whole the first Image of every Creature in its distinct form in its whole compass as a part of the whole Thus is He the First-born the Excellency of Dignity the Exceliency of Strength both in respect to the Father of all and of every Birth He is the first effulgency or shining out of the Divine Glory in every form imitable or inimitable If this Nail were fastned by a Master of the Assembliés how unmoveably would it be fixed and be the frame of my design Socrates in Plato professeth to love his beautiful Friend because he alwayes generated in his mind within and his spâ—…ch without rational Discourses harmonious Forms of things beautâ—…ul Images conâ—…ting of agreeable porportions Reason in 〈◊〉 intellectual Spirit is a treasure of Divine prâ—…portions the patterns and principles of its Activity Every Intellectual Spirit by its Reason is a sacred Field replenished with Divine Powers Divine Springs and Forms of proportions and harmony which compose reason in the essence of it are at once Divine Flowers of Intellectual Beauties and Divine Springs a prolifick virtue of seminative and formative force by which they propagate themselves Our Jesus is this Field and this Paradise of Flowers and Springs in the Godhead the Understanding the Reason of the Godhead Every Workman according to the measure of his reason and wisdome hath in himself before he beginneth to work the form and perfection of his work This is the end which first moveth the Agent and setteth him on work This is the reason the rule of his works which giveth him both life to it and light in it This Harmony of skill or reason within is the Angelical Musick in the mind to which all things in the work without do move like Amphion's Lute by sound of which the Walls of Thebes were raised Thus the Workman works by wisdome For his God teacheth him Shall not the only wise God much more work in Wisdome Shall not He have the form of that Work which he intendeth perfect and plain with all its proportions in his Spirit before He begineth it Shall not He have his end the pattern the principle the reason and the rule of His Work in Himself Or doth He work blindly or by chance Or is He enlivened or enlightned from without for his Work Doth He not from the treasure and measure of all harmony in his own mind give to it its proportions and perfections Solomon bringeth in Wisdome as a Person in eternity speaking after this manner When God stretched out the Heavens when he laid the foundations of the Earth when he digged up a place for the Sea then I was with him St. John in the beginning of his Gospel takes the Vail off from his Person and discovereth this Wisdome in an eternal Person to be the Lord Jesus For he saith In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God and by him were all things made This is the internal Word of the Mind the Wisdome of God the essential Image of the Godhead the Original the eternal Image of all things In this Word are eternally contained the Patterns the prolisick Virtues by which the whole Creation with all things in it are brought forth and formed This is the Word in the Mind of God in which the whole Creation is drawn forth in which it lieth in the first and most proper draught of it from the beginning to the end before it cometh forth in it self This is our Jesus bred with the Father in eternity ever before Him who thus day by day sporteth Himself and playeth with Him whiles in all his Work â—…e multiplieth and spreadeth forth round about him to the uttermost bounds of things Divine Figures of those Archetypal and exemplar Glories which he seeth in him Can this then be Can Jesus Christ thus be the ground of the Creation and of the whole Work of God in it Can the whole piece in all its proportions and perfection lie here in the Person of this Jesus in its first draught in its exactest patterns and the will of man with the motions of it be left out of this model Is not the Will of every Intellectual Spirit are not the motions of this Will the principal parts of this Work are they not those Hinges and Engines by which the whole is turned about in all the great revolutions of it Doth not the Catastrophe the final change doth not the finishings and perfections the Ultimate and most glorious closes of the whole on which the expectations of Men and Angels are fixt in which the full Harmony of the whole Work the full glory of the Workman do consist and are discovered depend upon these the Will and its motion If therefore these also lie in this Jesus the essential the personal Wisdome of God their first ground their most perfect pattern in eternity are they not here determined as in their first cause But thus much of the Mediatorship of Christ in the ground of it as the first ground of the whole work of God lies most fair most full and flourishing in his Person in eternity 2. Jesus Christ in his Mediatorship is the way of the whole work of God from the beginning to the end of it a most beautiful and a most pleasant way I shall set this way before us in two parts 1. Part. Jesus Christ is the first and universal Creature the first created Head the first the fairest Copy of the whole Angelical Nature with all its Glories of the whole Creation the Life-Picture taken immediately from the Life it self I shall not insist much on this as seeming perhaps not so clear not having been generally received neither doth it bring any new Argument to this Cause but only add new force to the Argument immediately before taken from the ground of the Mediatorship in Christ. Yet am I not willing to pass it by without a brief offer of those Reasons which seem to give clearness and countenance to it and that upon a two-fold Consideration 1. I gladly thus far gratifie the Arians and Socinians by complying with them in giving to our Lord Jesus as a Creature this pre-existency to the whole Creation and preheminence above it I cannot but conceive fair hopes that clear and candid Spirits among them will by this link in the golden Chain of Christ's Mediatorship in which God and all his Works are by an inseparable and harmonious order fastned each to other be easily lead to that first and highest Link of the Godhead of Christ the original eternal essential form of the Divine Essence sweetly conceived and compleatly finisht there as the womb and bosome of the first Love Neither can any more doubt but that those intelligent and ingenious Persons of which I speak will as delightfully by this same Link upon a wise contemplation of it be carried to those other lower Links of Redemption and Justification Sanctification and Salvation by Jesus Christ as the purchase the
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
chiefly turneth about in respect to its Beauty and Deformity its Misery and Felicity its Eternity have no Connexion with or Dependance upon the other parts of the work the Image or Original Model in the Divine mind Can there be an Order here in the whole Can all the parts in the whole have an harmonious proportion to each other Can the Work outward agree with the inward Model the whole agreeing with the whole and each part answering each part Can this work be perfect Can it be wrought in Judgment Is the whole way of this work the way of Judgment Is there in each step of it the foot-step of a Divine Understanding the impression of a Divine Wisdom which is an entire uninterrupted Order Do all the parts in this Work according to the Model or Image in the mind of the Work-man lie together in one whole piece in one beautiful body knit together by fit joynts and bands ministring to each other by these joynts and bands mutual strength beauties and perfections from the same Head whose Unity runneth through shineth in the whole and all its several parts thus uniting them as one body to each other and to its self Doth not this supposition of such an independent Liberty in the Will to Contrarieties and Contradictions naturally lead us to an imagination of two Gods one Good the other Evil striving together in the composure of the same work bringing in consusion upon it by crossing and interrupting each other according to the sense of the Manichees Or doth it not favour that Opinion of some Platonists of a matter the subject of the Divine Work co-eternal with the Divine Spirit the Work-man which being in some parts of it altogether intractable resisting the skill and power of the Archytect or working Spirit receiveth not the Divine form which that would introduce could not be made beautiful and so brought Confusion War all Evil into the Work Or if that seem more probable would it not incline us to the belief of fortuitous motions of numberless Particles confusedly concurring which have neither beginning rule nor end of themselves their shapes or motions What skilful Poet makes his Poem so that the great Chain and final Catastrophe in the conduct and government of which the chief beauty of the whole Work is plac'd from which arise the greatest Consequences together with the perfection and praise of the whole piece should be derived from a meer Contingency which hath no coherence with any antecedent part which receiveth no force from any thing of any reason proportion or order in the whole which hath no place nor form in the design of the Poet Would any wise Work-man who had an absolute power over his work who brought forth from himself entirely both the matter and form of it according to his will frame a work in which the great end of the principal parts and of the whole should be undetermined by being dependant upon the great and chief motion of the work which can have no complete Idea in the mind of the Worker from which it may receive its form which is uncapable of having any certain conformity to the will of the Workman to derive from thence an agreeable sweetness and goodness through the veins of the whole and of all the parts that the spirit which hath wrought it may have rest and complacency in the work it self in the harmony of the work within it self and in the harmony of it with the Model in its own Understanding Would he frame a work which in this its principal motion should be altogether out of its own power should have no natural no moral necessity or certainty from any antecedent causality and reason which should be altogether fortuitous which should be thus rendred altogether uncapable of being one entire piece where all the parts first contained in the Potentiality and Unity of the whole flowing forth from it by virtue of that Unity are united among themselves by their mutual Relations and Proportions making up a beautiful harmony in the whole This in all learning and observation hath been esteemed the first and chief part of wisdom to fix determinately with full strength of inclination thought and contrivance the end of every work This the second part next to it particularly stiled Prudence to dispose and direct all the means efficaciously and infallibly to those ends Object 1. Perhaps some one will say That the parts of the Divine Work have their coherence connexion and proportion while this grand motion of which wespeak the determination of the Will flows from the power of the Will which flows from God the Fountain of causality in the centinued stream of second causes Answ. This indeed is often spoken of Let us see if it be well understood if there be no fallacy or ambiguity latent or manifest in this Assertion If the power of the Will be the cause of its determination if God in the order of second causes be the Author of this Power then also is the determination of the Will from Him after the same manner by the force of that Rule Quicquid est causa causae est causa causati The cause of any cause is also the cause of the effect produced by that cause Now is the Will no more free with an undetermined freedome or liberty being thus predetermined in its superior causes from which it receives both the power of determining and the determination of its power Now is the power of its Will in its state of acting not undetermined or indifferent to contradictory and contrary terms or bounds of its motion If it be replyed that the power of the Will in determining it self is from God in the natural course of things but the act of that power in the determination of it self from the power of the Will alone with an absolute and universal independancy upon all things antecedent to it either natural or moral Although this be very difficult to be understood yet I shall not at present make any other opposition to it than this that it leaves my present Argument untoucht in its full strength and vigour Object 2. There is something of greater moment which perhaps may seem to shake the structure and strength of this Reason The great and Ultimate ends of God in his Work are the glories of his Goodness and his Justice In this the Divine Wisdom shines out with a lustre dazling the eyes of our Reason of every created Understanding in finding out this the most proper and effectual way to these ends viz. The setting up of intellectual Spirits free in the determination of themselves to good or evil and compensating this good and this evil with suitable torments suitable triumphs Answ. Three Answers offer themselves to this Objection 1. Answ. This also yieldeth that on which the whole weight of the Argument against Free-will lieth the righteousness and wickedness of intellectual Spirits that is the highest Beauty the foulest Deformity upon the
principal parts of the Divine Work to which all the other parts serve The great and Ultimate ends of these intellectual Spirits unexpressible eternal joys or miseries hang all upon a meer contingency upon the motion of the Will which hath no place no part in the Divine Design which receives no form no measure from any model in the Workman or any part of the work Thus are the great consequences the great ends of the work in the great the principal parts and passages of it altogether undetermined and uncertain in the nature of the work and in the continuance of the Worker 2. Answ. Doth not this seem much rather a reflection upon than an exaltation of the Divine Goodness Justice and Wisdom that the righteousness and wickedness of intellâ—…ctual Creatures the highest good and evil in the whole work the eternal blessedness and misery of its own so great so glorious Births and Images should be of so little moment to the Divine Nature to the Divine Goodness Justice and Wisdom that they should be left entirely out of the Divine contrivance and conduct without the compass of all reason and proportion to an uncertainty an indeterminateness of which no account can be given as effects of the blindest chance which was ever entertained into the most blind and confused imagination of the most vulgar Spirits But this subject of the Divine Goodness and Justice and the Argument taken from them to justifie this freedom of the Will belongs properly to the second Book where the Reader may meet with a large discourse upon it I shall therefore thus lightly pass over it here 3. Answ. The inconsistency of the setting up intellectual Spirits in this freedome by the Divine Power and Wisdom with the very essences of all Power and wisdom with the whole nature of things created or uncreated will also find its proper place in other following Arguments which is therefore only toucht here 4. Argument Next to the Wisdom of God the Power of God seemeth to furnish a fourth Argument against this Liberty of the Will We have it proclaim'd from Heaven by the mouth of God Himself That Power belongeth to God God hath spoken once twice have I heard this That Power belongeth unto God Psal. 62. 11. Joseph saith to Pharaoh That his dream was repeated to declare the certainty of it A Repetition also is design'd to express the weight and consequence of that Truth which is twice over affirmed No Truth hath a clearer certainty or beareth a greater weight upon it in the whole nature of things than this That Power belongeth to God Jesus Christ who is the only true God is said by the word of his Power to uphold all things to bring forth and to bear up all things as the Greek word manifestly and commonly signifies This alone bringeth forth all things all spirits This alone beareth upon its bosome all its own Births as a root the plant with all its fruit Here only in the sense of this truth with an immediate repose upon it do all things all hearts find rest Power is here by the Psalmist expressed absolutely unlimited in the abstract all Power is Gods and of Him So the Hebrew phrase imports God is the first Seat and Spring of all Power in every kind All Power supernatural natural civil moral All Power in every State undetermined determined All Power in every degree the Power of acting the Power in act hath its first seat in God and cometh down from Him There is a three-fold Power 1. An Active Power 2. A Passive Power 3. A Power in Act. 1. The Power of Acting which as it belongeth to the forms of things which are either Spirits or spiritual so it self is a Spirit or a spiritual form This is defin'd to be a principle of Acting This is it self an eminent and universal Act or active form like a Spring containing and sending forth from it self variety of Acts or forms as a Spring doth streams This Power is more excellent than the Act which is produced by it 2. The Passive Power is that of matter which as an obscute shade comprehending or hiding variety of Acts or forms in it like Plants obscured and contracted there like Plants in their seeds in the Earth or the Intellectual and sensitive Soul with all its treasure of Intellectual of sensitive forms in a sleeping Body This Power is inferior to the Act which when it is brought forth is the exaltation of this Passive Power to an higher degree of Being it is indeed as a spiritual Act or form encompast with obscured within its own shade As the Sun calleth up the Plants out of their seeds and beds in the dust so the Spirit it self the Spiritual Act or form shining forth from the Active Power upon this shade of matter and of the Passive Power awakeneth it into a beautiful form 3. Power in Act. All Power purely Active is ever in Act. Such Power is alwayes abstracted from matter and a spiritual essence or form eminent above all things in matter an universal comprehending variety of Acts or spiritual forms in it self Every Active Power in matter is compounded being partly Active and partly Passive This Power is never brought into Act but as it is excited and awakened from without by its Object from above by power abstractive and purely active shedding its beams upon it Thus in the Schools they distinguish between the Active Understanding in man separated from matter in its operations and the Passive which ever worketh in Conjunction with the material and imaginative faculty like the Moon having some obscure light in it self but depending upon the illuminations of the Active Understanding as its Sun Power and Act are distinguished not as two several Beings but as the same Being in several states modifications or degrees of Being When Power as it is a spiritual and universal Act comprehending all its own Acts formally and eminently in it self being all at once in Act within it self brings forth it self into any particular or single Act in matter This is the same Power contracted and so in a less degree of perfection When a Passive Power in matter springs up into Act This Act is the perfection of the Power The Power and the Act here are the same form sleeping and awakened in the seed and in the flower All Power is Gods As he is the most pure perfect and universal Spirit so is Power in Him the most pure perfect and most universal Act. God gives this Testimony of Himself I am Alpha and Omega The beginning and the ending saith the Lord Which is and which was and which is to come The Almighty Rev. 1. 8. As the Power of God comprehendeth all Powers most eminently and most actually in â—…imself so all Powers in Him are ever most perfectly in Act being themselves pure Acts God is said to work all things after the counsel of his own will Eph. 1. 11. Power is the principle of Activity The Will is
