Israel Chap. 41. 8 9. Thou Israel my servant Iacob whom I have chosen the seed of Abraham my friend unto whom I have said thou art my servant I have chosen thee and not cast thee away Here the holy seed or divine birth of God's Image that makes the true Israelite by faith is described to be of a nature and quality that is incorruptible securing him in whom it is whether Iacob the chosen servant or the seed of Abraham the chosen friend as well as chosen servant from ever being a castaway Hereby is intimated what it is to be the chosen faithful servant and no more and what it is over and above to be the chosen and intimate friend that is called and admitted to see God face to face a friend speaks with friend Thus of Aaron it is said Exod. 4. 15 16. That Moses should speak to him and put words in his mouth and saies God I will be with thy mouth and with his mouth and will teach you what ye shall do And Aaron shall be thy spokesman unto the People he shall be to thee instead of a mouth and thou shalt be to him in stead of God Consider how interpretable this is of the son of man glorified the great Prophet of all in the person of the blessed Mediator set down on the right hand oâ— the Majesty on high who still reteins the form of a servant or perfection of his natural man in its incorruptible form with which as with a mouth typified by Aaron he comes forth as a head to the holy Angels and Iacob his chosen servant in a suitable way of converse and fruition to their capacity speaking therein to the body of the People whilst at the same time he is in his spiritual manhood exalted to an equality with the eternal WORD as the man God's fellow admitted to a communication with God face to face as fâ—iend speaks with friend In this glory he is more properly the very mouth of God typified by Moses in a capacity andâ— fitness for converse with the Bride the Lambs Wife as head to the general Assembly of the first-born who are a sort of saints of greater dignity and preheminence by whom the manifold Wisdom of God or secret Name his WORD shall be made known to principallities and powers Ephes. 3. 10. The lowest sort of all these heaven-born Saints that have but the single portion of the spirit have not onely by the external influence of Christs heavenly Nature such a change as the legal or first Covenant Saint has from the polluted to the cleansed and reformed state of the natural man which make but a member of the mystical earthly Ierusalem that may become the spiritual Sodom but by the very seed of Christ's heavenly nature sown in them they have an inward real partaking of the divine nature or that new principle of Life which baptizes the natural state into a conformity with and subjection thereunto advancing it thereby for ever into a sublimated incorruptible form It is in his Light onely with whom is the fountain of all Life and perfection that we can see Light Psal. 36.9 In the spiritual new-creature discerning onely of a divine communicated understanding and superinduced form can we see that objective light or unveiled glory of God that renders the true heir everlastingly blessed But even amongst the children of the heavenly kingdom the children of the Resurrection there are some of a first and others of a second Resurrection into a more exalted state of Life and glory Yet all the Vessels of glory great and small will be filled from the Ocean of those unutterable riches of divine Glory that are in Christ which no natural eye can see There will be no want or envying one another there Concerning ORDINANCES HAving already spoken joyntly concerning this Sufferers Principles and Doctrine I come now to mention his way of worshiping God and what his Judgement and Practice was as to Ordinances After that way which men call Heresie did he worship the God of his believing Fathers Abraham and the rest Acts 24. 14. He was for worshipping God in spirit and in Truth such the Father seeks to worship him Joh. 4. 23. He lived walked worshipped prayed spake in the spirit and so as the oracles of God 1 Pet. 4. 11. ministring as of the ability that God gave him that God in all things might be glorified This language and way of Worshipping God that is so despicable to man is that onely which hath the praise of God He kept the true mystical Sabbath not thinking his own thoughts c. Esay 58. 13. He was baptized with the holy Ghost and with fire He did in such sort eat the flesh and drink the blood of Christ that he was thereby brought into a conformity with Christ in his death and had eternâ—l Life abiding in him Iohn 6. 54. This is satisfactory to God in this point that that answers his well pleasing What further shall be said shall not be in order to please but instruct convince and stop the mouâ—hes of gainsaying men Tit. 1. 9. He that worships God in the power of the single or double portion of the spirit of Christ does undeniably worship him in spirit and truth The power of godliness comes in with this new creation Spirit All Worship Righteousness Ordinances or whatever performed but in the renâ—wed reformed enlightned gifted adorned state of our first-creation spirit amounts but to the form of godliness that faith that may be shipwrack'd that interest in Christ and that good conscience that may be lost 1 Tim. 1. 19. They that have not the divine nature in the sence above expressed 2 Pet. 1. 4. are blind and cannot see afar off vers 9. they discern not the land of distances the new Ierusalem They may have great illumination excellent gifts and in the confidence of these they say they see what get they by that Therefore their sin remaineth Iohn 9. 41. that is is unpardonable there remaineth no more benefit of Christ's sacrifice to them There remaineth onely at last upon final refusal and resistance of the new-creature life spirit and way of worship nothing but a certain fearful looking for of judgement and fiery inignation which shall devour the adversaries Heb. 10. 27. and Chap. 6. 4 8. Their light their seeing takes away all cloak for their sin Iohn 15. 22 and 24. The warning which the true spiritual watchman gives them if neglected and despised by them does dangerously set forward this work through their miscarriage under it and becomes a savour of death to them Act. 13. 40. 41. but even so a sweet savour to God as prospering in the thing whereto he sends it and accomplishing his pleasure 2 Cor. 2. 16. Esay 55. 11. These keen concisionists that cannot afford a good word for the true circumcision that worship God in the spirit and have no confidence in the flesh or in the knowledge of Christ after the flesh they
into an absolute compliance and unchangable harmony with his will Rom. 12.1,2 Crucifie the flesh with the affections and lusts Put off the old man These and many other Scriptures of like import do all together and each of them apart compendiously imply the whole duty of man even all that God requires of him which is to humble himself under the cross of Christ and walk for ever with the Lord. So Psal. 50. 23. whoso offereth praise glorifieth me So the Septuagint render it in Greek In the Hebrew 'tis whoso sacrificeth confession which the Caldee renders whoso slayeth his evil or fleshly concupiscence that is the fleshly or natural mind The renewed mind of man is out a labile wavering corruptible thing This is not onely to be confessed but the confession or thing it self that is confessed thus to be is to be sacrificed and offered up to God by a living active faith If not it will resist the spirit of God refuse his new-creation work seek to save its own life keep it self whole and unbroken and fo will evidence it self in conclusion to be that carnal mind that 's enmity to God and works eternal death to man Rom. 8. 6. To come roundly and freely off with the sacrifice of self in the full Scripture latitude thereof by a thorow self-resignation is the great duty of man and the onely true and acceptable offering of praise to God Truly and substantially to praise God amounts to no less than this offering Le ts not please and delude our selves with a noise a found of words shadowes for things substance truth 28. Know then O vain man that without works thy faith is dead Jam. 2. 20. What works the works of an active saving faith the fruits that flow from the proper spring and principle of new-creature Life in man One great work of this faith is to lay hold on the unchangeable and everlasting righteousness of God in Christ's person Another great work of it is to crucify the fleshly mind or principles of humane nature however renewed so as for ever to disable them either for working sin or righteousnesse in the single first-creation activity or Life thereof A third work of it is to enable man to worship God in spirit and truth and to perform all righteous works towards God and men in a more excellent and acceptable way and with more steadiness and certainty than ever the renewed natural mind with all its ornament and furniture could perform such things Without such a faith and the workings of it it is impossible to please God Heb. 11. 