Understanding and that to understand things is to know them by their causes which plainly infers that God alone is the Truth of every Creature and in every Creature that He alone terminates and gives rest to our Understandings in as much as He is the first Cause Our design and desire is to establish most firmely and clearly the immutable and everlasting bounds between God and the Creature The Creature truly really is in the proper rank and order of its own Being but all that it is in the presence of the Divine Being in comparison with it is like a dream when one awakes less than nothing Every Creature at its best estate is vanity an obscure empty shadow of its Divine Original in God The Creature is nothing of it self or by it self but a momentany emanation from God sent forth from him sustained by Him comprehended by him and filled with him God is not the Creature yet is he in the Creature not Circumscriptivè nor Definitivè confined to the Creature or defined by the Creature but Repletivè filling all in all in every Creature St. Paul saith of him That he is above all in all and through all Above all as incomprehensibly transcending all as the eternal universal Head of all In all as the truth the fulness of all by each Idea in each Creature like the Seal in the Impression Through all as the perfection and end of all 2. Argument The second Argument is the Trinity in God God is the first and so the most perfect Unity every way undivided every way unconfined in all-comprehending all-transcending incomprehensible Unity eminently transcendently one in all one with all uniting all most full most fruitful the Spring of all things This is God the Father the God-head in its fountain as it is its own fountain This is the first Person the universal Being in its most complete existence and subsistence in an entire Unity All our senses our intellectual powers every where present to us an unity and a variety equally inseparable the inclinations of all our faculties carry us equally to both these these two joyntly constitute and compose all essences and forms of things all our objects entertainments and delights Unity without distinction or variety is a barrenness a melancholy a solitude a blackness of Darkness a death beyond any thing existent or imaginable in the nature of things A distinction or variety without unity is a confusion a wilderness beyond the wildest fancy a distraction beyond all madness Variety is every way equal to an Unity as positive as real as ample as high As the first and most perfect Unity comprehends all Variety in it self as one with it self and so is as properly as formally variety as unity so doth the first and most perfect Variety comprehend the Unity in it self in its own proper essence and formality for if the Variety were not all things and so the highest Unity it were not a full Variety Thus are both these every way equal equally all most perfectly one most perfectly distinct by being both the proper character of each the first and highest Unity the first and fullest Distinction or Variety The God-head in the second Person is the first Distinction or Variety and so the most perfect Variety equal with the Father equally a Divine Person All variety of Being in a most complete most distinct existence or subsistence in an entire Unity All fulness All the fulness of the Godhead is said to dwell in him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 bodily or personally that is essentially substantially entirely distinctly in the highest and most perfect Unity with the clearest and compleatest Variety Thus is this Person at once most perfectly one with the Father having the Father in himself and being himself in the Father Thus is He also distinct from the Father with the highest and most perfect Distinction being Himself the first the fullest Distinction and Variety in its most abstracted form and so in its greatest amplitude Jesus Christ as He is this Second Person is known peculiarly by this Name 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as it comes from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifieth to gather together the proper Name of Christ as He is the first and most universal Variety Upon this ground also he is stiled 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the manifoldly various Wisdom of God This is the brightness of the Glory of God that is the effulgency of the Divine Glory or Godhead shining out clearly and distinctly into all beautiful and blessed Varieties so richly beyond all number and limit contained in it This is the effulgency of the God-head shining out into an essential Image a clear distinct Image of it self in the fulness of its Divine Essence and into all Images all forms of things eternally springing up fresh and new in the brightness and glory of this essential Image which is it self ever entire ever new and distinct with the highest Distinction in every one of these This is the first and fullest Distinction this of the Image from its Original in the Divine Nature This is Variety it self in its abstracted and essential form where it is most absolute most free and unconfined being it self entire the first the freshest the fullest Variety an ever springing fountain of all Varieties in every part of the Variety This is the proper form the unvailed face the uncircumscribed Amplitude and Majesty of God Variety it self with its most unlimited fulness with its clearest light and lustre in a most absolute most entire undivided Unity This is the Second of the Three in the adored Trinity God the third Person the Holy Spirit is the Union of these two He proceedeth from these two as the spiration or conspiration of these two meeting in one As the Father and the Son are one by the first and highest Unity as they are distinct by the first and fullest Distinction so are they at once equally one and equally distinct This is the proper form of Union a concurrence of Distinction and Unity where two as two are one retaining their distinction in their Unity Thus meeting in a third this third is equal to the other two containing them both in it self It is one with the other two and in the other two by having the Unity in it self It is distinct from the other two by having the first and highest Distinction in it self The Union of variety and Unity is the essence of Harmòny Unity of a variety variety in an Unity is the essential form of Harmony God then being in Himself the first Unity the first Variety in their first Union is the first harmony the most perfect the most exalted the universal Harmony the fountain of all Harmonies All things lie here in a perfect Harmony This Harmony comprehendeth all things in it self diffuseth it self through all Every thing every where lieth within the bounds and measures of this Divine Harmony is measured and governed by it springeth forth from it beareth the figure
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
most beautiful Ideas of his Skill and Wisdome Shall he not here lay on the greatest Riches of his Divine Goodness Shall he not stamp on these the most glorious Seal of his Truth his Faithfulness to the work of his hands Shall he not give the most heightned life and sweetning to this Seal of his Goodness Truth and Skill Doth not he understand that the perfection of the whole work lies that the praise and glory of the Workman depends principally if not entirely upon these Joynts on which the motion of the whole in so high a degree depends I will briefly conclude this part of my Discourse Reader think of God as Sweetness it self all pure unmixt unconfined Think of God as the Spirit of Love Beauty Joy all in one in their most abstracted Essences in their highest Exaltation in their greatest amplitude in their most potent vigour incorruptible eternal Think of God as the purest and richest Spring without beginning or end as the clearest Sea without bottom or bounds of all Perfections in the highest degree of Pleasantness of all Pleasantness in the highest Perfection Think of all things together with thy self in this God the Unchangeable Original of all according to their first and truest forms according to their eternal Truths one Goodness and Sweetness together with this goodness and sweetness it self one Spirit with this Spirit of all Loves Beauties and Joys in Divine figures divinely distinct as the first and fullest Variety in the first and entirest Unity When thou hast thought thus of God now think whether all things within thee do not with the fullest concurrence meet