A DISCOURSE OF THE FREEDOM OF THE WILL. By PETER STERRY Sometimes Fellow of Emmanuel Colledge in Cambridge HEB. 13. 2. Be not forgetful to entertain STRANGERS for thereby some have entertained ANGELS unawares LONDON Printed for John Starkey at the Miter near Temple-Bar in Fleetstreet 1675. The Printer to the Reader THe Author having written so large a Preface to his following Discourse and therein given the Reader such a delightful tast of his excellent Spirit The Publishers decline saying any thing either of it or him Only I am desired by them to inform thee that this Discourse is posthumous and not Originally design'd for the Press but the private satisfaction of some worthy persons who beg'd the Author's sense concerning this Argument and to whom he was pleas'd at several times by set discourses to communicate his thoughts so plentifully that they and some other Friends importun'd him to peruse what he had dictated to them upon this Subject to make some additions to it and to fit it for Publick View Whilst the Author was perfecting this undertaking it pleased God to take him out of this life but in pursuance of his own desire before his death thou hast here with all possible integrity deliver'd to thee so much of his intended Discourse as came to the Publishers hands either in his own Copies or those of his Friends which were examin'd and own'd by himself there being nothing alter'd or added by them but the Title Page By these means it is now grown into a Book and thou art acquainted with all this not to bespeak thy greater gentleness and candour in reading it but to do the Author right and give thy self the true accompt why thou art wholly disappointed of what he design'd upon that Argument taken from the proper form and essence of Liberty and not so fully satisfied in the application of the argument drawn from the Knowledge of God and those other two taken from the nature of the Soul and the Mediation of Christ the Scripture cited and promised to be opened from the 1. Gen. being omitted in the explication of the former and in the other nothing said concerning the progress and propagation of the Mediatory Work of Jesus Christ through his whole Body I have only this further to add concerning the many Errata's that have escaped the Press which thou wilt find set down and corrected to thy hand at the end of the Book That the impatience of some Friends to have this Discourse out and the fears of others lest it should be stifled in the birth with some other difficulties of the Copy have by precipitating the Press and perplexing the Printer occasion'd so great a number of mistakes That yet there is not so many as at first view the Reader may apprehend because for the sake of the more ordinary capacity more words are made use of for the reforming of most of them than would else have been necessary And lastly that thou wilt find they are generally Errors only in the points which are easily and without defacing the Book to be mended although otherwise of great moment to the sense and are therefore with great care corrected in the last page for the service of the Vulgar Reader who may be in some places not a little help'd in his perusing of this Treatise by thereby observing where to place most usefully the points THE PREFACE TO THE READER Christian and Candid Reader I Intreat some few things of thee for thine own sake and for mine 1. Study the Love of God the Nature of God as he is Love the Work of God as it is a Work of Love Moses in his dying Song beginneth with God and the perfection of his Work He is the Rock his Work is perfect St. Paul descended from the Paradise in the Third Heavens bringeth this with him down into the World as the Sacred Mystery and rich ground of all Truth from which all the Beauties and Sweetnesses of Paradise of all the Heavens spring That Love is the band of Perfection It is Love then which runneth through the whole Work of God which frameth informeth uniteth it all into one Master-piece of Divine Love If God be Love the Attributes of God are the Attributes of this Love the Purity Simplicity the Soveraignty the Wisdom the Almightiness the Unchangeableness the Infiniteness the eternity of Divine Love If God be Love his Work is the Work of Love of a Love unmixt unconfined supream infinite in Wisdom and Power not limited in its workings by any pre-existent matter but bringing forth freely â—…nd entirely from it self its whole work both matter and form according to its own inclination and complacency in it self Leo Hebraeus enflamed with the Beauty and languishing in the Love of the heavenly Sophia the heavenly Wisdom which is the first and freshest life of all Beauties in one Face immortal and ever-flourishing is instructed by this Divine Mistress in those excellent Dialogues between her and himself to Court and Woo her into his Embraces by enquiring into the Nature of Love Pursuing this enquiry by the bright Conduct of her shining Beauties he is led through the whole nature of things above and below with all the Varieties and Changes as manifold streams of Divine Love in diverse breadths and depths with innumer able sportful windings and turnings flowing forth from its own full Sea of eternal Sweetness and through all its Chanels hasting thither again Campanella teacheth us That all second Causes are Causa prima modificata so many Modifications of the first Cause so many forms and shapes in which the first Cause appears and acts All the Works of God are the Divine Love in so many Modes and Dresses There is diversity of Manifestations there are diversities of Operations which compose the whole frame and business of this Creation which are as diverse persons acting diverse parts upon this stage But there is one Spirit one Lord one God one Love which worketh all in all It is the Divine Love with its unsearchable Riches which is the fulness that filleth all persons and all parts upon the stage of Time or Eternity If any man know not the way to the Sea let him follow a River in the course of its stream saith the Comoedian Dear Reader if thou wouldst be lead to that Sea which is as the gathering together and confluence of all the waters of Life of all Truths Goodness Joys Beauties and Blessedness follow the stream of the Divine Love as it holdeth on its course from its head in eternity through every work of God through every Creature So shalt thou be not only happy in thine end but in thy way while this stream of Love shall not only be thy guide by thy side but shall carry thee along in its soft and delicious bosom bearing thee up in the bright Arms of its own Divine Power sporting with thee all along washing thee white as snow in its own pure floods and bathing thy whole
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
unlimited Sweetness and Liberty with the Divine Love the Divine will above Yea now the will and love enjoy a two-fold full and glorious Liberty while Goodness and Beauty are their Essence as well as their Election 1. They freely and unconfinedly rove through all the fields of Goodness and Beauty in their greatest amplitude in their richest and most unbounded Varieties as freely as through their own proper Essence and Being 2. Their Liberty in this unconfined amplitude of all Goodness and Beauty becomes most ample and triumphant while it is free from all fear danger suspicion possibility of change to any degree of confinement or constraint by this essential Connexion between it self and the highest necessity O good O beautiful O blessed Will which sits upon the Throne of Eternity which governest us and all things While in being good beautiful blessed with a perfect Liberty thou art such also with the highest necessity Thou art now as delightfully and complacentially so unchangeably absolutely universally supreamly soveraignly essentially Good beautiful and blessed in thine whole Nature Person and Duration in all â—…hy works and ways O Good Beautiful Blessed is that will also in whom Liberty and Necessity are after the same manner united by its Union with the Divine will 2. Nothing seems to present the Divine Face of Truth and the whole nature of things with such harmonious and charming Beauties to the eye of the mind as the determination of the will by its essential and universal Causes seen in one view with the Divine Love A single light seen by Mariners resting upon their Ship which as I remember was of old called by the name of Helena Threatneth a dreadful storm But two Twin-Lights known by the name of the two Brothers Castor and Pollux infuse a new life into the hearts of the Sea-men by the sweet hope of a sudden and gentle Calm After the same manner these two the divine Love and the determination of the will shining together as twin-lights entertain us with a most beautiful composure a golden Calm and Sun-shine a Divine Amity spread through the work of God in all the parts of it But either of these alone exposeth all to stormy gusts slawes and wracks We read of the Spouse in the Canticles That the Joynts of her thighs are Jewels the work of a curious workman The indeterminate motions of the Will render the work of God a dis-joynted piece exposing it in its most principal parts and motions to an ungoverned contingency without joynts or bands which may knit them together one to another and to the whole as one piece If the will with its motions by a necessary connexion in the Order of Causes be joynted into the whole and compose with the rests of the parts one entire work answering to one entire design framed in the heart and brought forth by the hand of that supream and eternal Spirit which is love it self the pure unmixt entire Spirit of love How sweet how beautiful how full of all Divine Charms and Perfections through all the parts of it What a Princely Daughter and Spouse worthy of the great and eternal King must we think this work to be which is the compleat and full contrivance of so rich and so high a Love formed in its own Bosom In the midst of all its most amiable and delightful treasures which is the outward work of a most pure and Almighty Love wrought entirely from end to end by its own hand with fingers dropping its own pure incorruptible Myrrh upon every part of it as it wrought it forming it for a compleat Image of it self and a continual delight to it self What Jewels now must we think all the Joynts of the Thighs of this Divine Image and Birth How harmonious the motions by these Joynts when the joynts and motions are all the work of so skillful so curious so faithful a Workman as Love it self the supream and eternal Love I humbly acknowledge that to my weak Understanding a created Will absolute and arbitrary determined in its course by no light of Truth no light or life of good seemeth to lead my Spirit into a Wilderness where there is no way or guide or to thrust me forth without Ballast or Rudder without a Pole-star or Needle toucht with the loadstone upon the face of an unknown and stormy Sea What a golden-thread of Harmony guides us through the nature of things and leads us into all Truth Harmony being the very Essence of all Natures and all Truths when we understand the whole nature of things from the greatest to the least parts and motions of it to be determined and that determination to be the work of the Divine Love the firmest band of sweetest Union the sweetest Life of all beautiful proportion being only Wise only Powerful inasmuch as it is the highest Unity containing all Variety Originally in it self sending it forth from it self and diffusing it self through all We are taught in Metaphysicks That Being Truth and Goodness are really one How sweet a rest now doth the Spirit with its Understanding and its Will find to itself in every Being in every Truth in every State or Motion of Being in every form of Truth When it hath a sense of the highest Love which is the same with the highest Goodness designing disposing working all in all even all Conceptions in all Understandings all Motions in every VVill Humane Angelical Divine With what a joy and complacency unexpressible doth the Will the Understanding the whole Spirit now lie down to rest every where as upon a bed of Love as in the bosom of goodness it self Let not any question the close and Divine Contexture of the whole Work in all the parts and conduct of it by a firm connexion of Causes and Effects like links in a Chain from its first beginning to its last end because he meeteth with an Hell as well as an Heaven in this work of God Divine Love which transcendently excels in all Wisdom and Prudence beyond all the highest wits of men the richest Contrivances of Poets knoweth how to joynt an Hell into its work with such Divine Artifice incomprehensible to Men or Angels that this also shall be beautiful with delights in its place and shall give a sweetness a lustre to the whole piece St. Paul saith to the Saints All things this World Life Death things present things to come are yours you are Christs and Christ is Gods and God is Love See a golden Chain see the Order of the precious Links see how in a beautiful circle the beginning is fastned to the end All Philosophy agreeth in this that the last end is the first mover In God then who is Love the first and the last links of this Chain meet All things this wicked World Death it self even the second Death and Hell deaths to come as well as deaths present are shining links in this golden Chain fastened to that superior Link the Saint the spiritual man He