6. Thus by being disabled to perform one tittle of the Law in the single activity of our corruptible though renewed mind we come so to fulfil the whole Law in the continuing and incorruptible principle of new-creature life that against us there is no Law that has any thing to say Gal. 5. 23. Do we then make void the Law through faith God forbid yea we come by this means onely to establish and fullfil the Law Rom. 3. 31. Mat. 5. 17. They that believe in God must be careful to maintain such good works to wit the works of faith Tit. 3. 8. This is the letting our light so shine before men that they may see our good works and glorifie our father which is in heaven Mat. 5. 16. We shew hereby that God's spirit which is set up in man by the new creation is better at working righteousnesse than mans spirit that was set up in him by the first-creation Any works we do as born of God in the new-creation are better on all accounts than what we can do as made of God in the first whatever work is good in the honest Heathen or legal Christian shall be owned and out-done by the spiritual believer in his more excellent principles and way The highest Principles of Life in man include ratifie and out-do all that righteousness that is performable in the lower In such Principles was this Sufferer a worker of righteousness such a worshipper of God as the Father seeks and approves of such a true Son of peace such a peacemaker as hath bin described but reckoned a man of contention for that very reason He was content with Paul to be a fool for Christ despised for Christ the poor and needy man with David As a true Embassador of Christ and minister of the everlasting Gospel he warned and besought the sons of men to consider their own true interest in becoming not onely almost but altogether such as he was except his bonds His Life was not like other mens nor his Ministry His wayes were of another fashion as they reason Wisd. 2. 15. therefore have I writ his Life after another fashion that mens Lives use to be written treating mostly of the principles and course of his hidden Life amongst the sons of God that the sons of men may the better know and consider what manner of man it was they have betrayed persecuted and slain For this read on from vers 15 to 23 of Wisd. 2. which I quote not as Scripture but as a notable character of mens rational conviction and acknowledgements together with their false reasonings and most perverse deductions therefrom in the present case We are esteemed of him as counterfeits or hypocrites he absteineth from our wayes as filthyness He maketh his bâ—ast that God is his Father Let us see if his words be true If he be the Son of God he will help him and deliver him from his enemies Let us examine him with despitefulness and torture that we may know his weekness and prove his patience Let us condemn him with a shameful death for by his own saying he shall be respected Such things they did imagine and were deceived for their own wickedness hath blinded them As for the mysteries of God they knew them not nor discerned the reward of blameless soules Thus not owning any need of an Apology for having been so large in the exposition of his divine Life Principles and Doctrine save onely this that I have spoken these things rather as an instruction to the living than an Apology for the dead I return to the more publick and overt acts of his humane pilgrimage and conversation amongst men having mentioned the private passages thereof in the beginning Would you know his Title in reference to his countrey He was A Common-Wealths-Man That 's a dangerous Name to the Peace and Interest of Tyranny I have lately met with two new State Paradoxes in Print which speak ruine to all that own that Title 1. That the Common-Wealth is not safe while Common-Wealths-Men are alive 2. That the Lawes are not safe while they are alive that every day call for the aid of the Law These Assertions carry with them such an appearance of contradiction to say no more that I am not so much an OEdipus as to unriddle them The Character of this deceased Statesman with whose Principles those two sayings carry little
Abraham largely experienced by your Father and by him now recommended unto you Keep the way of the Lord to do justice and judgement that he may fulfil unto you all the rich and precious promises of the Gospel belonging to Abraham and his believing seed the seed of Promise that are found walking in his wayes Observ. 4. Fourthly and lastly observe That it is a duty incumbent on believing parents to mind their children and houshold of walking in the faith and keeping in the way of the Lord doing that which is just and right So also is it the duty of children to obey such charge and be found so living and walking in the spirit and way of the Lord as they expect the blessings of Gods Covenant with Abraham to be made good unto them But here this Query may be offered How did Abraham walk and 〈◊〉 The answer is In a Family-way 't was Family-worship There were in his time no formed Churches or Societies of a larger kind made up of divers families embodying themselves and walking in communion together That which he was capable to do he did He catechized and instructed his Relations spreading abroad amongst them the savour of the tithes of that Grace which through mercy he was partaker of This was the state of the true Church then as to its outward form If larger visible Societies and collective Bodies or Churches of Saints be now interrupted this Family-way of Religion and Worship may be kept up and so things return to their primitive way again as in the dayes of Abraham To this Ioshua professes he will have recourse when the purity of publick Worship fails Iosh. 24. 15. If saith he it seem evil to you to serve the Lord if you be for other goâ—â— or other wayes of worship than God requires I will quit your publick societies as for me and my house we will serve the Lord. Use 1. My word of exhortation then to you is When publick worship is to be had in purity without defiling of your Consciences use and frequent that But if that bedenied or is not to be found frequent private and family worship yea however it be as to the publick let these be kept on foot with all diligence Be found still in the way of the Lord own that where ere you see it and joyn in it as the Lord shall please to open the way for you and give opportunity Whatever you do be not conformed to this world in the spirit way principles affections no nor religion thereof Quit those worshippers that are confident in a spirit and way that is liable to apostacy calling that heresie which is the only true way of worshipping the God of our Fathers Amidst the great variety of Churches and ways of Worship that this world abounds with be not by any means induced or forced to observe and become subject to the ordinances of man in things pertaining unto God Give unto God the things that are Gods Give also unto Caesar the things that are his If he unlawfully require more you may lawfully refuse to obey him let him take his course wherein any 〈◊〉 proudly God will be above them If one Church say Christâ— another Lo there and the trumpet that 's blown in both give but an uncertain sound look up to Christ himself with the Spouse in the Canticles and say O thou whom our souls do love tell us where thou feedest and makest thy flock to rest at noon under the scorching heat of mans persecuting wrath He will discover to you the false Babylonish spirit that lurks in such Churches and Teachers as to the deceiving of themselves and others are but transformed into the likeness of the Apostles and Churches of Christ 2 Cor. 11. And he will by his Spirit if rightly sought to and waited on infallibly direct you to the true shepherds tents those spiritual pastors and assemblies that walk in the footsteps of his ancient flock even in the faith spirit and way of Abraham Isaac Iacob and their families who are now in the kingdom of God and in the way doctrine and spirit of the Evangelists and Apostlcs And as I would have you to quit all false Churches and reject the Babylonish spirit whatever curious dress insinuating appearance or refined form she shines forth in so much more yet would I have you to loath and depart from all manner of prophaness and common debauchery whatever countenance or encouragement it may have round about you in the Land of your nativity Do but keep in the Way live and walk in the Faith and Spirit of Abraham and all is done This your Father hath found joy and comfort in upon very large and plentiful experiences but most remarkably in his Prison-state As troubles and straits from without have encreased upon me I have been more enlarged within The more I have been shut up on earth and from earthly Relations and enjoyments the more have the Heavens opened upon me and let down to me the larger sights and tasts of the glory and enjoyments of the world to come Vse 2. Lastly I charge you as the utmost desire of my soul to God on your behalf be obedient to the Lord walk humbly with him and keep close to him Let your heart be right with him Be stedfast in his Covenant not turning aside like a deceitful Boâ— Be not off and on with him yea and nay but in Christ yea only and then all the Promises of God in Christ to you will be Yea and Amen to the glory of God the Father Then if any of you lack Wisdom or particular direction in any difficult circumstances ask it of God who giveth liberally and upbraideth not and it shall be given you But then ask in Faith the stedfast Faith of Abraham nothing wavering for he that wavereth must not think or expect to receive any thing of the Lord Iames 1. 