought forth a new by a fresh glance of the Divine Eye If any Creature could subsist one moment apart from God the first and supream Being without the particular dependance a particular derivation of that moment it would have the principle of Being in it self and so eternity in that moment and so a Godhead The connexion the dependance between God and the Creature the first the universal Cause and every Effect is much more universal intimate immediate inseparable than that between any effect and any second Gause We have a demonstration to our sense from the interposal of a Cloud between our eyes and a clear Sky that the beams are continued streams of light from the body of the Sun In that moment in which they cease to flow from the Sun to subsist in the Sun they cease to be It is affirmed of all things material and visible Fiunt non sunt They are sent forth but subsist not They are only in the making in the same moment in which they are brought forth they are no more This is universally true of all Creatures Men and Angels They have only a transient no permanent Being No eye ever takes in twice the same beam of Light No man standing upon the bank of a River sees twice the same water present with him Before he can cast his eye upon it the second time it is past by and gone So is no Creature no appearance the same two moments We can never say of created Beings or Beauties of our sweetest Solaces or bitterest Sufferings they are For while we are saying it they fly away and are no more like Lightning or the shadow upon any point of the Dial. As our Afflictions in the Language of St. Paul are Afflictions of a moment so are all our Joys Glories and Beings in the Creature No one of them lasteth two moments The Scripture testifies to Jesus Christ of the Heavens and the Earth As a Garment thou roulest them up and they shall be changed But thou art the same and thy years fail not Again in another place Jesus the same yesterday to day and for ever Nothing below Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and to day the last moment and this This is one part of the Vanity mark'd by Solomon in all things beneath this Sun of the Godhead fixt in the mid-day point of eternity that thorow their whole Being they are ever in motion like the Rivers and the Wind In each point of time
the perfection of every thing The suitableness and convenience makes the Goodness Every thing hath essentially in its nature an inclination to its Good to its Perfection to every thing suitable and agreeable to it Suitableness is from Similitude Similitude is from Unity For it is an agreement in the same form Every thing then hath in its essence an inclination to a suitable Object to its Perfection to its Good as to it self presented distinctly to it self and to the compleating of it self in the embraces of it self Thus it appears that the Soul essentially is its own Will in as much as its essence taken most abstractedly being a substantial Act is in that Act an essential inclination to its own Good and Perfection Thus also it appears that the Understanding of the Soul is the Will of the Soul in as much as in its distinct formality it is an inclination to Truth as to its proper Perfection and Good Again the most proper and most perfective Act of the Will in its most perfect state is Love Love is an Union The Object of the Will is Good in its full Latitude the essential substantial universal Good The Act of the Will in Love is then a mutual intimate Union with the Object by which it adequately comprehends it and is adequately comprehended by it The Will then which is necessarily equal to that which it comprehends can be no other than the essence or substance of the Soul it self of which we have before said that it hath all Essences of things essentially within it self and so the whole compass of Being compleat within it self As it represents it self in this whole compass of Being to it self in a distinct Image and so reflects upon it self it is its own Understanding As it doth by this distinct Image with mutual embraces mutually comprehend and enjoy it self in Love and Joy it is its own Will it s own Love and Joy So we seem to have proved that the Will as it is a distinct faculty is really and formally the same with the essence and substance of the Soul We will endeavour also to prove that the Will comprehends the Understanding in its own proper and distinct formality 1. When the Soul Loves it self and understands it self both these Acts fall under the same definition of comprehending it self in a distinct and compleat Image of it self This Act cannot but be mutual if the Image of the Soul be adequate to the Soul and so are Love and Understanding both in one 2. The Acts and Motions of the Will do imply sense in their essential Formalities Sense in the Intellectual Soul is Understanding 3. The Object attracts and acts the Faculty by impressions of it self The impression of Good upon an Intellectual Subject is an Intellectual tast or relish of the Good The impression of an Intellectual Good which is the proper Object of the VVill is an Intellectual impression 4. The VVill as it is essentially distinguished from the natural Appetite which inanimate things are naturally moved by and from the sensitive Appetite proper to bruit Creatures is defined to be a rational Appetite Thus it comprehends Reason or Understanding in its essential Form So we have attempted to make it plain that Those three the Essence the Understanding the VVill of the Intellectual Soul mutually comprehend one another in their essential Formality and are perfectly adequate one to another so far as the Soul is in a state of Perfection perfectly understanding and loving it self By the way In this Glass you may have a pleasant glimps of the Trinity 1. The Soul in its essence is an Unity comprehending it self and all created forms of things intirely in one substantial and indivisible Act as the Fountain of all This is a shadow of the Father in the Trinity 2. The Understanding of the Soul is the essential and adequate Image of this Unity in which it bringeth forth and contemplates it self within it self This is the Son the Word 3. The VVill is the essential the intellectual and adequate Union of these two with the most full communion and highest complacency by which they propagate and multiply themselves within themselves into an endless Race of innumerable Forms in each of which they are still themselves intire and compleat This is the figure of the Holy Spirit Thus he that knows God knows the Soul as the Picture by the Life and he that knows the Soul knows God as the Life by the Picture Each of these is all to it self within it self God as the Original Life-World the Soul as the shadowy VVorld the World of shadows But to conclude this Argument If the Essence of the Soul the Understanding and the VVill be really one and formally distinct so that every one comprehends all Three in its proper Formality where is that freedome of the VVill by which it may act independent on the Understanding VVe will seal up this Argument with that confirmation of it which seems to have great strength and clearness Powers and faculties are distinguished according to their Objects The Essence of the Soul the Understanding and the VVill differ as Being Truth and Goodness not really but formally only formally comprehending the formality of each other The Reader is desired to take notice That how ever the Author in one of his Copies intended only this short accompt of this Argument taken from the Nature of the Soul yet a larger Discourse upon this Head being found amongst his Papers it is judg'd most fitting in this place to publish it The chief Praise of this Age is that it runs along in a stream directly contrary to the Romish Church having little veneration for an implicite Faith Tradition Antiquity Universality in the persuit of Truth It s labour and glory is with its hands eyes and spirit to penetrate and view the first grounds of Truth I desire it may be as happy in distinguishing between the upper part of the beam of Light where it unites it self to its Sun and Fountain where it is firmest fullest brightest warming enlivening as well as shining and the lower part of the beam which touches the Earth and the Senses where it is weak wavering obscure mixt with and vanishing into the darkest shade I shall therefore endeavour taking my rise somewhat high from the Fountain of things to open the Nature of the Soul with as much clearness and plainness as I am able and the nature of the Subject will bear in these three Propositions 1. Prop. The Intellectual Soul in Man is an Unity altogether indivisible comprehending Variety Diversity Contrariety of Forms Powers and Parts without and above all Division 2. Prop. This indivisible Unity containeth in it self the full Variety of all forms created uncreated after its own manner according to its own proper Character 3. Prop. The most perfect and full Image of God in the midst of the Creation resulting from the Harmonious Union of the Unity and Variety is the Soul's Essence and
essential Form I design and hope so to open and establish these Propositions that the true Liberty of the Soul in its Operations may all along shine clearly forth from the Divine ground and form of its proper nature 1. Proposition The Intellectual Soul in Man is an indivisible Unity comprehending Variety Diversity Contrariety of Forms This is the first Proposition There is a three-fold Unity 1. There is an Unity in the Division of Parts This is the most imperfect Unity or rather a shadow of Unity the Unity of shadows of Corporeal substances or bodies 2. There is an Unity in Diversity of Forms or Essences above all divisibility of parts This also is an imperfect Unity This is the Unity of Essences of Intellectual Substances of all created Spirits The Unities of this sort are the Essences of things in their created state which are said to be indivisible 3. Above all Divisibility or Diversity is the first the supream the perfect Unity having in it self the first the fullest Variety and distinction This is the Unity of the Divine Nature or the Divine World This for its infinite heighth above all expression or comprehension by any created Image or Understanding for the equal concurrence of the first the most entire Unity and the first the most full Variety both alike boundless and infinite is well termed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Above an Unity The Humane Soul is an Unity of the second Rank whether you ascend or descend in the number of Intellectual Substances like the Angels above all Division but subject to Diversity This is an Unity in a Diversity Diversity which is Variety contracted and obscured by a mixture of the Contrariety with the Unity overshadows the Unity of the Soul and rendreth it a shadowy Unity The Divine Unity and Variety lie hid and vailed beneath the Diversity in the shadowy Unity of the Souls natural Form This Diversity as it over-shadows so it also bounds the Unity and renders it finite infinitely beneath the first and supream Unity in the Divine Nature This is the Unity of the Intellectual Soul an Unity free from raised above all Division or divisibility of parts lying one without another as they appear in Bodies or Corporeal Substances The explication of this Unity in the Intellectual Operations of the Soul as I humbly conceive will be a full demonstration of it There seemeth according to common sense and language to be manifest in us a Life a Power which compareth and judgeth things which discerneth the differences of things relations proportions agreements disagreements which is delighted with Harmony Beauty Musick which taketh in entertaineth it self with the Essences of things the whole Universals as its most native and most suitable Companions which adorneth it self with Sciences The Sciences are an Angel-like building which this Life or Power hath framed by single notions or forms of things regularly composed into Propositions by Propositions in a most beautiful order laid one upon another and by fit joynts like Jewels knit together into one Body of Divine Light which setteth its Feet on the Earth and raiseth its Head into the unseen Glories of the highest Heavens This Power and Life within us which makes good all this or a similitude of this with more or less degrees of Perfection is that which we call the Intellectual Soul in Man If the Object or its Image be extended and so composed of parts which lie all one without another if the Subject which receives into it self the Object or the Image be of the same nature Now the one part of the Object is taken into and seated in one part of the Subject Another part in another Thus all lie diffused differently in different parts not only divisible but actually divided from each other Now they no where meet together in one they are no where compared and judged the Discord the Harmony the Whole is no where understood Yea These are no more in the nature of things There is no such thing as Picture Prospect or Person Life Love or Joy Death or Suffering All is an unimaginable heap of unconceivable Atomes which have no Relation to no Commerce with each other if there be no indivisible Unity in which things meet in which they are compared judged and proportioned How an Atome it self or any thing of whole or part can be without Unity which constitutes it which connects it into which it Ultimately resolves it self from which it first ariseth is of all things to me most hard to comprehend But this is a digression and more than is necessary to my present design Let us return The two essential Operations of the Intellectual Soul are to understand and to will The Objects of these are Truth and Goodness real or apparent 1. Truth is a representative conformity of the Image to its Original 2. Goodness is a mutual perfcctive Conformity or suitableness of the Original and Image or of the Object to the Faculty Power or Spirit to which it relates These two are the Divine Meat and Drink of the Soul like the Ambrosia and Nectar of the Gods or separated Spirits with the Poets But where there is any impression any sense or relish of these two Truth or Goodness in the lowest forms of things These three must meet undividedly in one The two terms or bounds of conformity or suitableness the relation between these two their suitableness and conformity to each other The Intellectual Soul riseth an higher pitch according to the Doctrine of all the Schools and its own innate testimony of it self in all its Motions in all its Virtues and Vices It is carried up upon these two soaring wings as the wings of an Angel quite out of the sight of sense above all the tumult of Individuals and particulars to the invisible Glories and Harmonies of universal Forms The universal Truth and Good are its only mark and rest where its motions terminate The heavenly Beauty of the universal Truth can be no where seen the heavenly sweetness of the universal Good can be tasted by no Spirit but that alone where all Truths all kinds and degrees of good all things in their friendships and enmities are met and concentred with a full with an exact Harmony in one indivisible Point or in a perfect Unity It is indeed a Divine Unity running like the Spirit of Musick through all these terminating them all by it self recollecting them all entirely with their several Divisions after the most undivided manner into it self which makes this Harmony the Joy the Glory the Divine Life of Angels of God and God-like men This Divine Unity can be no where received but into an Unity like it self This Unity in the Intellectual Soul makes it a Divine â—…ye Ear and Spirit capable of taking in the Beauty enjoying the Musick being entertained at the heavenly Feast of the universal Truth and Goodness in the Society of all blessed and immortal Spirits Keep the Unity of the Spirit saith St. Paul in the
bond of peace Peace in Hebrew is the same with Persection The word signifieth the Harmony of things mutually answering each other in fit and full proportions In Greek peace signifieth the harmonious Union of things 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 peace from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to knit or joyn together Without Union without Order and Harmony in the Union Many things can never become One there can be no Beauty to the Eye no Musick to the Ear no Life no Light of Sense or Understanding no Form of things no Peace no Perfection no Power no Pleasantness no Person Without an undivided Unity where all meet in one which is One the same undivided in All there can be no Union no Order no Harmony The eternal Spirit is the first and supream Unity Intellectual Spirits next to this Spirit are Similitudes and Births of it Substantial undivided Unities the Springs the Seats of the universal the supream the incorporeal Beauties Musicks Perfection Order Harmony through the Creation the only Persons the bonds of all Union Order Harmony Peace Perfection Beauty Life Loveliness Virtue Joy Power Personality in all Bodies in all Corporeal Forms By one Spirit saith that Spirit we are all baptized into one Body In spirituality by meeting together undividedly in the Unity of the eternal Spirit which is undividedly one and the same in all by which all are one and the same in every one All the Saints become one heavenly Body This Unity of the Spirit springing up into every one as a Divine and compleat Image of it self having thus the Whole the Image the Life the Spirit of the whole in it self is the bond of their fellow-membership This is the ground and spring of their Sympathy of all their Motions by which in a Divine Love and Harmony they exactly accord with each other We have the shadowy figure of this mystery in natural things How inexplicable is motion in Bodies without the understanding of this Unity What shall excite Motion in any Corporeal Subject Accidents Virtues Qualities pass not from one Corporeal Substance to another They are essentially inseparable from their Individual Subjects Corporeal Substances are impenetrable each to other and so cannot operate immediately one upon another In what order shall Motion be advanced if it be excited Shall the part immediately touched move first How can it until that part next before it give place to it Upon what account shall this before move until that behind it on which the impression is first made thrust it forward How Beautiful how Harmonious how Easie is all If an Intellectual Spirit containing the whole Body the whole Corporeal frame in an undivided Unity being undividedly entirely one and the same through the whole Body and in each part immediately at once by it self Act all the parts in a mutual exact Correspondency to each other like persons in a figure-Dance All is now it self in so many shadowy figures of more substantial and sublimer Variety in the Unity and Harmony of its own Essence This is a clear reason for that Sympathy by which all the parts most remote of the same Body have a present sense of are acted and moved together with all the essential acts and motions of each other They are all by one Spirit baptized into one Body They all are comprehended together in the undivided Unity of the same Spirit So they mutually penetrate possess each other in One as One in the Fountain of their Being Life and Motion the same Spirit This Spirit is each Intellectual Soul to its own Body Let us sum up this whole Argument into a brief