of it beareth a part in it is Harmony in this Harmony Every nature and form of each thing in each kind and degree to the lowest divisions and least distinctions of things is expressed universally by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Greek by Ratio in Latin which both properly express Harmony A variety bound up in an Unity an Unity diffusing it self through a variety This is God the third Person in the Trinity Harmony it self The first Harmony most perfect most absolute diffusing it self through all things endlesly and unboundedly unfolding it self into all forms of things by its Divine force as the force as the fulnesses and streams of this Harmony in its own soft and spacious Bosome enfolding all forms of things in the same Bosome as Harmonies of this Harmony Harmonies in this Harmony in each of which the universal Harmony is new and complete Can there be now any one thing in the nature of things any one thing in the will of any Spirit any one essence form power act accident or circumstance which lies not in which flows not from this first and universal spring the Divine Unity Or shall we deny this Divine Unity to be the first Unity to be an entire Unity the fountain of the God-head the only fountain of all Is there any where in any Will any distinction of power or of act of an indeterminate power and determinate Is there any varying of the Will from power to act from an undetermined to a determined State Is there any distinction in the Will any distinct qualification modification of any kind or degree which lies not most distinctly most clearly most compleatly with all its variations in this Divine this first this universal and unconfined Variety which flows not from it Hath any Spirit any Being a Will Hath any Will any liberty any motion Hath any Spirit any will any liberty any motion Have all these either joyntly in relation to each other or each a part in it self rationem aliquam any form any agrecableness which is not enfolded and wrapt up in the Divine the sirst the universal unconfined Harmony which doth not arise from which doth not feel the force and flow in the course of this Harmony Then must the Divine Harmony it self be out of tune being in a discord to this that lies without it being stopt and checkt by it Then must this it self what ever it be have no Harmony no agreeableness with any thing no not so much as with it self then must it be a discord to all Being then must it be divided from all Being and so not be at all 3. Argument The Wisdom of God comes in the third place to oppose this Liberty of the Will in question The Divine Wisdom thus expresseth it self by the mouth of Solomon in his Proverbs I Wisdom dwell with Prudence and find out witty inventions The Philosopher seemeth to furnish us with a fair Comment upon this Text when he divideth the intellectual habits or perfections of the mind into these five 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The first is the eternal truth of things in their immediate Principles and Springs as they lie in the eternal mind and thence shine forth in the Understandings the superior parts of the inferior and created Spirits The second comprehends all forms of Knowledge as streams flowing from these springs running along together in the mind representing in one view in one entire Image the whole nature of things as a Copy of the Divine Nature and of the Original Image in the Divine mind The third Perfection in the account of the Philosopher is Wisdom which he describeth to be the union of both these foregoing Perfections in the same mind or spirit Prudence in the fourth place is the lustre or brightness of this Wisdom shining forth in our Manners in our moral Actions and Conversations This is the light of Wisdom flowing forth upon all the motions of our Will of our sensitive Appetite and Passions with their proper effects forming and figuring them according to in an harmony with the Divine Image in the universal nature of things and in its Original the Divine Nature it self as this Image shines forth in the mind Lastly That Art which compriseth all witty Inventions is composed of the emanations of this Wisdom as beams from the Sun by which Inferiour Spirits bring forth external effects works without themselves in the similitude and imitation of the Divine Work in the Divine Nature for the use of life in its necessities conveniencies and delights Thus Wisdom above and below dwells with Prudence and finds out knowledge of witty Inventions Agreeable to this is that Doctrine of another sort of Philosophers that as Wisdom is the perfection of the Understanding so the Understanding in its perfect state is the first seat and spring of Order Therefore they say where-ever there is Order where-ever there is Harmony or Beauty which consists in Order there is an Understanding The Understanding say they in its proper and native state is the immediate Son and Image of God beneath God himself the first and fullest effulgency of the God-head in its essential Image so it becomes Omniform being all forms in one with a richly heighthned Light and a Divine Order Here Order hath all its Springs and Measures here Judgment hath its Throne and Scepter comparing and measuring all forms of things according to the Order in which they lie here accordingly determining order and disorder in things below Moses in that sweet and dying Song of his where he representeth the Order and Beauty of the whole Work of God in the Nation of the Jews as a principal part of that Work and as a mysterious figure of the whole Work expresseth the whole force and form of the Divine Wisdom as the ground of his Song in the beginning of it He is the Rock his work is perfect for all his wayes are judgment Deut. 32. 4. Behold here the three parts of Wisdom the Rock the Judgment the perfection of the Work 1. The eternal truths of things in the Divine Mind the first principle and spring where they shine immediately immutably These are the Rock 2. The universal Image of things in all variety of Forms with a beautiful Order drawn forth from these springs joyned immediately to them exactly and most agreeably suited to them most harmoniously answering them in all mutual Comparisons and Relations within the Divine mind This is the Judgment 3. The production of the whole work in an apt correspondency with this inward Image that the whole answer the whole part answer part universally through the whole This is the perfection of the Work the perfection of Wisdom and Judgment in the work Thus the wayes of the Work-man in his work are Judgment If now any part of the work of God if a principal part of his work the will of intellectual Spirits in those motions in those moments which are as the hinge upon which the whole Work of God
and Divine Harmony through the Death and Resurrection of the Lord Jesus But we will leave these things to their proper places In the mean time this Truth seemeth tâ—… be firmly established upon unmoveable grounds that nothing as it lies in the whole in all its causes concurrences relations and circumstances is mean vile or little unworthy of the Divine Mind which if it were a stranger to any the least circumstance of things even the first most unperceptible motions of the Will were uncapable of judging of the Harmony of the whole of Good and Evil which consist in order and disorder especially of moral Good and Evil the chief Good and Evil of the chief pieces of the whole Work Intellectual Spirits whose Good and Evil in order to an eternity of Happiness or Misery are defined and determined by every motion of the Will If I have been at the expence of much time and pains upon this Subject the Omniscience of God or the universality of his Knowledge and the exactness of it in this Universality I humbly conceive that I have not done it impertinently being moved to it by these two Reasons 1. Learned men know that this Flower in the Crown of the Great King this Attribute of God hath been denied to him in the face of the whole World with great confidence with bold pretences of Reason and Learning opposed to it I have heard this perfection of the Divine Nature in the Process of a Discourse upon this freedome of the Will questioned Whether it were proper to God or a Perfection and this Question made soberly there where modesty goodness and learning have met together 2. This Argument of the Divine Omniscience appeareth to mewith so great weight in this cause that if this be freely granted and clearly understood I cannot at all comprehend by what way or means the liberty of the Will now examined can suppart it self without the overturning the whole fabrick of our Philosophy and Divinity with the absolute ruines of all their beauties and strengths I hope in a few words to manifest this in the Second Part of this Argument which now follows 2. Part. The Second Part is the Original of the Divine Knowledge This knowledge of God ariseth not from without but from within himself This Truth seemeth to carry the full and sweet light of its own evidence brightly shining in the face of it If God receive any thing from without he is no more immutable impassible independent a pure Act a perfect eternal Act a simple Unity but a composition of divers and different ingredients If any Species or Image if any Knowledge flow in upon the Divine Understanding from any external Object not only all the Properties Perfections and Attributes ascribed to God but his Godhead it self with all its most essential Glories are shaken overthrown and utterly demolished If God be receptive of any thing from any other he is no more the first the universal Being the Fountain of all Being and so no more God It is generally and rightly affirmed That the Essence of God and the Operations are the same that his Knowledge is Himself If then He receive the knowledge of any thing He receiveth also Himself and his Godhead from a Forreign Spring Wâ—…o saith St. Paul hath been his Counsellor or who hath given to Him first that He should repay Object Some eminent Divines seeming to understand the force of the Reason in this Point to lie in the fore-knowledge of God have believed themselves to have gained a full Victory over it by an imagined co-existence of God with the Creature For say they God is infinite as in his Essence so in his duration By virtue of this infiniteness he after an immutable manner co-exists with the Creature in all its changes Eternity which is the duration of the Divine Essence in its undivided and unchangeable but unconfined Unity co-exists with time the duration of the Creature in all its numerous and successive motions in all its undivided moments Thus say they God properly foreknows nothing but knoweth every Creature as it is present with Him in its own proper existence and time Answ. If all this in the full Latitude be freely granted I humbly conceive that the present Argument remains still in its full force unshaken untoucht But first I shall crave leave to offer some incongruities and mistakes which make me uncapable of satisfying my self with this co-existence thus formed and founded 1. This seems to take away out of the mouth of God Himself speaking by the Prophet Isaiah one Principal proof of his Godhead which he pleaseth to make use of several times over and in which he glories challenging all the gods of the Heathen to come and try their Divinities by this Test This is the Power of Prophecying the declaring of things to come 2. Doth not the Co-existence mentioned commensurate God with the Creature make God the Subject of a Relation to the Creature establish a proportion between Him and the Creature which are all contrary to the infiniteness of God as to the most uncontroverted Principle of Divinity shining in upon us by the light of Nature or of Revelation 3. If God by Co-existing with the Creature in the moment of the Fall at the beginning of time declares that full Victory of Christ over the Serpent at the end of time which he knows only by coexisting with that action in its proper scene and duration at the winding up of all Ages Doth it not follow that the beginning and the end of time in their proper seasons and durations co-exist and fall in with each other For this is a Maxim of universal force That those two things which meet in a third meet in themselves 4. The best Understandings pure and clear as the Sun it self clouded with flesh while they see through so thick a medium are capable of various and disproportionate views of their Object A weaker sight fixed on and confined to some narrower and more particular Image may in that sometimes discover to better eyes which extend themselves to a more spacious Object an error in that smaller Point Accordingly those great Spirits with whom I now treat perhaps may find themselves mistaken in their sense of the Divine Co-existence with the Creature if they please to consider this which I shall now propound God indeed is infinite By this infiniteness he is above all proportion to all commerce with every thing that is finite By this infiniteness he comprehends in himself all Creatures with all theirExistencies Formalities and Modifications after an infinite manner eminently and with the highest transcendency Thus he beholdeth thus he converseth with all things within Himself Divines generally place the Joys of glorified Spirits in that Beatifical Vision which is the sight of all things in the most amiable face of the most highly adored Trinity as in the only clear Glass of all Images of things in their eternal Truths Is not God Himself blessed in the
the Celestial Gardens of the Divine Mind in the eternal Spirit then they with a pleasure unexpressible sit and sing in those Gardens Now we drink in the Christal Streams of all Truth now we drink in the Light as warm Milk most sweet and lively from the warm and living Breasts of Truth now we eat the living Honey of Divine Wisdome as it drops and distills upon our Lips from the Honey-comb it self of the Divine Nature 2. God is the Pleasantest the only pleasure of all Objects He alone is the proper Object the true and perfect Pleasure of all Faculties of the Understanding and of the Will the only sweet Rest the only and full Feast of them both God as He is the Light which hath no Darkness in it so is He Love without any allay He is that Love which is Goodness it self Beauty it self Sweetness it self all alone unmixt at the utmost heighth of purity sweetness and simplicity all in all of Him and all one in Him This is that Trinity which is the fulness and majesty of the Divine Essence out of which all the Attributes Properties and Perfections arise to our Understanding and into which in the clearest Light they most clearly resolve themselves Goodness here is Beauty and Sweetness in their spring Beauty is Goodness in its proper native and compleat form Sweetness is Goodness and Beauty flowing or in motion or goodness as it springs up into beauty and in the delicious bosome of that beauty multiplies it self endlesly into innumerable births and forms Goodness is the ever flourishing ever youthful Father and Bridegroom Beauty the most lovely Daughter and Bride Sweetness the Marriage of these two Goodness as it is the spring of all Beauty and Sweetness is power in the abstract in as much as Evil the only opposite to Goodness is the weakest of all things weakness it self Beauty being the essential and full form of Goodness being the abstract and exemplar of Harmony is Wisdome it self the only Intellectual Beauty of which all the inferior Beauties of sense are only shadowy impressions and foot-steps The Divine Sweetness being Goodness and Beauty in motion is upon this account the first and highest Activity The Fowler draws the soaring Larks to his Net by the reflection of Heavens Light from a piece of glass upon the Earth Thus the best Spirits whose Musick and Flight excited or directed by no earthly Interest no force of Flesh mount upward to Heaven and eternity are most properly most powerfully drawn to any Opinion when it appears as the pure unmixt reflections of the Divine Beauties falling from their heights of eternal Glory upon any Understanding and from thence diffusing themselves to enlighten the darkness of this inferior Region The first Beauty and the first Truth are one Being both the first Form or Image in which the Godhead represents it self to it self in the most full and entire Harmony of all Perfections at their utmost heights as they rise up immediate and fresh in their eternal spring and of it self with it self as the first Image with the first Original Thus every Truth in all its descents springing from the first Truth is also a Divine Beauty in the Face of which the Divine Goodness shineth smileth and poureth forth it self in the most charming and attractive sweetness If then it were rightly represented and rightly seen it would by irresistible Charms draw at once the Understanding and the Will of every Spirit into its embraces We easily believe that which we desire Reader Set before the eyes of thy Spirit a God whose Essence is Love Represent to thy self a Love which subsisteth in a Trinity of Beauty Goodness and Sweetness all three raised to the uttermost heighth of Purity and Holiness that being altogether without any mixture or allay they are also without any bounds all three so absolute and unbounded in Perfection that they mutually unfold one another most compleatly and most clearly all three so heightned to the supream Point of Intellectual or rather Superintellectual Life that as they are Love the band of all Perfection and Pleasantness and so every Perfection in the Abstract and Unity they are also in like manner compleat living and immortal Persons When thou hast thus represented God to thy self most perfectly most universally amiable in all Lights of Nature and Grace in every posture in every glance dost thou not at once most ardently desire this God to fill all to be all in all in this work The work of some excellent Painter is known by this that it is a finisht piece Every part every point hath its just and full proportions as from a spring of life opening it self there as if Nature her self were a vital sense This gives the life the beauty the sweetning to the whole piece a living form to the Workman Can we then think that God who is beauty and sweetness it self who works immediately and alone by beauty and sweetness in the highest Perfection in as much as he works only and immediately by his Essence which is one and the same with its Operations will leave any point of his work without the sweetning touch from his own hand Can we think that God whose Beauty is his Wisdome whose Goodness is his Power whose Sweetness is his Life his Joy his Glory will leave this piece his Creation which he hath drawn from Himself to be in the whole a Divine Picture of Himself unfinish'd Will he suffer any part of it to pass without its just and full proportions in an inviolable order to the whole and to the parts upon which the life the beauty the sweetness of the whole depends We read in the Canticles That the heavenly Image of God that new Creation which is the spiritual Bride in a Saint the joynts of the thighs are like Jewels the work of the hands of a cunning workman Cunning in Hebrew is there properly word for word trusty and faithful It implies a truth of skill and care in the workman by which he exactly answereth the relation in which he stands to his work the trust in him the dependance upon him and expectation from him Motion is the chiefest part of Beauty in as much as it is the most proper expression of Life and the spring of Variety This first Creation the work of Nature taken together in its invisible and visible parts from its beginning to its end is a living Image of God his Daughter and Bride although it be a shadow only of the heavenly Image or the heavenly Image in a shadow Are not the Wills of Intellectual Spirits here the joynts of the Thigh of this Image the manifest and most principal Instruments of motion by which it ascends or descends it turns it self about and moves every way Shall not then the faithful Creator whose Truth whose Goodness whose Skill is the Idea of all Beauty in Himself infinitely transcends all trust all expectation make these Joynts Jewels Shall he not here express the