5. 7. Christ hath assured you that whatsoever you shall ask in his Name he will do it and the Father will do it Ioh. 14. 13 14. and chap. 15. 16. that is whatsoever ye shall ask in the power and exercise of a living saving Faith or of the heavenly Anointing and new Name of Christ in and upon you it shall be done unto you For whatsoever ye thus ask will be asked by you in the will of God that ye are begotten of Jam. 1. 18. or according to the will of your heavenly Father And this we know that whatsoever we ask according to his will he heareth us 1 John 5. 14 15. Yea though ye be but young and weak in this Faith and in the expression of it if as new-born babes ye do but truly desire the sincere milk of the Word and brokenly stammer and lisp forth such desires to God ye will find acceptance with and answer from him not only according to but abundantly above all that you are able to ask or think No Mother can have so tender a regard to the cry of
THE LIFE AND DEATH OF Sir Henry Vane K t. OR A short Narrative of the main Passages of his Earthly Pilgrimage Together with a true Account of his purely Christian Peaceable Spiritual GOSPEL-PRINCIPLES DOCTRINE LIFE and WAY of WORSHIPPING GOD for which he Suffered Contradiction and Reproach from all sorts of Sinners and at last a violent Death Iune 14. Anno 1662. To which is added His last EXHORTATION to his Children the day before his Death Printed in the Year 1662. The LIFE and DEATH of Sir HENRY VANE Knight Christian Readers PRepare your Faith The ensuing Narrative concerns a person who for his unweariedness in doing well and suffering ill together with the ground and spring of his deportment in both doth in very truth exceed the single reception of humane understanding He was partaker of the Divine Nature 2 Pet. 1. 4. 't is past the skill of humane nature to interpret him His attainments were too big for the tongue of Men and Angels Divine Life must have divine words words which the holy Ghost teacheth to give its own Character All other will be swallowed up of matter He had the New Name which no man knowes but he that hath it A Riddle therefore he was to man in his New Birth Nature Life Principles Ways Actions He was full of Faith and of the holy Ghost Who can expound Sampsons typical Riddle unless he plow with his Heifer The things of God knoweth no man but the Spirit of God and he that hath it 1 Cor. 2. Can any give a true account of things he hath neither heard nor seen Can any see or hear Spiritual things without Spiritual Senses or have such Senses without Spiritual Life the New Name He was but affected not to be Mystical He sighed after he longed for the manifestation of the Sons of God He desired godliness might put off its mystical dress lay aside its sackcloth that they that are all glorious within Psal. 45. might be so without too they who are the Sons of God might appear to be so 1 Iohn 3. 2. When the seventh Angel begins to sound Time shall be no longer to wit for godliness to be a mystery The mystery of God shall be finished Revel 10. 7. This Angel is ready to come forth Then Godliness will be manifest and triumphant While that is a Mystery Iniquity is so to during which he that will live godly must suffer Persecution 2 Tim. 3. 12. He that departs from evil maketh himself a prey and there is no Iudgement Isa. 59. 15. Men hear of the Divine Life in a disgustful sound of words that lie cross to their designs and hate it It disparages it discountenances the whole Scene of things seen speaking of them as of things that are not What can they think of this that see no other It judges condemns the World the God the Spirit the Religion of this World It spares not the very goodliness of flesh the wisdom the glory the righteousness of Man It declares all to be vanity that man puts value on yea man himself and that at his best estate altogether vanity a goodly flourishing but a corruptible vanishing thing The day Adam sinned he died Lost the life glory wisdom and righteousness he was created in and so his communion with God in such shadowie manifestations and resemblances of divine glory as were suited to the discerning and made up the happiness of that condition 'T is sad tydings to all those whose Life is but of the first-creation-strein lies in things seen to hear that all they have are or aime at is less than nothing and vanity Isa. 40. 17. Who can bear it Yet the design is honest and full of kindness 'T is to rid our hearts of things seen which are temporal and make room in them for things not seen eternal 2 Cor. 4. 18. While the Believers Life is hid with Christ in God and he speaks at this rate of all the visible glory and righteousness of man and much more yet against the shameful apostate and unrighteous state of Man what entertainment is he like to find There are two sorts of Princes in this World that are on horseback by turns he is against them both and goes on foot till his great master come upon his white Horse with his heavenly Armies on the like Rev. 19. 11 14. There are inward and outward Princes of this World Princes over themselves and Princes over others The former have their rational Powers restored into Dominion over their sensual whereby they become workers of righteousness in the renewed Spirit of a man Such Princes reigning as Kings 1 Cor. 4. 8. were some of the Priests Scribes Pharisees and professing Iewes who yea knew not and therefore crucified the Lord of glory 1 Cor. 2. 8. because both in his example and doctrine he gave forth the proper character and discovery of a more excellent way The latter sort of this Worlds Princes are such as do sit upon visible Thrones of Judicature furnished with Crowns Scepters and other pompous Badges of Soveraignty and Dominion over others These are often such as have no Dominion over themselves at all the basest of men Nebuchadnezzar himself the golden head of the four worldly Monarchies Dan. 2. 38. was so and accordingly handled followed not the light of his reason and therefore was turned to graze among the very beasts of the field Dan. 4. 32. The true spiritual watchman of God is to warn both these sorts of Princes and all others the righteous and the wicked the one that he turn not from his righteousness or rather that he seek the righteousness of God in the true regeneration which cannot be turned from The other that he turn from his wickedness and work righteousness Ezek. 18. and Chap. 33. Will men bear this Can he that is a man of a marred visage one in whom the glory wisdom and righteousness of man is daily passing away spoil'd and triumphed over by the cross and spirit of Christ give this twofold witness against these two sorts of Princes and their Nations called Revel 13. two Beasts in all their flourish and ornament of things seen and will they not stone him will they not be ready to tear him in pieces Divine Life together with the Wisdom and Words of it seems such foolishness and is so distastful to man that let the person of the true spiritual watchman be cloathed as David with the outward Pompe of Thrones and visible Scepters this shall not secure him from the ill word of the Judges or from appearing so contemptible as to become the song of drunkards Psal. 69. 12. 'T is the divine Life men chiefly hate and strike at all along from Cain downwards but can hit onely the humane the Woman that brings it forth The natural man of the Saint is persecuted into a desolate wilderness condition but his spiritual part the Man-child is caught up to God and secured from the persecuting Dragon Rev. 12. 5