and clear conclusion The Intellectual Soul in the perfection of its natural form understands compares judges not only particular Beauties and Harmonies but the Beauty and Harmony of the whole Universe the Universal Truth and Goodness All particular Beauties and Harmonies all Agreements and Disagreements Strifes Friendships all forms and parts as they make up the Beauty of the Universe Then all forms of things in all their Similitudes and Differences Conformities and Contrarieties in all their Essences and Accidents in all their several distinct Proportions and order in their Beauties and Harmonies with all the Parts and Elements which compose these as they make up the universal Harmony and Beauty meet together clearly compleatly in the undivided Unity of the Souls Essence Thus also this Soul contains within it self its own Body its Image and Organ in all the forms parts and proportions of it Neither doth it so comprehend this alone but the universal Body as it relates to its own particular Body as it stands in the senses of this Body like Images in a Glass Here in this Unity is the Corporeal Image as in a Divine Mould formed in all its parts and proportions to answer to their Original in the Soul and to each other for here only are they seen together to be compared and judged from hence they come forth by this Unity they consist in their Union are acted every moment unto motions corresponding with each other and to a Sympathy for one Spirit springs up through the whole Body as it self descended into a shadowy figure of it self and abiding ever with it self within the Unity of its own Essence The most eminent Character of the eternal Spirit is its Unity Hear O Israel the Lord thy God is one God How glorious an Image of God in this Character of the Divine Glory is man in the perfection of his natural form What is the amplitude the majesty of this Divine Unity in which the whole Creation with all its beauties and fulness appear together at once in One as upon its Throne Thus I hope I have from common sense and principles universally received made plain in some imperfect degree this indivisible Unity of the Intellectual Soul in man 2. Propos. The Humane Soul is an indivisible Unity containing in it self all Variety of forms The Argument before taken from the Operations of the Soul in knowing and judging things to explain its Unity declares also this Variety in its Unity The Soul hath naturally a desire and power or potentiality of knowing all things especially the Harmony of things which is the Intellectual Beauty The Harmony in no part can be understood without the knowledge of the whole If the Soul then in the primitive and pure state of the Creation did actually enjoy it self in the perfection of its natural form and faculties it contained within it self in the Unity of its Essence all Variety of things in all their Distinctions Differences and Divisions Originals and Copies Causes and Effects Substances and Circumstances or Accidents Essenceâ—… and Operations The power or potentiality in the Soul of Man is not Passive but Active It is a pure Act free from the passiveness which is the consequent of corporeal or bodily matter The Intellectual Spirit having alwayes in it self the judgment of all things in the potentiality or power of it which either is its
Essence or inseparable from it hath also all forms of things in the same Capacity or Power and so in its Original Act. Indeed as it subsisteth in the Body this plenitude in the Original Act or power of the Soul is very much vailed by matter or corporeity at least under the fall But I pass from this Argument to another drawn from the Unity of the Soul established in the former Proposition The Soul being in its Essence by Virtue of its essential Unity altogether undivided and so above all place or time which consist of divided parts is thus uncapable of Absence Distance or Division from any thing All things then are ever present with it There is only a two-fold presence imaginable Corporeal and Spiritual 1. The Corporeal or bodily presence is after the manner of Corporeal Substances or Bodies with Division a divided presence This is the presence of two Bodies one containing the other as its proper place or of two Bodies contained in one Body as their common place one common space of Air one Field one Chamber one Bed 2. The spiritual presence is a meeting in one Incorporeal Form or in one Spirit which is an Indivisible Unity This the Schools express by the penetration of Spirits which penetration where there are no extensions or dimensions as in Bodies seemeth to me uncapable of any other sense in the strict examination of it than their subsisting together in the same undivided Unity and their mutual subsistencies in the undivided and essential Unities of each other Harmonious with this are those two well-grounded and unshaken Axioms in Philosophy 1. The Essences of things are Indivisible 2. The understanding alone reacheth to and comprehendeth the Essences and Substances of things whiles sense feeds only upon empty shadows Aiery accidental Forms Proclus thus teacheth us That all things are in the Soul 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 according to the peculiar property and character of the Soul In like manner the Lord Jesus saith to the unbelieving Jews which look for signs of the Divinity for a Pomp and Glory without in their senses The Kingdome of Heaven is within you The Heathen Philosophers stiled the Unities of things Gods This Unity to which all things were present was with them the Character of a God The Scriptures upon the same ground stile all Intellectual Spirits both Angels and Men Gods He calleth saith Christ them Gods to whom the word of God came That living Word which is the Image of the invisible God and so containeth all Forms the whole nature of things in it self cometh by Nature and by Grace although after a divers manner to all Intellectual Spirits That Scripture which our Lord Jesus relates to seemeth peculiarly to regard Humane Souls I have said ye are Gods but ye shall die like men Ye Intellectual Spirits which in your abstracted forms are immortal impassible undivided comprehensive Unities To which all forms of things in their immutable Essences are ever present by my presence with you who am the eternal Word of the Divine Mind the Divine and Universal Image of things Ye being humbled beneath the Angels into a Body of Dust a Corporeal Form in this by your sympathy with this are subject to the Government of the Elements and Coelestial Bodies of the Powers ruling in them as Tutors over you and so to their Laws of Time Place Division and Death until you grow up to the full Age of the Intellectual Life by returning into the Bosome of your first Divine Ideal Unity in me All diversity of Forms are in this manner present with the Intellectual Soul meeting together and being contained in the Unity of its Essence as in an invisible Palace or City like the City of God described by the Psalmist which is compact in it self Object Is God then are all the Angels is this visible World so present with the Soul so contained in its essential Unity as to be one Essence one Spirit with it Answ. I shall give three distinct Answers to the three parts of this Objection In relation 1. To God 2. To Angels 3. To the visible World 1. Answ. This comprehensive Unity which is the proper Character of Intellectual Spirits is called by Philosophers the Apex or supream Point the Head of the Soul hid in a Divine Glory the Divine part of the Soul in which it symbolizeth with is capable of Commerce with the Divinity it self and of enjoying in it self the Divine presence as in its most proper and beloved Temple I shall humbly present to the Readers Candor four Distinctions for the unvailing of this Divine presence in the Soul 1. Distinction God is not present in the Soul as in a place Divisible but as in an undivided Unity for he were otherwise no more a pure an infinite Spirit the first supream simple Spirit of Being Beauty of all Excellency and Virtue a Life of Sweetness a Light of Glory without allay shade or limit He were now Corporeal and finite Of this Local Circumscription which hath no place here is that Rule rightly understood The container is greater than the contained 2. Distinction God by his Omnipresence and undivided Unity is every where in every Creature in every part and point of the Creation with the fulness of his Glories and Godhead after a two-fold manner 1. God is present to himself in every Creature Secundum modum Dei after the manner of a God 2. God is present in each Creature to that Creature Secundum modum Creaturae according to the manner of the Creature 1. God is present to himself in every Creature after the manner of a God Where-ever he is present He is entirely present with all the Joys and Glories of eternity ever undivided His own Heaven to himself in the Depths of Hell beneath as in the Heighth of Heaven above in the dust of the Grave in a wave of the Sea as in the most shining Cherubim or flaming Seraphim God is not thus present to any natural Spirit no not in the purity ofits Creation with his unvailed Beauties shining forth in the brightness of his Glory in the fulness of his Godhead Then should he transfigure that Spirit into the same Image of one Divine Form and Glory with himself Then would there be no difference between Adam in Paradise the Angels in Heaven and Jesus Christ in his Paradise and Heaven above all Heavens the Bosome of the Father No after this manner God dwells in Jesus Christ alone as he is risen from the Dead in the eternal Spirit in the Glory of the Father 2. God is in every Creature present with that Creature according to the manner of that Creature By the divers manners of his Appearance as by the ingraving upon the Seal setting divers impressions upon the Creature and giving divers forms of Being to it like the Seal in the impression upon the Wax He thus becometh the fulness of every Creature filling all in all parts of it and so Omnipresent to it
harmonious Motions and most regular diversity of Forms appear together by virtue of the Unity every where indivisible 3. Within the Unity of the Soul lie both the other Natures in a way proper to the nature of the Soul The Angelical the Divine Natures above are there with contracted and dimmer Glories appearing through Images of less brightness and less Majesty All Corporeal Natures are there exalted into Spirits in their Intellectual Patterns and Powers in their rational Forms and Virtues in their Imaginative figures and force in their seminal Reasons and plastical or formative Power That mystical Picture which the Prophet Esay draws of the Seraphim from the Life it self when he saw them will serve in its proportion for the figure of the Intellectual Soul They had each six wings with two they covered their Face with two their Feet with two they flew Spirits are described by Wings The Images of things springing up within them are their Wings not by change of place without them but by these inward Images are they present with things and in each place By these they work after the way of a Natural or rather Angelical Magick By raising and converting themselves to Images in their minds they bring forth new forms without as the Off-spring or Emanations from those Images like shadows from Bodies Upon this account Angels are said to work Cognoscendo by the force of figures in their minds Each Soul hath like a Seraphim six wings The face of the Soul is his Divine his Angelical Idea in which the face of God and the face of the Angel in their proper forms are seen The two uppermost wings with which the Soul covers her Angelical Face and within that her Divine Face is the Divine Image shining in the Angelical Image These wings are full of eyes within and without As by the eyes without they see the Images of Angelical and Divine Glories So by the eyes within they see the Faces of Angels and of God and in them their own faces vailed beneath these Images full of eyes These Eyes are the living Light the reflection of the Angelical and Divine Glory of which these Images are composed and by virtue of which they according to their pure Natures stand in a mutual inseparable Union with the Angels and in the Angels with the Divine Glory By vertue of this Union they at once look inward to their Ideal Beauties and outward to the Images of these Beauties The two lowest wings are the Images of all Corporeal Natures of all Bodies which cover these as the feet of the Soul Nymphs which are Souls according to Porphyrius are described in Poets with silver feet Bodily Natures in their extended and divisible parts are the feet of the Soul its lowest descent the lowest and shadowest forms figured upon it These in the Soul it self which is an Unity appear only in their seminal Unities and Beauties as Spirits in the Harmony of this Universal Spirit For this cause are they represented by silver feet shining and incorruptible for the same reason are they said to be covered with wings which are those Spirits the lowermost forms of things in the Soul the seminal Unity and Harmonies out of which Bodies immediately flow and in which they are seen as in a mystical Glass The middle-wings of the Soul are the proper Image of the Soul it self by which it performs its own proper Motions and Operations flying between those Angelical those Divine Images above and the shady forms of Bodies below The Images or Natures of Spirits are exprest by pairs of wings not only for congruity and the decency of the Parable but from the Truth of the mystery for in Spirits each Image distinguisheth it self by a most substantial Variety into its own Original and Image by that self-reflection or spiritual Generation which is the essential Act of each Understanding of each Intellectual Nature of each Spirit Thus much of this first passage the three-fold Nature united in the Soul 2. Passage Then it by thee unloosened spread doth lye Through Limbs well suited to a sympathy Per Consona membra resoluis Note How elegantly doth this Divine Philosopher and Poet at once paint out to us the Soul extended into Corporeal Forms in divisible parts languishing obscure with a faint and fading light weak with a feeble and dying force as also present in its Divine Unity the spring of Light of Life through the whole extent of these Bodies and binding them up into an indivisible Unity This Unity every where present with all the parts of the wholy Body This Unity comprehending them all in one making them all one by a mutual comprehension of each other in it self is the only ground of the Consonancy the Harmony and Sympathy The Unity of the same Spirit answering to it self every where presenting all the parts in an Unity in it self is every where in all Corporeal Forms the Beauty the Musick the Harmony 3. Passage Of motion and divinest Melody Diffus'd through things below or those on high This is the Spring and Circle Cuncta moventem 1. Note The difficulties in Motion are inexplicable if Motion have not for its Spring and Seat an essential substantial Unity which contains at once in it self the terms of the Motion its Beginning and End the Way the Forms or Parts of that which is moved Without this how shall the Motion be directed How shall the Forms or parts of that which is moved give place to or pass into the place of each other How shall the Impression or force of Motion be communicated But now all things move by a divinely natural Magick that is by the force of Harmony in the Unity of the same Soul or Spirit inhabiting and acting all presenting it self in every form part and motion Now all motions present themselves to our eyes as exact and Divine Dances of persons to a Divine Musick from unseen Musicians sounding entirely and distinctly in the ear of each person to which they all at once in their order move most agreeably 2. Note Immutablity Mutation or Change Motion differ after the same manner with Eternity Aeviternity Time This is best explained by the three-fold Unity the Divine the Angelical Unity the Unity of the Soul 1. The Divine Unity is alone a true and perfect Unity substantial supream unbounded This hath a perfect boundless Variety in it with an Uniformity All forms of things here as they are most perfectly distinct by the perfection of the Variety so are they most perfectly one by the perfection of the Unity This is the Divine World containing innumerable Divine Worlds within it self of which every one is infinitely new and various from all the rest yet entirely one with all the Rest including at once innumerable Divine Worlds all new and all the same As the Variety there comprehends all distinctions below it and infinitely transcends them So each the minutest the least distinction here being a Variety there is a new