latter being the shadow of the former Then he adds The Light shined in Darkness but the Darkness comprehended it not This seemeth to be a clear allusion to the work of the first day when God called Light out of Darkness dividing at the same time between the Light and the Darkness The Light now shined in the midst of the Darkness enlightning the Darkness so that it still remaineth incomprehensible to the Darkness as that abode in its own natural form divided from the Light All generally agree that Moses comprehended the History of the whole Creation in this Chapter And under the Covert and Vail of the visible part as a figure divinely describeth the Intellectual Angelical and more Divine part as the immediate Original and Life of this Figure We have an Image of this in the Body of Heaven with the Sun-shining in it by day or the Moon and Stars by night when they present themselves to our eyes by plain figures of themselves formed in a flowing stream here below The Jews therefore say That a man of Flesh and Blood cannot understand the first Chapter of Genesis St. Paul affirmeth That the invisible things are perceived being understood by the things that are made By these words he seemeth plainly to signifie that while Moses painteth out to us the visible world and framing of it his design is to set before us a lively Picture of the invisible part of things which is as the heavenly Person whose Picture is drawn on this Table The Light then which is the work of the first day being not only Sensitive but Intellectual is the first Creature the first and most immediate effulgency irradiation or out-shining of the Godhead the beginning of the Creation of God St. Paul saith That which makes manisest is Light Then the first Light is the first the most eminent the amplest the clearest the compleatest manifestation of God and so of the whole Creation as its golden Head The first day according to the Hebrew Idiom is the one day which Idiom hath this mystery wrapt up in it That the Unity the Fountain of numbers is the first in order from which we begin to number This Light which is the first Creature the work of the first day is the first procession of the Divine Unity without it self It retains therefore the highest Image of this Unity and partakes of it in the highest degree that any created Nature is capable of This is the Unity of the Divine Person or subsistency in a distinct created Essence or Form Thus you have in this lovely Form of the purest the sweetest of all created Lights the Person of Jesus Christ as he is the first Creature divinely subsisting in the Godhead This is that Light which while it shineth with a derived brightness in the midst of that darkness which is the first matter of every Creature it remaineth in the Unity and Divinity of its Person and subsistence vailed to the highest and most glorious of all Creatures For even in this blessed Person the darkness is a dividing Vail between the Nature and the Godhead in which that Nature subsists The Jewish Masters by a two-fold tradition seem to seal up this mystery for Posterity First they number the Soul of the Messias among those sacred and sublime Glories which were before the world Secondly They mysteriously affirm the Light of the first day to be a Light in which the whole work of Creation in all the parts of it with all its Revolutions from its first beginning to its last end are clearly and distinctly seen But say they at the fall of man by Sin this Light was hid beneath the Throne of God until the days of the Messias Can any thing more plainly express our Jesus as He is the first and universal Creature the first the fairest the clearest draught of the whole Creation in the whole course and conduct of it pre-existent to every Creature comprehending all the works of God from the first line to the last finishing of it in one most delightful View in one most agreeable Prospect in one Spirit and Form of purest sweetest life more than Angelical only less then Divine yet subsisting in a Divine Person If the will of man with its motions be seen and pre-exist here are they not here predetermined But I have said before that I would neither insist long upon this Point nor lay any thing of the weight of this Cause upon it being it self by few received or understood I divided my discourse of the Mediatorship into three Heads 1. Christ as he is the ground of all the Works of God in which also lies the ground of his Mediatorship 2. Christ as he is the Way 3. Christ as he is the End of the whole Work of God There are two parts in the way 1. Christ as he is the beginning of the Works of God the first Creature 2. Christ as the coming forth and the conduct of every Creature from the beginning to the end is in him and by him This I am now to take in hand Christ is Mediator as he is the way of the coming forth and the conduct of the Work of God in the whole and every part of it As in a Plant the seminal Spirit hath treasured up in it the seminal Reasons the whole Harmony all the proportions of the Plant in the whole Plant and in every part of it as this seminal Spirit hath in it self the formative power of the Plant according to the proportion as this Spirit putteth forth it self into every part of the Plant springeth up together with it gives it its proper measures and proportions suited to the Harmony of the whole Plant appears in each part as a living Image of that particular proportion or harmony which with an invisible Beauty flourisheth within it self resides on every part of the Plant with the full harmony of the whole being one and the same altogether undivided in the whole Plant and in all its parts Thus is Christ after a more eminent and divine manner the seminal Spirit of the whole Creation I have before represented him from clear Scriptures as the Wisdome and Power of God by virtue of which he is clearly a Spirit containing in himself the seminal Reasons and the formative Power by which every Creature is formed universally in its production and in its conduct Jesus Christ is frequently known in the Scriptures by that Name of the Seed which though it relates eminently to the state of Grace and Glory where it cometh up into its ripe fruit and entire form yet doth it relate to the state of Nature For by virtue of this Seed Adam was the Son of God By this Seed and in it were all things made as Plants springing forth from it although the Seed were yet come up in them only into the green Leaf or smiling Blossoms at the best That Name given in Greek to Jesus which is translated the Word signifieth as properly Reason Jesus
Christ is the Reason of God the Reason of the Divine Nature the universal Reason of the whole Creation in which lieth the particular Reason of each Creature in its Essence in its Operations Thus is Jesus Christ the universal Harmony of the Godhead and of the whole Work of God He is that Harmony according to the measure of which the whole work of God is formed The Reader is desired to take notice That the Authors Papers upon this Head were imperfect and that he will find what can be recovered of them before the finishing of this Work together with a large Discourse upon this whole Argument of the Mediation of Christ at the end of the Book where it was thought most convenient to place it because of its length The third Head of Arguments in this Cause of Free-will is the Universal Nature of the Creature Every Creature is a shadow That that is first in every kind is such by it self and every other thing by that God is the first Being the only Original All created Being in every kind degree or manner of being is a shadow of this Original and so is all that which it is in every distinct form motion or circumstance in its Essence Subsistence and Operations distinctly by this It hath its Being by the first Being It subsists it acts by the subsistency and by the acting of this first Being this first subsistency this first activity in it The whole Creation in its best state is no more than a shadowy Image of the Great Creator Man who is stiled the Glory of God as being the band the sealed sum the circling Crown of the whole Creation is said to be made in the Image of God The various Powers and Beauties dispersed thorow the several Creatures to make the whole a compleat Image of the Divine Nature meet in one in Him as a comprehension of the whole in whom the Divine Image is as entire but more heightned and refined as being more finisht here being drawn out further being more elaborate and having the last hand put to it Thus was He made worthy to be the Son of God the Figure of Jesus Christ in order to lie eternally in his bosome as his Bride and to be a Fellow-Heir of God together with Him Yet was this Image in which man was thus made a shadowy Image only The word by which it is express'd in the first of Genesis is Tselem This word hath in it entirely the name of a shadow It hath also the first and chief letter of Death with which it ends It signifies properly such an Image as is an empty vanishing dying shadow the shadow of a substance without any substance a shadow of life without any true life The same word is used Psal. 39. 6. Man walketh in a vain shew and disquieteth himself in vain The word here rendred a vain shew is Tselem the same with that by which the Image of God in Man is express'd Gen. 1. The words immediately preceding in this Psalm are these Man in his best state is all of him all vanity The Reason is added Man walks in a vain shew Man himself in the purity of his Nature in the unfaded the unstained flower of all his senses in the primitive heighth of all his Intellectual Glories was a vain shew The Paradise of his Understanding the invisible World of Angels with all the Virgin beauties and sweetnesses of both in the midst of which he walketh were a vain shew For they round about him with all their pomp and pleasantness were no more than a shadowy Image of the Divine World lying in the bosome of it He himself was a shadowy Image of the Divine Essence and Person in the midst of a world of shadows We have this word us'd again Psal. 73. 20 As a dream when one awaketh so O Lord when thou awakest thou shalt despise their Image Image here is Tselem which before was translated vain shew God the supream and eternal Spirit is here presented bringing forth this World as a man doth a dream in his sleep The darkness at the beginning of the Creation described Gen. 1. seems here to be alluded to as a mysterious sleep into which the first Spirit the Fountain of all the Father of all after a Divine manner cast its self Then the Light with the work of the six days and so the whole Creation springeth forth from this Spirit in this sleep as a dream The Devil with his Ministers or Creatures Angels and Man by the Fall become Princes and Lords of this Creation They possess the Powers Treasures and Glory of this World But all this while themselves with all these created Riches Honours and Joys in which they swim and swell are only shadows in a dream beneath the shining and anointed feet of those true substantial immortal Beauties and Sweetnesses to which their hope their sight their imaginations can never raise themselves When this eternal Spirit in whose sleep like painted forms in a dream they vainly flutter about awakeneth himself he at once dissolveth them into their own nothingness and despiseth them as having never been any thing yea less than nothing in the Light of Divine Truth and in the glorious face of the eternal substances Thus we see the universal Nature of the Creature and of Man in their first form to consist in a shadowy Image If the Creature were its own Original and had the truth the life of its own Being its Original form in it self it were no more a Creature but a God As then the Face in the Waters or in the Glass in all its powers parts colours and motions dependeth upon the living face being determinated by it every moment so are all Creatures all Spirits Angels or Men in their Essences Powers or Operations continually figured by those forms in which the eternal Spirit from above presenteth it self as the reflections of that Spirit like the shapes of the Clouds or the Face of Heaven in a clear stream This truth seemeth to be with a Divine elegancy set forth Cant. 5. 12. It is said there of Jesus Christ That his Eyes are as Doves above thâ—… Rivers of Waters washing in milk full set Thus the words in Hebrew most properly render themselves A learned Jew in his Paraphrase hath this gloss upon those words Full set The whole world is the fulness of his Eyes There seemeth to be in this verse a plain allusion to that expression Gen. 1. of the Spirit moving upon the waters or above the waters The Chaldee Paraphrase makes this to be in the form of a Dove The Lamb in the Revelation is said to have seven Eyes a perfect number expressing a full Variety The Ideal forms or the first Images of things those eternal Truths and Lights of Life in the Person of Christ as the essential Image the sweetest the only living Light of the Godhead are these Eyes of the Bridge-groom here celebrated These Eyes are Doves pure eternal
the substance of the Soul into the inward the common sense the phansy or imagination Now it is as a full Moon in the night of this visible and Corporeal World It is replenished with all the shady Forms of this night which shine in the face of it as in a Glass where they all meet and make one pleasant Night-piece Last of all The eternal Spirit the inward former and workman of the Soul contracts it and divides it into the outward senses into innumerable particular Forms These are as so many living Stars or Star-like eyes sparkling and dancing round about the Queen of this Night the Moon the common sense or imagination Through these Stars and this Moon in the Night-piece of these shady and Corporeal Forms is seen as in a Perspective as at a great distance the Intellectual and the Ideal Land of Angelical of Divine Glory which seem to cast forth these less and contracted Lights as faint-glimpses of themselves or like small sparks the seeds of the great flames As the Soul accompanied with her Original Pattern and Principle by its force thus descends so doth it by the same force in like manner ascend All the particular Forms of the outward senses the Beauties of the Eye the Musick of the Ear all Perfumes and delightful Odours the various Delicacies of the Tast the softnesses firmnesses the agreeable rests motions aequalities inaequalities in the Touch. All meet more pure and heightned in the common sense in the inward senses as in that Moon which is described to be an heavenly Earth or an earthly Heaven From thence they raise themselves resining themselves as they rise to the Intellectual Region As some believe the Sun to be the Habitation of the Blessed and to have the Blessed Fields Paradise in it So here in this Intellectual Sun all shady forms break up out of the mists of matter and corporeity into clear Suns into Angelical Essences and Spirits From hence the Soul as a bright Skie set with innumerable Suns of sweetest Light and most temperate pleasant vital warmth or as an Heaven replenished with Angels entertaining each other in a Divine Consort with Dances and Songs returns into its first Nest and its final Rest the Bosome of its Idea the Bosome of Christ in God In this Bosome of a truth hath it ever abode hath it circled round descending and ascending without going forth from it Thus hath God manifested himself in all possible Forms to the Soul according to the first part of the Apostles sense 2. God as the Souls proper Idea or exemplar Form every where present with it in every Form sets himself as a seal upon each form and upon the Soúl in that form So he is to the Soul the Impression the Evidence of the truth of each appearance by himself and of himself in each appearance Thus it is said of the Lord Jesus as he is the eternal word the Idea of all Ideas the proper Idea of man In him was life and that life was the light of men Joh. 1. The first life as it is in its Ideal Spring in the Person of the Lord Jesus the first the essential Image of God and so the Fountain of all Images shines forth into a Light of which is framed