sinners of the Gentiles that never yet peeped out of the bondage of sensual Lusts. Men of this spirit in Religion stand every moment liable to be run a ground by Satan into the most dangerous and remediless posture of all a latter end worse than their beginning a state of sin and sorrow unchangedable This we are still to have in our eye Where ever two or more natures meet together in any creature 't is the true interest and concern of that creature to yield up the Scepter and Government over all other nature life and operation in it to that which is in it self superiour to all the rest and best able with safety to manage the whole person Divine nature that is the highest Principle of Life and operation communicable to man will upon on lower tearms enter as an ingredient into his constitution than to be king 'T will be Caesar or nothing 'T is man's interest priviledge security it should be so 'T is not in man that walketh at his best estate with stability certainty and continuance to direct his steps Jer. 10. 23. He is therefore in a sort under the curse of the Law even whilst he is working the righteousness of it because not in the continuing principle For 't is said Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the Law to do them Paul alledges this as a warning-piece to those that were of the works of the Law or that were working righteousness but in the single activity and ruling power of their own renewed enlightened cleansed spirit and humane principles Gal. 3. 10. The question is Whether God's Spirit or our own be best at working righteousness steering our course directing our steps whether Law or Grace Old or New-creature Life the Soveraignty of our own or God's Spirit in us be fitter to undertake the work keep off Satan from re-entry sin from returning into dominon Paul warrants us not safe from the most dangerous apostacy under the Law or ruling power of our own renewed mind but under grace onely the Law of the spirit of Life or ruling authority of participated divine Nature Men are ready to say here as Pilate to the Jewes in a different case concerning Christ's person What will ye crucifie our King Strike down the ruling authority of the Law or soveraignty of our own renewed mind for the directing of our steps Yes 'T is best for you to let this king this spirit be taken to task in you bruised sacrificed crucified triumphed over and brought into an everlasting captivity and most desirable subjection to a better king a better spirit that can wilde the scepter of righteousness in you with a more steady hand against all enemies Men should take heed indeed of yeilding up the Scepter out of their own hands to a worser spirit the devil who will not fail to use all his wiles engines and glittering flourishes as transformed into an angel of Light to impose himself upon us as our Baal or Moloch our Lord and King Such error may involve us in a more dangerous hardened fixed enmity to all farther visits or approaches of the Redeemer than ever and in a remediless deprivation of all further benefits of his sacrifice and death It was the refusal to surrender up the ruling power of their own renewed spirit to be bruised crucified and triumphed over by the fire-baptism of the spirit of Christ upon it that made the Princes of this world the Priests Scribes Pharisees and other professing Jewes 1 Cor. 2. 8. that were reigning as Kings as to the righteousness of the Law 1 Cor. 4.8 cry out so eagerly and prevailingly to Pilate that Christ himself might be crucified He that is not made willing by the second divine new creature-birth of Christ in him to have the first birth of a renewed humane life and Principle in him thus handled will be sure to prove a spiritual Idolater at last become a member of mystical Babylon trample under foot the Son of God count the blood of the Covenant wherewith he was sanctified in the first birth as it is offered in a farther and greater benefit thereof for the working this spiritual new-creature-form and more excellent spirit in him an unholy thing a diabolical figment doing thereby despight to the spirit of grace which is the sin against the holy Ghost Heb. 10. 29. Mat. 12. 31 32. 'T is better to be servants and subjects under God's spirit then Rulers in the soveraign authority and uncontrolled activity of our own God's service is that perfect freedom wherewith the son makes us free indeed our soveraignty leaves us liable to eternal bondage 'T is better in this sense also to obey God rather than men his spirit in us than our own yea to bring our own with all that before it was Ruler ofâ— into pure and everlasting subjection to God's we shall otherwise be sure to find our selves at last under the dominion of sin again Let as many natures as will be in man that nature or principle of Life and operation in him that rules denominates the person If sensual nature in its operations desires and delights bear sway in a man over the head of his own rational powers causing them to truckle under it and become serviceable in their witty pleadings and devisings to gratify and humour that over which they should be rulers that man is a beast If rational powers bear sway over sensual he is a man If spiritual a Saint The participated divine nature is the onely spring of the power of godliness in man and sure foundation of eternal Life The grace of God that bringeth salvation reaching effectually to deny all ungodliness open and mystical to Tit. 2. How apt are men to give up the scepter and soveraignty over themselves into the hands of the basest principle of Life in them sensual and how apt is that to catch at the scepter as the basest of men have been usually catching at visible Thrones and Soveraignty over others that are Princes in understanding a hundred times more men than themselves Such Princes are oft walking as servants upon the earth when servants are upon horses It is an evil an error which proceedeth from the Ruler to set folly in great dignity and let the rich sit in low place Eccles. 10. 5 7. Those men that are willingly subject to the basest lusts of sensual Life in their own persons are willing to set up the basest of men on outward visible Thrones over them Dan. 4. 17. that they know are in bondage to the same inferiour lusts with themselves and therefore such under whom the godly man ceaseth and the vilest men will be exalted Psal. 12. 1 8. What amounts all this to without us and within us but a most irrational yeelding up our selves into captivity under the soveraign authority of the bramble as in Iotham's Parable Iudg. 9. 7 15. In such case the bramble when once it finds it self
so also the Baptism of the holy Ghost There is a figurative outward Water Baptism and a real or inward In the first sense it is an Institution which doth appoint the outward man to be washed in Water thereby to signifie the proper effect and operation of that washing with Water by the Word which causes a renovation or restauration of man by his repentance from dead workes and return to the service of the living God in amendment of Life By this inward Baptism and real work of the Spirit on the hearts of men they are but cleansed from the filthiness and pollution of their corrupted Nature not regenerated and altered from their first make and constitution that is attended with instability and liableness to apostacy ` There is also a twofold outward Water Baptism mentioned 1. Iohn's Water Baptism which was the onely outward sign that accompanied his Ministry the Ordinance of that time and season to prepare the way for Christ's coming in the flesh and to signify the proper effect which his first appearance as God manifested in flesh was to have upon the hearts and natures of men consisting chiefly in these two particulars Repentance from dead Works and Amendment of Life 2. The second outward Water Baptism was that which Christ himself instituted and committed to his disciples in his Life time as the outward sign that was to accompany their first ministry when he employed them much in the same nature as Iohn was sending them before his face as labourers into the harvest to all places whither he himself afterwards intended to come Both these Administrations had their Known Administrators and were dispensations proper to that season they were ordained in to prepare the minds of People to receive Christ in his first appearance or coming in the flesh and the fruits flowing there-from in amendment of Life The inward or real Water Baptism consisting in the washing of man's nature by the Word unto Repentance and Amendment of Life is capable of being administred three wayes or by a threefold hand 1. By the Ministry Hand or Tongue of Men as by Iohn Baptist through the preaching of the written Word 2. By the Word as spoken by Angels whereby inward abilities and dispositions are wrought in the minds of men in some sort answerable to what is required by the Law of the first Covenant Thus the Law is given by the disposition of Angels 3. By the Word as spoken by the Son himself in his first appearance Heb. 1. 2. which is yet but the preparatory work to the Baptism of the holy Ghost and of Fire The Baptism of the holy Ghost is either a Baptism of Gifts onely or also of Fire 1. The first is that wherewith the earthly man is capable to be Baptized through the pouring out of the Gifts of the holy Ghost 2 The second is that whereby the natural or earthly man is Baptized into conformity with Christ in his death and is made to grow up into the incorruptible form of heavenly manhood Of these four Baptisms The two Water Baptisms have served their season and are gone off the Stage The single Baptism of Gifts or first Baptism of the holy Ghost hath been of late somewhat remarkable amongst us and the Baptism of the holy Ghost and of Fire is hastening upon us as a general dispensation wherein the Vision of God will be so plain that he that runs may read it The declining of the two Water Baptisms deprives not the Saints of these times of the true use of that Ordinance which is kept up in the third and comprehends all that is now useful in the other two in a more heavenly and Spiritual way leading us yet forward to the end they all aim at which is the very thing it self contained in the fourth and last Baptism that of Fire So much in brief of his Judgement as to Baptisms He was for Breaking of Bread in a way of Christian communion and any other useful Observations could he have found them practicable in the Primitive Apostolical purity spirit and way which what hopes he had of in any visible Form allowed by man while the true Church is in the Wilderness cannot be difficult to conjecture Such Meetings as he found to approach nearest to the Apostolical Order as to liberty of Prophesying one by one c. 1 Cor. 14. 