in this one only most passionate desire that this God may alone conduct his whole Work the whole course of all things that he may be present may act may appear alone in every part in every motion of it as filling so many figures and shadows of Himself After all consider whether that ground in which is founded the desire of this as the most perfect good the Object of all desires be not as firm a foundation for the belief of this no less agreeable Truth to the Understanding than it is of good to the Will Can Goodness and Truth be separated when Truth is Goodness in its essential Image in its fullest fairest reflection Shall not the most perfect Workman bring forth the most perfect Work the best from the best Shall not the highest God the most true of Himself thus do who is the supream Good whose Will is Goodness it self where as Ficinus upon Plato speaks the highest Voluntariness and the highest Necessity most beautifully and most pleasantly meet in the most inviolable band of the most true the most perfect Good 2. Head of Arguments I pass now to the second Head of Arguments taken from the Mediation of Christ and opposed to that Liberty of the Will which is placed in a freedome from the predetermination of its Acts in its essential Principles and superior Causes My method of treating of the Mediation of Christ and directing my Discourse upon it to the service of my present design shall be this I will endeavour with all humility and holy reverence by the conduct of that sweet Light which falls from the Face of Christ by the guidance of his Eyes the only Fountain of Grace and Truth to set before us the Lord Jesus in those three principal Parts of his Mediation as he is 1. The ground 2. The way 3. The end of the whole Work of God 1. Jesus Christ is the ground of the whole Work of God This is the first and principal part of Christ's Mediation in which he is the Golden Head of the whole Image of things in Grace and Nature This well understood according to the weak capacity of our Understanding here below seemeth to make all the other parts of the Mediatorship with the whole tract of things plain and pleasant That which in Divinity and Philosophy is understood by the name of a Person is an Intellectual Being compleatly existing Therefore God Angels which are called Gods and Men made in the Image of God which are also dignified with the Name of God in the holy Scripture are only stiled and esteemed Persons The reason of the Name I humbly conceive to be this Every Intellectual Spirit according to the propriety of its Nature and Essence comprehendeth entirely within it self the principle of its own Essence its essential form and operation by comprehending in it self the whole nature of things The Understanding in its perfect Act and Being in its largest compass are said by Philosophers to meet in a mutual proportion and union the one being the proper and adequate Object of the other Therefore the Greeks call every Intellectual Spirit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the whole The prime operation of every Intellectual Spirit is contemplation The first and immediate Object of its contemplation is its own Essence In this Glass of living and immortal Light all other things according to their proper essences in their several and essential forms appear to it most clearly and delightfully as its own Births and Beauties God the first and most perfect the Father and King of all Intellectual Spirits is the truest Person He alone in truth subsisteth in himself existeth without and above all things He truly containeth the whole compass of things in their unchangeable Truths and Substances within himself although he Himself be the most absolute and most abstracted Unity Angels and Men in the perfection of their Natures are no more than shadowy persons They have only shadowy Essences a shadowy comprehension of shadows God then alone most perfectly and substantially enjoyeth Himself in the contemplation of Himself which is the Beatifical Vision of the most beautiful the most blessed Essence of Essences This Act of Contemplation is an Intellectual and Divine Generation in which the Divine Essence with an eternity of most heightned Pleasures eternally bringeth forth it self within it self into an Image of it self According to the Perfection in which God knoweth Himself and enjoyeth Himself so is the Perfection of this Image As those are so is this clear distinct and full The more distinct the beam is from the first Light in its emanation the more strong and full is the reflectiou This Divine Image then is at once most perfectly distinct from its Divine Original most exactly equal to it and most perfectly one with it As then God is so is this essential eternal Image of God a compleat and distinct Person in it self in every point with the highest and most ravishing agreeableness answering the Divine Esseunce in its spring out of which it ariseth If this Image were not a compleat Person Gods knowledge and fruition of Himself would be incompleat without the pleasing and proportionate returns of an equal Loveliness Life and Love If this Image were not most perfectly distinct from the bosome out of which it flourisheth the knowledge and enjoyment of God would be confused more
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
Bodies 2. The freedome of Plants 3. The freedome of brnit Creatures 4. The freedome of intellectual Agents 1. The freedome of the Elements and Coelestial Bodies consisteth in that motion and rest which is generally esteemed and stiled simply natural The principle of their motion and rest is nature guiding their motions and rests in the figure of Divine motions and rests their invisible Patterns and Originals either by way of instinct or by the assistance of intelligences as the Peripateticks Schools assert or informed by Intellectual Angelical Divine Souls as the Academy teacheth The sphere of their motion and rest is their own proper place Adaequate to their Dimensions They move and rest naturally within themselves This is their liberty Such also is their liberty in their parts and mixtures which also being by violence carried out of their proper places naturally tend to them by a simple motion in a strait line This is the first Order in the liberty of things a liberty from outward force or constraint with a confinement to a single simple motion and rest at least in their material and corporeal part Thus the Peripateticks make the Spheres of the Elements the first and lowest order of Corporeal substances and compleat being confining them to Forms meerly natural and in a manner allowing them only single and simple local motion After the same manner also they circumscribe the Coelestial Spheres giving them only this two-fold preheminence 1. One of a fifth essence compounded of a distinct matter and form 2. The other of assisting forms or intelligences moving them With these their grounds agreeth the Ptolemaiical System But as before I toucht the ancient Academy sets these spheres of the world in a higher rank attributing to them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 making them rational Beings Angels Gods Copernicus also sets them at liberty altering the whole design of their local motions and inlarging them to a greater variety 2. In the second place is the liberty of Plants which is a vital liberty The principle of their motion and rest is animate a vegetative Soul which hath in it self a variety of formal Acts or Virtues according to which it formeth to it self an Organical body composed of differing parts framed to be proper Instruments for the diversity of these vital Acts. In like manner doth this soul of the plant put forth it self into diversity of motions in its proper body yet are all these motions confined to the body of the plant it self or to a very narrow sphere round about it The plant also it self is fixt by its root in one place and immoveable there The Ratio seminalis the seminal harmony which is the essential form and the proper soul of the plant as it is a vegetative soul gives measure both to the principle of motion in the plant and to the sphere or compass of its motion being thus the ground and bound of this vital liberty This seminal harmony is the contracted and fainter off-spring of the imaginative form as those are freer clearer livelier Births and Images of rational forms which are the living pictures of the intellectual and essential Ideas either In superiour Souls or In superiour parts of the same Soul These intellectual