the Substance and Essence of the Soul Then it figureth this Light with its own Glories in their Divine Harmony and Order This Light these Figures are in themselves empty without force or efficacy All fullness dwells in Christ the Ideal Life in him forms and fills them This is the face of Beauty that looks forth through these Lattices This is the never-fading Flower in the heavenly Paradise which springs and puts forth it self through these Windows This rides forth upon every form into the bosome of the Soul and gives it self reception in the Soul As this first life in Christ is the Divine Seal upon every Form upon the Soul through every Form so is it the Divine ground in the Soul which receives and sustains this Seal which dissuseth in its Divine force and impression through the Soul by virtue of its Ideal Unity and Omnipresence The Original and Exemplar Life in Christ is the light of man objectively and formally It is the light in the Object which sheds it self on the Humane Spirit It is the light in man the form of his form the eye in his eye the power in his powers which taketh it in All sense is founded in a suitableness between the Object and the Faculty all suitableness in an Unity 3. Proposition God cloaths every created form in the eye of the Soul with an Intellectual or Angelical Image of himself By the things that are made are seen being understood the invisible things of God his eternal Power and Godhead saith our Evangelical Philosopher that word understood is carefully chosen and emphatically brought in The word is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 derived from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the peculiar and proper word by which the most Divine among the Philosophers in St. Pauls time expressed the Angels or Angelical Minds These Spirits were the chief Springs Powers Glories of the whole World in the number of the Creatures They were the Gods of this Creation and had the name of Gods given to them in the Holy Scriptures The Presence the Power the Authority the Glory of the Godhead next to Jesus Christ resided in them Jesus Christ the Lord and King of all reigned acted and appeared in these Angels of Might and Glory as the highest Representation of himself in his Divine Form and Majesty All this was not for their own sakes but for man as they were Guardians and Tutors to this Heir the Lord of all Each Angel was a diverse Figure of a distinct Variety in the eternal Glory in that diversity the full Glory in its Universal Image rested upon every Angel as a ministring Spirit to minister to man the full Glory He was the Heir of God the perfect Harmony the Unity in the which the whole Variety was most perfectly one married together with the Unity into the most perfect Beauty and Melody of the Universal Image of the whole Creation most exactly with the most charming agreeableness answering the Beauty the Melody of the Divine Nature as the Face in the Glass the living Face the liveliest Eccho the living Voice Each Creature hath as it s Ideal Glory in the Divine World so its Angel in the World of Angels In the pure state of things every inferior Creature had its Angel visibly sensibly present with it It s Angel formed it a Figure of it self in the diversity of its own proper Essence It s Angel cloathed it with an Intellectual Angelical Image of the Supream the Universal the Divine Beauty It s Angel dwelt constantly within this Image and shined through it After the same manner the Ideal Life and Glory in Christ made the Angel its Tabernacle in the Heavens and through the Angel each Creature below on Earth Every
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
in both from the meeting and blissful embraces of these two this Love and Loveliness in the Divine Nature his Joy and Complacency is alike in both equally full equally at the heighth A Divine Philosopher with a pleasant and beautiful Allegory teacheth us That the expansion of Light in the heavenly Bodies which is the Act of the Angelical World in this their most beautiful Figure is Risus Coelorum the laughter of the Heavens God maketh every thing beautiful in its proper place and time to kill as to make alive unformed deformed privations as the fairest and most flourishing forms In every Act of Providence in every accident from the beginning to the end of things he equally preserveth and perfecteth the Divine Order and Harmony This golden Harmony extended like the sweet Light of Heaven over all things is as a Divine laughter the complacency of the Divine Nature in its Work in its Image in it self I have yet one thing more to say before I take my other step We learn from Philosophers That heat and cold which continually fight in the Elements below are in the heavenly Bodies but after so eminent a manner that there they meet and enfold each other with a most harmonious agreeableness By the Laws of Divinity we are answerably taught That Anger and Love as all forms of things most discordant in the Creatures are first in the Divine Nature But they are there with an eminency with a transcendency in which they are refined and heightned far above all imperfections Here they all meet as most grateful and most agreeable Varieties in the entire and undivided Unity of the same eternal Light of the same eternal Love of the same eternal God As from this heighth of a most perfect Unity these Divine Varieties bring forth their various effects in shadowy resemblances here below they make the figure of the whole divinely one and divinely beautiful As Divine Seals they likewise impress the figure of their own Divine Unity upon each single effect Thus the whole work in general each single effect in particular is a divinely beautiful figure of the Divine Beauty shining with delightful beams upon those Eyes and Spirits which anointed with a Divine Knowledge see the golden and secret Seal this glorious and sacred impression of the Divine Unity upon it Thus we have spoken of the shame and guilt of Sin as also of Anger and in part of the Justice of God concerning which there remaineth more to be said 5. Step. We have yet before us that great Deep which swalloweth up all Understandings the face of which seemeth covered with a thick and impenitrable darkness Let us pray to the Father of Lights for irradiations from his eye that so this unfathomable Deep may discover it self to us as a blissful Deep of purest clearest and sweetest Glory If God first from the counsel of his own Will alone withdraw those beams which are all our Light and Beauty and we then by the inevitable necessity of our Natures wander as deformed shades in a wild darkness through the Regions of Sin Death and Hell Is not God now in a moral sense clearly and fully the sole Author of Sin and Evil This is the knot which indeed standeth in need of the Rosy Fingers of the heavenly Morning the beams of the eternal Day to unty it How shall we in this place vindicate the Justice and Goodness of God I have here three things to propound 1. Let us impartially and ingeniously consider whether the freedome of the VVill to determine it self absolutely in all its Acts reflect a greater Glory upon the Justice and Goodness of God than the VVill predetermined in its Essence in its superior Causes in the first and universal Cause That we may make a clearer judgment in this case let us compare these two different states of the VVill together with several Antecedents and Consequencies by placing them both in our view one by another as plainly within as narrow a compass as we can Let us set that Free-will in our eye after this manner God brings forth an Intellectual Spirit with a Divine Light of Truth in its heavenly Beauties shining upon its Understanding with a Divine Love of the true Good with all its heavenly Sweetnesses springing in its VVill. He now sets down the will of this Spirit upon such a ground of indifferency and absoluteness in it self that being undetermined into any forms of good or evil the most heavenly or the most hellish it is equally free for it in the face of all this blessed Light shining in the Understanding in the midst of all the heavenly sweetnesses flowing from the bosome of the true Good through the VVill it self to cast it self forth from the bosome of the eternal Good Appearing thus in its own naked and Divine Form and to cast it self into the embraces of the foulest evil the fountain of all evil presenting it self as evil in its own most direful and haggish shapes A great part of Intellectual Spirits far the greatest part of humane Spirits placed by the Divine Providence in this state refuse the good choose the evil so render themselves obnoxious to the Divine Justice and become by the pursuits and inflictions of that Avenger the lost Subjects of all horror and woes without end Let us now in the like manner cast our eye upon the Will predetermined in its Causes God brings forth an Intellectual Spirit compounded Ex aliquo Dei ex aliquo sui With something of God something of its own That of God in it is all the good of it the clear Face of the eternal Truth shining in its Understanding as in a Christal Mirror the sweet flame of pure Goodness and as pure a love to this Goodness burning in its VVill as upon the golden Altar in the Temple of God the beams of this Beauty and the flames of this Love unitedly spreading varying and forming themselves through the whole Person and Life of this Spirit into all Divine Virtues and Joys by which it becomes as God himself descended into a God-like Image of God himself This is that of God in the Creature That which is ofits own in this Intellectual Spirit is beneath all this heavenly beauty and goodness a deflectibility inseparable from the nature of the Creature bound up only by the heavenly charms of this Divinity resting upon the Person of this Spirit God in the depth of a design perhaps too blessed and too glorious to be penetrated and fathomed by us as the eternal Sun ascends up on high going away from this Spirit and carrying away with him his whole train of immortal beams with a Divine Light Heat and Virtue Now like a mournful and hated darkness from below the natural defectibility of this Spirit covers the whole face of it making it like Hell it self the seat of all evils both of Sin and Suffering which lie eternally upon innumerable multitudes Let us now consider the two-fold Law or
rule of Justice and Goodness by which this is to be tryed The general Rule or Law of Justice is this To give to every thing its due or its own Solomon expresseth this Rule of Justice from the Mouth of God in his Proverbs after this manner With-hold not good from them to whom it is due or from the Owners thereof when it is in thine hand to do it Divines interpret those Owners to be all persons in want all Subjects in any capacity of receiving any good from us Beneficence or a disposition to do good to all is with the Heathen Philosphers a branch of this Vertue of Justice The Law of God which is the Rule of Justice commands to love our Neighbour as our self St. Paul interprets this Neighbour to be every other Rom. 13. 8. He that loveth another hath fulfilled the Law The Jews teach us that the Law is founded in the Name that is in the Nature of God Man was made in the Image of God The Perfection then of the humane Creature is the Image of that Perfection which is in the Divine Nature the Law of the humane Nature is the transcript of the Divine Nature Our Lord Jesus interprets this Universal Law of humane Commerce and Justice among men Thou shalt love thy Neighbour after this manner Love your Enemies do good to them that hate you He layeth the ground of this Universal Justice in the Divine Nature That you may be the Children of your Father which is in Heaven He adds for a clearer Conviction If you love them that love you do not even the Publicans the same He concludes by referring the perfection of men to the Divine Perfection as its Original and Law Be ye therefore perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect Thus we see the Rule of Justice with God and with men to give our Love and all good according to our utmost power to every other as to the Owner of that love and good to whom they are due 2. The second Rule or Law is that of Goodness The Law of Goodness and its Essence is to diffuse and communicate it self The law of each thing is to act according to its nature of Light to shine of sweet Waters to send forth sweet waters of good to do good This Law is most deeply rooted and highly radiant in the Divine Nature inasmuch as God is the Chief the Universal the only good Accordingly he makes his Rain his Sun both Coelestial and Supercoelestial in their season to fall and to shine upon the Just and the Unjust Having stated the Case between Free-will and the Will predeterminated in its Causes and having set the Rule by which the Case is to be tryed Let us come to the Point in which we must joyn Issue 1. Both Cases agree in four grand Circumstances First In both Cases God makes man and the Will of Man from nothing according to the absoluteness of his Will and Power Secondly The event which is eternal ruine and torment to the greatest part of Mankind is alike certain to both by a certainty of infallibility 3. God before and in the making of his work clearly seeth and perfectly understandeth that this will be infallibly the event of his Workmanship Can it then with any reason be thought that the event of the work of an infinite Wisdom fore-seen should not be agreeable to the design of that Wisdom and the Will of that infinitely Wise Spirit whose Power is as infinite as his Wisdom 4. God could have made man otherwise in a Divine necessity of being good and blessed like himself in a confirmed state of Grace and Glory like the Elect Angels and Saints These are the Circumstances in which both Cases agree 2. The grand dâ—…fference between the two Cases where they joyn Issue is this In that Case of Free-will Man perisheth because God with-holds the good which he hath in himself and might have given to him that is a confirmation in good In the other case of the Will predetermined Man perisheth because God withdraws the good which he had once given him There are two Fathers with their two little Children one Father setteth his Child down so that he may run into a pleasant Field or a devouring Flood He fore-seeth that he will certainly run not into the Field but into the Flood he suffers him to run and perish in the Flood when he may as easily prevent him by laying his hand upon him or taking him into his arms The other Father holdeth his Child fast and safe in his arms for a while over the cruel Flood then he casteth him not in but he taketh away his arms and leaves him by his own weight necessarily to drop into the Flood and perish there I appeal now to every equal and impartial Judge whether both these Fathers seem not both guilty or innocent Whether they be not both likely to be cleared or convicted if they be tryed by those fore-mentioned Rules of Justice and Goodness Is not the two-fold Plea of both these Wills of equal force against the Justice and Goodness of God 1. Why hath he made me thus certainly to perish What is it to me whether this certainty be a certainty of infallibility only from the mutability of my nature or a certainty of inevitableness from the necessity of nature while I certainly perish 2. Why is he yet angry who hath resisted his Will Is not the certain event of his Work clearly fore-seen by him from the beginning interpretatively his Will Which Opinion shall we prefer That of the Will predetermined gives to God the full Glory of his Soveraignty Absoluteness Wisdom Power making his work in the whole and in every part from the beginning to the end one entire piece altogether dependent upon himself wrought throughout by himself and conducted from one supream principle by one universal Form of the Divine Understanding and the Divine Image to one Universal and Ultimate end the Divine Glory But it seemeth to cast an imputation upon the Divine Justice and Goodness The other Opinion of Free-will seemeth to violate the Soveraignty and Absoluteness of God making his actings dependent upon the actings of Creature The Power of God in giving to the Creature the determination of it self with an independence upon him in these Cardinal Acts of the Will upon which the whole Circle and Globe of things in the Divine Love Justice and Wrath in the happiness or misery of Man from eternity is turned about His Wisdom while his work hath breaches and gaps in it like a Chain whose links are not fastned one in another while the Harmony is thus broken while all the great effects and end of his work are casual uncertain in their Causes and in their Nature inasmuch as all depend upon the free and fortuitous motions of the Will independent upon and undetermined by all preceding or superior Causes even the first and universal Cause it self Together with all this Cloud which the Opinion
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