31. he most approved and frequented Concerning the SABBATH HE accounted the Iewish Sabbath Ceremonious and Temporary ending upon the coming of the Son of man who was Lord of the Sabbath day Mat. 12. 8. And if he had thought that which is commonly observed in the room thereof to be rather a Magistratical Institution among Christians in imitation of the Iewish then that which hath any clear appointment in the Gospel the Apostle would not have him judged for it One man saies he esteems one day above another another esteemeth every day alike Let every man be fully perswaded in his own mind He that regardeth a day regardeth it unto the Lord and he that regardeth not the day to the Lord he doth not regard it Rom. 14. 5 6. This I can say he usually took the opportunity of spending more time in exercise and prayer in his family or other Christian Meetings on that day than on any other And will any yet say he was a Sabbath breaker If they do see what company we may find for him under that imputation Iohn 9. 16. The Pharisees said this man is not of God because he keepeth not the Sabbath day So Ioh. 5. 16. The Iewes did peâ—secute Iesus and sought to slay him for curing the impotent man at the Poole of Beâ—hesdaâ— and bidding him take up his bed and walk on the Sabbath day Yea with this they joyn another sad charge as they reckon that he had not onely broken the Sabbath but said also that God was his Father therefore they sought the more to kill him vers 18. And John 19. 7. They answer Pilate we have a Law and by our Law he ought to die because he made himself the Son of God What strange work do the Sons of Men make with the Sons of God with the spirit wisdom righteousness glory and kingdom of God It was the religious professing Iew that Crucified Christ and persecuted Paul where ever he came Pilate the Roman Magistrate would have acquitted Christ and Paul rather appeals to Caesar's Judgement seat than appear before the Iewish Consistory Act. 25. The true spiritual Sabbath is to be continually kept as it is charactered by Esay Chap. 58. 13. consisting in aâ—câ—ssation from the single activity thoughts words and ways of our spirit which is but letter and in the performance of all duty by power of the communicated spirit of the new creation springing up in us which alone is worshipping God in spirit and in truth after his own heart He was for taking all opportunities of assembling our selves together to instruct and exhort one another and so much
the more as we see the day approaching Heb. 10. 25. Looking for and hasting unto the comming of that day of God wherein the Heavens will be dissolved and the Elements will melt with fervent heat 2 Pet. 3. 12. He was such a right spirited Latitudinarian as Paul was 1 Cor. 9. 20. became all things to all men that by all means he might save some He was against the exercise of a coercive Magistratical power in Religion and Worship and for the single Rule Power and Authority that Christ himself claimes as his peculiar prerogative in and over the hearts and consciences of all men How grosly inconcinnous must it needs appear even to the common reason of all mankind that such as take upon them to be Magistrates and Rulers whether the People will or no as it often falls out yea or though freely chosen should give the Rule to all others Consciences in point of Religion when they many times have no Religion at all in themselves nor any other Conscience but a dead or feared one hardened in the most brutish vilenesses that the basest of men can be guilty of But if the Magistrate do plausibly pretend to something of Religion what a changâ—ble thing will Religion be at this rate as â—ickle as the Magistrates Judgement at least as his person for the next Ruler may be of another perswasion as this Nation hath experienced off and on between Popery and the Protestant profession in Hen. 8. Ed. 6. and the two Queens Mary and Elizabeth Concerning PREACHING and PRAYER FIrst I ask are all Preaching and Praying amongst those that call themselves Christians Ordinances and Institutions of Christ Then the Popist Mass and Jesuites and Friers Sermons are his Ordinances The Ordinances of Christ are to be distinguished from all counterfeit imitations of them by the spirit and way of performance and by the matter that 's delivered as carrying its own evidence in the Consciences of the hearers to be the very truth of God 1 Cor. 14. 25. 2 Cor. 4. 2. and 5. 11. Satan will be found at last to have had the greatest hand in all such Ordinances Praying Preaching and what ever else that for spirit manner and matter are performed in a way of enmity and contradiction to the true spiritual believer and his more excellent way The usual practise of this Sufferer was to spend an hour or two every evening with his Family or any other that were Providentially there and as much both morning and evening on the first day He was of that truly bounteous princely communicative spirit noted in the Spouse Cant. 7. 1. Rich in good works ready to distribute willing to communicate 1 Tim. 6. 18. â—to make manifest the savour of the knowledge of Christ that himself had deep and large experience of in every place 2 Cor. 2. 14. His gravity purity and chastness of spirit was very exemplary He held out in the midest of all the late Apostacies and Changes He was stedfast and unmovable alwayes abounding in the work of the Lord and his labour was not in vainâ— as he well knew 1 Cor. â—5 51. So assiduous was he in continual searching of the Scriptures waiting upon the Lord in Faith and Prayer for more full discoveries of his mind therein that it was faid of him Put him where you will if he may have but a Bible he is well enough as Iansen of whom the Iansenists in France reckoned himself with Austin But what can be said for his Allegorizing the Scriptures Here 's another Branch of this Sufferers Charge from men wherein he shares with the learned Origen The Charge against Allegorists usually runs at this rate That by Allegorizing the Scriptures they carry them quite out of their native significancy and intendment wresting and forcing all to their own purpose and conceit and so frame Divinity Romances what Conclusions and Bodies of discourse they please To this miscarriage men of the most â—oaring curious and searching capacities are reputed most liable Jesuite masked Papist no title is thought bad enough for such men by their ignorant adversaries in their blind zeal We have but fragments of Origen that famous Allegorizer and diligent Searcher of the Scriptures and those translated out of Greek into Latin and handed to us by his enemies so that it may seem dubious when we read the small remains of his thousands of Books whether we read the genuine Issues of his Contemplation or the spurious Interpolations of some other man 'T is agreed on all hands by friends and foes that he was a person of more than ordinary tallness in Understanding and that he did fairly offer at a more pertinent disquisition into the whole bulk of intelligibles Divine or Philosophical than was usual And how was he handled what said they of him That he was a temeratious daring Fanatick quitting the plain truths of Scripture and bewildring himself and followers in diabolical Phantasms being perverted through his great learning on which account he was oft persecuted and dragg'd along the streets Concerning Allegories and Allegorizing the Scriptures VVHen one thing is said as Type Letter or significant Figure through which another farther and more excellent thing is meant and to be understood that is an Allegory which he that expounds must Allegorize Whether then there be not as much need of Allegorizing the Scriptures as of understanding them or whether there be any other possible way of interpreting them so as to discover the whole counsel of God therein detect Satans whole mystery of iniquity and render men wise unto Salvation shall appear by and by There are two sorts of Allegories in Scripture perfect and mixt Perfect are purely allusory when all the expressions are naturally suited to the person or thing first spoken of but much more accurately to some more excellent person or thing that is to be understood thereby An Allegory mixt or but partly allusory is when some one of the expressions onely are applicable to the type some inferiour person or thing and some onely to the antitype quite over-reaching and leaving behinde them the natural of historical shadow and pitching singly and expresly on the spiritual and mystical substance the more excellent person or thing that is to be understood Of this sort we find many Allegories in Scripture where Christ is typified and represented by other persons who when they are spoken of in that capacity and intendment some of the expressions outpace the shadow and are not at all applicable save meerly and singly to the very person of the Messiah Thus amongst others Melchizedeck who met Abraham returning from the slaughter of the Kings Chederlaomer and the rest is said to be without Father Mother or descent having neither beginning of dayes nor end of Life but made like unto the Son of God a Priest for ever or of the everlasting Order Heb. 7. 1 3. This points us back to Psal. 110. 4. and that yet more backward to Gen. 14. 17. If