Ideas or essences are also rich and ample streams of light and life flowing from their Divine Unities and springs in the supream eternal Unity the first seat and head of all liberty 3. The liberty of bruit Creatures hath the third place this is the liberty of sense The principle of this liberty is the sensitive soul which hath its chief seat in the imagination Here is the amplitude of its Kingdom and the power of its Rule This being immediately subordinate to the rational intellectual power is that Sea whence all the springs and streams of the inferior and outward senses as of the local motions go forth and into which they again flow with all their force and efficacy Here they are united here they have their various mixtures here they have their greatest amplitude and heightning The motions here are no more fixed in one place nor confined to the compass of their own proper Subject but enlarge themselves after their several manner according to the amplitude of the object of sense which is the whole Corporeal world There are indeed divers ranks of sensitive Creatures which have divers degrees of liberty 1. Some are confined to particular Elements 2. Others have the liberty of distinct Elements All that are perfect in the order of sensitive being agree in this that they have the liberty of progressive motion of motion from place to place variously according to the variety of their appetites governed by the ample light of their imaginations This chiefest freedom of sense is placed in the imagination this being the first and highest faculty of the sensitive Soul where it is in its perfection is as ample as the universal object of sense the whole Corporeal world Some Philosophers teach us That the imagination is the immediate former of this universal Image which comprehends all corporeity the visible Heavens and Earth in it self Others that it hath a commanding power upon this universal Image and all the parts of it having the force of all magick in its self to alter the motions of the heavenly bodies and the Constitutions of the Elements This is more universally understood that it not only takes in and enjoys the sensitive forms of all the objects of sense uniting and varying them according to its own pleasure but also that it espouseth in it self the spiritual and corporeal world to each other receiving the impressions the similitudes the illapses of the invisible Glories as the Originals into their sensitive Image and heightning the sensitive Image to a greatness and glory above it self by this communion with its invisible patterns The sensitive appetite hath an inseparable conjunction with and conformity to the imagination They mutually influence excite and govern each other They have both objects of equal extent The good of the sensitive being which is the object of its appetite is not only the preservation of its own being but its pleasure and proper happiness in the fruition of the sensitive forms of things which fruition is compleated in the imagination 4. The liberty of intellectual beings is the utmost point of liberty comprehending in the general nature of it God as the Original and Angels and Men as the immediate immortal clearest compleatest Copies of that Original This is properly the liberty of Spirits of the Father of Spirits and of the Sons of the eternal Spirit The ground of this liberty is the Divine essence and the Divine Image of that essence The sphere or compass of this liberty is being it self in its greatest extent in its first highest and most universal form with all its unbounded self-bounding varieties and in its descent into all forms of things figuring or shadowing it self upon them filling them with it self Thus the Schools teach us That ens
relations from the Creature to it self Thus doth the Divine goodness in the Divine VVill terminate the relation of every created VVill to it self in the agreeableness or disagreeableness of every Act. This supream goodness then hath in it self the measure of this agreeableness and disagreeableness which it receiveth not from without but hath originally in it self So all the acts of the VVill according to their conformity with or deformity from the first goodness derive themselves from their proper Original in that goodness Accordingly the Goodness and the Will of God hath a complacency in every Act of the VVill if it be agreeable to it or an aversion from it if it be disagreeable Thus is the created VVill in all its motions with their several most exact distinctions the Object of the eternal VVill in its love or hatred Every faculty or power hath an essential relation to its proper object and dependance upon it It is drawn forth by it into the most proper Acts of its essence and receiveth from it the perfection of its essence which consisteth in its Activity The supream VVill the supream Goodness being perfectly eternally in Act hath all its Acts all its Objects by which it is actuated perfectly eternally from and in it self Object You will say How can this be Can the Divine VVill which is infinitely pure in the beauties of Holiness in the joys of all blessedness comprehend in it self Good and Evil agreeableness and disagreeableness to it self which are the proper measures and essential forms of all good and evil Can it comprehend in it self Objects of Love and Hatred Can this Fountain send forth from it self sweet and bitter waters How is it holy if there be these mixtures How is it happy if it be thus divided within it self Answ. The Flats and Sharpes the Bases and Trebles the Concords and Discords of Musick are all comprehended by the spirit of the Musician in one Act of Harmony in one simple and undivided Act of Harmony This single Act of Harmony by its proper force first invented and formed all Musical Instruments prepared them for it self through all the diversity of touches and motions actuated them that it might compleatly figure and display upon them and upon all things round about them it self in its own full sweetness according to all those rich varieties virtually and eminently comprehended within it self in one simple Act. So in one indivisible Act or Idea of beauty in the Spirit of the Painter lie together all the differing lines lights shades and colours by which that Idea reflecteth it self in Picture upon the eyes and spirits of the Beholder In like manner the far greater perfection the Will of God being a simple 〈◊〉 of Goodness supreamly indivisible and eternal containeth originally eminently within it self complacency and aversion love and hatred with their several objects in their several forms and degrees in their several risings and fallings most properly and harmoniously suited to each other From it self doth this supream Goodness bring forth its own Objects like tuned Instruments wound up or let down every way prepared for the diffusion and discovery of it self upon them in those Varieties of love and hatred complacency and aversion with their several steps or modifications which as so many distinct forms or virtues of the Divine Goodness dwell together there in the highest and most absolute Variety as in the fullest and most unconfined Unity The Will of God is commonly and rightly distinguished into positive and permissive Evil is by the permissive Good from the positive Will of God All the determinations and motions of the Will in every Spirit are at least from the permission of the Divine Will I will not now enquire how the most perfect Goodness can be permissive in that in which it is positive This only I take which is universally granted That there is no permissive Will in God without a positive Act. He permitteth nothing without a positive Act of his Will for that permission If the permission of any Act in the will of man antecede that Act then is that act or motion of the humane will the Object of a positive Act of the Divine Will for the permission of it before it be brought forth here below This objective existence in the Divine Will is either the Copy or the Original to that motion in the will of the Creature If it be universally received by all Understandings from the universal Harmony and principles of Truth that the Divine Nature can take no Copy receive no Impression of any thing from any thing without it self it necessarily followeth that all motions in the will of man flow from that antecedent existence which they have in the Divine Will as the Objects of that Thus that I may not be too long upon this Head of Arguments drawn from the Divine Nature I have contracted three