a delightful sweetness both in the Subject and in the sense and all the various perfections or proportions of the whole and of the several parts concentring in each part giving a perfection to it and receiving a perfection from it and thus reflecting the distinct and united perfections of the whole and of all the parts mutually and endlesly upon each other and so shine forth carrying as in triumph upon every sparkling beam the multiplied reflections as so many Coelestial Venus's exactly answering one another and all in one into the beholding and ravisht eye But this will be confirmed and made more clear to us in that which followeth Fourthly God maketh all things for eternity verse 14. I know that whatsoever God doth that shall be for ever God's ever is eternity Eternity as we learn from Philosophers and Divines is a perfect Unity comprehending all Variety within it self even Time also with all its successions divisions and distances without and above time succession division or distance It is defined to be Tota totius boni simul semel possessio A whole possession of the whole good at once and in one Thus God worketh all things from eternity in eternity and for eternity Thus he maketh every thing beautiful as it is seen in the light of eternity which alone is the light of Truth Time being the shadow of Eternity and a Vail upon it for in this light in which the Works of God are all wrought in which alone a true judgment may be made of them every particular is seen as it lies in the whole as a part of the Variety in the whole Variety and in the Unity The whole Variety and the Unity appears entire and compleat in every part so the fulness of the Divine Work the fulness of the Divine Beauty and Glory spread through the whole Work is united in every part and fulfilleth all in all Object Perhaps you will say Are moral privations as well as natural is sin also comprehended in this discourse Hath God also set a season for that and made that beautiful in its time Then is it no more sin if it be not a deformity Then is it a grace if it be a beauty A Divine Grace if it be a Divine Beauty And a Divine Work if it be made by God How genuinely does the Opinion of the Ranters flow from these Principles That then only we see things in the Light of the Gospel the only true and eternal Light when we see no more any distinction between Good and Evil Grace and Corruption the deformity of Sin and the beauty of Holiness the Works of God and the Works of the Devil all say they seen by an eye truly illuminated is a Divine Work a Divine Grace and Beauty Answ. I reply first in general to ranting Principles and Practices as St. Paul doth with abhorency and detestation God forbid far be it far be these Principles from the mind and life of every good man as they are far from the Divine Truth from the Mind Life and Work of God formed by the Devil from a Seed of enmity to God unto the Glory of the Gospel in the Womb of the blackest darkness in the darkest depth of the bottomless pit But my more particular and distinct Reply is this 1. If sin be a positive Form of Being then it is originally and eternally comprehended in the first Being the only Fountain of Being it floweth from it lieth in the frame and order of the Universal Being It beareth upon it the impression and character of the first Being with its Beauty it beareth a part with the whole or universal Being making up the perfection of the whole and cloathed with it crowning it and crowned by it All this upon that supposition will necessarily be true of it most properly most directly by it self and not indirectly or by accident only But according to the narrow compass of my knowledge or understanding this supposition and consequent both are contrary to the common current and general stream of Philosophy and Divinity 2. If sin be a privation of Grace it is to be considered two wayes 1. In Principio 1. In its Principle 2. In Termino 2. In its Term or Subject 1. The privation of Grace is to be considered in its Principle As a privation hath no Being so it hath no Principle in a proper sense if we may apply such language to it Privation which is no Being with its particular modification and bounds hath for its proper Principle Non-entity or not Being in its universal sphere or compass as the narrow and mid-land Seas are divided from the vast unbounded Ocean But the Principle from which the privation of Grace ariseth in its Subject by consequent and by accident is Grace it self in its first Principle with-holding or with-drawing it self The Principle of Grace is God alone the Privation of Grace as it is the with-drawing or the with-holding of this Principle in its Operations or Influences so it is immediately consequent to originally comprehended in the Acts of the Divine Will and the Divine Wisdom This privation of Grace lying thus in the Principle of Grace comprehended in the Acts of the Divine Wisdom and Will as their term and bound hath its part and place in the Divine design It is now and here in this Prospect a part of the Variety as a Contrariety It lies within the embraces of the whole Variety it lies in the bosom of the Unity which is the Spring the Seat the Throne of the Variety So the whole Variety in the Unity the Unity in its full Variety and at once after the manner of eternity spring up in it shine through it look forth clearly and compleatly in the face of it richly cloath it all over After this manner is the privation of Grace in its Principle in the Acts of the Divine Will and the Divine Wisdom a Divine Workmanship a Divine Beauty Agreeable to this is that common Principle of our Divines That God hath his influence upon Sin to order it to bound it in all its circumstances to reduce the disorder of it into order to make it serviceable to the order and the beauty of the whole In this sense Proclus affirms in his Divinity That there is neither Privation or Corruption 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Totis that is according to his sense In Divine Intellectual Spirits which by the light of Eternity comprehend in themselves in one view the whole Work of God the whole nature of things with all their Varieties and Contrarieties as an entire piece an entire Image The Divine Workmanship the Divine Beauty of the supream Spirit whose Unity is figured upon For here the Divine Form and Beauty of the whole resting upon every Privation or Corruption makes that also in the whole a Divine Unity and Perfection 2. Privation is to be considered in Termino vel Subjecto that is in the Intellectual Spirit as the Seat or Subject Divines say That
the Act of creating as it is in God its Principle is God as it is in the Creature where it is terminated is the Creature In like manner the Privation of Grace as it hath its beginning in the Author of Grace from an Act of the Divine Wisdom and Will designing or determining the with-holding of it is thus Divinely-beautiful and good The same privation of Grace as it is terminated and seated in a created Spirit is an evil of Sin the highest deformity the first the greatest evil the fountain of all evils most properly in its own nature and in the Eye of God As being the first and foulest privation of the first Good or the heighest Beauty and the Fountain of all following Privations extending their poisonous and baleful shades to the bottomless pit to the nethermost Hell God saith in the Prophet Isaiah of Nebuchadnezzar he is a Rod in my Hand but he thinketh not so Nebuchadnezzar was as in the hand of God but as a Musicians Quill The Acts of Enmity Tyranny and Cruelty exercised by him and upon the people of God were from the Divine Musician the Master of the universal Musick skilful stroaks and tender touches upon his Harps or Lutes which are his Saints making the universal the eternal Harmony compleat in their Persons and in his whole Work But the same Acts as they were from Nebuchadnezzar were a disorder a breach of the Harmony a Contrariety of an enmity which is the highest opposition to it In the same sweet and beautiful sense of Divine Love that loveliest figure of our Lord Jesus saith to his Brethen concerning their savageness selling sacrificing him to their envy and malice directed against the Divine Glory declaring it self in him by heavenly Visions Ye thought evil against me God meant it unto good Gen. 50. 20. Thus he comforted them concerning their greatest sins who were now humbled for them After the same manner to the same end the Truth himself the Lord Jesus by his Spirit striketh upon the heart of the Jews who had crucified him that now themselves might bleed inwardly from the sense of that precious blood of his which they had shed Act. 2. 23. Him being delivered by the determinate counsel and fore-knowledge of God ye have taken and with wicked hands crucified See that Act the most bloody and direful that ever the Sun saw by which the Suns Sun in Flesh and on Earth suffered the most mournful and tragical Ecclipse attributed at once to the determinate Counsel of God and to the wickedness of men Here that was eminently true which was represented by the former Scripture in the figure that which men thought evil against their Jesus their only Joy their God their only Good and Glory the same thing the cursed sale and cruel sacrificing of their God he meant unto good to bring to pass as at this day to save much people alive to bring many Sons to eternal Life and Glory A learned man cites from Aristotle in his Metaphysicks a passage in which he affirms That all the several parts are referred to the good of the order in the whole as the end of all Upon this he discants that this good of order depends upon the vilest as well as the most precious things that it consisteth in the interval and proportion between these That in respect to this order the vilest things are determined and framed with the same most exact skill as the most curious things Thus the sufferings of Joseph the crucifying of Jesus as they lay eternally determinate in the determinate Counsel of God designed and fashioned there unto good the highest Good the supream End the universal Order the Divine Glory which wraps up in it the blessedness of all the Saints so it self was a part of the Order a part of the Glory a Grace a Beauty a Perfection in the universal Order and Divine Glory But as this proceeds from the hearts and hands of Men the Instruments of it who like Nebuchadnezzar thought not so like Josephs Brethren thought it for evil like the Crucifiers of Christ were wicked in it It is a deordination a disorder a real evil the worst of evils not only a falling short of the Glory of God which is the Divine Image and effulgency in the Harmony of things as St. Paul describes Sin nor yet a transgression and breach only of the Law which is the rule and measure of this Order as another Apostle defines sin but an Enemy to it as all sin is in its root and essence according to the Language of St. Paul in another place So the discord in Musick is truly in its own particular nature and apart a discord so a black crooked line a dark shade is in it self truly black crooked dark offensive to the eye contrary to Light Rectitude and Beauty although the discord be a part of the Harmony this line and shade a part of the Beauty in the whole Object But you will perhaps say All these things seem hitherto to confirm the Ranters in their licentious Principles and Practices For why should not Sinners with the freedom of all sinful pleasures rest and rejoyce in the absoluteness of the Divine Conduct the Perfection of the Divine Order and Beauty which giudes them through all which accompanieth them in all as the Motion and Musick of those heavenly Spheres the Divine Wisdom Power and Goodness comprehending all things with their courses as Stars fixed in them what place is there here for shame guilt displeasure or punishments Answ. I am sensible of the weight of this Work in which I have by degrees engaged my self and how unfit my shoulders are for it When that wise Queen of Sheba saw the attendance of Solomons Servants and the order of his House there was no more any spirit left in her What then is the order in the House of God in his Work from the beginning to the end of it What the attendance and ministry of all the parts of this Work as the Servants in this House according to the Divine Order What Cherubim or Seraphim would have any more any Spirit left in it while it contemplates this Order which at the height of its most ravishing Contemplations remains still for the excess of Glory incomprehensible to it This is that Wisdom in a mystery which the most princely Spirits and Understandings of the whole Creations in their natural capacities are unable to take in What then is my spirit what my faculty that I should be capable of taking off the Vail from this Divine Chain of heavenly Pearl so closely and curiously set to behold in my self by any imperfect glimps to present any glance of it in its Divine lustre and order to other eyes and to preserve it from the feet of Swine or mouth of Dogs What am I that I should attempt to take the Cloud off from this heavenly Paradise which is in the midst of us before us round about us in which all things and
I will yet bring seven times more Plagues upon you As the opposition and disorder and sin encreaseth so the Divine Harmony also is heightned in its contrariety to it All this is done that the evil of sin and disorder the beauty and sweetness of the Divine Grace and Order may set out the Contrariety This also is that the distinction between the Ceator and the Creature the heavenly Image the Original and Substance which is all pure Light and Good without any mixture of Darkness or capacity of Evil. And the earthly Image the shadow which is composed of a figure of Light and true Darkness from which sin with all evils spring and take life according to the Language of the Apostle may be more clearly discovered Thus by the breaking in of sin by blame and shame and sufferings which are as so many Glasses to set before sin the deformity and ugliness of its own face the Creature the shadowy Image is humbled is broken to pieces is brought into the dust that it may give all glory and attribute all good to the Creator the Original and eternal Image that it may resign it self to it seek its rest alone in it and that it may finally return into the bosom of the Original Glory which in these wayes by these degrees through the breakings of it springeth up in it breaketh forth through it and bringeth it back again to lie down eternally in that Bosom of purest Love and Light where it was at first from eternity where it hath been eternally hid with Christ in God All this God doth that he may eternally display the unsearchable Riches of that Variety and Fulness which is in himself that he may swallow up the Understanding of every Creature Man or Angel into an admiration and adoration of the incomprehensibleness of his Wayes his Wisdom his Blessedness and Glory who at once bringeth forth these Varieties which like Morning-Stars and Sons of God in the purest unmixt Light and Love dance and sing together in his Bosom into such fighting Contrarieties upon the stage of the earthly and created Image here below making that the seat of deformity shame woe and death while it figureth out the highest Joys and Glories of eternal Life above who again gathers up all these jarring and tumultuous Contrarieties into the first state and supream Unity where the Variety is far more vast and boundless in the whole far more full and distinct in each branch of it where the whole is all an eternal Melody an eternal Beauty an eternal Joy unexpressibly Divine pure and ravishing where each branch in its own distinct Form is a Beauty a Melody a Joy equally pure perfect and ravishing with the whole being crowned with the Unity and Eternity which is the highest Unity This St. Paul representeth to us clearly and fully in the person of each Saint when he saith Heights and Depths things present and things to come this World Life and Death all things are yours and you are Christs and Christ is Gods All things are Divine distinct eternal Glories in the person of a Saint as a Saint is taken up into the Glory of Christ as Christ is in the Glory of God 3. The evil of Sufferings is the proper way in the Universal Order by which the disorderly Spirit with its disorders returneth into order to possess and enjoy in it self the Divine Beauty and Musick of the whole Guilt is the Obligation upon each Spirit from every Act of disorder unto the Divine Justice which is the Law of the Divine Harmony seated originally in the Divine Nature from the opposing it self to the disorderly Spirit and the reducing it by the opposition into order This is done three wayes 1. By Expiation 2. By Compensation 3. By Abolition 1. Expiation or atonement is the bringing in of something Sacred Divine and Perfect The Heathen in their Expiations generally made use of brimstone which seemed to have something Sacred and Divine in it as appears by the Greek name 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifieth both brimstone and something Divine perhaps the reason is its aptness to take fire and its resemblance in its pure and fiery flame to the Coelestial Bodies 2. Compensation is of like to like by an equality this turneth the Discord into a Concord and gathereth it up into the Unity 3. The Abolition is the effacing and blotting out the disorder bringing it forth now into order where the deformity of the discord is swallowed up into an amiable and beautiful Harmony This is the chief part of the expiation or atonement in which the Ancients to this end made use of a living stream or fire as things Sacred and proper for purification But this whole work is comprehended in the mystery of Christ it is begun and finished in his Person alone literally or mystically 1. Expiation Jesus Christ the eternal Spirit of the Divine Order and Harmony springs up in the midst of the disorder and takes it all upon himself by taking Flesh. This is the beginning of the Expiation this is the truly sacred Divine and perfect thing brought in to expiate the confusion and the abomination This is the supream Unity the supream Harmony Love it self the Prince of Peace and Harmony the God of Order discovering himself as a sacred and eternal Root at the bottom of the disorder in whom that also stands after an orderly and harmonious manner while he himself also is springing up through it This is the beginning of the Expiation 2. Compensation This Jesus which is Divine Love it self appearing in the enmity the Divine Harmony it self in the disorder seats himself as the mark of the opposition and contrariety by which the Divine Order in the Spirit of Order which is himself sets it self against the Disorder to subdue and reduce it he receiveth himself into his own bosom and heart all the invenomed arrows and fiery darts which the Justice and Wrath of God that is Love it self casteth forth in its highest opposition and contrariety to the enmity This contrariety of the Divine Love to the enmity which hath violated and slain this Love in breaking the Harmony is maintained by a War of Blood and Fire till it come to its ut most height till the contrariety of Love to the enmity be fully displayed and discharged till the enmity and disorder that work of the Devil be subdued and destroyed together with the dissolution of flesh it self The earthly and shadowy Image the seat and ground of sin and enmity by the death of Jesus Christ who hath taken our Sins and Nature upon himself as the first root and ground of all O sweet and Divine Mystery O musical Discord and harmonious Contrariety O peaceful and pleasant War where the supream Love stands on both sides where as in a mysterious Love-sport or a Divine Love-play it fights with it self suffering for it self dying by it self and so it self sinking by death into its own sweetest bosom and dearest