toyes The Devil then that 's called the God of this world together with his fallen angels knows exactly what this world amounts to knows all inferiour nature humane amongst the rest through and through He can tell where to have man and fit him at every turn He thorowly knows all the things he is to tempt him with and he thorowly him that he sets himself to tempt and so is compleatly accomodated for his seducing work in all points And this will be his course till he be sealed up in the bottomless pit which will be Synchronal with Christ's coming forth to reign Rev. 20. But if once man become a new creature by receiving either the single or double portion of the spirit he passes out of the devils hands This manchild is quite out of his reach Revel 12. The spiritual believer that is partaker of the divine nature in the â—ence above expressed is partaker of the wisdom holiness and righteousness of God Then he is wiser than the Devil if the wisdom of God be superiour to the wisdom of that Serpent This is a thing one did once spitefully tax this Sufferer with as boasting that he was wiser than the Devil because on some occasion that was offered he replied He was glad he lived in a spirit the Devil was so little acquainted with Sure he that lives in the spirit of God lives in a spirit that is superiour to the devil and that he is little acquainted with The lowest degree of wisdom light life and glory in the new creation is above the highest excellencies and glory of any nature or creature in the old He that has but the single portion of the spirit and that but in seed will be too hard for that roaring and devouring Lion will resist him effectually and finally in the stedfast faith of God's elect 1 Pet. 5. 8 9. Even babes and suckling in the Life of grace shall be able to still that enemy and avenger with all his shews and flourishes in Natures â— excellencies first-creation power or things Psal. 8. 2. 16. 'T is observable from the sentence passed upon the Serpent that the devil and his angels are yet alive He with Adam and Eve are summoned to appear before Christs Tribunal to answer what each of them had done in that business of the fall His sentence runs thus Because thou hast done this thou art cursed above all cattel and above every beast of the field upon thy belly shalt thou go and dust shalt thou eate all the dayes of thy Life Angels and men the highest ranks of Creatures in the first world are comparatively with the new-creature state of men and angels in the second world reckoned but as cattel the choicer sort of the beasts of the field Satan with his retinue of fallen angels does yet live His diet is dust As God of this world he has all sorts of beings and excellencies of the first creation before him This is the dust he feeds on and feeds others with This diet he offered to Christ himself when he was hungry His trade of seducing mankind managable by these things he has been at well towards six thousand years 'T is a Rabbinical observation that these six thousand years of the worlds labour under this seducing work of the devil as plunged in that wicked one were resembled by the six dayes works in the creation of it a thousand years being with the Lord as one day The seaventh thousand the Iewish doctors held to be typified by the Sabbath day in which the world should rest from this bondage under the God of this world They observed also that the Sabbath is not described as the other six dayes by an evening and morning as having no darkness at all in it that so it might more fitly represent to us the perpetual joyes and light of the New-Ierusalem or World to come During the six thousand years of the Worlds miserable thral dom and labour under the Satanical yoke righteous men are perpetually oppressed from Abel downwards and there is no judgement for them to be had in this world But in the seventh thousand year the seventh day of the world they will be in their proper Sabbatical state and nothing shall hurt in all the holy Mountain or kingdom of Christ. The light glory and wisdom of the first creation when men or angels are deteined and held by them from entring into the more excellent glory of the second are but as chains of darkness upon them When Satans time is come to be sealed up in the bottomless pit at Christs coming forth to reign this yet does not absolutely and finally strip him of his first-creation flourish but onely suspends his exercise of it as to his former deceiving of the nations thereby till the thousand years be fulfilled and then he comes forth again for a little season to deceive the nations and engage his whole party of angels and men in order to the giving his final utmost assault to the New-Ierusalem camp of Christ and all his Saints the beloved City So far he will â—e permitted to proceed herein as to besiege it with a kind of seeming hopefulness to outvie it in a flourish of spirituality and in the state of the resurrection in order yet to carry the Kingdom and dominion from Christ and all his saints Then fire comes down from God out of Heaven upon him and his on the New-Ierusalem's ascending into their utmost glory of the resurrection and full vision of God for evermore and then nothing but torment wil be their portion for ever and ever when perfectly stripped of all first-creation glory enjoyments and fixed in the second death however he cozen men with conceits even to this day that those torments shall have a period and all shall be saved In Rev. 20. we have an account of these particulars 17. What are the Old and New Testament as written Books representing the mind of God in a sound or sight of words but Letter Shadow or significant Figure of natural and spiritual-creature perfection in Christ and men in men as natural and spiritual properly distinguish old and new creation Life in them Men of a first-Covenant old Testament old Adam natural or legal spirit are all one thing So are men of a new Covenant new Testament second Adam new Creature or truly evangelical Spirit the same In the former is the Life of the Law or the ruling activity of rectified humane first-creation Principles In the latter the Life of the Gospel or the ruling activity of the new-creature Spirit and principles One is the Legal professor the other the Spiritual believer One is under the Law of Nature or the first Covenant the other under Grace the Law of Faith spiritual Life or the new and everlasting Covenant 18. The Law of Nature and of the first Covenant are the same thing in man but as to the perfection of them in or upon man this difference is observable Man
Gentiles all the world over Rom. 9. 19 24. God that is infinitely â—ust and can be no otherwise is not bound to give an account of any of his matters Job 33. 13. Why therefore do ye strive against God while ye put forth this querulous demand Who hath resisted his will Will you cast all your sins and destruction too upon God's final rejection of you as reprobate silver Ier. 6. 30. God strives by his Spirit with men to bring them to himself Gen. 6. 3. to which Peter refers 1 Pet. 3. 19 20. Men strive and fight against God are disobedient and rebellious If God suffer men to prevail in a final resisting of his spirit that strives with them they are undone for ever If they be conquered they are saved If they lose their mutable Life they find it again in that which is unchangable If they keep it a while in opposition to the more excellent Life they lose it at last in eternal death These are the Gospel riddles which the very disciples scarcely understood while Christ was with them in the flesh nor we while we have but the like knowledge of Christ after the flesh as they then had Knowingly to resist and hate the new-creature Life and words thereof is to do despite to the spirit of grace to sin against the Holy Ghost He that hath an ear to hear let him bear 'T is in vain for man to quarrel God will be justified when he judges Ps. 51.4 He will at last bring forth the grounds of all his dispensations towardâ— man and proceedings with him in such a demonstrative and undeniable consonancy to the very reason of man that every mouth shall be stopped Yea there is enough said already in his written Oracles to stop every mouth 24. We may take notice from what hath been said who those poor mourning meek-spirited men those merciful pure peace-making yet persecuted Children of God are that Christ pronounces blessed Mat. 5. 