the Soul The Mind they call the Son the World of God the first seat of all Ideas But with us Christians this Mind is the Angelical Nature the chief of those ministring Spirits to which we in the Language of the Scripture give the Name of Angels The Son of God the World of God in the first and most proper sense is the Uncreated Mind and Wisdome the Lord Jesus who as he is the second person in the Trinity is the supream Unity the one only true God The Godhead in its essential Image where first are seated and shine all forms of things in their Original Glories in their eternal Patterns as they are the Variety in the Divine Unity every one God entirely in it self in all the full Glories of the Godhead and all one God ever undivided indivisible Plutarch calleth Life a Depth This Mind is exprest by a Deep inasmuch as it is Life it self the first unbounded Life which hath no ground no limit the fountain of Life where endlesly spring up in an unconfined Circle in a bottomless Depth forms of Glory innumerable one within another Thus St. Paul speaketh That the Spirit of God in the Spirit of a Saint is a Spirit of Revelation which takes the covering off from this Deep of Light and Glories in the Soul searching out the Depth of God The Soul circleth round this Deep of the Divine Mind not after a Corporeal or Local manner but as one Spirit encompasseth another without Circumscription extension or distance 1. The Soul without consinement or adaequation contains in its Unity and Center this glorious Deep of the Divine Mind through the Angelical Mind as the Unity of its Unity the Center in its Center 2. The Soul springs forth by a continual emanation a continual irradiation or process from this Divine Mind into an entire Image of it As it â—…ees the various Glories in the circle of this Deep So doth it spring up within it self into the similitude and forms of the same Glories in the same Order and Harmony to the filling up and compleating of the same circle within it self The Lord Jesus in the Gospel at his Transfiguration appeared as the Sun in its strength and his Garments as the Light Thus the same Jesus the Divine Mind is here a Circle a Depth of substantial Light and Glories filling the Light with all Variety of forms The Soul springs forth from him all round about him as a Garment of Light a Circle of Beams all wrought with the beautiful Figures of those Glories Plato saith That there are three Kings round whose Thrones all things dance God the Mind the Soul this continual procession of the Soul from the Divine Mind through the Angelical Mind in the entire Image of it with all its Divine Forms and their Order their Harmony their Unity in the whole compass of their Variety is the mystical Dance of the Soul round the Throne of her King her Bridegroom by which at once she contemplates enjoys springs up into his Divine Form in all its Beauties and is filled with him He in like manner hath her ever before him as the Looking-Glass of his own Beauty lying and playing in himself as the Image of a Flower or Tree in the water every way circled in by him as she is centered in him As the Divine Mind through the Angelical is in the Soul so are the Divine the Angelical Mind through the Soul in this visible World centring it in themselves riding forth upon the Circuit of the Heaven and the Earth as the lowest figure of themselves at once standing up out of them and standing in them The Soul as the Exemplar Form as the Unity the inmost center the outmost Circle sendeth forth this Corporeal Image as a figure of it self formeth moveth acteth it throughout sustaineth it in it self filleth it with it self every way boundeth and containeth it within it self The vast all-containing Unity of the Soul figureth it self the circular globous round form of the Heavens and the Earth in the Union and Harmony of all the parts suffering no where any discontinuity or vacuity nor any deformity or discord in the whole From the variety of invisible Forms within it self the Soul springeth up into all the innumerable Army of heavenly Bodies in the Coelestial Orbs into all the diversity of Elementary shapes and figures in the Regions below The Harmony and Order of the Soul in all its forms and motions through them floweth forth figureth it self as a Light of Beauty shineth as a Divine Musick soundeth through all the parts and changes of the Coelestial the Elementary Sphears charming those Souls that have awakened and purified senses to take them in As the Soul within it self springeth up into each form in its proper Order bringing forth it self at once with the entire Unity of its whole undivided Essence anew in that distinct form so doth the Soul from that Original in the likeness of the same Image each new moment spring forth anew according to the innate Law of the universal Order and Harmony into the whole Heavens and Earth in a new posture and figure Thus after the similitude of its own circlings through all forms within it self the Soul incessantly turneth round the Heavens and the Elementary Orbs which by their perpetual circling through each other turn about by day and by night the restless wheel of Generation and Corruption as of all change Thus as the Soul danceth round the Throne of the Divine and the Angelick King these Heavens and the Elements dance round the Throne of their King the Soul Before I pass from the Authority and Testimony of this great Philosopher concerning the nature of the Soul give me leave to direct this Arrow to the white and mark which I aim at through this whole Discourse According to this Doctrine the Divine the Angelick Mind the Soul the Coelestial and Elementary Orbs through all their powers parts forms and motions meet in make up one Universal and Divine Harmony one Beauty one Musick All exactly in the lowest the least the weakest stroak touch or shade in most exact measure and proportion answer one another As the Face in the water answers the living Face So doth every lower Orb or Circle of things answer the superior As the reflection of it self in its own water or lustre shining forth from it and abiding in it like the water of a precious stone Each Orb or Circle of things is filled with knit together by bounded in its own Unity which floweth through all as the Spirit the Life of Order and Harmony disposing all the parts and motions in a most just measure to preserve it self and its figure entire in the whole The supream the Divine Unity sits upon every one of these subordinate Unities rideth forth in them uniteth filleth bindeth up boundeth in it self all the Orbs and Circles all in them all This shines through them runs with its beams playing over every form as one
Thus the Soul rides forth in her three-fold Chariot Heavenly Airy Earthly upon the Circuit of the Heavens the purest Air and the Earth the true Venus the true Queen of Love and Beauty by which all things spring shine live and love through her Marriage-Union with her Lord and King the true Adonis or Adonai the Lord Jesus who died and lives again with his beloved Bride in the secret of Paradise in the midst of the Field of the Coelestial Light the pure Air in the bosome and nethermost parts of the Earth This is the Soul in its first make and proper state Plotinus teacheth That the first Soul which is the immediate Workman of this World in the order of its procession from the separate Intelligences or Angels and from God the only supream Father of all hath its face ever turned to the face of God and unmoveably fixed upon it from his Face it continually takes in as the Nectar of the Gods the Divine Light the Divine Life and Love it continually takes in as at an heavenly Feast as the heavenly Ambrosia the Ideal Beauty the first the Archetypal Forms in their most immediate sweetest freshest fullest Effulgency or Images This God-like Soul thus bred thus divinely formed thus nourished thus impregnated sends forth from it self this whole visible World in the figures of those first Glories in the similitude of their Unity Variety and Order without thought care or trouble without ever turning a look to this World As a Person with his Face to the Sun casts his shadow upon the ground behind him There is only this difference as this great Soul casts the shadow of this Corporeal World from it self there is no ground for it to fall upon besides the Soul it self All these Heavens this Earth and Sea with all their roulings springings fadings and floatings are then the soul it self in her lowest Form bearing the figures of all her superior Glories most curiously and delightfully wrought in deeper shades The Soul in this her lower form is her own living Looking-Glass of shadowy shaded Light in which she sees with a grateful Variety with a pleasing Reflection of her own Divine force and fruitfulness her own Beauties in a weaker fainter fading Image maintained only by continual beams from her self All Souls as they flow in their Order and successions from this first Soul by virtue of the first production bring forth to themselves and bear within themselves the whole World in its fairest and fullest measures Object If any ask these Philosophers what sign or appearance there is of this sublime state this amplitude this majesty in the soul of Man they will give you such answers as these Answ. 1. The Soul hath now lost her wings by which she flyes through the whole Heavens and Earth She now lies languishing contracted clouded divided wounded sick dying upon the ground of this earthly Body You can take no more any measure of the true nature of the Soul of the Soul in her own proper Divine Form and Image by her present state then you can of the humane Form Spirit and Life by a worm grown out of the putrified body of a man dead Answ. 2. As the Soul of a man sleeping is to the Light of this World so is the Soul in this Body to the Light of its own Intellectual Invisible Divine Form and Beauty As a Prince sleeps in some private Room with the Curtains drawn about him within his own Palace in the midst of all the splendors and splendid Persons of his Court seeming to himself in his dreams as he sleeps to be a naked forlorn Prisoner at the bottome of a dark and deep Dungeon In such a dream doth the Soul appear to her self sleeping in this Body in the midst of all her own Immortal Beauties in the Palace and Court of her own Divine Unity and Essence But I have now done with Humame Authority and Philosophy in its Testimony But as I part I will leave Philosophy with this Honourable Testimony The only and true Philosophy is the Light of Nature in its primitive purity as the scattered Beams and dispersed remainders of it in the midst of the ruines of Nature are collected strengthened and reflected from the most excellent of natural or Divine Spirits like Sun-beams centered in a burning-glass The second Authority I pass now to the Divine Authority which is the testimony of the Holy Scriptures I shall cite only two Scriptures one from the first of Genesis the other from the first of the Romans I being with the last which seems clearest and fullest 1. Scripture The first Testimony from the Scriptures is Rom. 1. 19 20. From this Text to the end of the third Chapter you have the Soul with a profound Depth Like a River rouling along with all her various serpentine windings from the Sea of Love the Divine Bosome till she return thither This Divine Philosopher after a Divine manner sets the humane Soul before us in the whole compass of her Essence in all her circlings through all forms of things as he saw her by a Light of Revelation in the eternal Design in her Idea in the heart of the Father the Fountain in the Bosom of the Lord Jesus the first seat of all Divine Designs and Ideas This Design is divided into three parts 1. The Soul in its primitive and pure state of Nature presented to us Chap. 1. vers 19. 20. 2. The Soul in her fall as she passeth through the shades beneath of Sin Suffering Death and Wrath from the 21. verse of the first Chapter to the 20. verse of the third Chapter 3. The Soul in its return and re-ascent to a greater Glory from the 22. verse of the third Chapter to the end of that Chapter I shall very briefly with all the perspicuity that I can point out the Heads of things in these three parts of the Souls course and design in the Divine Mind 1. The Soul in its primitive and pure state of Nature is presented to us Rom. 1. 19 20. That which may be known of God is manifest in them for God hath manifested it to them For the unseen things of him from the Creation of the world are seen being understood by the things that are made both his eternal Power and Godhead I shall make two Notes upon the Grammar of the words 1. That which may be known of God is manifest in them This relates to the pure state of Nature not to the Corrupt For of that it is said vers 21. Their foolish heart was darkned Things are manifest only in the Light The expression runs in the present time after the manner of the Divine and Prophetick stile which sets before our eyes all forms of things as they appear in the Divine Light where all things are ever present and appear at once in one Besides this as Paradise so the pure Image of God in the Soul seems to some not to be lost or destroyed but
hid beneath the ruines of the fall Thus Knowledge springing in the Soul seems to be a remembrance the Life of all good an awakening by reason of the primitive Image of pure Nature raising it self by degrees and sparkling through the Rubbish the confusions of the present state Thus also hath the Souâ—…n her self the measure of all Truth and Good in this pure â—…age which hidden in the Center of the Soul containeth all Forms of Truth and Good in it self 2. That Clause in the 20. vers From the Creation of the World relates not to the sight but to the invisibility of God as appears by the place the point the sense For otherwise there were a Tautology in the Creation of the World and the things that are made There is a Scripture like to this Ephes. 3. The mystery of Christ is there mentioned which is the unvailing of God that he may be seen in the Light of his own essential and eternal Glories in his own proper naked and sweet form of Love unmixt unlimited Thus he appears in the Face and Person of Christ who as he is the Godhead in its essential and eternal Image comes in the Spirit of the Gospel full of Grace or Love and Truth the Light the Life of the Godhead in its unvailed Sweetnesses and Glories This mystery is said to be hid in God from the foundation of the World The Creation of the World was a Vail cast upon the Face of God with a figure of the Godhead wrought upon this Vail and God himself seen through it by a dim transparency as the Sun in a morning or Mist is seen by a refracted Light through the thick medium of earthly Vapours But I shall now attempt from the Life in this Scripture to draw the Picture of the Humane Soul in its natural Perfections and paradisical Beauties In order to this I shall present to you three Propositions into which this Text seems naturally to resolve it self 1. 1. Proposition God is present and shines forth in the Soul of Man in the highest and fullest appearance in which any created Understanding is capable of receiving him in which he is capable of being manifested or communicated by any Image beneath or without himself This is the plain sense of those words That which may be known of God is manifested in them Every Being in every kind and degree is a Beam or Emanation and manifestation of the first the supream Being which is God The whole Creation then all the Creatures in it with all their Essences Substances Accidents in all their Orders Places Postures Motions with every Circumstance of Being are as real in their full proportion as much according to the life in the Humane Soul as in themselves They all as so many lines and features drawn from the Face of God form the Essence of the Soul by forming it into a living Image of God God himself as he is the Author of Nature is as a Sun with all the Creatures as a Ring of Beams round about him which at once hide him and discover him So the Sun the Figure with a Vail of Beams hides from every eye the too bright Glories of that naked Body of Light But by the same Beams is himself seen in a most beautiful though shadowy Image Thus this eternal Sun surrounded with this Ring of Beams forms a Pareâ—…s tâ—… similitude of himself by himself in the Soul of Man In the mean time God himself as he is before this similitude of himself shining upon it is also within it the vital Centre in the midst of it the Root the Truth the Life of it Thus are these two Suns two Eyes full set each with other as they look forth through this Image this Vail of Beams The Soul by its senses takes in only the accidental forms of each Creature the shadow of the shadow The Understanding takes hold of takes the essential Form the Substance The whole visible World is the World of sense the Object of sense The Invisible the Angelical World is the Intellectual World the proper Object of the Understanding If that which may be known of God be manifested in the Soul if every distinct degree of Being be a distinct manifestation of God a distinct mode or form of the Divine appearance then doth the Humane Soul contain the whole World visible invisible with it self in its full greatness and glory in all its most exact Distinctions and Varieties It penetrates it it fills it all within and without with its Intellectual Light In its Unity as the Divine Centre it sits and unites all In its Variety as in the full majesty of its Divine Essence it spreads it self into all Forms and so many Divine Figures in a most beautiful and Divine Order All Being in its whole compass is Intelligible the adoequate Object of the Understanding The Understanding is all in potentiality in its natural capacity tendency and desire These are the Doctrines of the Schools The Understanding then in Act in the perfection of its primitive state is actually perfectly all It is married by an Angelical marriage as in the Marriage of Spirits into a most intimate Union of Essences into a most essential Unity with the whole Creation as it is one Divine Figure of the Divine Beauty and so through this figure with Jesus Christ with God who lives and appears in it 2. Proposition All these forms of things spring up to the Soul from within it self from its own Fountain from God the Fountain of the Soul in the Centre of it the Fountain of all in the Soul to the Soul That which may be known of God is manifest in them for God hath manifested it to them vers 19. The last Clause well observed in the force of the words and the Connexion will appear to every judicious eye as I humbly conceive to have no common or vulgar sense They seem to contain in them this two-fold mystery 1. God the proper Idea of the Humane Soul that is it s most inward inseparable Principle which hath in it self the Pattern the exemplar form of the Soul sends it forth from it self forms it furnisheth filleth it with all forms of things He also comprehends and conserves it in himself as its own proper place and habitation as a Light sprung from him and abiding in him the Father of Lights He fashioneth it into an Understanding as an Intellectual Angelical Divine Sun This is the greatest Light in the Soul its utmost Centre and outmost Circle encompassing the whole Essence of the Soul the whole nature of things in all their Forms Operations and Motions This shines in the day of the invisible World This as the Region of Angels contains the Essences and Intellectual Forms of all things in it self as so many Angels or Angelical Spirits each of which is a distinct Sun a distinct world of Angels of all Angelical Spirits and Intellectual Forms In the next place God figures this Light which is