the whole Work as one compleat piece within the same Divine beginning and Divine end knit together by the same Divine influence running equally through all parts and making all one The Lord hath made all things for himself yea even the Wicked for the day of evil 2. The effect in this particular instance is remarkable This effect is every wicked person under the formality of a wicked person As a Creature an Angel or a Man he cannot be the subject of any question or doubt The evil of sin by which he is constituted and denominated wicked is clearly designed by this emphatical instance I have often already expressed the manner of the influence and operation of the Divine Power and Providence upon the evil of sin and so of a Sinner under the formality of sin All evil being a defect depends upon the first Cause together with all intermediate Causes in their deficiency only and in the ordination of circumstances 3. This instance brings in this particular effect in its inseparable connexion with its subordinate end The day of evil The Lord hath made all things for himself yea even the wicked person who becomes wicked by the evil of sin He hath made the inseparable connexion between the evil of sin and the evil of sufferings He hath made this evil person by an inviolable Order for the day of evil the evil of Sufferings He hath made this evil person this evil of sufferings the connexion between these two as the effect and next subordinate end For himself the Ultimate and last end the blessed the glorious Crown of all I will finish this Subject with two or three brief and clear Observations drawn from this Text. 1. The beginning and the end of all things are the same God in his most glorious Essence the only the supream the universal the essential Good an infinite Good 2. The end is the first and chief Cause moving all other Causes and directing their motions from the first to the last motion 3. All things are bounded by these two The first beginning and the last end All things in every step of all effects of all subordinate ends are in motion and in the way to the last end They rest not they attain not their mark to which they are designed from the beginning by the first and universal Mover till they arrive at this their last end 4. â—…he last end gives amiableness beauty and perfection to all things as the means of bringing forth this end It gives this beauty and perfection to them three wayes 1. It self runs along through all things in their whole way to it as the first universal Mover as the first and universal virtue and force which moves in all and moves all throughout from the beginning to the end 2. It comprehends all in it as the bosom or nest in which the whole is designed and formed 3. It rests upon all things in every part of the work and step of the way as the life and light of the universal Order and Harmony which attracts directs and conducts all to it self 4. It gathers up all things at last into its self as the term and mark to which all things move in which alone all motions cease and are changed into rest Every thing in its Ultimate end gaineth its perfection its true and proper self Every thing is so far it self as it is perfect so far as it is imperfect it falls short of it self every imperfection being a privation of being and so to each self a privation of it self according to its degree This is the sweet and musical close This is the bright and beautiful crown of all things the beginning and the end meeting in one 5. The end it self as it is the first Mover so doth it last of all cease from its motions and terminate them in its own beatifical Rest. This is the end perfectly accomplished when all things tending to this end meet in the perfection of the end The end therefore never returns to its rest till it rests with its full perfection in every part of the Work in every particular form directed to it self Our Divines teach us That the Glory of God is the Ultimate end of all things not the essential but the manifestative Glory so the Glory of God then only finds rests when it rests with a full revelation of it self unvailing all its Beauties unfolding all its Sweetnesses in the bosom and face of each part of the whole Work of God So the Divine operation and motion ceaseth not in any part of this Divine Work until all rest in the bosom of this Glory perfectly displaying all its Pleasures and Delicacies upon it For this manifestative Glory is the end of all The end mutually gives to and takes from all the means to the end rest and perfection Thus God hath made all things all effects with all their subordinate ends yea even the wicked also for the day of evil his subordinate end for this Great and Ultimate end himself in the brightness and full out-shinings of his Glory I pass now to the third Scripture Rom. 11. If I deceive not my self I seem to my self to discern in this Scripture a rich Mine of Divinity of Divine Truth and Glory in which no Workman hath yet laboured But it is not agreeable to my present time or purpose to open or point out this Mine if I were furnished with an heavenly strength and skill sufficient for it I shall now only touch at some verses in this Chapter which contibute to my present Design verse 23. God hath shut up or as it is in the Greek God hath locked up together all in unbelief that he may have mercy upon all St. Paul in this Chapter sets before us God as the most skillful Painter sweetning and beautifying his Work in the whole and in the parts of it by the mixtures and interchanges of Light and Shades Grace and Severity still terminating all in the sweetness and light of the Divine Grace as the end of all From this Contemplation he raiseth himself into and loseth himself in the pleasant heighths of a Divine Extasy verse 33. O the depth of the Riches and the Wisdom and the Knowledg of God How unsearchable are his Judgments and his wayes past finding out Every Work of God hath a three-fold Depth of Riches 1. A Depth of Riches the riches of Power Purity Beauty Love Goodness Grace and Glory 2. A Depth of Wisdom of Divine Contrivance of perfect Harmony 3. A Depth of Knowledge comprehending all endless and infinite Varieties in a clear view at once In every part of the Work of God do all these Depths meet which swallow up the most capacious Spirits of Saints and Angels into themselves but can be fathomed by no Spirit The distinct judgment in which any one the least piece of this Work is wrought hath so boundless a depth heighth and compass in it that it is altogether unsearchable The way of
God in it is a Divine secret and mystery of Grace and Glory which hath such recesses such endless Varieties in it that it cannot be traced by the Foot or discovered by the eye of any Creature St. Paul foundeth this incomprehensibleness in the Work of God upon the incomprehensibleness of the Divine Mind He foundeth this unbounded Treasure of Divine Goodness and Glory in the Work of God upon the absoluteness freedom of the Divine Nature ver 35. For who hath known the mind of the Lord and who hath been his Counsellor or who hath given first to him that it may be given again to him by way of return or exchange As are the Riches of the Divine Mind which first forms in it self the Ideas of all its work and then forms every work according to that Idea which rests upon every Work as the Seal upon the Print in the Wax such are the Riches of God in every part of his Work As is the absoluteness unlimitedness of the Divine Nature which consulteth with nothing considereth nothing in the Creature but taketh the measure and the manner of all his Works from eternal patterns in his most glorious Essence and is put on and taketh the rise of all his Works from the ever-ful ever flowing over-flowing fountain and boundless Riches of his Godhead such are all the operations and emanations of the Divine Nature Thus St. Paul concludeth and justifieth the Divine Wonders of incomprehensible Riches Wisdom Knowledge The Divine Wonders of an absolute unconfined freedom in all the Works of God by the cause of all verse 36. Because of him and by him or through him and to him are all things Plato maketh three Causes alone the Efficient Formal or Exemplar and Final St. Paul wraps up all these in one in God alone He is the beginning the way the end of all He is the Fountain out of which they all arise in their several streams He is the Chanel in which every stream runs along He is the Sea into which they all flow where they lose not their Distinctions but rise up to the perfection of them in this Marriage with the first the full and unbounded Glory To what unbounded expectations of Divine Riches surmounting all expectations in every Creature may we now raise our thoughts when the beginning the way the end of every thing thus lies in the Godhead when this Bosom the Treasures of all Glories and Sweetnesses is to every thing its Fountain in which it riseth its Chanel in which it runs along its Sea in which it ends How justly doth St. Paul set a Crown of Glory upon the Head of the Deity in all its Works To him is glory in the Generations so may we most properly read the words How sweetly doth he seal up his own Faith Understanding Love in sweetest Rest and fullest Joy with this Glory Amen Of him through him and to him are all things To him be Glory for ever Amen Thus this last Scripture in a clear Harmony with the other two seems to give a sweet and full close to the Divine Musick of this heavenly Truth and leaves these divinely-delightful touches upon our Spirits 1. God the only Good is equally absolute entire universal in shutting or locking up all men in Unbelief the Prison the Dungeon of deepest darkness as in shewing mercy which is the opening to them the taking them into the Palace of eternal Light the Light of Life the Light of Love the Light of Glory He shuts and none can open he opens and none can shut These are the two Cardinal Acts the shutting up under belief and the shewing mercy Upon which the whole work of the Divine Providence moves through Earth through Hell and Heaven through Time and Eternity 2. Shewing mercy is the end shutting up in unbelief is the means or way to this end Mercy is one of the sweetest names of Love the shutting up in unbelief is then an Act of Divine Love For all motions to the end are in the virtue of the end the end is the light the life the loveliness of the means All means and ways to the end are first comprehended in the end The end by it self immediately formeth them upon the Spirit of the Agent The end through the Spririt of the Agent bringeth forth it self into them as so many tendencies to it self as so many gradual orderly springings forth of its self The end at the last comprehendeth them all again in it self as making up the perfection of the end and having their perfection in the end Thus the severity and wrath of God in its severest Act the shutting up men under unbelief is Love and divinely-lovely 3. God and Love in this Work of his appear to be both one For Love is the end of Wrath By being the end it is also the beginning and the way So also is God For of him and through him and to him are all things to whom is the glory through all Generations The highest expression of God unto our capacity as he is in the simplicity of his Divine Essence is Love This is his Glory as he is unvailed unclouded This is that that darkens and thickens it self into every Vail or Cloud This is a sweetning a gilding upon every Vail every Cloud God as he is Love is the beginning the way the end of every Work through every Generation and so the Glory in every Work to all generations 4. God in his Work is absolute and absolutely free He taketh no counsel he is touched with no motive from any thing without himself The reason and rule of all his Works is alone from himself from within All within is the Unity the simplicity of the Divine Essence uncapable of any mixture or composition all meer clear pure Love 5. The Work of God in shutting up in unbelief and shewing mercy is an unfathomable Depth But is a shining Depth of most perfect Beauty and sweetest Light For it is a Depth of Divine Wisdom it is a Depth of Glory and unsearchable Riches It is a most delicious Depth of Divinest Love the unsearchable Treasure of all the most lovely and most loving Sweets and Joys The work of God is unsearchable incomprehensible infinite but an unsearchable â—…ncomprehensible infinite Love and Glory Let us therefore eâ—…pect in this Work to meet with Difficulties too great for our Understanding Let us be content to say Here is a Depth unfathomable not to my Spirit alone but to every finite Spirit of Man or Angel Then let us add from our knowledge of whom whose the design and the work is It is a lovely a delightful Depth a Depth of purest Glories and richest Loves So let us gladly cast our selves into it to be swallowed up by it concluding all with these words I cannot receive nor comprehend thee Do thou receive and comprehend me O Depth infinitely too glorious to be comprehended by me O my self infinitely blessed in being comprehended by thee I
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