3 11. We may also come thereby to know on the other hand what Christ meanes by that rich full laughing sort of people to whom he cries wo wo wo Luke 6. 24 25. The poor in spirit are they that are willing to be broken emptied of the activity life righteousness glory wisdom reasonings desires thoughts and wayes of their own mutable first-creation spirit in order to be filled with the spirit of Christ the wisdom and righteousness of God in the new creation Thus with Steven they come to be ful of faith and of the Holy Ghost Act. 6. 5. rich in God or rich towards God Luk. 12. 21. That righteousness that is imputed to or inherent and operative in the new creature is called the righteousness of God All the fruits of saving faith all the works that are performed in the operative principle of new-creature Life are the righteous works of God who by his indwelling spirit worketh all such works in us Esay 26. 12. On the other hand all the righteousness imputed to or inherent and operative in the first Covenant Saint is called the righteousness of man such righteousness as Christ had and wrought in his changeable fleshly manhood which he imputes to them that are sanctified through his blood into an experimental knowledge of him and conformity with him in the flesh This imputed comeliness or righteousness is called both God's and Man's in a breath Ezek. 16. 14 15. Men dome too often to trample the blood of this Covenant under their feet after they have been so sanctified Heb. 10.29 and to play the harlot with that sort of righteousness imputed to them after they have been so justified The first creation state of Life in man by being broken and crucified under the second comes into a peaceable everlasting harmony with God This makes a true son of peace as well as of righteousness answering his father Melchizedeck's constitution who is both king of righteousness and king of peace Such sons of peace are commonly reckoned men of contention though the only true peace-makers the world has in it that desire and labour to bring others also into the same state of peace harmony and everlasting union with God as one spirit with him the state of love charactered 1 Cor. 13. Is not God himself reckoned a God of contention for striving with men by his spirit in order to conquer them into a state of salvation deliver them out of their own hands take them out of their own dispose by bereaving them of their own liberty and power of sinning against him and wronging their own soules And is not Satan the God of this world reckoned the God of peace that speaks smooth and pleasing things to flesh and blood by all his various instruments from amongst men even by those whom he transformes into the very likeness of the Apostles of Christ 2 Cor. 11. Do not men generally approve of and like the doctrine of him and his ministers best as orthodox and sound that advises men not to gaze after or listen to those spiritual wanderers â—hat speak of an attainment beyond the righteousness and glory of our first-creation This doctrine of his runs through all forms of proâ—essing Christians at this day and the spiritual man is reckoned mad for contradicting it Is not Satan reckoned the God of order that is for one man's continued speaking onely in a Pulpit accounting it a breach of the peace punishable by the Magistrates sword for any other to speak there though all that his pulpit man does is but to shut up the kingdom of heaven and in effect to charge men that they look not after it that is not listen to those who after the way which they call Heresy are worshipping God in the spirit Is it not the business of those authorized deceivers to open their mouthes in blasphemy against God to 〈◊〉 his Name his tabeâ—nacle and them that dwell or have their conversation in heaven Rev. 13. 6. Phil. 3. 20. And is not God himself reckoned the author of disorder and confusion for saying If any thing be revealed to another that 〈◊〉 by â—â—t the first hold his peace for ye may prophesy all one by one that all may learn and be comforted 1 Cor. 14. 30 33. Thus Satan and men neâ—tâ—e warm together in the first creation and no right tidings or character of the second will be listened to That crafty Serpent has blinded their mindes and stop'd their ears least this light of the glorious gospel should shine unto them or find any entertainment amongst them The Things the Persons the Churches that this strong man thus fraudulently possesses are in peace till Christ the stronger than he cometh to force him out He is coming 25. Those rich full old foolish kings as to the righteousness of man 1 Cor. 4. 8. That will no more be admonished or warned by the wise child in the true regeneration Eccles. 4. 13. those flourishing legal-spirited Christians that laugh are warm and confident in their present
harmony I shall exhibite to you in a paper of Verses composed by a learned Gentleman and sent him Iulâ— 3. 1652. VANE young in years but in sage counsel old Then whom a better Senatour ner'e held The helme of Rome when Gowns not Arms repell'd The fierce Epeiroâ— and the African bold Whether to settle 〈…〉 to unfold The drift of hollow states hard to be spell'd Then to advise how war may best upheld Move by her two main Nerves Iron and Gold In all her Equipage besides to know Both spiritual power and civil what each meanes What sâ—vers each them hast learn't which few have done The bounds of either Sword to thee we owe Therefore on thy firm hand Religion leanes In peace and reckons thee her eldest Son In the former part of these verses notice is taken of a kind of angelical intuitiveness and sagacity he was furnished with for spying out and unridling the subdolous intentions of hollow-hearted States however disguised with colourable pretexts of Friendship This rendred him a choice Senator an honourable Counsellour for publick safety The Widow of Tekoah said to David My Lord is wise according to the wisdom of an Angel of God to know all things that are in the earth 2 Sam. 14. 20. Will you say this was a flattering hyperbole What think you of that in Amos Surely the Lord will do nothing but he revealeth his secrets unto his servants the Prophets Amos 3. 7. The king of Syria took counsel saying In such and such a place shall be my Camp against Israel Elisha sends to the King of Israel saying Beware thou pass not such a place and the King of Israel sent to the place the Seer of God warned him of and saved himself there not once nor twice 2 Kin. 6. 8 10. On this the King of Syria suspects that some about him discover his projects to the King of Israel No my Lord O King saies one Elisha the Prophet that is in Israel tells the King of Israel the words thou speakest in thy bed-chamber vers 11 12. Hereupon the King sends a great Army of Syrians to apprehend the Prophet They come to Dothan where he is But by the assistance of an angelical host in the Mount he baffles out all their Forces as before their Counsels and secures Israel from their Incursions for the bands of Syria came no more into the Land of Israel vers 13 23. So Ezekiel when in Caldea was present in spirit at the City Council of five and twenty at Ierusalem took exact notice of their Deportment Debates and Resolves in direct contradiction to God's messages by the Prophets himself Ieremy and others and what befel them thereupon He saw Pelatiah the Chair-man or some chief member of the Council fall down dead Ezek. 11. 1 13. A Statesman of such a spirit that can at whatever distance know the Debates and Resolves of the enemy as if he sate in Council with them might advise and contrive things with best advantage to his Countrey without such a company of chargeable wast-pipes of Spials at home or Correspondents abroad as is usual But was this deceased Statesman a Prophet All Futurities are treasured up in God but does every one that sees God see these The Schoolmen acknowledge that all the most contingent and voluntary actings of the Creatures with all future events whatsoever have bin eternally present to God's intuition whose understanding is infinite Psal. 147. 5. They hold him also to be Speculum voluntarium a voluntary Mirror so as not all that see him see future events or the present actings of their fellow creatures at a distance but onely such angels and men unto whom he is pleased to make a particular discovery thereof for the managing of his designes in the World Let this be granted yet whoever is partaker of the divine nature or spirit of Christ though but in the single portion thereof lives undeniably in a spirit and discerning superior to what is to be found in any first-creation nature whatsoever humane or angelical He that lives in this spirit knows not onely this or that man by personal converse but humane nature mankind what it amounts to how â—'â—will act where it will be next He comprehends it knowes the most curious and otherwise imperceptible motions of every wheele in it Many believed in Christ but he knew what kind of Faith they had a temporary one that onely that cast out the devil and made them men again wash'd their humane nature not baptized them into the divine He would not therefore trust them for he knew all men he knew what was in man Iohn 2. 