19 20 21 22. For the earnest expectation of the Creature waiteth for the manifestation of the Sons of God For the Creature was made subject to vanity not willingly but for him who hath subjected the same in hope Because the Creature it self shall also be delivered from the bondage of Corruption into the glorious liberty of the Children of God For we know that the whole Creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now Observe here that Creature and Creation are both the same word in Greek Where you read the Creature in the 19 20 21. verses you may as well read it the Creation that which you read the whole Creation verse 22. is as properly every Creature There are two Questions which here naturally arise and are absolutely waved by me as having no necessary Connexion with my present purpose Quest. 1. The first Question is this In what sense the Creature or Creation is understood by the holy Apostle Is the whole Creation one entire living sensible Image of the Divine Nature in which every Creature as a part of this Divine Image partakes of the same life according to the Doctrine of Campanella Shall we say with Plato Every thing that is is an Act of Life and so nothing of Being without life Or may it seem agreeable to the Scriptures that all the Creatures stood together at first before the breach made by the Fall in the Unity of the Spirit in Christ the Head of the Creation without whom or apart from whom nothing was made that was made as St. John teacheth us Did every Creature stand now in Union with its proper Angel through its Angel with its proper Idea in Christ the Divine Mind and the Universal Idea Was every Creature thus cloathed with the Angelical Image partaker of the Angelical Life Did it through these receive the Divine Image the Divine Life of its own Idea That the whole Creation might seem a Contexture of Angels filled with Ideal Lights all meeting together in one chief Angel and one Universal Idea which is the Lord Jesus Had every Creature thus a sight and sense of the Divine Design in the Fall was it thus capable of a willingness and an unwillingness in its submission to it as it considered that particular state or the general design with the Divine end of all As it considered it self in this dark part to be acted by it or the eternal Spirit in its universaâ—…â—…ontrivance and the Mark the heighth of Glory to which it directed all Do the Creatures still though bound in Chains of Darkness retain so much of this Angelical Ideal Light and Life as to hope to groan for a return from their Captivity into these Angelical Ideal Forms and so into the glorious liberty of the Sons of God whom St. James saith to be the First-fruits of the Creation Whether this be so or all these terms of Will of Hope of Groans be by a figure attributed to Subjects without life or sense or some other sense be righter than either of these I consider not now as being unconcerned Quest. 2. The second Question is whether the individual Creatures did all pre-exist being together in Paradise before the Fall in their Angelical Spirits and Forms Was among these Mankind with all individual Persons not only in a Representative but a Collective Adam unto whom Adam in his own distinct Person was the Head and the first born Did those thus who now groan under the ruines of the Fall then fore-see it in the Divine Design having an aversion to it in it self yet subjecting themselvns to it for God Are these who now through all Generations groan and travel in pangs for the delivery of the Divine seed in them unto the Birth of a new Glory the same who then had this Divine Seed of a sure Hope sown in them for their return And not for their return only but for their Resurrection unto a sight of the Face of God with a new and fuller Glory shining forth without any shadow or Vail purely and immediately upon them all through them taking them up into it self as a new Super-Coelestial eternal Paradise as far excelling their first Paradise as the Heavens are above the Earth as Eternity transcends Time But these then where have they been since the Fall Were they thrust down to the nethermost parts of the Earth imprisoned in the deep shades of the Earth below and bound there in Chains of Darkness Are they there reserved in the silence and sleep of that Death which came upon all by the Fall until as Seed buried in the ground they according to their several seasons spring up into Corruptible Forms and a wretched Life for a moment upon the stage of this World to act new parts in order to a refining through a Baptism with Christ in the fire of his Sufferings of his Death and the making of all new by this refining in the Glory of his Resurrection Dear Reader these Questions may be thought by some curious and difficult without use fruit or ground in the Word of God To others perhaps they may seem of great moment to open the mystery of God to unvail his Glory in the wonder of his Works which are sought out by all those who love him Some may esteem them of great advantage to enlighten the Daknesses and make easie the Difficulties about Principal Doctrines of the Christian Religion as that fundamental Truth of Original Sin that most sweet and sacred Mystery which is the Antitype to this Type Our justification by Jesus Christ the Return of all to life in the last Adam as all died in the first Others may believe that as God sheds abroad richer Anointings of the Light of his Spirit we shall see lying fair before us greater and stranger things than these which now like fresh colours in a beautiful Object appear not at all for the want of light in the Air in our Spirits As the eternal Sun shineth as the Heavens in the Scriptures and the Spirit shall open themselves they expect to see the Angels of Glory and of God the Divine Glories descending and ascending upon the Son of Man the Person of the Lord Jesus as a mystical Ladder reaching through the whole Creation from the top to the bottom where each rank of Creatures is a step in this Ladder a Divine Glory in the Angelical Form upon the Wings of its proper Angel descending and ascending But I leave these things to the freedome of every Spirit as bringing no weight to my present purpose begging thy pardon Christian Reader for this mention of them as being fairly led to by the present Scripture and willing to take the occasion of diverting thy self and me as I hope not without some spiritual pleasure and profit through the candour of thy Mind I shall take hold of that alone which seems to lie clear in the words of the Text and gives a full confirmation to my Proposition which is this That
it self in its Essence and Operations in its self and in all its works Thus is Righteousness also as Justice the Harmony and Unity of things The Divine Righteousness is the Divine Harmony and Unity diffusing it self through all things and knitting all things together as Links in one Golden Chain The perfection of Harmony is the Unity in Variety The Harmony is perfect when the Unity is entire and the Variety full A full Variety is that in which nothing of Variety is wanting A principal part in the Variety extending it to a greater amplitude is the Contrariety This then is the Divine pleasure and glory in the Harmony when the Unity by its Divine fruitfulness and force brings forth it self through all degrees of Variety into the remotest forms the most opposite Contrarieties and Extreams When it brings forth it self through these into it self again and reigns triumphantly at once as over the whole so over each part of the Variety residing on the whole as one Throne one Kingdom and on each part as a distinct Throne a distinct Kingdom equal with the whole The Divine Harmony is Three-fold 1. The first Harmony is that of the Godhead of the Divine Essence in it self This is the essential Righteousness of God As it is the Righteousness so is it the Love the Joy the Loveliness the Wisdome Power Glory of God All the Excellencies of God in one one and entire in every Excellency by the Unity Yet in every Excellency most highly distinct by the Variety in the Harmony The Harmony of the Divine Essence is that sacred and adorable mystery of the Trinity the mystery of God 2. The second Harmony is the Harmony of the Divine Nature as the Original And the Harmony in the Nature of the Creature as the figure married together into one Divine Harmony by a mutual and mysterious Union By this Union these two mutually subsist in each other shine upon shine in and through each other The Original Harmony is the Principle of subsisting and shining This is the Head the Person which gives Being Beauty Subsistency Lustre to its own Figure in the created Harmony shining upon it self in and through it This is the Mediatory Righteousness or the Righteousness of God in Christ the Righteousness of the Gospel of our Justification Sanctification Glorification This Righteousness in Christ as our Head comprehending us in it self by virtue of the mutual Union cloathing us filling us overflowing us is our Justification the Beauty of our Persons shining in the Glory of our Head entire from the first moment and unchangeable This Righteousness by virtue of our mutual Union with our Jesus in the Unity of the Spirit as our Root springs forth in us transforms us into its own heavenly Image carries us up into a Communion with it self in its own Divine Life Beauties and Joys Thus by the gradual growths of this Righteousness in us are we gradually sanctified through all changes of life doth this Plant grow in us by Night and by Day In Death it arrives at its perfect growth Our Sanctification thus in Death made perfect is the glorification of our Persons In one moment doth this Divine Righteousness this heavenly Harmony take us up into it self unto the justification of our Persons in its spotless eternal universal Beauties to the filling of us with the unexpressible Peace and Joys of its most sweet eternal universal Musick and in the same moment it springs up in us unto our Sanctification to the framing of us by degrees unto the same Beauty and the tuning of us to the same Musick in our selves This is the moment of our New-Birth our Marriage-Union with our Jesus our believing This is the second Righteousness 3. The third Righteousness is that of the shadowy Image in the primitive state of the Creation This is the Righteousness of Man a shadowy Righteousness the shadow of the eternal Harmony This is the essential Form of Man in pure nature This is the Reason of Man the shadow of the eternal Reason the Word the essential Harmony in the Divine Mind The Lord Jesus being the first the supream the essential Image of God is also the first the supream the essential Harmony the Essence of Harmony in its eternal Spirit the essential Harmony the essential Righteousness of the Divine Nature The Lord Jesus is the Original the Universal Image the Image of Images the Idea of Idea's the Spring the Seat the Truth the first of all Ideas He is the Idea of the Godhead of the whole Creation of Man of every Creature Thus is he the Root the Rule the Harmony the Righteousness of the whole Creation of Man of every Creature Having laid these grounds for the illustrating of the Doctrine of St. Paul I will now from St. Paul and upon these grounds sum up into a close this part of my Discourse concerning the nature of the Humane Soul or Man The Essence of the Soul containeth the fulness of all thing in it in one substantial indivisible Act. The Soul opens it self into this fulness of things by a three fold Revolution within it self within the spacious Palace of its own glorious Essence 1. From the Bosome or Womb of its own Ideal Glories which are the Original the Measure the Bound of the Souls Essence and Perfection the Soul descendeth into a shadowy Image Thus it first appears upon the beautiful Stage of this World in its first Creation God himself in his invisible Glories with eternity in his eternal Power and Godhead is now in the Soul is seen by the Soul but shadowed by this shadowy and vailing Image within which he resides Thus hath the Soul within her self her Idea in Christ in God in Eternity as her Fountain in Eden which flowing forth all through the Soul in this shadowy Image makes it all a sweetly-shadowed Paradise This is the first Revolution 2. As in the Harmony of this shadowy Image lies the Contrariety a part of the Variety in the Harmony So from the Divine force of this Harmony acted by the Ideal Harmony lying hid in it the Soul rouleth it self out of the lowest and remotest degree of the Unity into the Contrariety as a Note in a Musical Lesson upon the Lute struck and sounding in its proper time Now is the Beauty the Integrity the Sweetness of this shadowy Image in Deformity in Ruines in Bitterness and Enmity Sin and Death swallow up all The Soul stands in a Contrariety to the Divine Purity Love Light Immortality In the place of Purity is Filth of Light Darkness of Love Enmity of Immortality Death God now being the Supream Unity and Harmony opposeth himself as most directly most highly most irreconcilably contrary to this Contrariety to the breach of the Unity to the discord in the Harmony that he may subdue it and reduce it unto an Unity for the making up of the Harmony and so making it more full by the Contrariety more sweet by the Enmity Thus the Divine
from the beginning to the end He presents himself to the Soul as its Idea its Original Image its beginning its way and itsend in whose bosome the Soul hath alwayes lien there meeting with every change every scene of things springing up within it in that bosome while the same Jesus hath lien in its bosome as the seed of its Being and of every Change This is the Souls Father Brother Bridegroom and Perfection As Jesus Christ thus appears and unvails himself within the Soul he at once gathers up the Soul into the most intimate the most entire Union with it self He transforms it into the likeness of the same Image with himself in the full Glory of the Divine the Universal the eternal Harmony in the Unity of the same Spirit the Spirit of this Harmony and Glory The Lord Jesus as he is the universal the eternal Image and Harmony of the Divine Nature of all Variety in the Divine Nature as he is the Idea of Ideas thus is he the Original Image the Idea of the Intellectual Soul or of Man As then he forms himself in this Soul he also formeth all things in it that man comes forth from the bosome of his Idea replenished with the Ideas of all things He is now the whole Creation the universal Nature within himself This Jesus then being risen springs up into Man in the virtue of his Resurrection and together becomes the Resurrection of all things in man to man In like manner through man as the head of all he riseth again in all the particular Forms of things as they stand without man in themselves in their own proper Existencies In the Lord Jesus God through Christ the universal Image inhabiteth in the proper Ideas of each Creature with the fulness of his Divine Glories in the Unity of the blessed Spirit According to this Original Jesus Christ the Universal Harmony through the humane Nature his immediate his full Image his compleat Birth and Bride rests entirely and distinctly upon each form of things as the Divine Race of this heavenly Marriage-Bed in the Resurrection As all together make up the Universal Harmony in the Soul in Christ the end of them all So each one enjoyeth the whole Harmony in it self being upon its own proper Form cloathed with the Universal Form the Form of the heavenly Man and of Christ in Glory So all dwell together in the Unity of the same Divine Spirit the Spirit of a Saint and of Christ. In the Unity of this Spirit all mutually are Divine Palaces each to other clearly compleatly comprehending and comprehended by each other eternally feasting upon the heavenly Beauties and Virtues drinking in the Sweetnesses the Lives the Spirits of each other And of Jesus Christ of God the Unity and the Variety in all This is the Kingdom of God which is Righteousness Peace and Joy in the Holy Ghost Jesus Christ the essential Image of God the Divine and eternal Harmony is the Righteousness the mutual Peace and Joy of this Kingdom In this Kingdom Jesus Christ cometh with his own Glory the Glory of his Father and of all his holy Angels united in one in each form of things The lowest form of things here is an Angel an Angel made new in the Resurrection of Christ where each Angel being only a distinct part of the Harmony yet hath the Universal Harmony resting upon that part This is that new Jerusalem where the street the lowest form of things is as Gold and Glass The pure Glory of the eternal Spirit as the finest Gold shineth in each Creature like the Cherubim or the Angels standing up out of the Mercy-Seat made of the same piece of massy Gold together with it The lowest Creature here is an Angel of Glory the street that sustains us is composed of Angels Angelical Glories In every Angel as a particular Glory all the Angels with their several Varieties of Glory the Glory of Christ and all the Saints which is the full the Universal Glories of the Divine and Humane Nature the Original and its best beloved Image in Union The Glory of God as the Father in its simplicity in its paternity and transcendency over all meet all in one This Unity of the Spirit in each Creature renders it divinely transparent like the finest glass In the beauty of every Face we have the prospect of Eternity We see in each single Face fresh Beauties all Beauties with an endless Variety opening themselves one within another one beyond another all equally clear present and pleasant in every one Thus Jesus Christ becomes according to St. Paul the first-born from the dead and the first-born among his Brethren the Saints The Saints in the Language of St. James are the first-fruits of the Creation which is brought forth in its proper time and order into the liberty of the Glory of the Sons of God Thus is our Jesus the great Jubilee where all Debts are remitted all Servants go free all persons return to their Inheritances to the free Possession the full fruition of themselves and them In the Resurrection of the Lord Jesus from him as the Root springing up into the Body of the Saints through them into the rest of the Creatures as Branches of the same Tree All Sins are pardoned the whole Creation is set free from its bondage to Vanity and Corruption All things return to a free fruition of themselves of all Beauties and Joys in their native Inheritance their Original Images their proper Ideas in Christ first Christ then the Saints through them Heaven and Earth and the Seas with all things in them are made new by being married anew by being newly reinvested with the Glories of their Original The Reader is again desired to take Notice That neither the remainder of this Fourth Argument nor any thing upon his Fifth could be found amongst the Authors Papers A DISCOURSE OF THE Freedome of the Will The SECOND PART Wherein the Arguments for it are considered and answered HAving finished those Arguments ranked under their several Heads in opposition to that Liberty of the Will which is placed in the determining of its power received from the first cause unto a Contrariety or Contradiction in its actings with an independency upon the first cause the order and connexion of Causes and the Understanding We pass now to a consideration of the Reasons upon which that Opinion of this Freedome is established These Reasons are taken 1. From the Will it self 2. From the nature of Sin and the Divine Justice 3. The Language of the Scripture 4. From the end of Laws 5. From the order and nature of things 1. Reason The Prerogative and Excellency of the Will consisteth in this Liberty 1. How otherwise doth man excel bruit Creatures and natural Agents 2. How otherwise is man free and not necessitated in all his Actions To that I shall give two several Answers 1. Answ. This Freedome of the Will of which we speak and which is opposed to necessity