sorts of Arguments into one Those from the Will the Goodness the Power of God being drawn together under that of the Divine Power I have in it built upon this sure ground The VVill of God is the first the supream the essential Goodness The Goodness of God is his Power As every thing depends upon the VVill of God in its permission or positive Act As all things in their measures of Good or Evil lie together in the Divine Goodness the Original the eternal measure of all Good and Evil so have all Powers all Acts and Motions of Power their first spring their exact form and rule in the Power of God 5. Argument The fifth Argument is the Knowledge of God This is in our present cause a most celebrated Argument I shall therefore endeavour to represent the state of it with all exactness clearness and integrity that I can bring to it I shall divide this Argument into two parts 1. The first is the perfection of the Divine Knowledge 2. The second is the Original 1. Part. The first part is the perfection of the Divine Knowledge This consisteth in two things 1. The Comprehensiveness 2. The distinctness of the Knowledge VVe then know perfectly when we know all things capable of being known when we know each thing in its proper distinction in all its distinct forms properties and relations Shall not He who made the eye see Shall not the Fountain of Knowledge contain all Knowledges after the most exact and eminent manner Shall not He know all things most accurately by whom all things know and are known St. Peter saith to Jesus Christ as to God Lord Lord thou knowest all things thou knowest that I love thee See two things remarkable here 1. The universality of Christ's Knowledge extending its self to all things 2. A confirmation of this by a particular instance Thou knowest that I love thee The instance is most pertinent to our present purpose It is that peculiar Object of Knowledge which is the ground and subject of this Discourse the Will of Man the motions of the will the freest
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
power the pattern the meritorious the efficient the formal cause of all this in his Humiliation and Exaltation If Jesus Christ be a created form living immortal glorious containing in himself the whole Creation with all its Vicissitudes of Lives and Deaths in one entire Beauty more fresh more fair more full then ever it can be in it self if it be seen at one view at the uttermost heighth of all sweetness softness amiableness lustre that it is capable of although that be true which some say that the World in the whole is the most beautiful of all things or which others say that it is an Angel This created form then hath a Prototype its Original Image its exemplar Cause in eternity in God on which it depends and from which it flows otherwise it is not a created form but uncreated absolute and eternal This Original Image is one with the first the supream Image of eternity and of God For all things are there as in the fullest Variety so in the most entire Unity This then is the Godhead of Christ that essential Image of the Divine Nature in which Jesus Christ with all his created Glories pre-exists in eternity from whence he descends into a created state and hath there an existency antecedent to every other Creature If this Jesus be the first and universal Creature the whole world in one Spirit and Person who takes flesh of the Virgin Mary then doth the whole world live die and rise again in him Now is his Death the Death of the whole world his Resurrection is the universal Resurrection of the whole world in its Divine Head and in its immortal Root Now is Jesus Christ a Sacrifice for our Redemption Sanctification Salvation not by an imaginary notional arbitrary Imputation but a judgment founded upon the Divine Nature of things and a real immediate Union between Christ and the World as a Divine Seed and a Divine Plant which with a Divine eminency is comprehended in that Seed and virtually produced out of it receiving every moment its alterations from it according to the seminal and Divine proportions treasured up in it Thus Christ takes away the Sin of the World thus he makes all things new These are only glances by the way 2. The second Consideration which moved me to touch this string is the perfection and the heightning which it seems to give to the whole mystery of Divine Truth in the Scripture and in the Gospel A sweet and beautiful line would probably arise from this Point to illustrate many and principal Scriptures many and principal Mysteries of the Gospel if it were found consonant to the letter of the Scripture to the Analogy of Faith and so generally received I will now therefore offer in few words a reason or two in this case leaving the judgment of it and the full prosecution to those who have either Humane or Divine Learning in these things above my self 1. The first or rather cluster of Reasons lieth in that Scripture Col. 1. 15 16 17. 1. Christ is here described in the proper Character of his Divine Person as the general ground of his Mediatorship by these words Who is the Image of the invisible God He is the Image of God by way of eminence the first the supream the most perfect Image representing the Essence the Substance the Unity of God to himself within himself essentially substantially in his own proper Unity He is the Image of the invisible God as he is invisible in that Glory of his own eternal form in which he is visible by no Light to no Light to no Eye in no Spirit besides his own He is the only Image of God in every Image the Image of God in its first state upon the Throne in its descent through all states in the Grave unto the nethermost parts of the Earth until it return and re-ascend above all Heavens thither where it was at first 2. Jesus Christ is here described in the two parts of his Mediatorship one relating to the state of Nature the other to the state of Grace At the 25. verse he is stiled the first-born of every Creature at the 18. verse the first-born from the dead These two being contra-distinguished from each other seem to point at and paint forth Jesus Christ in two different forms agreeing both in this that they have their ground in his eternal form and are subordinate to it These two being contra-distinguished and answering each other seem to be interpreted one by the other Jesus is the first-born of the Resurrection in a two-fold sense He is the first of those that rise from beneath the shades of this Creation into the true Heavens the Holy of Holies the unvailed Glory of God He is the fulness of the Resurrection He as a Divine Head comprehendeth clearly compleatly eminently in himself all these who are to rise as Divine Members of himself inseparably joyned in the Unity of the same Divine Spirit They all rise together with him at his Resurrection He is the Fountain of the Resurrection Every one in his own proper person and season riseth up out of him by his Power in the Virtue of his Resurrection After the same manner is Jesus the first-born of every Creature He is the first the fulness the fountain of the Creation He is the first Creature So in the 17. verse in the illustration of this state as he is the first of every Creature it is said He is before all things He pre-existed in a created form when there was yet no other Creature formed All things were made in him whether visible or invisible Principalities Powers or Thrones things in Heaven or on Earth and all things stood together in him saith St. Paul verse 17. So the Greek words in both verses are most properly rendred Great men in the mystery of Philosophy and Divinty affirm That which is below to be the same with that which is above Every Flower on Earth is a Star in the Firmament Each Star an Angel in the Heavens above If this be St. Paul's sense which we have represented from these words the Elements with all of them the visible Heavens with all in them the innumerable Company of Angels in their invisible Heavens have all met and subsisted together in one created Form in one Divine Spirit and Person which is our Jesus In this Person they are not Flowers of Beauty not Stars of Light not Angels of Glory but Divine Forms antecedent and transcendent to the brightest Cherubims the highest the most flaming Seraphims Thus they exist in Christ. Thus with the unsearchable Riches of all agreeable Varieties they make up the Body of Christ as he is the created Head of all Thus as he is the first of all Creatures so is he the fulness of the whole Creation He is also the Fountain St. Paul addeth also this All things were made by him verse 16. All Creatures flow from him as second Lights are cast from the first