23 25. He knew they had but the faith that might draw back to perdition which soon after appeared for when he came closse to them in the testimony of spiritual or eternal Life which is the free gift of the Father issuing out of his discriminating love these disciples went back and walked no more with him Iob. 6. 65 66. The true Divine is a man of another a more excellent spirit than other men with Caleb Daniel and Christ himself He sees the whole frame course and way of man in Sanctuary Light weighs him in the ballance of the Sanctuary knows what he will do and what will become of him notwithstanding any present flourishes He knows he has but a slippery standing will be brought into desolation in a moment and utterly consumed with terrors Psal. 73. 17 19. The person here treated of was with Noah a preacher of righteousness with Abraham one that did command his Children and houshold after him that they should keep the way of the Lord. His Life and Doctrine seemed to carry much of demonstration in them that he was one of the peculiar Favourites of Heaven had that double portion which prepares and qualifies men to sit down in due season with Christ upon the Throne in a superiority to the elect Angels the singular prerogative and reward of Christ's Servants the Prophets beyond what falls to their share who yet are his true Saints and everlastingly saved People that fear his name Rev. 11. 18. This Prophet or Seer of God in the midst of the greatest successes in the late war when the Churches Parliament and Army reckoned their work done thought their mountain so strong that they should never be moved said the bitterness of death and persecution is over and that nothing remained but with those self-confident Corinthians to be reigning as Kings 1 Cor. 4. 8. he discovered himself to be of another Spirit with Paul He could not reign with them When they thus mused and spake We shall sit as a Queen we shall know no more sorrow he would be continually foretelling the overflowing of the finet mystical Babylon by the most grosly idolatious Babylon and the slaying of the true Witnesses of Christ between them both as the consequent of such inundation Has not he had his share in the accomplishment of his own prediction Have not
are hot about the outward circumstances of worship time place and the like Christ reproves them in his answer to the woman of Samaria at Iacobs Well Neither in this Mountain nor at Ierusalem shall ye worship the Father but in spirit and truth Joh. 4. 23. Neither in this Form nor that but excluded out of all Synagogues has the true Church and Spouse of Christ been worshipping God this twelve hundred Years and upwards in her mourning persecuted wilderness-condition out of which she is shortly to appear and speak for her self By this Sufferers reckoning the time times and half a time or three years and a half are very near expired those forty two moneths and one thousand two hundred and sixty days prophetical for years all which do character and point out the same Epocha in Daniel and the Revelation for the Churches abode in the Wilderness from the time of her flight mentioned Rev. 12. 6. She will very shortly be called up out of the wilderness by the name of Shulamite which comes from the same word that Solomon and Salem do signifying Peace This true peaceable Pilgrim and Spouse of Christ that in her Life and Testimony hath been so disgustful to this world out of which she is chosen as to be reputed by all the Inhabitants of the earth a wrangling Heretick a Blasphemer and one that turns the World upside down will shortly come up out af her political grave or exclusion from all authority or allowance in Church and State into the exercise of true Christian Polity in both in association with the holy Angels who with the risen Witnesses will make up the two hosts before whom no opposite power of contradicting man wil be able to bear up See for this Cant. 6. 13. Return return O Shulamite return return that we may look upon thee What will ye see in the Shulamite as it were the company or dance of two Armies Mahanaim relating to Iacobs two hosts of Angels and Men when he was to meet Esau Gen. 32. 1 2. and importing the victory these two obtain over all their enemies as also their dance or triumphant rejoycing after the victory And all this yet amounts but to the preparatory work for the second coming of Christ by plucking up every thing that offends so as at last there may be nothing to hurt in all the holy mountain Mat. 13. 41. Esay 11. 9. But how shall the risen Witnesses handle their enemies when spirited and set upon their feet as a Nation born at once and in one day Esay 66. 8. Rev. 11. 11. 'T is answered fire shall proceed out of their mouth to devour any that would hurt them and in this manner must they be killed that is at the desire of the believing risen witnesses angels that are a flaming fire Psal. 104. 4. will destroy any men that oppose them Fire goes out of the saints mouth that is by prayer to God on which the angels are commissioned to do execution immediately and irresistibly without more ado Thus fire went out of Elias his mouth to devour the two Captains and their fifties Angels were the executioners 2 King 1. 9 12. Those acts of Elias were but Types and shadows of what will be done in the end of the world at the winding up of all dispensations towards the highest even the personal coming forth of Christ with all his New-Ierusalem Armies following him Rev. 19. 14. As to what will be performed by the risen Witnesses relation is had to Elias and to Moses Rev. 11. 6. Where 't is said They shall have power as Elias had to shut heaven that it rain not and to smite the earth with Plagues as often as they will as Moses did in Egypt It may appear what work one Angel can make with whole Armies of men a hundred fourescore and five thousand Assyrians were slain by an angel in one night in the Leagure before Ierusalem 2 King 19. 35. But to return from this Contemplaâ—ion of the true New-Ierusalem spirited Church and Spouse of Christ and what she will do when she comes out of the Wilderness consider we a little the general posture of all visible Churches even at this day as this Sufferer hath left it represented to us in writing There are many Churches in the World that make a profession of the Name of Christ under several Forms and Denominations according to the variety of Judgements and Interests of the Rulers Members thereof There is a Church called Catholick or Universal headed by the Pope who pretends to be Christs Vicar There are also National Churches heâ—ded either by a Civil Magistrate as the Church of England or by general Assemblies as the Church of Scotland hath been with other Reformed Churches There are also particular Independant Congregational Churches distinguishing themselves into variety of Sects and diversity of Judgements and Opinions as well about the way and order of the word of matters of worship and the service of God as in what they hold Fundamental in matters of Faith These all make up one Body as to the owning and upholding a Church in some outward visible Form who notwithstanding all their differences and protestings against one another do generally agree together in one mind as to the preferring of the Church in Name Shew and outward Order before what it is in Spirit and Truth as it is the real and living Body of Christ. Hence it is that the true Church indeed the very living real spiritual members of Christ's Body have been for many hundred years a dispersed captivated people under all worldly powers civil or Ecclesiastical and never been suffered to use or enjoy a freedom in their Communion together and the purity of God's Service and Worship but are upon one pretence or other restrained by Humane Lawes and suppressed as Hereticks Schismaticks Fanaticks and such as turn the World upside down while those that have the repute and credit to be the Church or Churches of Christ under some one of the Formes and outward Orders bâ—fore mentioned have the Powers of the World on their side and are contending one with another who shall be uppermost and give the Rule of Conformity in Doctrine Worship and Church Order to all the rest by Compulsion and Persecution But the dayes are now hâ—stening apace wherein the living Members of Christ's Body shall be made manifest in distinction from all those that have the Name to live but are dead Thus in brief you see his Judgement concerning the Church Concerning BAPTISM he writes thus THere are several Baptismes spoken of in the New Testament and the Doctrine concerning them hath been so dark and mysterious that there is little yet extant in the Writings of men concerning the same that carries with it satisfaction There are two general tearms under which all Baptismes mentioned in the New Testament seem to be comprehended that is to say Of Water and of the holy Ghost and Fire Water Baptism is twofold and