of Free-will casts upon the Glories of God in these other Attributes it doth not at all excel the other Opinion in clearing the Glory and Justice of the Divine Goodness But while as with triumphant flourishes by Rhetorical Reproaches it insulteth upon the other Opinion as equalling God in savage cruelness to the most arbitrary Tyrants to the most inhumane and ferine Man-eaters It leaveth God equally exposed to the same Reproaches and it self to the imputations of the same Blasphemies I have now finished the first thing which I had to propound in answer to that Argument against the predetermination of the Will which is taken from the goodness and justice of God 2. The second thing which I have to propound is this the holy Scripture in many places seems plainly to assert the Divine Conduct with a potent and irresistable efficacy in this dark part of things the evil as also the Glory of the Divine Justice and Goodness in this conduct equal with that in the good I will instance in three Scriptures only 1. My first instance is that of Solomon Eccles. 3. There is a season for every thing and a time for every purpose A time to be born and a time to die A time to kill and a time to heal A time to embrace and a time to refrain from embraces A time to destroy and a time to preserve A time to love and a time to hate from the first to the ninth verse He that is God hath made every thing good in his time verse 11 I know that all which God hath done this shall be for ever I shall draw forth this Scripture into a few brief Maxims which seem to arise naturally and clearly out of it 1. There is all Variety in the Unity of the Divine work a Variety extending it self to the remotest the highest Contrarieties Affirmative or Negative to the most distant perfections and privations So the holy Spirit speaketh expresly in the general every thing every purpose all that can fall within the conception or comprehension of the vastest and most incomprehensible Spirit hath its season and time So the holy Spirit speaketh in particular love and hatred war and peace embracing and abstaining from embracing life and death destruction and salvation have their time and season Do not these particular instances expresly define the highest Contrariety Affirmative or Negative of good and evil in their greatest Latitude and most universal Nature 2. God makes all this Variety and Contrariety and that in the lowest Region also even under the Sun where it appears in a dark tempestuous scene of the greatest disorder and confusion There is a time saith Solomon for all and a season for every purpose The word Season signifieth a set measured time like the times in Musick the time or season of each thing is its duration Duration is the mode or measure of the Essence and so really the same with the Essence the Essence measured and bounded As Essences and Habits so also have privations their measure and bounds as Rests and Stops have time in Musick Every Essence is the Birth of an Understanding of which it beareth the impression and Seal It is the work of an Understanding alone to give measure and bounds to things That then which setteth the time for all Varieties and Contrarieties Perfections and Privations which consequently maketh and formeth them can be no other than the Divine Understanding God in his essential and eternal Word which alone is above and before all things So we read here concerning all these Contrarieties That God hath made them beautiful 〈◊〉 their time God then hath made them God maketh all Contrarieties Affirmative and Negative Perfections and Privations but after a contrary manner He maketh Perfections as the Sun maketh light in the Air after an Affirmative manner by a positive presence power and influence He maketh privations as the Sun maketh darkness and night after a Negative manner by his absence by a drawing in his power and binding up his sweet influence But this negation also and so the privations which flow from it are called here by Solomon the Master of all Wisdom Humane and Divine Purposes There is a season saith he for every purpose then he instances in the Contrarieties following Privations then are Divine purposes that is Designs Contrivances Divine Forms designed contrived and measured in the Divine Mind Upon this ground some Philosophers teach us That God is a transcendent Good above all Beings who comprehends Originally in himself not only all Beings but all privation of Being which themselves also as darkness night absence and death in their place and time are Forms of good although not Forms of Being and Divine Forms Forms in Divinity although not natural Forms nor Forms in natural Philosophy But now I am passing to my third Conclusion Thirdly God maketh all things the Varieties and Contrarieties beautiful in their time They are the express words of Solomon from the heighth of all created Wisdom in its single state They are the words of the Uncreated Wisdom it self speaking by Solomon God hath made all beautiful in his time verse 11. This is manifestly spoken with respect to the general All in the first verse and the particular All 's of the highest Contrarieties of the most distant privations enumerated in the following verses the time of each Being respecteth its relation to the whole Beauty is an Harmony and consisteth in the suitableness or conveniency of the several parts with each other and with the whole Suitableness is a similitude similitude is an Unity in Variety an Unity of Form in distinct Subjects as the same sweetness and colour in several Flowers The same beautiful light of knowledge the same pure and lovely sweetness of Spirit which makes a Divine Friendship the highest suitableness and similitude Philosophy teaches us That the first Good and the first Unity are the most proper Names of the most high God having both the same sense and force It teaches us also That the first Beauty is an effulgency from the first Good the first Good or the first Unity shining out into a distinct Image of it self which is the first Distinction or Variety and so the supream the most ample Variety All Beauty then in its kind and degree is an Unity diffusing it self and shining forth into a Variety where from the whole and from each part it reflecteth it self upon it self with all its united Vertues Proportions and Sweetnesses meeting every where in each point Upon this ground we are taught That the first Understanding is the first Beauty and that every Beauty is the Birth and Object of that Understanding alone at least in some impressions or foot-steps of it For Beauty being the meeting of many parts or proportions in one undivided Point or an Unity in Variety can neither be nor be discerned where there is not a spiritual Form or Substance which is it self an undivided Unity Then doth the Beauty spring with
motions of things spring and flourish as Divine Plants in a Divine Order to open it to the view of the Sanctified Beholder and at the same time to defend it from prophane Spirits by the flaming Sword by the sparkling penetrating consuming or refining beams of a Cherubim We will therefore penetrate so far as we may into this bright Deep which so delightfully swalloweth up the most Angelical Understanding may our dependance be upon that Spirit alone which moveth upon the shining Face of this Deep and is a Baptism of heavenly fire purifying the beloved Soul illuminating with an heavenly Light the purified Eye enflaming with heavenly Love the purified Heart and so initiating him into these holy mysteries But keeping off every profane Eye and Heart by darkning dazeling affrighting and burning upon them Divine Truth is as a Rose-Tree which as it hath its beautiful and perfumed Roses so it hath prickels to guard those Roses from rash and rude hands My Answer then to the fore-mentioned Objection shall be divided into these gradual steps First No Sinner in a sinful state no Soul in any act of sin can see the Divine Order in the Work of God which Order is Jesus Christ the Image the Wisdom the Glory of the invisible God figuring himself upon the whole Work from the beginning to the end as one entire lively living Picture of himself himself being the Life of it and shining in the face of it Sin is the Souls falling short of the Glory of God into the darknesses below being unable to raise its Understanding to the Beauty of this Light Sin is the violation or breach of this sacred Harmony by which the Soul cuts off and separates it self from it by which it over-casts the Glory with a deep stain and a black Cloud which take it altogether out of its sight all defilement is an undue mixture Every sin confounds the Soul it wraps it up in an universal confusion sin is an enmity to this Harmony of things It is a dark confusion from below rising up as a poysonous vapour to over-spread the pure Light of this heavenly Order The Divine Order then and all things as they lie in the Divine Order fight against sin and the sinner their common and only Enemy As the Stars in their courses fought against Sisera St. John the beloved Disciple having first declared God to be Light without the mixture of any Darkness at all Then testifieth That if we say that we have fellow ship with him and walk in darkness we lye and do not the truth Sinners universally in the Scriptures are stiled Children of Darkness and not of the Light The Light of the Divine Order and Glory the acting of a part in this Divine Order in the light and truth of it are inconsistent in any Spirit with the darkness of sin 2. If any Spirit by the highest improvement of its Intellectual Powers by Angelical assistances and heightnings by the more sublime and supernatural though common illuminations of the Spirit of Grace himself form to it self an heavenlâ—… Image of this Divine Order and that anointed by the same Operations of the same Spirit with an heavenly Beauty Sweetness and Virtue This Spirit thus far will be sanctified by this sacred Light being taken up out of the tempestuous Seas of its sins into the sweet and pure the calm and clear stream of this Harmony as into a River of Milk and Honey But if this Spirit do take from hence arguments to sin encouragements to sin now it no more seeth a right Image of this heavenly Glory no not in the notion of it As St. Paul speaketh of the Gospel that which shines in this Spirit now this Image perverteth and so the Order is changed into a disorder and confusion That Divine figure sprung from the holy Spirit is withdrawn together with that Spirit a Spirit from below is sprung up as by an hellish Magick or Inchantment into a counterfeit but perverted representation of that heavenly Beauty Thus sin deceives this Spirit then defiles it and so slays it by extinguishing the sweet of sight of its true Light Let such Spirits tremble lest they be found in the number of those unhappy Spirits who having tasted the good Word of God and the Powers of the World to come tread under their feet the Son of God that good Word of God that Wisdom of God that golden Chain of heavenly Harmony in Divine Providence and offer injury and dispight to the Spirit of Grace by which the Son of God sweetly lives and shines in the sacred order of things and by which they were once sanctified having been washt in this Spirit of Grace the Fountain of this lovely Order from the Pollutions of the World Are not these the Spirits upon whom wrath is to come so long as Christ shall Reign 3. My two first steps have been as the preparatory to my Answer like the Porch to the main Building my third step will bring you into the House it self which I shall endeavour to present to you as perfectly and perspicuously as I can In this will consist the strength the beauty of the Answer If I be able to set it forth in its proper strength and beauty I am sensible how far I am below this I therefore intreat those that read or hear this Discourse for their own sakes and the Truths sake to assist my weakness with the utmost strength of their candor attention and understanding Dionysius the Areopagite saith in one place That God reduceth into order those things which are out of order and so establisheth all in good and beauty There are two Rules and Maxims concerning Harmony and Order 1. The Order and Harmony is there perfect where the Variety is full Contrariety is an eminent part of the Variety which enlargeth the Variety and heightens the Harmony Contraria juxt à se posita magis elucescunt Contraries illustrate and heighten one another 2. The Order or Harmony is there most compleat where the Unity is preserved most entire and conspicuous in the fullest Variety To this it is necessary that there be no where any leap or gap This makes the Beauty this makes the Musick to which all Spirits sensual and Intellectual on Earth or in Heaven spring and dance with sweetest and liveliest motions of delight and wonder when the Unity unfolds it self into its amplest Variety by just degrees even numbers and exact proportions When one extream passeth not to another but through all the middle terms that stand between these extreams When one passeth not to three but by two Now the Unity is preserved the middle term being as the band or the connexion of the two extreams which joyneth them in one Now the Variety lies in the explication of the Unity as it lies complicated in the Unity when as the Ternary by being first gathered up into a duality lieth folded up in the bosom of the Unity so the Unity from the bosom of the
duality unfoldeth it self into the Ternary number As in the blessed Trinity the Father shines forth in the Person of the Son his Beauty and beautiful Object Both these breathe forth themselves into the Spirit the mutual Love the Marriage-Bed of these two When thus the Varieties and Distinctions of things proceed by even and just degrees springing up naturally and immediately out of the bosom of each other as they lie naturally and nakedly in the bosom of each other according to their Divine Love-sport and play in the Palace of their Father the supream Unity now the Unity shines and triumphs with a full Joy and Glory in the Face of the whole and of each part Now it flies singing and sporting it self upon the golden wings of a most ravishing Harmony over all According to these two Rules I shall proceed in my Answer upon which it rests as upon its two Pillars Jakin and Boaz Establishment and Strength God is the God of Order saith St. Paul Order is the sacred Harmony of the Divine Nature the Divine Nature the Divine Beauty the Divine Musick all in one first in their Architype then figuring themselves upon the whole Work of God sweetly flowing through it all shining smiling and playing every where upon the face of it This Order with a Divine skill by just degrees and harmonious proportions slides into its contrary which is disorder by which it sets off and heightens it self making the Variety more full The first the highest disorder the fountain of all disorder is Sin This is the disorder of Intellectual Spirits the chief of all the Works of God the Head the Guide the measure of all the rest All the other Creatures are to these as light cast forth from the body of the Sun which is the Sun's shadow or as shadows in this life the shadows of this shadow St. Jude expresseth the Sin of Angels by their disorder The Angels which kept not their first state but left their own Habitation State is in Greek Principle they kept not their first Principle the supream Unity They held not the Head as St. Paul expresseth it They left their proper Habitation the Divine Image the Divine Order and Harmony their proper place in that Harmony where they were divinely-beautiful and made an heavenly melody in the heavenly Consort and Quire The Psalmist saith of man and his sin Man being in honour continued not but became like the Beast that perisheth Honour is the delicate gloss or sparkling lustre of a true Beauty especially the beauty of Spirits delightfully shining forth and reflecting it self upon all Spirits round about it The Divine Order and Harmony alone is the true beauty every where This is immortal Thus man by sin breaks himself off from and so becomes like the Beast without any sense of or sensible subordination to the Order and Harmony of the whole While he cuts himself off from this he dies his disorder is his death the true life of man vanishing together with the Universal and Divine Harmony Every contrary supposeth or constituteth its Correlate contrary the contrary to disorder is order That then which the Scripture speaking with the tongue of a man gives the name of Displeasure Anger Wrath in God is no other than love it self in its naked and golden smiles the Divine Beauty in the purity and simplicity of its most native and unchangeable sweetness the Harmony of the Divine Nature as a Glory eternal calm and Sun-shine opposing themselves to the discord deformity enmity of Sin As they say ill natures are tormented by Musick as the evil Spirit in Saul was cast out by David's Harp So is anger in God the most delicious the most transporting melody sounding through the whole nature of things from Jesus Christ the Universal Image of the Divine Nature and the golden Harp of God which either charms the Spirit of disorder or torments it Contrariorum remedium est contrarium One contrariety is the cure and remedy of another Disorder is reduced into order by the Divine Harmony setting it self in an opposition and contrariety to it While the opposition between these contraries remains they heighten one another This state of opposition is in the Divine Poem or Work as the scene of storms and tempests of Blood Confusion of the blackness of Darkness of Death and Hell This scene coming in as a part of the Variety sets off with a greater heightning even to an extasy of wonder and delight the Sweetnesses the Beauties the Glories of the Divine Harmony surrounding it springing up shining forth with a golden calm and lustre in the midst of it St. Paul divinely represents this to us Rom. 5. ult The Law came in that Sin might abound that where Sin abounded Grace did superabound That as Sin had reigned unto Death so Grace might reign through Righteousness unto eternal Life by Jesus Christ our Lord. The Law which is the contrariety or opposition between the Harmony of Divine Love and the disorder the confusion of Lust 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 came in by the by or by the way in the course or stream of the heavenly Harmony of the general and grand contrivance of Divine Love to set it off and heighten it to raise and transcend all expectations to extend and surprise all Understandings to make the melody of the whole more full by the Variety and more gloriously triumphant by the Discords The evils of Sufferings according to the Law of the Divine Harmony which is the Image of the Divine Wisdom the first Beauty of Truth the Image of the Divine Will the first love and goodness in the Creature have their entrance three ways 1. Every Principle unfolds it self into all the powers and forms contained in it so the evil of Sin which is the root of Disorder springeth up into all manner of disorders through Spirit Soul and Body into all manner of evils of blame shame pain sorrow torment Lust when it conceiveth bringeth forth Sin Sin when it is perfect bringeth forth death All Disorders all Evils all Sufferings are steps and forms of death 2. The disorder of Sin as it is the contrariety in the Harmony is reduced into order and made harmonious in the whole by the opposition and contrariety of the Harmony as in Musick the setting the Concord by the Discord makes the Melody Now as the Harmony is all good of Grace Joy and Glory every good in every kind being a particular Harmony in the universal Harmony so where the Universal Order the Spirit of Order which is the Spirit of Christ and God setteth it self in a Contrariety to any disorderly Spirit there all good of every kind is withdrawn all evil as of loss so of pain ariseth God saith in Deuteronomy If you walk contrary unto me I also will walk contrary unto you Then all Plagues are reckoned up the natural consequencies of this Contrariety Then saith he several times over If you go on to walk contrary to me