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
the Flower where it appears as a Flower from beneath the water of a pleasant stream Judicious Reader can a place be found or imagined here for any Arbitrary Liberty for any extravagant Liberty for any Liberty besides that only true only desirable only agreeable Liberty the Liberty of the Harmony and Unity Is there any Liberty besides this the Liberty of the part in the Harmony of the whole keeping its proper place order course in the whole with all most plâ—…asing most charming agreeableness to it self to the whole to every part and the Liberty of the whole in the part freely fully posâ—…essed enjoyed in each part by the virtue of the Unity in the Harmony Object But you will say if there were not in the primitive state of the Soul another Liberty a Liberty of Discord a Liberty of breaking the Unity and the Harmony How was the Harmony ever changed into Enmity How fell the Soul from the Heaven of this Harmony from the heavenly Throne of this Divine Unity in which it reigned over all through all with such a full Joy and Glory to it self to all Answ. I shall attempt the removal of this Difficulty in my Discourse upon the Soul in her second state I hope there to represent the Fall springing from the Divine Harmony and Unity in the Essence of the Soul contained in it and a part of it 2. The second state into which the Soul passeth is the Fall This is the second Scene which openeth it self in the Soul a Scene of Trouble and Tumult of Darkness and Storms of Witch-crafts Devils Death and Wrath of Privations and Contrarieties which make the Variety more full which heighten set off enlarge the Harmony and the Unity In this Scene all this World riseth up and appears This the Holy Spirit with Divine skill clearly and fully openeth to us in this Scripture which is the ground of this part of my Discourse Rom. 1. 21. Because when they knew God they glorified him not as God neither were thankful but became vain in their imaginations and their foolish heart was darkned c. I will only touch the Heads of things lightly passing over them I shall comprise that which I have to say of the Fall in these four Propositions 1. Proposition The first change at the Fall of Man was in his Understanding All the expressions in this and the two following verses plainly and alone describe the Disorders in the Understanding as we shall clearly see The first Instance in the Fall is the not glorifying God as God Tâ—…lly affirmeth Glory to be as it were the Eccho of Virtue Glory is the Image of some excellent Object shining forth from it reflecting upon it and upon all things round about it Thus Christ is the Glory of God a Saint is the Glory of Christ. Man glorifieth God as God when the true and proper Image of God in the Excellencies and Perfections of the Divine Nature shineth in his Understanding from thence reflecteth and multiplieth it self in its beâ—…ms in its continual shinings upon God himself upon all Understandings all Spirits round about it Contraries are seated in the same subject The glorifying of God is the Act of the Understanding Accordingly the not glorifying of God is a defect in the Understanding the want of the Divine Image and its reflections there The holy Apostle in the following words sets forth the Fall by fuller expressions of that Defect which is opposite to the glorifying of God But they became vain in their imaginations 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 properly reasonings their foolish heart was darkned Every word here points to the Understanding as the seat of the first the principal the leading change in the Fall of Man They became vain in their reasonings Vanity is an emptiness It is the same with falshood in the Language of the Scripture an empty false shew without the substance the truth Reason is the Divine Image which is the only Light of all Truth springing and shining in the Understanding or the Understanding it self The reasonings of man in his primitive state were the several Parts the several Truths in this Image calling to answering one another by virtue of the Sympathy and Unity comparing themselves in that Unity with each other This Image in the Fall vanisheth into a counterfeit Image breaking it self into innumerable false Images full of disorder confusion and contradictions ever fighting with each other The foolish heart in the Text as the Greek word imports is the Heart without Understanding deprived of the Divine Image which is the Light Upon this immediately follows Darkness which is the privation or absence of Light Thus their foolish hearts were darkned The Concomitant and formal effect of this Darkness or rather the proper Form of this Darkness is further amplified by a two-fold Illustration if we may attribute forms or effects to privations When they professed themselves to be wise they became Fools vers 22. How manifestly is the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil here figured with man eating of it The Divine Image withdrawn the false Image composed of darkness is embraced in the Soul as the true Light the true Image the true Wisdome in which Man now seems to himself to have the power and the perfection of his own Being in himself Now the false shew of a counterfeit Liberty in the Will springs up through this Darkness Thus is the Wisdome of Man become Foolishness verse 22. They turned the Glory of the Incorruptible God into the similitude of the Image of a corruptible Man of Birds c. verse 25. They turned the truth of God into a lye Man was made a total but a shadowy Image of God The rest of the Creatures were as several parts of this Image partial Representations of that Glory each a differing Figure from the other in which something of the Glory was seen which appeared not in the other The Divine presence in its own proper and eternal Image stood in this shadowy Image filled it shined through it was the Light and Truth of it As a Sun-beam penetrates fills enlightens appears through a shady coloured Glass so was the Divine Form in the Form of Man The Truth in its shadow When the Divine presence in its own Divine Form withdrew it self into it self the ensuing Darkness fills the shadowy Image As he that looks through the clear glass in a Window sees the face of Heaven When he who casts his eye upon a Looking-Glass beholds only his own face the shadow on the back-side of the Glass terminating the beams and the sight upon the Glass So the Darkness in the Fall terminates the eye of the Soul upon the shadowy Image the shadowy Figures of the Divine Glory as the true Glory the true God Yet these Forms which now appeared were not the true shadows the true Figures of the Divine Glory nor the true Forms of Man or of any Creature These disappeared together with the Divine presence and
As Nature is distinguished in Natura Naturans and Naturata that is Nature in the Fountain God the Divine Nature Nature in the stream the Copy to that Original So the Scripture attributeth that to God which he in the natural order of things hath connected and linked as in a Chain for its proper cause Thus God is said to give up men to all disorders in their Will for the darkness in their Minds The phrase hath also this depth of sense in it That God as the first cause is every where in the whole Chain of Causes most intimately present and immediately operative in every effect He is the Spirit the Beauty of the Order in the whole He is the band in every step or joynt of the whole Order tying each Link to the other each Effect to its Cause each Cause to its effect He is the sole force in every Cause the sole Cause of every Effect in particular Thus God gave them up to vile affections who had changed the truth unto a lye All Imagery is the furniture of the Mind All Images are formed there The motions of the Will are raised and governed by the Images in the Understanding as their formal Cause from whose impressions they flow as their final Cause to which they tend in which they end The Understanding is a Power in the Soul of generating Images of good within it self which Images are the only Truth the only Beauty of it The Will is the Spring and Seat of a mutual Love-Union and Love-Communion which the Soul hath with it self in these Images infusing and taking in a mutual Sweetness Complacency and Joy They the Images in the mind are the Objective Cause of all the motions