the Perfection of each Being That which all things desire that which equalleth and transcendeth all desires As St. Paul saith to the Athenians That God whom ye ignorantly worship I preach unto you So by these unquestioned Principles it seemeth unquestionable That God as he is in his own proper Form is alone that Object which all things in Heaven on Earth and under the Earth love seek and adore If he shall please to lift up his Vail and discover his Face to be seen by all eyes of mortal or immortal Creatures all casting away their several Idols would run swiftly and unanimously into his Bosom alone crying out with an universal shoot This is he whom our Souls love This is our Beloved This alone is the Good which we have pursued in all things through all things Here is our Rest for ever If any Spirit then hate God it directeth its hatred not against God but a false Image which it hath set up to it self of God as an hater of him as a cruel one as extending himself to a larger compass in severities and wrath than sweetnesses and loves as an hard Task-Master requiring Brick when he affordeth no Straw as an enemy or a neglecter of the joy and felicity of his Creatures as raising a pleasure and glory to himself in the shame and ruine of his own Work or at least from a want of natural goodness and kindly affection leaving his own Work his own Birth to shame and ruine when it is every way in his Power to make it good and great in Blessedness and Glory So now it is no more God which this Spirit hateth but an Idol set up within it self in the place of God So sin deceiveth it first and then killeth it by a misplaced hatred upon a mistaken Object So this Spirit sinneth by falling short of the Glory of God and manifesteth its sin by this to be nothing positive but a privation only 8. Reason This predetermination of the Will placeth Man in the same rank with Automata the self-moving Works of Art as Clocks and Watches These are determined by the Workman to a certain motion which they cannot vary and being put into motion by the hand of the Workman they continue it without any power over it unto its designed period Such a piece of work Man seemeth to be if the motions of his Will upon which all other Humane motions depend be not in his own power Answ. What if Man be not allowed that Prerogative in respect to the superior and universal Movers which these works of Art have in respect to the Artificer He frameth his pieces for their motion he putteth them into motion they now continue their motions without any assistance from the Workman the Author of their frame and motion Man lives and moves and hath his Being in God Every distinct moment of his Being Life and Motions are new and distinct emanations from God as in their first Beginning as at their first Creation yet are the preheminencies of this self-mover the Soul of Man many great and glorious above the self-moving works of Art 1. The motions of the Will are Intellectual The Soul in the actings of the VVill understandeth reflecteth upon its own motions It comprehendeth the beginning the end of them their causes out of which they arise their nature and differences their course and stream in which they run along their effects and consequents in which they determine 2. The motions of the VVill are with a relish and agreeableness They all flow from Love the love of Good the love of Beauty which is good in its proper Image or appearance This is the first and great wheel in the VVill which puts all the wheels of the other affections or passion sinto motion The motions of the VVill tend all to delight and joy as their mark to the delightful and joyous fruition of the beloved Beauty the beloved Good in the which the VVill together with the whole Soul and the whole Man hath its rest and its end 3. The Soul of Man in the motions of the Will is acted by superior and universal Causes not as an external hand or power but as internal Principles as the springs of Being and Beauty of Life and Light of Activity and Motion of all power sense and relish which are essentially comprehended in the Essence of the Soul and Will which continually feed it Give me leave here again to cite those uncontroverted Maxims in the Metaphysicks the universal cause is most truly is most of all the Cause in every kind of casuality So is it most truly most of all the essential the formal cause of the Soul and of its Will The universal Cause is most intimate to every effect It is then most intimate to the Will and to the operations of the Will VVe read in Proclus That the Soul containeth all things in it self 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is after the manner of a Soul The subordinate and supream kinds of things are comprehended in the inferior kind entring into the definition and essence of each specifical nature together with it Thus man comprehendeth in his Essence the superior forms of a living Creature of a corporeal substance of substance it self in its abstracted eminency of Being the Fountain and Head of all these After the same manner the Divine Ideas their eminencies and virtues the Angelical forms in their powers and properties descending and forming themselves into an inferior Image in which they are all united constitute the Essence of the Soul and are complicated in it But to conclude my Answer to this Reason Doth this darken the glory of the VVill of Man Doth this confine it destroying its freedom and its Joy that it acteth and moveth in conformity to in communion and fellow ship with the Divine VVill from the same Principle in the same amplitude to the same end by the same necessity of good alone of the supream the universal Good comprehending all things in it self unchangeable in all This is the proper nature of Man and of his VVill that Divine Similitude and Image in which he was first created 9. Reason But the Variety of things that it may be entire requires it that there should be in nature a free agent undetermined to motion or a cessation from motion to this or a contrary motion having the disposal of it self of its own acts independantly entirely in it self Answ. 1. I do not remember that I have hitherto read or heard this pleaded That the VVill is equally undetermined and free to Good or to Evil presenting themselves in the formalities or appearances of Good or of Evil. This were to affirm that evil equally with good is the Object of the VVill That all things desire evil in its own proper form as much as good Yet this Variety here asserted clearly asserteth this 2. A full Variety is directed to the most perfect Harmony as its end It is the Unity preserved entire in the Variety
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
the sum of all Perfections is divinely seated Having the Glory of God But let us here a while feast our Understandings and Affections our whole Persons with all our Powers upon our Jesus whom all our desires cannot equal Let us endeavour to take a more distinct and exact view of the Mediatory Glories of his blissful Person in this divinely-admirable piece his created Image For this end we will fix our eye for a short season upon the threefold Riches of this Work 1. The Variety 2. The harmonious Order in each part of the Variety 3. The Unity of the whole of each part with the whole and with it self Now gentle Reader let me humbly fore-warn thee that I may not seem too far to transgress the laws and limits of that Method which I have prescribed to my self in treating of the Mediatorship of our Lord Jesus by touching here in this part and taking in all things of the Creator and the Creature of the Fall and the Recovery of Nature and Grace I intreat thee therefore to consider and bear in thy mind when thou meetest with this these three things 1. The Person of our Lord Jesus in this Mediatory Image of which I speak unites all Here God is come down somewhat from the heighths of his unapproachable Light nearer to us Here God is with a delicate and transparent Veil of his own clearest Beams not hiding any of his Glories but tempering them after the sweetest manner to a more pleasing suitableness unto us that we may with a more agreeable familiarity and a more familiar delight feed the eyes of our minds with them Here is the Creation in the whole Circuit of it with an Amplitude and Glory far beyond far above it self Here it lies together all as one piece not only in it self but in the most richly heightned Light of Christ's Divine Person and Spirit Here it lies in Union with the Divine Nature in its essential Image filled with the eternal Ideas the numberless Original and exemplar Glories of all things composing one piece subsisting and shining in one Person together with these No Form or Person in nature drawn with greatest care and pleasure by the hand of the most skilful Painter a Titian Portogenes or Apelles or contemplated in its Idea shining in the Intellectual Light of some excellent and Divine Spirit so far transcendeth it self seen by a common eye in it self As the whole Creation with each minute part and motion is glorified here in the Spirit and Person of our blessed Jesus with an heightning far transcending the most exalted Beauties of its own proper state Here the Creation appears as the Sun-beam where it is immediately united to the Sun being far more full far more bright and crowned with the Sun This is that Divine Glass which God in his supream Wisdom hath framed that himself may have ever before him all his Works as they are presented here in one most lively and lovely view as also that his Work his Creature in this Glass alone may take a view and measure of it self of him of his way and his glory Think then Christian Reader that all things here treated of are now before thee in this Divine Spirit and Person as Flowers of Spices in those beds of Spice which are the Cheeks the Face of thy Jesus thy Beloved thy Delight Thine and Ours 2. This Discourse of the Creation and Redemption as they lie here in the Person of Christ their efficient exemplar and final Cause prepares our way for our contemplation of them in their proper places We know things by the knowledge of their Causes 3. Our stay here will be compensated with the compendiousness of our way in the following parts of our Discourse upon the Mediation of Christ. He that hath newly seen a Rose flourishing upon its stalk and root in the Garden with a more easie and transient view takes in the beauties of a painted Rose so far as he respecteth nature alone It is now time to come to a Distinct Contemplation of that threefold excellency which we mentioned The Variety in this Divine Piece the Order of the Parts the Unity of the whole and of each part 1. The Variety which renders the beauty and the delight in any piece more full is that it self be most full The things which make the Variety any where full are these 1. The Variety from its highest state extends it self to the most remote distance by even and united steps that all the distances be full 2. The Variety passeth into and loseth it self in the Contrariety carried to its greatest heighth and to the utmost point This most enlargeth the Variety most heightens and sets off the Unity the Beauty most excites enlargeth and heightens the Understanding This is of so great a moment this containeth so Divine a secret so high a mystery of something surprising transporting beyond that which is understood that no Work of God or of man wrought with any skill wanteth it or rather hath not the greatest skill laid out upon it to carry it farthest No Work pleaseth our Eye our Ear our Mind all falls flat to all where the Shades the Discords the Contrarieties are wanting The wisest man saith of the wisest God in his Ecclesiastes That God hath set one thing over against another that man may find nothing to add to the perfection of his Work Light and Darkness Life and Death Contraries one opposed to another How in an History in a Theatre do we take the greatest pleasure to have afflicting passions of pity fear grief raised in us even unto sighs a real melancholy and tears while we know that this is only a part in the whole a Scene which adorns and heighthens the beauty of the whole and then loseth the melancholy of its shade and discord in the universal lustre and sweetness 3. In the last place that which makes the Variety full is the return of the whole thorow the Contrariety by a sweet and full close into its Unity the return by the Contrariety from its low estate to its first and most perfect heighth The Lord Jesus in his Mediatory Person is the fairest the richest Draught or Portrait of the Divine Design and Work as it lies in the Divine Mind animated and heightned by the most immediate intimate mutual Union with the Divine Mind Here therefore is to be expected the most ample Variety The Lord Jesus is stiled in the Scriptures The Wisdom of God He is the Wisdom of God in every sense 1. He is the Wisdom of God in the Divine Mind 2. He is the Wisdom of God in the Divine Work brought forth from that Mind 3. He is the Wisdom of God in the Divine Model of that Mind and Work intervening between both and uniting them Proclus defines Wisdom to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a fulness of things Our Jesus is the highest Wisdom the first the fullest the richest Variety St. Paul gives to this Wisdom 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
that Tabernacle and particularly often Heb. 9. Jesus Christ saith to the Jews Destroy this Temple and in three days I will build it up The Spirit addeth there expresly That he spake of his Body in St. John The Humane Nature of Christ in the Flesh was a moveable Tabernacle to be taken down and so figured by the Tabernacle in the Wilderness The Humanity of Christ in the Resurrection in the Spirit was the true Temple immoveable immutable eternal in the Heavens answering to Solomon's Temple on Mount Sion or Mount Moriah In the Tabernacle under the Law there was a three-fold Perfection 1. All things there were exact Figures of the Pattern upon the Mount 2. These Figures were taken immediately from the Pattern it self formed wrought and ordered by the same Spirit in Bezaleel Aholiab Moses Aron the Priests and the Levites 3. The Pattern it self in its Glory dwelt in the Tabernacle The Scriptures laid together seem to demonstrate Jesus Christ to be this Pattern upon the Mount The Law is said to have the shadow of good things to come 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not the very Image of the thing Heb. 1. 1. This very Image can be no other than the first the principal the substantial Image the Pattern it self upon the Mount This word is applied to Jesus Christ Col. 1. 15. He is said to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Image of the invisible God And that the very Image the Original Image is understood appears by that which is added The first-born of every Creature The Jewish Rabbins teach us That the Tabernacle was a model of the whole Creation of the Divine World as it is the Head of the Creation and at the Head of the Creation appears in a created Figure of the Angelical and of the visible World These were represented by the Holy of Holies the holy place and the outward Court Thus far they were right but in this they fell short that they looked not to the beginning and end of these The Messias in in his own Mediatory Glory and in his Fathers Glory as he was the Pattern of these upon the Mount and as these stood originally in him But according to this Type in the Tabernacle in his Flesh and in his Life on Earth he fulfilled all Righteousness the Righteousness of the Creature the Law and the Letter the Righteousness of God and of the Gospel Jesus Christ saith of himself What I see my Father do that do I The words that I speak are not mine but my Fathers he doth the Works The Humane Nature of Christ in Flesh his Motions his Rest all his Words and his Works answered to the Pattern upon the Mount his own heavenly Image in the Glory of God and were formed from that Pattern by the same Spirit forming his Humane Nature subsisting in it and acting it The Father saith he hath sent me and I live by the Father The mission of the Father and his living by the Father were his springing forth from the Father according to the eternal Image of things in the Father by the Spirit of the Father in his Birth Life and Death Thus he fulfilleth all Righteousness according to the Law as it was at first engraven on the heart of man as it was afterwards renewed on Tables of Stone in the Moral Ceremonial and Judiciary parts of it The Pattern it self also the heavenly and Divine Image with the Original Righteousness and Glory dwelt in this Flesh of Christ in all his Motions and Rests filling the figures with the substance Thus it is said of him The Word was made Flesh and dwelt among us full of Grace and Truth Joh. 1. 14. It is said again vers 17. The Law was given by Moses but Grace and Truth came by Jesus Christ. Grace is eternal Love the naked Face of God as it shines and smiles with all pleasantness in it opposed to the Law as it is a Ministry of Wrath and a Vail upon the Divine Nature Truth is the very Image the Pattern the everlasting Righteousness the Original and eternal Glory of God opposed to the shadows the fading Righteousness the vanishing Glory of the Law Thus this Tabernacle of Flesh in the Unity of Christ's Person was full of Grace and Truth The everlasting Love and everlasting Righteousness with their Sweetnesses Strengths and Glories which never fade nor pass away at once formed filled and rested upon their own perfect and spotless figures in the flesh of Christ. So he fulfilled the first part of his Mediation and our Redemption while as an universal Person comprehending all Mankind and the whole Creation in himself He presents himself in his Birth in his Life unto God in the place of all and all in himself as a perfect Figure of the Divine Righteousness and Glory as in an exact Harmony so in an inseparable immediate Union with its Pattern 2. The second Part of Christ's Mediatory Work in our Redemption comprehendeth the Sufferings and Death of the Lord Jesus The Sufferings of Christ are to be considered in the manner and the merit of them The manner of the Sufferings of Christs are set forth in diverse Scriptures Isa. 53. 6. God laid the Iniquity of us all upon him And vers 10. He made his Soul an offering for Sin St. Paul seems to relate to these Prophesies when he saith 2 Cor. 5. ult Him who knew no sin hath God made sin for us It is frequent in the Hebrew Language and Idiom to express Sin and metanomically the Sacrifice for sin the panishment of sin by the same word Gal. 3. 13. Christ hath purchased us from the Curse of the Law being made a Curse for us A cursed Person is a Person charged with all guilt and filth and universal abomination and detestation to God to Angels and Men. A Person devoted to Divine Vengeance and Wrath excluded from all things holy and good exposed to the opposition and enmity of all things holy and good set apart to be cut off and quite taken away in the shamefulest dreadfulest and direfulest manner Thus God personally in our flesh suffered Our Jesus takes away our Sins the Sins of the whole World Joh. 1. by taking them upon himself He stands in the place and person of all Sinners He beareth the Sins of the whole World upon himself Behold the Lamb of God which takes away the sins of the World Joh. 1. The Greek word comprehendeth both senses to take up and to take away He is set as the abominable execrable detestable thing in the Eyes of God and of all the Creatures He is devoted by the most solemn most sacred Curses to bear the weight of all Guilt to satisfie the Divine Justice to sustain the Divine Wrath to the utmost As the Sin-Offering was all consumed by fire and was burnt without the Camp so went Jesus out of the City separated from the Society of all in Heaven and on Earth bearing his shame and to endure the pain The