Lamb that was slain where his wounds appear in his glorified Person not as Wounds but as Beauties not as Fractures or Stains but as Diamonds or Pearls in the Crown of his Righteousness and Glory Perhaps I may seem too long upon this part of my Discourse but we read of a Sanctuary into which the Holy Spirit entreth when it is perplext with the outward face of the Divine Providence in the evil of sin and Sinners and of Sufferings to the Saints There it seeth the end of all There the mystery openeth it self into an universal Uniform piece and prospect of Divine Beauty and Delight Psal. 73. If I be not deceived Jesus risen from the dead in this order and manner is this Sanctuary this Temple of Grace and Truth He hath now rent the Vail of his Flesh and opened himself into an universal eternal Spirit He now shines out with a sweet amiable clearness and glory into an universal eternal Light In this Spirit which is this Light of Life the whole course of his Work in the Creation and in Providence his Incarnation Sufferings and Death present themselves in all the smallest threads and contextures of them as one Diâ—…ine piece as full of Divinity every where Here all in the whole and in the parts present themselves to the spiritual Eye as beautiful and blessed Spirits in numberless troops by a Divine sport figuring their immortal Glories in all Varieties of lights and shades hiding their Glories beneath these figures breaking with their Glories out of these figures as so many Suns out of their Clouds shewing their figures themselves as Glories Like the Palms and Lilies and Cherubims of the Temple carved first in Cedar and then covered with massy Gold In the mean time all these numberless Spirits in their whole play from the beginning to the end are comprehended in this one Spirit the universal Spirit of Harmony Order Beauty and pleasantness in all Jesus risen from the dead the first and the last the same yesterday to day and for ever O the Wisdom the Power the Grace the Glory the unsearchable Riches of the mystery of God in Christ What a depth is this without any bottom What an heighth without any bound What a breadth what a length without any measure How doth it stretch forth it self beneath all above all through all beyond all things or thoughts Who can ever satisfie himself with any the richest the fullest forms of words or conceptions in conceiving or expressing this Mystery this Jesus But I have now brought to an end according to my weak manner the reducing the disorder it self into order in the Person of Christ by these three sacred steps of Expiation Compensation Abolition of the Disorder in the Order or which is the same the Renovation of the Order in all I have endeavoured to shew how every thing of partâ—…cular order and disorder hath been made beautiful in its season keeping its time in the Universal Harmony of this Song of the Lamb in the Musick of the eternal Word I have also attempted to open that mystery how this Work of God in every part of it with its Beauty is for eternity the light of eternity being the only light of Truth with a golden Calm an unstained Sun-shine of purest perpetual Peace Pleasantness and Glory In this light of eternity alone is the Work of God seen aright in the entire piece in the whole design from the beginning to the end As all times appear in this Light less than a moment a point nothing being as eternity in the undivided Unity of eternity so are all the disorders of time no more not so much as a shadow in a dream that is past but as the highest and sweetest Harmony in the undivided Unity of the eternal Harmony All this is true in the Person of Christ to which the Scriptures give a clear Testimony All things are gathered together in one in Christ both which are in Heaven and which are on Earth Ephes. 1. 10. Having made peace through the blood of his Cross God hath by him reconciled all things to himself by him whether they be things on Earth or in Heaven Col. 1. 20. These are true in us as Christ springs up in us Then only are we our selves baptized Then only do we see all things unto us together with us baptized into the sweet shining boundless bottomless Sea of this universal aâ—…d eternal Harmony when we are baptized into Christ. As many of us as are baptized into Christ are baptized into his Death and into â—…is Resurrection from the dead How then can we live any longer in sin being now dead to it How can we live any life besides that of Holiness and Heaven being now risen again with Christ into the Glory of God Thus St. Paul excludes all pleas of the Flesh for a licentiousness in sin from this Doctrine of the free and rich Grace of God in Christ Rom. 6. 1 2 3 4. I am now come to the end of my design upon this Scripture Eccles. 3. I have been large in the prosecution of my design upon this Scripture my purpose was to reconcile the absoluteness of the Divine Sovereignty Wisdom and Power through this whole Work with the Divine Justice Goodness and Glory in the determination of the Will by its essential Principles by the uninterrupted order and connexion of causes by the first and universal Cause which is most intimate to every effect and worketh most of all Secundum modum naturae in a natural way as being the nâ—…tura naturans I promised two other Scriptures for the making good of this design I will lightly touch them and so hasten to an end of my Discourse The Lord hath made all things for himself yea even the Wicked for the day of evil Prov. 16. 4. There are four parts clear and distinct in this Scripture 1. An efficient cause or beginning The Lord Jehovah 2. The final cause or end For himself 3. The universality of the effect and influence of these Causes The Lord hath made all things for himself 4. A confirmation of this universal influence of these Divine Causes upon every Effect by a particular and most eminent instance Yea even the Wicked for the day of evil Three things are remarkable in this particular instance 1. It is brought in as an anticipation of an Objection and with a two-fold Asseveration Yea even Here in this point men are apt most of all to doubt the continuation and universality of the Divine influence What say they hath God made all things for himself What the evils of Sin and of Suffering Here men of greatest wit through all Ages have been at a stand not knowing how to fasten the golden Links of the Divine Chain in the Work of God one within another Here they have broken the Chain of the holy and heavenly Order Here therefore the Divine Wisdom by Solomon peculiarly fasteneth the Links and maketh the Chain entire that he may enclose
God in it is a Divine secret and mystery of Grace and Glory which hath such recesses such endless Varieties in it that it cannot be traced by the Foot or discovered by the eye of any Creature St. Paul foundeth this incomprehensibleness in the Work of God upon the incomprehensibleness of the Divine Mind He foundeth this unbounded Treasure of Divine Goodness and Glory in the Work of God upon the absoluteness freedom of the Divine Nature ver 35. For who hath known the mind of the Lord and who hath been his Counsellor or who hath given first to him that it may be given again to him by way of return or exchange As are the Riches of the Divine Mind which first forms in it self the Ideas of all its work and then forms every work according to that Idea which rests upon every Work as the Seal upon the Print in the Wax such are the Riches of God in every part of his Work As is the absoluteness unlimitedness of the Divine Nature which consulteth with nothing considereth nothing in the Creature but taketh the measure and the manner of all his Works from eternal patterns in his most glorious Essence and is put on and taketh the rise of all his Works from the ever-ful ever flowing over-flowing fountain and boundless Riches of his Godhead such are all the operations and emanations of the Divine Nature Thus St. Paul concludeth and justifieth the Divine Wonders of incomprehensible Riches Wisdom Knowledge The Divine Wonders of an absolute unconfined freedom in all the Works of God by the cause of all verse 36. Because of him and by him or through him and to him are all things Plato maketh three Causes alone the Efficient Formal or Exemplar and Final St. Paul wraps up all these in one in God alone He is the beginning the way the end of all He is the Fountain out of which they all arise in their several streams He is the Chanel in which every stream runs along He is the Sea into which they all flow where they lose not their Distinctions but rise up to the perfection of them in this Marriage with the first the full and unbounded Glory To what unbounded expectations of Divine Riches surmounting all expectations in every Creature may we now raise our thoughts when the beginning the way the end of every thing thus lies in the Godhead when this Bosom the Treasures of all Glories and Sweetnesses is to every thing its Fountain in which it riseth its Chanel in which it runs along its Sea in which it ends How justly doth St. Paul set a Crown of Glory upon the Head of the Deity in all its Works To him is glory in the Generations so may we most properly read the words How sweetly doth he seal up his own Faith Understanding Love in sweetest Rest and fullest Joy with this Glory Amen Of him through him and to him are all things To him be Glory for ever Amen Thus this last Scripture in a clear Harmony with the other two seems to give a sweet and full close to the Divine Musick of this heavenly Truth and leaves these divinely-delightful touches upon our Spirits 1. God the only Good is equally absolute entire universal in shutting or locking up all men in Unbelief the Prison the Dungeon of deepest darkness as in shewing mercy which is the opening to them the taking them into the Palace of eternal Light the Light of Life the Light of Love the Light of Glory He shuts and none can open he opens and none can shut These are the two Cardinal Acts the shutting up under belief and the shewing mercy Upon which the whole work of the Divine Providence moves through Earth through Hell and Heaven through Time and Eternity 2. Shewing mercy is the end shutting up in unbelief is the means or way to this end Mercy is one of the sweetest names of Love the shutting up in unbelief is then an Act of Divine Love For all motions to the end are in the virtue of the end the end is the light the life the loveliness of the means All means and ways to the end are first comprehended in the end The end by it self immediately formeth them upon the Spirit of the Agent The end through the Spririt of the Agent bringeth forth it self into them as so many tendencies to it self as so many gradual orderly springings forth of its self The end at the last comprehendeth them all again in it self as making up the perfection of the end and having their perfection in the end Thus the severity and wrath of God in its severest Act the shutting up men under unbelief is Love and divinely-lovely 3. God and Love in this Work of his appear to be both one For Love is the end of Wrath By being the end it is also the beginning and the way So also is God For of him and through him and to him are all things to whom is the glory through all Generations The highest expression of God unto our capacity as he is in the simplicity of his Divine Essence is Love This is his Glory as he is unvailed unclouded This is that that darkens and thickens it self into every Vail or Cloud This is a sweetning a gilding upon every Vail every Cloud God as he is Love is the beginning the way the end of every Work through every Generation and so the Glory in every Work to all generations 4. God in his Work is absolute and absolutely free He taketh no counsel he is touched with no motive from any thing without himself The reason and rule of all his Works is alone from himself from within All within is the Unity the simplicity of the Divine Essence uncapable of any mixture or composition all meer clear pure Love 5. The Work of God in shutting up in unbelief and shewing mercy is an unfathomable Depth But is a shining Depth of most perfect Beauty and sweetest Light For it is a Depth of Divine Wisdom it is a Depth of Glory and unsearchable Riches It is a most delicious Depth of Divinest Love the unsearchable Treasure of all the most lovely and most loving Sweets and Joys The work of God is unsearchable incomprehensible infinite but an unsearchable â—…ncomprehensible infinite Love and Glory Let us therefore eâ—…pect in this Work to meet with Difficulties too great for our Understanding Let us be content to say Here is a Depth unfathomable not to my Spirit alone but to every finite Spirit of Man or Angel Then let us add from our knowledge of whom whose the design and the work is It is a lovely a delightful Depth a Depth of purest Glories and richest Loves So let us gladly cast our selves into it to be swallowed up by it concluding all with these words I cannot receive nor comprehend thee Do thou receive and comprehend me O Depth infinitely too glorious to be comprehended by me O my self infinitely blessed in being comprehended by thee I
new upon the supream Goodness in its heavenly Image of the eternal Truth that here by its Will it may lie down for ever with a most blissful Rest with the fulness of all unexpressible complacency in the fruition of the supream Goodness shining forth upon it immediately clasping and enfolding in its own naked immortal most precious most pleasant Form the perfection of Beauty the Essence of all Beauty Truth Goodness and Love in One But it is time now for me to pass from this second Excellency in the Mediatory Form and Person of our Jesus the Harmonious Order and Proportion of the parts The third Excellency in this Mediatory Form of Christ is the Unity of the whole and of the parts as in themselves so with the whole The ground of this Unity is two-fold 1. The Spiritual Nature 2. The Divine Person 1. One ground of this Unity is the Spiritual Nature of all things here St. Paul speaking of the Lord Jesus in this his proper Kingdom and Glory saith of him The Lord is that Spirit That Spirit in the same place he describeth to be the Spirit in which the Vail the Shade and Cloud of Flesh is entirely removed where all things are with open face in the Liberty of the Divine Light and Glory The Lord Jesus faith of himself The words that I speak unto you they are Spirit and they are Life It is the Spirit which quickneth the Flesh profiteth nothing Jesus in his Mediatory Kingdom and Glory casts off the Vail of Flesh as from his Divine so from his Humane Nature The days of his Flesh are now past He is a quickning Spirit all Spirit and Life His Humane Nature is now all Spirit and by having the Godhead hath the Fountain of Spirits and Life in it self All his words in this spiritual state are substantial living immortal Spirits springing forth from and abiding in himself as their heavenly Root and Element After this manner do all Forms of things arise and flourish in him being his words of Power and Glory as the Images in Humane or Angelical Understandings are the words of those Minds Spirits are Unities There is with them no distance of Space or division of Parts All Spirits intimately entirely throughout penetrate possess and inhabit each other transcending all this Image and measure of space of place of corporeal extension The streets in the heavenly Jerusalem are said to be Gold and Glass If I conjecture aright Jesus Christ in his Mediatory State is this glorious City where the great Assembly of the First-born all Spirits born of the Father of Lights Humane or Angelical on Earth or in Heaven dwell together in One. It is expresly said That this City hath the Glory of God that the Glory of the Lord 〈◊〉 it and that the Lamb is the Light thereof How agreeth all this with that Description of Christ the brightness of the Glory of God In this City of glorious and immortal Spirits which is it self the Spirit of Unity and of Glory where Jesus Christ is built up not only into a Temple but into a City in this Spirit the streets the lowest Forms of things are Gold and Glass Such gold as hath the transparency of glass Such glass as hath the substance the solidity the glory the incorruptibleness of Gold Thus is the Unity in the spiritual Nature of things most beautifully and most agreeably figured to us Like Gold it is every where full of it self compact and uniform sending forth continually all various Forms as Beams of Glory Like Glass it discovereth all Forms of things within it self in every point of it self by a perfect transparency all Forms of things endlesly appear in each form At every single view at every single glance the eye of the Spirit is every where terminated no where bounded every where at rest no where restrained 2. The second ground of the Unity in this heavenly Image is the Divine Person All things here are joyned by an hypostatical or personal Union all are one Person A Person is an Intellectual Unity an Intellectual Essence compleatly existing and subsisting in it self The Unity here is not that only of an Intellectual but of a Divine Person God is the Person here As is the Person such is the Unity both are supream The eternal Spirit God himself in the height of Eternity makes both Natures the Uncreated with the Created one in our Lord Jesus without any confusion or lessening the Distinction between the Natures themselves The Unity of a Person is understood by these three Maxims concerning it in Metaphysicks 1. The Person is the Subsistence or the Existence that Unity which is both the Spring and the Chanel the Center and the Circle of the whole Essence or Nature by which it is one by it self and distinct from all other things distinct from it self as it lies in its Causes and is there one with them 2. All Operations are from the Person 3. All denominations belong to the Person The Person then is the indivisible Unity which within it self according to its amplitude springs up into all Varieties of Forms Operations Denominations through the whole Essence and Nature in its utmost extent This is that which works all in all Operations which appears in all Forms which hath all names and denominations which in all these is one and the same hath one Form one Name which comprehendeth all entirely clearly distinctly undividedly According to these grounds we shall see a three-fold Divine and Personal Unity in this Mediatory Form of Christ. 1. The whole is one entire and Divine Person altogether compleat all over divinely beautiful and pleasant All Distinctions Diversities Distances Divisions Contrarieties meet here without distance diversity or division in the supream Unity of one Divine Person onc all-glorious Spirit one Life one most harmonious Image one Love one eternal Joy Behold the Beauty of this more than heavenly Person in these several Elements which compose all Beauty 1. Here is the Variety of lines and colours All forms of things in their richest Variety lie together here 2. Here is Light The substance of the created Image in this Person is the Flower of Light the most immediate sweetest freshest Sun-shine from the Face of the Godhead it self 3. Here is Life esteemed the chief part of Beauty Here is the Life of Love As it is Life which heightens so is it Love which sweetens all A Divine eternal Spring of Life and Love openeth it self in every part and from every part with most pleasant intermixtures diffuseth it self through the whole Thus are all the Beauties here perpetually in sweetest motion in the liveliest and loveliest activity of mutual fruition and the delightful exchange of their Divine Sweetnesses their never-fading Pleasures 4. All this Variety Light Life and Activity are composed into and governed by the most charming the most exact the most universal Harmony 5. The eternal Sun of Beauty it self the eternal Spirit of Harmony the