of the Will raising and laying them as the Winds do the Waters So God gave them over to vile Affections This manner of speaking hath a clear signification of that principal mystery in Divinity so sweet so sure so deep All good is from the presence of God the shine the smiles of his unvailed Face the Reflections of him as he appears in his own Likeness in his proper Form This makes all Light Beauty Joy All Evil is from the absence of God from his Back-parts from the Clouds and Disguise upon his Person without the Vail I cannot well proceed any further until I have cleared my way by removing an Objection or two which may be made against the Interpretations which I have made of these Scriptures and the Propositions drawn from them Object 1. The Apostle seemeth to make this the ground of the inexcusableness of men in their sins that they knew God yet sinned in the Face of that Light Upon this ground sin seemeth to arise first in the Will rather then in the Understanding This Objection is confirmed by the Apostles attributing this knowledge of God to man in his faln Estate To the Heathen as he seemeth clearly to do Answ. 1. If man hath this knowledge of God in his faln state yet was that Perfection in which we have described it only in Paradise Answ. 2. The Holy Spirit seemeth expresly to place the Knowledge of God antecedent to the first Sin the not glorifying him as God for this was either the same or Concomitant with or resulting from the vanity of the reasonings in man the want of Understanding the darkning of his Heart Answ. 3. There is indeed a constant Glory from the Face of God shining in man through all changes and states A Light which can never be extinguished by any storms But this Light of Divine Glory shineth in the midst of the Darkness which arose upon it within which it withdrew it self in the first moment of the Fall and hath ever since dwelt This Darkness comprehendeth not the Light receiveth it not rejecteth it as a Reprobate a false Light so casts it down from the Throne in the dominion of the Soul and reigneth it self in the place of it This truth is with Divine Authority affirmed with a Divine clearness and elegancy illustrated in those words As they liked not to retain God in their knowledge God gave them over to a Reprobate mind to do things not convenient What a manifest Connexion of these four things have you in this Scripture 1. A Knowledge of God in the Mind 2. A Rejection or Reprobation of that Knowledge 3. A Reprobation or Corruption of the Mind in the Rejection of this Light of Glory 4. All Evil generally mentioned under the Character of Inconveniency or Uncomeliness in the end of this verse particularly and distinctly recited in three following verses flowing all from this Reprobate or Corrupt Mind But we shall more evidently more delightfully behold this mystery of the Fall this Mixture this War of Darkness with the Divine Light its triumph over it the presence of the Divine Light in the midst of this Darkness maintaining its Glory unshaken unstained in a constant opposition to the darkness in the mind of faln man if we observe and unfold the elegancy of the Holy Ghost in these words Those words They liked not to retain A Reprobate Mind are in Greek the same in their Root and Essence They manifestly allude to each other with a great power and pleasantness of sense The Original word primarily and properly signifieth the trying the truth of any thing as the Gold is tryed by the Touch-stone or by the Fire God in the presence of his Glory resides in every Creature beneath the form of that Creature as a Vail wrought with a Figure of himself Thus he constantly resides in each Creature as the Root and Being of its Being In the pure nature of man he shines through the Vail of the Angelical or Intellectual Image as a transparent Vail of finest Lawn or sweetest Light sprung from his own Face In the Fall God drawing in the Beams of his Glory by the mysterious Operations of the Divine Wisdome in the place of this pure and pleasant Light thick Darkness fills the Angelical Image of God in man The Divine Presence and Glory stands in this Image presenting the Light of its unchangeable Beauties to the eye of the Soul in the midst of this darkness The Understanding now taking in the Divine Glory through this dark medium through the darkness takes in a dark and falfe Image of it It tryeth and toucheth the Glory in this false Image upon it self now darkned and depraved It receives the Image as a true Image but rejects the Glory rejects God as reprobate Gold as a false counterfeit Divinity and Glory God in like manner by the presence of his Glory toucheth and tryeth the Understanding rejecteth that as a Reprobate Mind This Reprobate Mind he leaveth to it self and man to this Reprobate Mind from this source issues forth all the Evils of Sin and of Sufferings Object 2. How in this order of things is man rendred inexcusable which seems to be a principal Care and Work of the Holy Spirit in this Scripture Answ. An excuse is
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
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
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
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
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
Contexture of Beams living in and springing immediately freshly every moment from this entire Person which is all one most clear and lively Face of the most compleat and Original Beauty The Divine Person is not hid but shown by this Garment Mi Jesu pelluces Our Jesus shines all clearly thorow it far more clearly than a beautiful Person swimming all naked in a clear stream or the richest Diamond in a Case of purest Christal The Person here the Divine Sun is at once the eminent Head of all the Beams shining above them the vigorous Root of all the Beams springing up in them the pleasant and glorious flower flourishing forth from the end of every Beam the full Glory filling with it self each part of the Beam and every where in every Beam presenting it self entirely to every eye All the Beams in One are one entire Image of this Sun Every distinct Beam a distinct Birth and Figure of a distinct Ideal Light and Glory in this Sun Yet is the Sun in that full compass of all its Glories seen by every eye in every Beam For so is this Divine Sun the essential Idea of the Godhead the same one undivided entire full in all the Ideas in all the Original Forms and Patterns of each Creature The Beams here are Daughters Sisters and Brides to the Sun They flow forth immediately from it They stand upon the same root of the Divine Nature and Personality God is the only Person in this Jesus Both are cloathed with the same Image Both by mutual embraces lie in the bosoms of each other wrapt up together in the same Joys and Glories Yet are the Beams and created Beauties in this Mediatory Image not only distinct as the Ideas in the Godhead where the most perfect Distinction is married to the most absolute Unity with a most exact equality But all the Forms of created Glory here have besides a distinction from their Sun the Divine Glory and from each other a diversity also an inequality a subordination in an hypostatical or personal Unity But I now anticipate my self This will have a more proper place in the following Character of our Jesus in his Mediatory Kingdom 4. Christ here in his created Nature is a Spirit a great and universal Spirit comprehending the whole Creation eminently in himself before it have a subsistence in it self The whole Creation is here in greater majesty in greater clearness and glory than in it self when it is freshest and fairest It is the very Iustre and effulgency of the Godhead it self all transparent the Divine Essence at once shining thorow it filling it cloathing and comprehending it as a Temple founded upon it self framed by it self of its own most immediate Light and clearest brightness The King's Daughter is said to be all glorious within and her Garments of wrought Gold Psal. 45. The first Marriage is that of the most High and holy Trinity to which eternity it self is the Marriage-day celebrated with Joys and Glories transcending all measures or bounds The Father and the Son are here mutually the Bridegroom and the Bride while both are in both the Father in the Son the Son in the Father the Love-Spring in its lovely and beautiful Image the Lovely-Image the first and highest Beauty in its Love-spring the first the sweetest the fruitfullest Love and Fountain of Loves The Holy Spirit the conspiration of both these in One is their Marriage-band and Marriage-bed where they preserve entire their Unity and their Distinction in a most blissful Union to make their Loves and Joys more full From this Marriage-bed doth flow the God-like Race of Divine Ideas surmounting all numbers and natures of things The second Marriage is in this Middle-Glory between the Uncreated and created Beauty joyned together in one Divine eternal Person and Spirit The Divine Nature is here the King and the Bridegroom this created Spirit is the Kings Daughter his Queen and his Bride This Queen is described to be all glorious within and to have her Garment of wrought Gold The Hebrew word within signifieth properly in her Person in her naked Face which are within all her Garments and Vails Her God her Bridegroom Jesus in his essential Image her eternal Idea is her Person her Face her internal Form Thus is she all glorious within For the Lamb himself her Bridegroom is her Glory The Glory of the Lord himself in his eternal Splendors enlightneth all within This Queens Garment is all of wrought Gold The word Wrought signifieth properly a work of Eyes set all over the Garment So Dr. Hammond expoundeth it Her Garment was all over set with round Oes like so many Eyes or Suns wrought in Gold The created form of this Spirit being the pure lustre of the eternal Sun the Divine Essence is the Queen's Garment The numberless Ideas of the Divine Nature in each of which the Godhead it self is entire in its Sacred Unity comprehending all its Ideas or Variety in a Variety entirely thorowout infinitely fresh and new form in this Garment secondary Ideas their own most immediate fairest and fullest Effulgencies or Life-Pictures In every one of these is this Queen also according to the Original Patterns in her Father King and Bridegroom compleat with all the full Glories of her Person and equally distinct in a new Variety of all her Glories as a new Queen a new Person a distinct Spirit These are the Divine Suns and Eyes in the Garment of this Queen in which the eternal Eyes and Suns shining in the Divine Essence look forth as thorow Casements of pure living and immortal Christal Each Form each distinction of every kind in the Creation here below is such an eye such a Sun wrought in Gold such a Spirit of incorruptible Glory such a Bride and Queen to the eternal King Every one in particular is a spiritual and heavenly Member all together make up the spiritual and heavenly Body of our Jesus in this Personal Kingdom of his where he in his own Person is a Kingdom to himself containing the Creator with the Creation in all their Amplitudes and Varieties married together into one Person Spirit and Glory which is to it self Bride-groom Bride Ofspring and All. See if this be not that heavenly Hierusalem the Hierusalem above which is indeed free in the spacious embraces and unlimited Amplitudes of the Godhead which at the same time is by the inviolable sweetness of a sweetly-invincible necessity the eternal Law of supream Love confined to these embraces in which she becometh the glorious Virgin-Mother of us all Is not this the Hierusalem whose heavenly transparencies whose Divine lustre whose unstain'd incorruptible Beauties and Virtues are figured by Gold Pearls precious Stones and Glass Glass of Christal Is not this that Bride of the Lamb which cometh down from God out of the Heaven of the essential Image of the Godhead as out of the Bosom of her Father and Bridegroom with this Character in which the perfection of Beauty 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
darkest disguise upon the eternal Love the eternal Meekness and Gentleness the Lamb our Jesus In this state of Contrariety Sin and Death have their entrance Our Jesus the Lamb eternal Love is here slain and crucified by the Sin of the Creature In this death of his the whole Creation dies Here this Lamb the Divine Love in the region of Death in the midst of the Powers of Darkness and Death becomes a Sacrifice for every Creature By dying for sin as he dies by sin he makes an end of sin and death he takes away the subject the ground of Sin and Death the mutability of the Creature the shadowyness of the shadowy Image in its dissolution and restauration He at once scattereth the fearful dream and awakens it out of its sleep that it may dream no more but see the light of Life Divine Poets which with most inspired and acquired skill raise refine and delight the best Minds by awakning in them the richest the liveliest Images of the Divine Work and the Divine Mind place the greatest the sweetest life and heightning of their Figures in the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the knot and the untying of the knot This part in the Divine Design and Work is both these the knot and the untying of the knot The Law lets in Sin Sin brings in Death the shadowy Image is the Root and Seat of all these The death of Jesus Christ makes an end of Sin swallows up Death into Victory dissolves the shadowy Image sows it again by its dissolution in the Bosom of the Divine Love as they lie down together in its grave Here it springs up again immediately into a Child of Light in the Image of Light the heavenly Image In this Light it springs up an Immortal Bride in the Arms of its Bridegroom the eternal Love Thus the Grave of Love is changed into a Bridal Bed O that I had the anointing of Bezaleel and Aholiab upon me to draw the Divine Model of the Tabernacle of God in this part of the heavenly Image the Contrariety the Scene of Wraht We should see without Badgers skins sullied parched with dust sand and Sun We should see it in the midst of a desolate Wilderness round about it a Land of Graves and fiery Serpents But all this while within shine flourish and flow all the precious the pleasant things of the whole Creation and in the Bosom of these as Divine Figures unfold themselves all the blissful and glorious mysteries of the eternal Beauties and Sweetnesses of the Divinity unvailed Within are the richest materials colours works In the midst of all as the Center the Spring of all is God himself upon the golden Mercy Seat the Thrones of Grace and Love within the golden Wings which the Cherubims of Glory spread round about it to make a Pavilion for it Thus true is it that the Law is the Gospel eternal Love vailed the Gospel eternal Love and Beauty shine forth with naked Faces in the Law it self when the Vail is taken off But let us trace more exactly the steps of Divine Love which all drop Myrrh incorruptible Sweetnesses as he passeth thorow the Divine Mazes the curious Windings of this Divine Labyrinth To this end we will consider this state of Contrariety or of Wrath in its several Causes efficient material formal final St. Paul lays a clear and rich ground for us when he treats of this Subject His words are these What if God willing to declare the Power of his wrath Having such an Idea of the Divine Goodness of God that he is the supream Love the supream Unity the supream Good which are all divers words expressing one thing Where I meet with the darkest the dreadfulest appearance in his Births his Works I find my Spirit excited to seek the sweetest and delicatest Roses among these Thorns a Face filled with the richest smiles beneath these Vails the Divinest Wealth Skill and Figures in the Vails themselves as in that before the Holy of Holies Those Scriptures on such occasions sound with an heavenly Melody in mine Ears awakning and calling forth my Spirit to the expectation of some divinely-beautiful transporting and transforming sight He putteth the greatest comeliness upon the most uncomely parts It is the Glory of God to hide the Matter the Word the eternal Word or Wisdom the Divine Beauty and Love But it is the Glory of a King of the Royal Priesthood the Kingly and Priestly Mind to find it out to enter within the Vail to draw aside the Vail and discover the Glory These words What if God willing to declare the Power of his Wrath present to us this whole state of Wrath as it comprehends the Law Sin and Death in its three-fold Cause Efficient Exemplar Final The Idea of Wrath in the Divine Mind is a Variety in the gloriouslyample and delightfully-vast Variety of the supream Unity the eternal Love This Ideal Wrath in the Idea of the Godhead the Person of Christ as he is the essential Image of the Father in the Bosom of the Father is a beautiful and blissful Variety in the Beauty and most high blisses of the Godhead It is a Love-part in the triumphantly-joyous and