Creature as the Creature cometh forth from God into its single and proper state through him 3. Jesus Christ as he is the Mediator between God and the Creature as he is One with God so also is he One with the Creature that he may bring forth the Creature from God bring back and home again the Creature to God to make both one in himself I shall endeavour to make plain this part of Christ's Mediatorship the immediate coming forth of the Creature through Christ by several steps 1. Jesus Christ having descended with his Original and essential Image into an Image of Light all clear and transparent in every point of which his essential Glories shine brightly forth Next to this he comes down into a shadowy Image There all the Glories of the two former Images are altogether obscured and hidden beneath this Vail They appear only by a shadowy Figure of themselves formed upon the darkness of this third Image In this shadow of himself the Lord Jesus retaineth entirely the Unity of his Divine and eternal Person All the three Images the Lights of Glory and their shadow dwell together in the Unity of the same Person So do they mutually enfold one another So do they mutually subsist appear and act in each other according to the proper Form of each Image and state The shadow shines and is a substantial Glory in the Glory of the Images above The Images above with all their substantial Glories are shadows in this shadow As St. John saith The Word was made flesh so is God here become a shadow of himself God is the Person in this shadow This shadow subsists in the Person of God The superior Images spread forth the darkness of this Image from themselves over-spreading themselves with it They themselves with all their Glories are as a Divine Seed in it They are the seminal Virtue the seminal Reason or Form springing up through this darkness and filling it throughout with Divine Figures of themselves As the Plants Flowers and Fruits which God made to spring up out of the ground of the Garden in Eden Thus is this shadowy Image divinely-beautiful and rich all an earthly Paradise bearing the Figure of the heavenly Paradise which it hath for its proper Seed and Root hidden within it Jesus Christ in his essential Image is as the substantial and Divine Body of all Glories In his Mediatory Image as a Garment of Light with which that Body cloaths it self all composed of its own richest Beams In this third Image as a shadow cast from both these 2. Jesus Christ in this shadowy Image is the first and universal Creature a created Spirit the immediate Head and Pattern of the whole Creation in general of all Creatures in particular Men and Angels He is the first Draught or Life-Picture of the whole Creation from whence all the Creatures are taken as so many Copies of this Original The superior Images are the Life it self by which this Original and Life-Picture is drawn Thus is Jesus Christ in a third sense the Image of the invisile God and the first-born of every Creature St. Paul seemeth in that place Coloss. 1. 15. to have intended this as the principal sense For he immediately adds That all things were made by him whether visible or invisible and that he is before all things and in him all things did consist or stand together Then when in the consequence of this he had said that Christ is the Head of the Church the first-born from the dead he gives this as a reason relating to both states of Nature and Grace of the Creation and the new Creature in the Resurrection that he in all things might have the preheminence The word is there 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that he might be the first in all things the first in Order Dignity and Power The first Creature in Nature and in the Creation the Head of Nature and the whole Creation The first new Creature in the Resurrection from the dead when Nature and the whole Creation was fallen under the power of death and the Head of the Resurrection The Jews seem to represent Jesus Christ to us in this station of the Creation as the first and universal Creature by two mysteries of theirs For they teach us That the Soul of the Messias was one of those things which were before the World was They say also That the Light of the first Day was a pure and clear Light in which the whole Creation in its whole compass with all Forms of things contained in it through its whole duration from the beginning to the end with all Revolutions and Changes universal or particular were all clearly seen at once in one View and Prospect as one entire most beautiful Divine Image or Picture They say also That at the Fall of Man this Light was withdrawn and hidden beneath the Throne of God until the days of the Messias The Arians of old acknowledged Jesus Christ in this state as a created Spirit the first and universal Creature above and before all things the Head of Angels and of the whole Creation Thus they acknowledged him to be God by representation deputation denomination and generation as being immediately begotten and brought forth from God as the first created Image of the Uncreated Glory comprehending all other created Images originally in himself They ascended right thus high if they had not rested here but by this shadowy Image had been pointed to the Mediatory Image in Life and by the beams of that guided to the essential Image in the Godhead Our natural senses teach us That there is no shadowy reflected and refracted Light where there is not first a pure Light and Sun-shine that the purest Light of the sweetest Sun-shine hath above it the Original Light the essential Light in the Body of the Sun which is indeed the Body of the Sun the Sun it self in its essential Form and Image But let us pass to our third step 3. The Lord Jesus in this shadowy Image is immediately the efficient the exemplar the final Cause of the whole Creation As Light and all the beams flow from the Sun their formal Cause as immediate Figures and Images of him So doth the whole Creation in general and each Creature in particular flow forth from him by continued emanations He is the ground out of which they rise in which they grow and flourish on which he figures and forms himself according to his various Excellencies as the proper fruit of them all into which they sink down and return with all their Life and Sweetness when they disappear Thus are all things made by him and for him that he may live and shine forth in all In him saith St. John was Light and that Light was the life of man where he speaks of the Creation of things by Jesus Christ. 4. I am now come to my last step Jesus Christ in this shadowy Image is in the whole Creation and in every
him If any man be in Christ saith St. Paul he is a new Creation old things are passed away 2 Cor. 5. It is a known story recited by Plutarch That of a great Cry with dreadful shrieks and groans to Thamus a Pilot as he passed by a desolate Island in the Reign of Tiberius under whom Christ was put to death Great Pan is dead this great All is dead The Heathen figured the whole Creation in the Person of their God Pan the Angelical Coelestial and Elementary parts of it 2. The Death of Christ is an universal Resolution or Return of all things as they stand in Christ into their first and Divine Principles The Light the Life the Forms the Essences of all things return into their Ideal Forms their incorruptible Originals and Patterns their pure eternal Springs in the Mediatory Form and Divine Nature of Christ. The shadowyness returns into that blessed shade that fell immediately from the Person of Christ in Glory that Primitive and Divine Darkness which was before the first Day the Womb of the first Light and of the whole Creation which composed those Nights of Beauty Peace and Pleasure the Nights of the six Days the Night of the seventh Day and all the Nights of Paradise Thus was Jesus with the good Thief and all things with him in him in Paradise at his Death The Jewish Rabbins distinguish Paradise from Heaven thus Heaven is a state of Divine Glory and Pleasure above in the open Light of â—…e Godhead Paradise is a state of Divine incorruptible Glory and Pleasure below beneath the shades of the Earth This is that pure primitive Divine Darkness of which I speak which was the shade out of which the pure Earth with all the unstained Forms of things at first arose and into which they now return again in Christ. This is the Divine sleep of all things in the Death of Christ their retirement into their Divine Patterns their sweet and entire rest in them their contemplation and fruition of all the immortal Joys and Glories of their Patterns and of themselves in those Joys and Glories as a Divine dream in this sleep within this sweet this amiable this more than Angelical shade which over-spreads them Here they desirously and delightfully wait for the Day of the Resurrection from the Face of God which they see by degrees dawning and rising upon them when the sweet Peace of this lovely shade shall break up into the more full and glorious sweetness of the supream Light and that eternal Day St. Paul expresseth all this to us when he teacheth us That Christ hath gathered up all things into one in himself Col. 2. The Greek word properly signifies there the Resolution or Return of things back into their first Principle their Original Spring and Pattern 3. The third and last part of the Mediation of Christ in our Redemption as it was accomplished in his own Person is his Resurrection and Ascension These two agree are the same in nature and kind differing only in degree The Resurrection of Christ is the breaking up of that primitive shade which over-spread him into a clear Light of Glory Now he springs up and flourisheth throughout his whole Person and all things together with him in his Person in the Beauty and Immortality of his Mediatory Form He is now become an entire Spirit in his Humane Nature both Soul and Body This two Scriptures make clear to us Jesus Christ saith to Nicodemus Joh. 3. 6. That that which is begotten of the Spirit is Spirit The word there is a Substantive 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a spiritual substance or substantial Spirit Now it is manifest in the Scriptures that the Resurrection of Christ in the Body was an immediate Generation by the eternal Spirit So Divines interpret and apply those words Heb. 1. 5. cited from the second Psalm Thou art my Son this day have I begotten thee Suitable to this is that Scripture Rom. 1. 4. Declared the Son of God with power according to the holy spirit by the Resurrection from the dead Two things are manifest from this Scripture 1. That Jesus Christ was raised from the Dead by the immediate Power and Operation of the holy Spirit 2. That this Resurrection was a Divine Generation by the Spirit through which he was brought forth into the proper Form of the Son of God That which we read declared 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifieth properly defined or determinately formed This receives further Light from St. Peter 1 Pet. 3. 18. Being put to death truly in the flesh but quickned in the spirit We read it by the Spirit but in Grâ—… the Flesh and Spirit do so exactly answer one another in the construction and manner of expression that one would think nothing to be plainer than the intention of the Holy Ghost to signifie that the Flesh and the Spirit had both the same relation to the Person of Christ in those different states of his dying and rising again that by this change the Spirit came in the place of the Flesh and that the Flesh was changed into a Spirit as by a natural Generation that that was Water or Air is made Fire The words are these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 In the same sense in which he died in Flesh or to the Flesh So he rose again in the Spirit or to Spirit That same Body which died a fleshly compounded mortal substance rose again a simple pure immortal Spirit As the Humanity of Christ rose again a Spirit so it rose in an immediate inseparable Union with the eternal Spirit upon the same Root into the same Life and Image St. Paul instructeth us in this mystery 1 Cor. 15. 45. The first Adam was made a living Soul the last Adam a quickning Spirit vers 45. The subject of St. Paul's Discourse there and in many verses before is the Resurrection of the Body He said immediately before It is sown a natural Body 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Body proper for a Soul It is raised a spiritual Body a Body proper for a Spirit vers 44. He illustrates this afterwards The first man is of the Earth earthly the second man is the Lord from Heaven vers 47. Then he distinguisheth them by the names of the earthly and the heavenly man or the Super-Coelestial vers 48. He likewise distinguisheth their two Images the Image of the earthly and the Image of the heavenly or super-coelestial vers 49. Then he concludes with a a positive and emphatical Declaration But this I say brethren that flesh and blood cannot enter into the Kingdom of God vers 50. From these Scriptures laid together these particulars seem evidently to arise 1. Jesus Christ by the Resurrection in his whole Humane Nature both Soul and Body is a supernatural super-coelestial Spirit far above the nature of Souls or Angels in the first Creation 2. The humanity of Christ hath now its Root in Heaven in that Heaven out of which it comes forth
and appears as Lord of all the Heaven of the Fathers Bosom the Heaven of the eternal Spirit and of the Godhead where it hath the Root of its Personality and its Life hidden with God from the natural eye of every Creature 3. The whole Manhood of Christ is cloathed with an heavenly or super-coelestial Image an Image suitable and proper to that Heaven out which he springs 4. The Manhood of Christ is so immediately entirely mutually united to the eternal Spirit the Godhead it self that Christ as he is man is said to be a quickning spirit The Humane Nature and the Divine in the Lord Jesus are so far now become one Spirit as in a mystical Marriage where at the height of their Unity they keep the distinction as high and clear 5. â—…us Christ in his Humane Nature in his Body as well as his Soul is thus become a Spirit in opposition to the earthly and fleshly substance of the natural Body of the first man which is declared incapable of entring into the Kingdom of God 6. This spiritual and super-coelestial state above the natural Body and above the natural Soul of the first man in his primitive state and so above the Creation in its visible or invisible part when it was most pure is properly the Kingdom of God to which that of St. Paul agreeth when he placeth the Kingdom of God in the eternal Spirit Thus the Resurrection of the Lord Jesus is his Return with his Humane Nature with his shadowy Image with the whole Creation in himself into the Immortality and Glory of his Mediatory Form to be there as he was at first This is the Object of his Hope the subject of his Prayer Now O Father glorifie me with thy self with that Glory which I had with thee before the World was Joh. 17. 5. What time that now relates unto you may understand by the fore-going verse I have glorified thee on Earth I have finished the Work which thou gavest me to do Jesus Christ speaketh this by a Prolepsis or Anticipation having his Eye upon the finishing his Work upon the Face of the Earth by dying and finishing his Work in the Heart or nethermost parts of the Earth by lying the appointed time in the Grave Jesus Christ points out to us three eminent Circumstances in his Resurrection 1. The first is a Glory with his Father an Union and Fellowship with the Godhead and with the Person of the Father in his own proper and Divine personal Glory He expresseth this twice over as the chiefest sweetness of his Hopes and the principal Glory in the Glory Glorifie me with thy self with the Glory which I had with thee 2. This Glory transcends that of the whole Creation in its greatest Perfection as it also antecedes it as it also is a Glory which was before the World was 3. Here are three states distinctly represented to us 1. Jesus Christ in Glory before he came into this World before this World was 2. Jesus Christ coming forth from that Glory into this World and being without that Glory all that interval of his Life here 3. The return of Christ at his Death and Resurrection into the same Glory These three states must necessarily respect Jesus Christ in the same form under the same relation to accommodate this sense and make that proper The Person of Christ in his shadowy Image in which he was the Head of the whole Creation and comprehended this all in himself as he took flesh of the Virgin Mary and set himself in the place of all in their fallen estate So He was without the Glory Before all this in his Mediatory Form he stood together with God and his Father in his shadowy Image in Flesh and Blood with all the changes accompanying him after a spiritual manner filled and cloathed with a super-coelestial and eternal Glory Two Scriptures laid together give more light and strength to this place and this sense Jesus Christ having spoken to the Jews of eating his Flesh and drinking his Blood Joh. 6. 56. Of his being the Bread coming down out of Heaven vers 58. Understanding the Jews to murmur and be offended at the hardness of this saying vers 60 61. makes this Reply to their murmurs What if ye shall see the Son of man ascending thither where he was at first or before It is the Spirit quickneth the Flesh profiteth nothing The words which I speak they are Spirit and Life The other Scripture is that Rom. 1. 4. Christ was raised from the dead by the Glory of God From these two Scriptures compared the Truth of this mystery shines forth in these parts 1. The flesh and blood of Jesus Christ in the proper sense of Christ's words are Spirit and Life 2. They were Spirit and Life in the Glory of God before the coming down of Christ upon the Earth 3. From that state they came forth into their shadowy appearance here in this shadowy Image 4. They returned again together with this shadowy Image into that first state where casting off the Vail or rather converting the Vail into the same Nature and Form they were again all Spirit and Life by the Glory of God in the Resurrection springing up in them coming down upon them and taking them into it self Lastly The flesh and blood of Christ even when they are come forth from this spiritual and immortal Glory while they are in this shadowy state upon the Earth abide unchangeably in this Glory and are there still all Spirit all Life without any Vail or Cloud Thus are they the food of a Saint The Lord Jesus expresseth this sense No one hath ascended into Heaven but he who comes down out of Heaven the Son of Man who is in Heaven Two things are remarkable here 1. The being in Heaven is expressed by the Participle of the present Tense a present and constant Act. 2. The Title of the Son of Man is particulary added to that clause of the being in Heaven constantly without interruption while he comes down out of Heaven while he ascends into Heaven in the interval or space of his being on Earth between both these Jesus Christ as he is the Son of Man comes down at first out of that Heaven into which at last he returns and re-ascends In the same Heaven also hath he his present and constant abode while he is on Earth As the Heaven of Christ's Mediatory Glory and of the Fathers Glory which are far above all created Heavens the Heavens of this Creation come down together with him upon the Earth obscured beneath the Vail of Flesh and in this Flesh act all the parts of his living and dying here So do these Heavens also at once comprehend this Earth in the Person of Christ his flesh their obscurity before it All the parts of his Life and Death in the flesh as parts of Glory in these Heavens As Spirit and Life as spiritual and immortal Glories in the Fountain of Life and