glorious Variety of the eternal Love This Sun-like Idea in the supream and eternal Sun of the Divine Essence is the efficient the exemplar and final Cause of this Contrariety this wrathful state This is its first it s most universal most intimate efficient This its Original exactest Pattern This its Principal its Ultimate End Eternal Love it self in this Idea is the Divine Framer the Divine Actor the Divine Close of the whole Scene of this Wrath-part in the Love-play Here it begins here is its way here it ends in its Divine Ideâ—… in the Bosom in the Face in the midst of the Varieties the Beauties the Blisses of eternal Love Without this part in the Variety they were all imperfect Love it self without this Lovespot this beautiful and delightful Wound would have an eternal Cloud and Wound upon it A great Philosopher teacheth us That Power is an Unity containing manifold Forms in it self which it shoots up and sends forth from it self according to the Law of its own proper Harmony Every Idea in the eternal Mind is a Divine Unity The Ideal Wrath there is an Unity comprehending in Divine Images all the Forms all the Varieties of this Love-part the Divine Wrath in it self This is the eternal Reason of the whole Ministery of the Law and of Wrath in the Creation the displaying of this part of the Divine Variety by Divine Figures in its proper place in the Divine Work Thus God shows the Power of his Wrath. He seals the Creature with this Idea with the impression of the Divine and eternal Glory in this Divine Idea also According to the Language of St. Paul Now Grace Divine Love overflows us in all Wisdom and Prudence Jesus that essential compleat Idea of the Godhead
a Divine Satisfaction a Divine Atonement The Wrath and the Contrariety now ceaseth being reconciled and charmed by these Divine Harmonies into the Unity of eternal Love Thus is the Cross of our Lord Jesus the utmost bound of things In this Cross the Divine Design is finished the Mystery is finished the Vail is rent all things in Heaven and on Earth are reconciled and gathered up into One tuned to a Divine and Universal Harmony which is the Musick of Eternity Now is that Song sung O Death where is thy sting O Grave where is thy Victory The sting of Death is Sin and the strength of Sin is the Law but thanks be to God who giveth us the Victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ on his Cross hath swallowed up the Law Sin and Death in the Victory of the Divine Love the Divine Purities the Beauties of Holiness and eternal Life Eternal Life eternal Love that is our Jesus now cries with a triumphant shout O Death I will be thy Plague and Death This is the Day of the manifestation of the Righteous Judgments of God Now in the close and end of all the Divine Design through all the parts and passages of it clearly opens and unfolds it self Now it appears unto all Eyes and Hearts to be all throughout in every point of it divinely-beautiful and pleasant transcending the Understanding the Affections the Expectations the Desires the most unbounded Imagination of all Men or Angels proportioned only to a God and that God which is so Light that there is no darkness in him So Love that there is no Fury in him Now is that found clearly compleatly true All his ways are ways of peace and all his paths are pleasantness This is our God and we will praise him our Fathers God and we will exalt him This is our Jesus whom our Soul loves we will rejoyce in him and wait for him Pardon me courteous Reader if I seem something longer in this tract of my Discourse describing that most beautiful and Divine Harmony with which all things lie together most delightfully in this shining Seat of all Truth and enflaming Object of all Love the dear and adored Form and Person of our great Mediator This is the Eye the Heart of my design and work If the entire and naked Face of Divine Truth were rightly drawn and set before us in any degree answerable to the Life in this heavenly Image how powerfully would it attract all Understandings into its embraces how pleasantly would it subdue them to it self far beyond the force of all Disputes and Syllogisms which gather up only small divided and dead parts of this Divine Form like Ae as collecting the scattered members of his Son Absertus thrown up and down at diverse distances by his bloody Sister Medea to retard his way Or like the Philosophers in Boetius which take hold of the Garment only of Divine Truth and tear that into deformed shreds of which they possess themselves and in which they glory If I could entirely conceive that of which I seem to my self to have some little but rich and pleasant glances If I could clearly express and conveigh into the Minds of men that which I conceive of the nature of God and his Work which appeareth to me to have been gathered from all things Humane and Divine from Poetry Philosophy and Theology From Nature and Grace the letter of the Scriptures and the Spirit according to my little acquaintance with them and less understanding of them I am perhaps too vainly apt to perswade my self that I should make the noblest Conquest a Conquest of Hearts which would be equally Conquerors with me partaking equally in the Joy and Glory of the Conquest For what Understanding would not gladly be swallowed up into the richly unfathomable Depths of the Divine Wisdom if it were touched with this sense that the whole Understanding and Mind of God in its utmost and unlimited compass is taken up and filled with a Love of equal extent to it and equally unlimited What Understanding would not joyfully lie down for ever and lose it self in the gloriously soft and bright Bosom of the Divine Wisdome if it once by the least sweet glimpse perceived this that the Divine Wisdom throughout is no other than the beautiful and blissful Harmony of the Divine Love that all the Work of his Wisdom within and without is a deep delightful God-like contrivance of Love on which the whole Godhead layeth out it self to the utmost of all its unbounded fulnesses and treasures For this Love to bring forth and express it self with all possible advantage with all beautifyings sweetnings and heightnings as in the whole contrivance so in each part and point of it through all which this Love by this Wisdom conducteth it self with an inevitable force and sweetness This is that which the holy Apostle hath testified speaking of things which he had seen when the Father revealed Jesus Christ in his Spirit that God by Jesus Christ in his Grace that is his Love hath abounded towards us in all Wisdom and Prudence What Will of Man or Angel if it had in it self the greatest Arbitrarinâ—…s and highest Soveraignty over its own Actions would not with unexpressible pleasure resign its Arbitrariness its Soveraignty its self and all to the Divine Will when this Will should appear unto it in nothing Arbitrary but Goodness it self it s own Object Rule and Perfection a Goodness eternal unalterable and inviolable The supream and universal Goodness containing in it self all kinds and degrees of Goodness at an equal height with it self A Goodness which bringeth forth it self into the supream and universal Beauty its proper and essential Image to which every Will by its own Principle and most essential activity and motion is carried with a necessity and irresistableness most rational and most voluntary that is most divinely-harmonious and agreeable What Spirit endued with an Understanding and a Will can forbear from casting it self with most enamoured and most sweetly forcible transports into the Arms and absolute Conduct of this our Jesus this our God when by the first and most obscure beam of his own Light it is awakned unto this Divine Sight that this Jesus our God is Goodness it self most pure most perfect whose continued Birth and essential Image is Truth it self Beauty it self Truth and Beauty in their clearest Glories in their highest Sweetnesses in their fullest Amplitude Extent and Majesty Truth and Beauty comprehending all things within themselves as one Truth and Beauty with themselves bringing forth all things from themselves as Flowers from their Garden-beds filling all shining through all forming themselves upon all Shall not the Understanding and Will of every Spirit now be as Wings of Divine Light and Love on which the Spirit flies with a sweet and a swift strength into the Bosom of the Lord Jesus that here by its Understanding it may feast it self with an Appetite and Delight ever
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