Glory the eternal Spirit St. Austin in his Discourses of the Trinity interprets the mission or sending Christ by the Father to be his coming forth out of the invisible Glory of the Father into a visible state and form The invisible Glory being immutable undivided and unconfined comprehendeth constantly in it self after its own manner that visible Form which it sendeth forth from it self Object How do we say that the Manhood of Christ was a Spirit in its Resurrection when he saith in one place to his Disciples A Spirit hath not flesh and bone as ye see me to have In another place he shewed his hands and his side to the Apostles Joh. 20. 20. Again he calleth to Thomas Bring thy finger hither and see mine hands and bring thine hand and put it into my side and be not unbelieving but believing In a visible form he ascended before the eyes of the Apostles and a Cloud took him up out of their sight Act. 1. 9. To this I give three Answers Answ. 1. Jesus Christ intended not that these outward appearances of a natural Form to their outward and natural senses should be in themselves alone any demonstration of his Resurrection and Glory Did not he know that all their senses were equally capable of being deluded by a Fantom or an Apparition of the Devil If Satan can change himself into an Angel of Light to the deluding of our most noble and Divine Faculty our Understanding can he not as easily by the same skill and power change himself into any known or agreeable Object to abuse any of our senses might not he either by false Species or Images impressed upon the outward Organs of sense the natural Spirit the Imagination or by thickning and forming a Body of Air counterfeit the softness the warmth the solidity of Christs Flesh and his Wounds to the touch and to the hands of St. Thomas as well as to his sight and to his eyes Histories of those affairs which write them with greatest Authority and best Reputation tell us of dissolute Persons who have seemed to themselves in the warm embraces of a delightful Person on a soft and rich bed who yet in the end have found themselves with a filthy sow in the mire Answ. 2. We read in Daniel that the Bodies of the Saints in the Resurrection shine as the Sun in the Firmament When Jesus Christ was transfigured his Face did shine as the Sun in its strength If then the Body of our Lord Jesus risen from the dead did remain flesh still yet certainly it was rarified and heightned to such a degree of Spirituality and Glory that it could bear no resemblance to the natural Body the Flesh of Christ in its Humiliation upon the Cross stained and broken with Wounds with Blood with Agonies with the forms of Death invading it Can we think a glorified Body could bear any proportion to our natural senses when our own reason according to the Rules of Philosophy teacheth us That a sensible Object if it excel destroys the sense Our experience makes this plain to us in the Sun which shining clearly forth is uncapable of being lookt upon by us chastizing us with a blindness even to inferior Objects if we dare to cast our eyes upon him yet is he in his brightest Glory but a shadowy Figure of the glorified Body of Christ and of his Saints For when Christ shall appear in his glorified Body and the Saints in their glorified Bodies shall appear and shine in their full splendor with him the Sun shall have no glory before this excelling Glory but be turned into Sack-cloath as the Stars lose their light when the Sun riseth upon them Can we think then our eyes our natural senses or those of the Apostles capable of discerning or taking in the Glory of Christs spiritual Body in its proper and true Form when he was risen from the dead Answ. 3. The holy Spirit saith expresly of these appearances of Christ to the natural senses of the Apostles immediately upon that History of St. Thomus Many truly therefore and other signs Jesus wrought before his Disciples Joh. 20. 30. We read also concerning these appearances of Christ to the Apostles that Jesus Christ presented himself to them alive by many signs or wonders for the space of forty days appearing to them and seen by them These then were Signs or Miracles wrought by Christ which had no force in the outward Form any farther than the eternal Spirit with a Divine Power and Glory wrought in them and shined through them Such Signs and Wonders were the Images of things presented of old to the eyes or imaginations of the Prophets which were of no use any farther than the eternal Word the Glory of God opened it self to the Spirits of the Prophets through them at once discovering them in it self and it self in them So now the Lord Jesus by these Signs to the outward senses at once opened fortified heightned enlarged the Understanding and the spiritual senses of the Apostles and presented himself to them with his whole Man-hood Soul and Body risen into the Glory of his Mediatory Form and of his Divine Nature Here he set before them all those fleshly Forms of his Humiliation of his Incarnation Life and Death through which he had passed in their proper Forms of their several seasons not as shadowy Images to shadowy senses but as the essential eternal Truth the Spirit and Life of them as Mysteries and Glories unvailed and sealing themselves upon the spiritual senses of those whose eyes were thus anointed to behold them This was the sight which Christ presented to Thomas when he said to him with words which carried a new Creation along with them be not unbeliving but believing This was the sight which Thomas saw when he cryed My Lord and my God The Ascention of our Lord Jesus is his passage out of his Mediatory Form and Glory carrying that also up together with himself into the Glory of the Father Jesus Christ distinguisheth between his own Glory and the Glory of his Father Luke 9. 26. When the Son of Man cometh in his own Glory and the Glory of his Father and the Glory of his holy Angels The Glory of the holy Angels is that of this Creation which is subjected to them in which they are according to the Language of the Scripture Principalities Powers and Thrones His own Glory the proper Glory of Christ which he calls his own Glory is that of his Mediatory Form The Glory of his Father transcendeth that shining forth in the supream Unity and purest simplicity of the Godhead This three-fold Glory Jesus Christ united in his own Person Through this three-fold Glory he ascended taking up all with him into the highest Glory He cometh again in the Spirit of Glory and of God as the Root of this three-fold Glory putting forth himself gradually in it through the Saints till by springing and forming himself in them he bring them also
which is the universal and supream good there cleaving to and becoming one with that blessed and triumphant Will it hath no more any sense of opposition or force all things now round about it make a pleasant Musick to it in the Harmony of the Divine Will and shine upon it with a most ravishing and heavenly lustre as they lie together in the Divinely-beautiful Form of the first and universal good This is that true Liberty of the Will of Man in which he transcends all other Creatures here below by which he triumphs over all Chances and Changes over all Confinements and Comâ—…lsions over all the extremities of Force and Fury while it keeps these wings unlimed uncloged unclipt by the filth or guilt of fleshly lusts while it preserves it self from the Chains of Vice 3. I come now to the third Circumstance of the Liberty of the Will Man is to be considered in three states 1. Of pure Nature 2. Of the Fall 3. Of the restitution by Christ. 1. Man in the state of pure Nature is an Image of God an earthly Image Gen. 1. God said let us make man in our own likeness after our own Image let us make him Some interpret this of God in the three Persons others of God Cum indumentis suis as the Jews speak of God in his holy Angels Both together make a proper and full sense God in the holy Trinity God in all the various Virtues of the Divine Nature spread first through the innumerable company of Angels and by them through the whole Creation sets himself as a seal upon man in whom as the Consummation and Crown of his whole Work by this impression he unites all into one Nature and Essence which is a compleat Image of himself and a comprehension of the whole Creation Thus now the Essence the Faculties the Operations of Man are a shadowy similitude and figure of the Divine Essence the Divine Virtues and the Operations of the Divine Nature Thus the Will of Man is a shadowy figure of the Divine Will and its freedom a shadowy resemblance of the Divine Liberty like the colours of a Rainbow in the Cloud which are so many reflections of the light of the Sun That which we say in natural Philosophy Exiisdem nutrimur ex quibus gignimur We are bred and nourished composed and continued by the same things is most true in its application to the first or universal cause with its effects As the Sun is the formal efficient cause of its beams which are its shadowy Image in the air and as the living face is the formal efficient cause of the face in the Glass so is God to man his Image and shadow The continued out-shinings and Operations of the Sun make maintain and act anew its beams every moment The continued stream of Species or beams from the living Face every moment form anew the Face in the Glass with all its meen and motions So doth the Divine Essence the Diviue Understanding and Will every moment by the continual influences of each moment compose and conduct their Image the Essence the Understanding the Will of Man as the Face in the Glass in their whole make manner and motions This is not a diminution but the perfection of Liberty in the Will of Man For God in his holy Angels as superior and universal Causes works upon the Will of Man or rather in it after the manner of an internal Principle So that well known Maxim of the first Philosophy assures us That the first and universal Cause is of all Causes most intimate with every effect As in logical Definitions the summum genus or the highest nature enters into the Definition and so into the Essence of the lowest Species or kind of things inasmuch as it enters into and constitutes the next genus or nature together with all the intermediate natures For examples sake Substance and so Being it self in its highest and most absolute form is comprehended in and constitutes the nature of man descending into it by the intermediate steps of Corporiety and Animality that is becoming first a Corporeal Substance then a living Corporeal Substance lastly a rational and so a man In like manner so is the first and universal Cause the most internal and essential Principle of every effect of all humane Operations of all the acts of the Will For it is the Essence of every Essence the Being of every Being the Act of every Act the first the formal Cause the most immediate the most intimate Cause of every Effect Let me add to this for a Conclusion as the Crown upon the liberty of man in pure nature that his conformity to God as an Image to his Original is his Perfection in this doth his Will become a most beautiful figure of the ever-glorious life the Divine Will that its Liberty is the free-springing flourishing and fruitfulness of it in all good through the whole Latitude and Amplitude of the most spacious and blissful sphere of good and so that a most pleasing and agreeable necessity of being good is inseparable from this sweet and ample freedom while it continues in the state of a Divine Image and Figure 2. In the Fall of Man we read according to the Language of the Scripture of his being deceived being brought into servitude being a Captive in bondage to Vanity and Corruption and of being dead While they boast of Liberty saith St. Peter they themselves are servants to sin For to that of which a man is overcome he is a servant It is the Observation of Plato That the names importing any thing of good natively signifie a freedom of motion as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 good from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to run swiftly On the otherside the names of evil express a restraint from motion as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 malice from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to lie down upon the ground In like manner the Hebrew word for Darkness signifieth restraint and confinement by force All Liberty being an enlargement of Being is comprehended in the nature of good alone Neither is there any thing so inconsistent with Liberty as evil which is a privation of Being Plato therefore rightly expresseth the Soul in her faln state by the loss of both her wings which are an Intellectual Light and an Intellectual Love or the Light of Reason in the Mind spreading it self with a clear brightness as one of the golden wings and the force or freedom of the rational Appetite to good in the Will extending it self in a pure flame as the other of the golden wings To this I might add the testimony which the Scripture gives of another seed that of the Serpents springing up in the Soul unto its fall in its fall and through its fall of the Soul being now the Child of the Devil being implanted into the Powers of Darkness of being acted by the Prince of the Power of the Air the Spirit which is now become its Root its
Persons or to the Sanctification of our Natures 3. The Law which is the Ministry of Wrath is not the first or chief design of God that in which he begins or with which he ends The Divine Love the Beauties of Holiness and the Divine Nature Immortality the Glory of God founded and wrapt up in that one Seed which is Christ from whom together with whom for whose Joy and Glory sake they spring freely fruitfully irresistably subduing all things to themselves These are the first and chief design of God the good pleasure of his Will So St. Paul teaches us Gal. 3. That the promise in the Seed was first and the Law came after that which cannot therefore frustrate the design of the Promise and of the Seed There is a beautiful and rich Scripture opening the Glory of the Divine Design of the Lord to us Rom. 5. 20 21. But the Law came in by the by that Sin might abound but where Sin abounded Grace hath abounded much more That as sin reigned unto death so Grace might reign by Righteousness unto eternal life through our Lord Jesus Christ. Two things are remarkable here 1. The way of the coming in of the Law 2. The end of bringing in of the Law 1. The way of bringing in of the Law is most elegantly and amply expressed in that one word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Law was not brought in first from the beginning nor for its own sake that it should be the end Grace the Divine Love the everlasting Righteousness eternal Life in the Seed the eternal Son of God the Image and fulness of the Godhead the brightness of his Glory Jesus Christ was the great design for which all things are constituted to which all things serve In which God beginneth and endeth all his Works all his Counsels and in which he eternally resteth In the stream and current of this Design the Law it self is brought in as subservient to it In Dramatick Poems which have the design laid in some one entire great and glorious action the continuance is set off heightned by two eminent parts in it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a knot tyed fast in the course of the action then the uniting of this knot which makes the action more full of Variety more glorious more delightful Thus in this great action of time and eternity the bringing of the Sons of God to Glory by their glorious Captain Jesus Christ the Law is brought in in the course ofit as a knot tyed fast which no created Power is able to unty or to understand how it should be loosed This is the way of bringing in the Law 2. The ends of the Law are of two sorts 1. The proper and next ends 2. The extrinsecal and Ultimate ends 1. The proper and next ends of the Law are Sin Condemnation Death and the Divine Wrath. So that St. Paul saith in this Scripture That the Law came in that Sin might abound 1. The Law let in Sin so St. Paul teacheth us expresly Rom. 7. 8. Sin taking occasion by the Commandment wrought in me all concupiscence Again as the 11. verse Sin taking occasion by the Commandment drceived me and slew me 2. The Law heightens Sin so that expression testifieth The Law came in that Sin might abound 3. The Law by bringing in Sin bringeth in upon us a spiritual Death in Sin St. Paul speaking as by a figure of all Mankind in his own person Rom. 7. 9 10. I was alive once without the Law that is in Paradise but the Law coming sin revived or sprung up into life but I died These three ends of the Law flow from it not by it self nor from the nature of the Law but by accident from the weakness of the Flesh and of the Creature So you read verse 10. The Commandment which was unto life in its own nature was found to me unto death in the effects of it verse 13. The holy Spirit opens the design in these effects of the Law Is then that which is good namely the Law made death to me But sin that sin might be made manifest wrought death to me by the good that sin might become excessively sinful by the Law God having a design which he intended to enrich with the fullest the highest Glories of his Godhead brings forth in the course of this design a dark scene of all evils Sin Death Wrath The evil in this scene is carried on to its utmost extent and heighth Thus the Variety becomes more full in the whole design and the chief design is heightned in its sweetest Glory God through his infinite Wisdom so bringeth in this scene of sin and evil that himself is perfectly pure and good in the contrivance and conduct of it He setteth up a Law good holy and spiritual but such that sin inevitably may take occasion from it through the frailty of Flesh and of the Creature to spring up by it unto an overflowing Flood to display it self over all things in its fullest foulest Forms and Births 4. The Law hath for its proper end the conviction condemnation and death of all men 1. The conviction of the Law is two-fold 1. Man is convinced of his frailty and consequent mutability in his Primitive state before the Fall So saith the Psalmist Man in his best state is altogether Vanity He is the shadow not the very Image the true Glory He hath a shadow of Righteousness of Wisdom of Power a shadow only of Life a shadow of Being Christ only in his heavenly Image and eternal State is the Life it self the truth of all these Man in Paradise had no Being Life or Motion of himself or in himself As a meer shadow is no more than it is in its proper substance on which it depends If it be any thing in it self it is no more a shadow but the substance The Spirit saith of the Heavens and the Earth That God turneth them as the Wax to or by the Seal The Divine presence and appearance in man newly created was the Seal to this Virgin Wax which as it changed changeth the impressions upon it together with its whole form 2. The Law convinceth man of his faln state of the evil of this state that there is no good or power of good at all in him That the whole person and nature of man is only evil and altogether evil Thus St. Paul chargeth Mankind universally Jews and Gentiles There is none that doth good no not one The poyson of Asps is under their Tongue they are altogether corrupt They have not known the way of peace He presseth this charge universally by these words Now we know That that which the Law saith it saith to those that are under the Law Now we know that all Mankind according to the state of nature and in the first Creation is under the Law if there be any difference found among men it ariseth not from nature or the principles of